Resurrection Dawn

by Marc Secchia

  Dragons were more buoyant than Humanoids?

  Yep. Flew a bit better, too.

  Did this observation point to these winged Dragons being gravitational tricksters as well? Intriguing.

  She listened in as Ssirinssar talked through the day, before stressing the necessity of moving quickly with the plan to help the Humanoid colonies. With perfect recall, he repeated the information which Alodeé had given him about the relative location of the Settlements – first to the west, Hazmuri Falls; then Settlement Central with five Settlements clustered nearby; then the mining and agricultural Settlements located primarily to the northwest of Central, in a rich and relatively predator-free zone.

  She sat upon Mom’s upraised paw, beside her jaw, as she listened to the briefing rolling about the mighty congregation. Not thinking about the 50-cent fangs right behind her back. Of course not.

  At last, Ssirinssar asked her to issue the invitation.

  Alodeé scrambled to her feet. Quietly, she said, “I am humbled by the willingness of the mighty Dragonkind to fly ahead to Settlement Central in our hour of greatest need. The battle will be severe. We stood against a few carnoraptors. This will be greater numbers by an order of magnitude and will likely cost many lives. I ask every creature present who would like to volunteer to fly ahead to raise wing or hand, or otherwise indicate …”

  Her voice trailed off as a forest of wings and hands rose all around her.

  She tried to speak. Truly she did, but when she saw how even the smallest dragonets and the youngest Lightning Pygmies held their wings and hands high, words failed her. Superfluous. Her little brothers and sisters all volunteered, even little Platinum. A wild sob choked up her throat. Tears welled up and spilled over, plinking into the water around her ankles.

  I … I’m overwhelmed. Thank you. All of you.

  Her reaction appeared to be enough, for Ssirinssar of Gold thanked her with a mellifluous word, before declaring that he would make his own determination of who should go. The Dragons sang a haunting lullaby together, before the golden Serpent gathered together the leaders of their nations and they began to call forth warriors by name and family clan, the roll call thundering on and on and on. Alodeé gulped and wiped her eyes. She had expected something more along the lines of the twenty-three volunteers the Serpent had mentioned before, not this multitude.

  2,217 Pygmies, 1,741 Serpents and 4,998 Dragons – that was the final count.

  Yep and one girl, who shivered in gratitude.

  What a crazy, incredible day.

  Even though she was weary beyond words, Alodeé forced herself to train that evening. She must remain sharp. Hurtling from back to back of the openly amused Dragons, she thanked them as she raced or somersaulted past, slaying imaginary enemies in a blur of blades. She collected a trail of excitable Pygmy children, who flitted and sparked in her wake until her progress around the vast flotilla of Dragonkind came to resemble a comet with a sparkling, seething, ever-changing silver trail. Observing how they moved and reacted helped her to train her own reactions. Far too often she was slow, behind the curve, as if her brain refused to acknowledge the reality of what her body could achieve.

  She communicated to Rainflash that they could help her to train. She chased lightning-fast children about the cavern, while they tried to flash-surprise her – if she concentrated, she could just follow the blur of their movement from location to location.

  After all her exertions and fun, Alodeé slept as though she had taken one of Medic Tamanzi’s knockout pills.

  Perhaps there had been too much fun. Waking with a splitting migraine had never pleased any Humanoid in the history of the galaxy. Throw in a scratchy sore throat, a searing temperature accompanied by a fiery orange skin rash and regular stomach cramps and Alodeé’s patience levels plummeted.

  Another cheerful morning sing-song? My head’s going to explode!

  Dragonets flying off to war with Mama? Leave me alone, my back aches.

  How’s my poor little girl? I’m going to – there it went. Time to feed the fishes. They turned up in beautiful rainbow schools to fight over the feast.

  Thanks, Resurrection Dawn. I love you, too.

  Alodeé slumped like a limp reed over her mother’s back and squeezed her eyes shut. Ssirinssar had spent many hours the previous evening with Samodeé, pouring the lore and wisdom of his kind into her brain. Their conversation picked up again this morning as the warriors swam off, picking up speed. She could not concentrate enough even to listen. Instead, she curled up between Emerald and Platinum and willed herself not to do a round of decorating their scales, too.

  She dreamed of her least favourite Class 1 person in the world, Yane. Could it have been him she shot in the face with her palm blaster? The particular movement and size of that shadow had suggested as much. It was likely Hazmuri Falls which lay in the projected super-migration path. Ssirinssar’s explanation of how they had determined their intelligence from the Dyshaulu had been nothing short of mystical. This girl, rather than dismissing his methods, had listened with an ear attuned to the idea that there could be entire disciplines of science as yet undiscovered by any Humanoid Class or race.

  The broad river sped up gradually as they flowed along it, allowing the Serpents in their group to match the flying speeds of their winged brethren. The crystals above and the freshwater vegetation varied only in detail; each lazy turn, each klom covered, revealing new beauty to the one willing to watch for it. With scouts deployed, they were able to avoid several large colonies of the huge white anemone-like animals waiting in ambush on the otherwise innocuous river.

  A day and a half later they came upon a second door – this one, unexpectedly, located on the bottom of the river. It matched the first in size and structure, but this time, the panels were decorated with scenes from what Alodeé assumed must be different realms out in the vast wilds of Resurrection Dawn.

  The Dragons sang their lonesome serenade and the doors opened to release a thunderous, gushing waterfall into a new realm. She shifted weakly upon Samodeé’s wide, stalwart back, gazing about her in wonder as they made the descent in relatively clear air. Great chambers stretched out in every direction, their sapphire-blue walls and floors and ceilings – if one might dare to call them such – all consisting of water flowing in different directions. Some flows were fast, some slow; some places stood stagnant, the eerie aquatic creatures or plants resting within them appeared to be asleep.

  Ssirinssar gathered his troops, fluting, “Take soundings! Find me the nearest supaphoon. Listen for the super-migration in the vibrations, in the taste, in the ambience of this water. Meantime, we fly west in the strongest flow we can find.”

  For the first time, the Serpent Dragons took the lead. This was their native realm. Here, they were quick, responsive, lithe. When they moved, the water acted like a thinner substance, Alodeé noticed despite her discomfort, at once offering less resistance within the flows but greater surface viscosity. This realm was like a vast lattice or air bubbling through a sodden sponge. Not very flattering, but that was the best comparison she could make.

  They swam and flew for the balance of the day before resting. A supaphoon they had hoped for petered out and was not worth chasing, Ssirinssar decided.

  Samodeé had opted to take the dragonets along with her. It was not done for a mother to abandon her little ones at such a young age. She told them that when it came to real battle, another Dragoness would take care of them, along with those who would not fight – most likely the Serpent Dragons, for they would find it difficult to reach A-16 given the lack of watery pathways to that atmospheric level. With Alodeé feeling much better, they chatted for a long while that evening, trying to work out how it might be possible for thousands of Dragons to approach a Humanoid base without being decimated by the automated defence systems.

  “I think I’d have to go in first, maybe on foot or by glider,” Alodeé suggested. “The photon cannons are keyed to recognise beings of my size and
body shape.”

  “We’d be fine,” Samodeé insisted. “We’re crystal-based draconic life forms. Light can’t harm us.”

  “Yep, let’s rush right in and test that theory against interstellar class photon cannons. Excellent idea. What if they overload you?”

  “That’s only if they hit Central first. Hazmuri Falls is the likely spot,” her mother argued. “If we can get to a Comms system there, or better still, if your Comms bracelet starts working, we’ll be set. Dymand will answer you. Of course he will. You’d tell him not to shoot down the nice Dragons.”

  My, what lovely white teeth you have, Mama Dragon.

  The Dragoness grinned even more broadly. I’ll nibble you into shape, young lady.

  “So, I go in and wrestle a Comms unit off one of their racist Class 1 troops?” Alodeé flexed her fingers until her knuckles cracked. “Count me in.”

  “They might just burn your cheeky green behind.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “A parachute is super slow, however. We might need to design you some sort of glider, Alomonster. I could see that working, if I launched you from a couple of kloms out, say?”

  “Effective range is up to 8 kloms.”

  “Surely, with my size 479 foot, I can boot your butt that far?” Wicked Dragoness chuckle!

  “Mom!”

  Chapter 25

  Standard 1301.07.24 Estimated – Supaphoon

  ALODEÉ HAD DECIDED THAT she was trying to be a reformed explorer. No more hurling herself off cliffs or thumbing her nose at vicious alien predators. She planned to avoid near-death escapes for a few decades. Yep, limit herself to one insane thing a day, say.

  Evidently, I’m terrible at keeping resolutions.

  This was today’s moment of insanity, one worthy of Dymand at his nefarious best. Supaphoon. Yep, that sure looked super fun. About as much fun as staring down a carnoraptor’s throat, while asking what it had enjoyed for breakfast. A huge funnel of ominously dark aquamarine cloud snaked away into the distance, howling like a demented beast. The surface clouds were heavy, frayed bands scudding frantically in a clockwise direction considering the vector of travel; tight and heavy, like a waterspout Alodeé had once seen – where? Odd fragment of memory.

  The supaphoon wriggled through the water-dense atmosphere like a length of string carelessly discarded by a child. A couple of kloms away, after it tore water out of one of the column-like structures, it did a complete loop before rushing away on its journey. She understood the theory. Resurrection Dawn combined a gas giant’s powerful gravity with a relatively fast spin, given the size of the planet, yielding a diurnal-nocturnal cycle of 37 hours. A 17.8 degree axial tilt added seasonal variation. Throw in the power of a spectral class B1V mauve-white star and it surprised everyone that the energy fuelling the planetary weather systems did not tear everything apart.

  Once again, Resurrection Dawn confounded accepted science.

  Leaning close to Ssirinssar, she yelled over the thunder, “So, we’re supposed to travel inside?”

  “That’s the plan!”

  “In concentrated core winds of up to 350 kloms per hour?”

  The Serpent nodded eagerly before Samodeé had even finished translating. “That’s what I’m told. My parents told me how it’s done.”

  “Your parents?” she screamed back. “You’ve never done this before?”

  “Of course not,” he snorted, appearing mildly offended she should even ask. “The tales are quite clear on the subject.”

  “It’ll tear their wings off!”

  “Now, keep your pretty hair filaments on, little Humanoid,” he harrumphed.

  Sure, I appreciate the joke. Alodeé groaned, “Do you have any idea how powerful a storm moving at 350 kloms per hour can be?”

  Ssirinssar said, more gently, “Alodeé, I have the stories of my kind as proof that this is possible. What we do not have, is time. Our echo soundings indicate an inconceivably large body of carnoraptors flooding toward your colony’s approximate location.” Great. A touch late on the full disclosure! “Your mother told me you share the telepathic gift now, perhaps as a result of cleansing via the Dyshaulu’s pure light. I know you sense my emotions even if I do not speak the words.”

  She nodded. Only if she focussed carefully upon him and even then, her inexperience, coupled with the differences in draconic emotions, meant that her readings were often unclear.

  Indicating the supaphoon with a tilt of his chin, the Serpent Dragon said, “My analysis of the lore gifted to me suggests that super-migrations do not arise randomly; more, that they seem to be aimed at the annihilation of civilisations. This implies a level of underlying intelligence which, you and I will concur, does not seem consistent with what we otherwise observe in carnoraptors.”

  “Too right.”

  He added, “Therefore, we have to assume that Humanoid civilisation is the next target. I hope they are forewarned by your sensors, because our early indication reflects a migration some 5,500 kloms wide and 2,000 deep heading westward. That means billions of individuals. Samodeé tells me that your Settlement Central is able to lock down inside your old colony vessels. The outlying Settlements have no such facility, correct?”

  “Not that I know of.” Alodeé clutched her stomach, feeling sick. “How long?”

  “Three days.”

  Three? Despair turned her mental echo into a scream. Every last Dragon in their force turned to gaze at her, many wincing in pain. Three? Oh Ssirinssar, we have over 14,000 kloms to travel!

  “That is why the supaphoon is the only way.”

  Clench the fists. Arise, courage! “We have to do this.”

  Raising his voice, Ssirinssar boomed in song, “One hour! One hour to hunt and refresh our strength. Then, we enter the storm.”

  The Serpents corralled great schools of yellowfish for the hungry Dragons. Samodeé brought over an offering for her family, a bright yellow-and-white striped fish twice Alodeé’s length, gorgeously fat.

  “Kill it,” she ordered the dragonets. They fell to with a will. “You need to eat, Alo.”

  “I’ll do my beast.”

  “Your best, your beast …”

  She stared at her Mom. She’d meant that as a joke. “Alright, spill. What are you thinking? Thanks, Emerald.”

  Her sister purred as Alodeé scratched her neck appreciatively at the gift of a large portion of fish. Delicious, even when served raw. Her stomach clenched, voicing a growl she had come to recognise. She tucked in, tearing at the portion with her strong white teeth, bolting the meat in great gulps that barely touched sides on the way down. Delicious!

  “That.” Samodeé pointed a talon at her stomach. “That’s what I was thinking. You are a Dragoness, Alodeé. You saw the pictures. You eat enough for twenty girls your size. You are a beast – I don’t mean that in a negative sense. At least, among Dragons, that’s a word with highly positive connotations.”

  “Sure …”

  “You’ve a beast in you. You’re part-beast. What you called your hyper-fast capabilities, I’d go ahead and call beast-mode. It’s like you have another hemisphere in your brain – sorry, I’m getting scrambled in trying to explain this. Hear me out. When you feel threatened, your Class U body’s natural instinct is to trigger your inner beast, which has all these physiological capabilities that you’ve demonstrated in battle. Yet your Humanoid brain is still there, battling to control the beast. Do you fear the beast?”

  Alodeé lowered her eyes. Of course I do, Mom.

  “That’s only natural. We all fear loss of self. I fear that too, now, since you came.”

  “Me?”

  “I didn’t remember what I had lost until that instant I saw you – and myself, in you – and now, I fear that I have lost that Samodeé forever. Do you understand?”

  What she understood, was that she felt ashamed, having focussed so much on her own changes and fears, that she had barely considered how hard this must be for her mother.
What if this Dragoness – this huge, fire-breathing creature – was all she was and ever could be now? She had already spoken of being willing to free Dymand, but she suspected she knew exactly what an honourable rogue like him would say. Marriage was marriage. Even if it looked a little different.

  Chuckle. Older, wiser and a great deal scalier!

  “Alodeé?”

  “Sorry, I do. You’re right, Mom. I am very afraid of what is happening to me and nobody in this world understands that better than you. Is there anything I can do to help? Apart from reiterating how much I love you?”

  Her mother’s eye fires mellowed in dazzling dance. “Oh, how I missed your little voice saying that! Oh, Alodeé … I love you, too.”

  They embraced. Then, she threw Samodeé a significant look. One that communicated the great tangled lump of what she felt when she considered this upcoming meeting between her parents.

  Hope Dad had a strong heart!

  Samodeé said, “Eat some more fish, darling. Yep. I believe there is. When you see Dymand, please be gentle with him, alright? Don’t blurt it all out at once. I’ll hide in the mass of Dragons; he won’t need to see me, at first. We’ll figure out a good way to get him alone. Alright?”

  “If that’s how you want to handle it, sure.”

  She scratched her head, certain that they were missing something. Poor Dad. He was about to get a shock greater by far than discovering a mesmerising pair of violet eyes inside that prisoner transportation device.

  How would that rogue respond?

  Having polished off over half her bodyweight in fish meat, Alodeé felt stronger too. Ready for action. All around her the Dragons buckled down, so to speak. They discussed wing care in the violent wash and winds, order of travel and how best to protect their Lightning Pygmy passengers. Ssirinssar issued instructions regarding how the Serpent Dragons must support their less capable brothers and sisters and how they would ensure none were left behind or lost. No stopping a force of nature once they took the dive.