by Adam Carter
Drawing its leg out of the hole, the dragon steadied itself and swung its neck about to snap Arowana in two.
A series of explosions tore through the air and the dragon paused. None of the missiles had struck the beast but had erupted like fireworks about its head. The beast roared in momentary blindness and turned its bulky body so it could slash out with its tail at the unseen foe.
Arowana dropped into a crouch, ready to move at the opportune moment.
Ruby appeared in the sky. Buffeted by the winds, her rocket pack kept her steady, although it would not last indefinitely. The pack, along with the rest of her armour, had been damaged during her fight at the cabin, and had not been the same since Arowana had forced her over the cliff and into the trench. Ruby levelled her arm cannon upon the dragon and released another missile. It impacted with the dragon’s neck, sending the head back in a wide arc. The dragon was angrier than it was hurt and Ruby lined up another shot.
Something sputtered on her back as one of her engines gave out. The remaining engine sent Ruby into a wide spin and as she released a missile, it flew completely off-target.
Arowana ran, leaping as the missile struck the ground. Shards of rock shot out at her and as she landed she flung her arms over her face to prevent herself from being blinded. The dragon paid her no mind and snapped out at Ruby, who was spinning through the air and unable to right herself. Only luck saved her from the dragon’s attack, but her luck would not last forever.
Steeling her nerve, Arowana rushed towards the dragon, snatching up a splinter of rock as she did so. She could hear Hawthorn shouting at her to stop being stupid, but she did not much like being called stupid at the best of times so ignored him. The dragon’s concentration was fully upon Ruby and Arowana watched as the monster’s tail moved to and fro before her. Timing her movements, Arowana ran as fast as she could, leaped onto the tail and with both hands brought the sharp rock down between two of the scaled plates. Twisting, she savagely forced one of the plates up.
The dragon roared again and turned its head from Ruby to look down at the insect upon its tail. Arowana dropped back to the ground and backed off a few steps.
Now that she did not have an angry dragon in her face, Ruby was able to right herself by ejecting the malfunctioning engine and allowing the remaining one to compensate for the lack of balance. Bringing up her gun arm, Ruby fired into the side of the dragon’s face. It snapped back at the armoured woman and Arowana could see they were all gnats to the glorious beast.
Rushing back to Hawthorn and Hart, Arowana said, “Do we have any more land-mines?”
“Land-mines?” Hawthorn asked.
“Just tell me if we have any that haven’t gone off yet.”
“Yeah, yeah. Uh, there are two more. You see those areas of raised stones?”
Arowana looked and she saw. The dragon was larger than the rest of them so would have stepped on the stones without thinking.
“Iris, what are you planning?”
“Ruby can’t fight that thing alone. If it kills her, we’re stuck on this moon, so we have to help her.”
“With two land-mines?”
“Gordon, we have to take that dragon down. If my theory is right, we’re going to need it. Now, be useful and fetch one of those mines.”
“What about me?” Hart asked. “What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see any cupboards for you to hide in.”
“I’ll watch,” Hart said sourly. “Gordon, if you need anything, give me a shout.”
Hawthorn really did not want to get involved so ran for one of the mines and did what Arowana told him. Arowana ran for the other one. Carefully pushing aside the rocks, she uncovered the mine and picked it up. It was a small disc the size of her palm and she looked skyward to work out how best to put it into effect.
On the ground, not three paces away, was the failed engine Ruby had ejected.
Grabbing it, Arowana ran back to Hart. “Fix this,” she said, shoving it at the younger woman.
“So now you need me.”
“Just fix it.”
Hart sat and placed the engine in her lap. Arowana looked back to where Ruby was buzzing around the dragon’s head. The monster was irate and Ruby appeared to have run out of missiles.
“All done,” Hart said, handing back the engine.
“That was quick.”
“You wanted it fixed and I fixed it.”
Taking the fat cylinder, Arowana debated what to do with it. She had taken it to Hart on impulse and had thought she would have at least a few minutes to consider what to do. Not wanting to show her indecision before Hart, she ran back to the dragon. An idea was forming.
“Gordon, toss your mine. No!” she added when Hawthorn went to hurl it away. “I meant toss it at the dragon.”
Hawthorn did so. The mine struck the dragon on the leg and exploded. The beast once again diverted its attention from Ruby and this time glared down at Hawthorn.
“Ruby,” Arowana said, “get down here.”
The Carpoan landed without much grace, but managed to stop after a few uncertain steps. “We’re not doing well,” she reported.
“We’re doing fine,” Arowana said. “I need a lift.”
“I’m not sure my one engine’s going to cope with the extra weight.”
“Don’t worry about that, I haven’t eaten properly in months so I can’t weigh that much.”
“Your funeral.” Ruby stepped behind Arowana and grabbed her by shoving her arms vertically through hers, so Arowana’s armpits rested on the inside of Ruby’s elbows. She ignited her single engine and the two of them shot into the sky. “Come to think of it,” Ruby said now they were on the move, “it’s my funeral, too.”
“Stop overthinking,” Arowana said, clutching both the mine and the remaining engine tightly to her chest. “Give me a blowtorch.”
“I don’t have a blowtorch.”
“Some rope?”
“Does it look like I have any rope on me?”
Arowana reasoned she should have asked Hart for a blowtorch. “Something sticky?” she tried.
“I have goo.”
“Fine. What’s goo?”
“It’s a non-technical term for glop.”
“What’s glop?”
“It’s, you know, sticky stuff. We use it to bung up guns and things.”
Arowana did not want to hear about Carpoan military strategies, but if Ruby had something sticky, then she needed some of it. Ruby opened a panel on her armour and Arowana helped herself to a little goo. It was horridly sticky stuff and smelt terrible. She used her fingers to smear it across the base of the mine before slapping it onto the nose of the engine she was carrying.
“Is that my engine?” Ruby asked.
“Not any more. Get the dragon’s attention.”
“What? No.”
“It’s about to eat Gordon.”
“I thought that was why you had him toss his mine at it.”
“Would you just get its attention?”
She could tell Ruby did not understand her logic, but the Carpoan mind was not something she much wanted to understand, either. With no missiles remaining, Ruby resorted to cycling through her cannon arm to something a little less severe. She fired a dart towards the dragon and struck it in the neck. Not being as armoured as the rest of the body, the neck was always a good target.
Constantly uncertain as to which target to face, the dragon swung its head back around and snapped at the flying pests.
“Do not move,” Arowana ordered and lined up her shot.
The dragon snatched Ruby from the air just as Arowana turned on the engine and hurled it. A second after she had flicked the switch, fire ignited from behind, but by this point it was already sliding down the tongue of the dragon. Being crushed in the strong beak, Ruby cursed Arowana’s lineage for telling her not to move, cursed her own for obeying and cursed the dragon’s for creating the beast in the first place.
T
he beak of the dragon did not immediately crack the Carpoan armour, yet the air was filled with the strain of the metal. Practically inside the maw of the creature, Arowana’s world was dark and moist, the tongue of the monster brushing over her as it attempted to split Ruby in two.
From deep within the dragon’s guts, it began to produce its flame.
But the engine had done its job and had shot the mine down the long gullet of the beast. Finally striking the end, the mine exploded upon impact, forcing the dragon’s mouth open in a scream.
Ruby tumbled backwards, somehow holding onto Arowana the entire time. The two women crashed to the ground, parted and careened across the stony surface. Arowana’s entire body writhed with pain as she rolled onto her back. Above her, the dragon was reeling, fire had ruptured its chest and smoke rose from its mouth and nostrils. In its death throes, the mighty monster teetered about on its four legs, reared upon the back two and swayed as it lost its mind.
“Iris,” Hawthorn said by her side as he dragged her to her feet. It seemed she was making a habit of this and Hawthorn was only too glad to continue playing his role. When she did not move, he did not force the issue and together they watched the dragon flail. “Iris, precisely what did we accomplish here?”
“What we needed to,” she replied. “Go check on Ruby. It’d be a shame if she was dead.”
“Iris, we just killed the dragon.”
She looked to him and could see he was upset. “We keep saying this, but no one seems to believe it. Dragons aren’t real, Gordon.”
The beast toppled and with a tremendous crash, struck the ground. It continued to writhe for several moments before it became still.
“No,” Hawthorn said. “I don’t think they are any more. I think they’re extinct.”
As he went to check on Ruby, Arowana shook her head in wonderment. Sometimes, Gordon Hawthorn could be a very odd man.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Arowana had at last explained the situation and Hawthorn was relatively happy about it. Why she could not have revealed everything before they assaulted the dragon, he couldn’t say, but that was just Arowana being Arowana. She liked to be mysterious as much as she liked to be in control, and if she was the only one who knew the full extent of the plan, it meant she was being both.
He opened the door to the nice house in the field and walked into the living-room where Elaine McAlister was brewing tea. For some reason, she felt the need to brew a lot of tea. Perhaps she was bored. Perhaps she was insane.
“Hi, McAlister,” Hawthorn said. “Good news. The robot’s dead.”
“Wonderful,” McAlister said. “Would you like some tea?”
“Nope. Strange, that word. Dead. Who’d have thought we could have killed a robot?”
“Quite. How did it die?”
“We blew it up. That dragon was a great help. Burned it, squashed it, slammed it into some rocks. We didn’t have to do all that much, actually. We just used our last remaining explosives on it and,” he made a show of an explosion with his hands. “There was nothing left, sorry, so we couldn’t bring proof. But it’s gone.”
“As long as it’s dead, proof doesn’t matter. What of the dragon?”
“Your sister? Oh, she’s fine. Won’t turn back into a woman, but you know what dragons are like, right? She wasn’t too happy with us at first, but when we broke down the language barriers, we got her to understand we weren’t with the robot. We mentioned you and a light came to her eye. I think she wants to see you, you know.”
“Is she here?”
“Yep.”
“In the fields?”
“She’s right outside.”
McAlister bounded to her feet and threw her arms around Hawthorn. “You have no idea how happy this makes me. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
McAlister ran outside and Hawthorn followed. She hesitated when she saw the dragon, for it did not look in the best of shape. Arowana and Hart were there with the animal, but it was still moving so McAlister ran over to it.
“One dragon,” Hawthorn said, joining her. “A little beat-up, but still functional. I mean alive.”
“That’s all I need,” McAlister said. She looked the dragon directly in the eye and said, “Elaine McAlister. Jovian Estates. Recognise.”
The dragon stared back. “Elaine McAlister recognised,” a voice from within the beast said. “Acknowledged.”
“What’s this?” Hawthorn asked, trying his best to sound shocked. “The dragon’s not real? It’s a robot?”
“It’s not a robot, idiot,” McAlister said. “It’s a cyborg. Parts of it were grown in a lab, parts were created in a workshop. It was put together in this form to inspire fear in stupid people. Dragons don’t exist,” she laughed. “And, even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to turn into people. Any fool could tell you that.”
“Actually,” Arowana said, “the literature disagrees.”
“You’re a bit calm, aren’t you?” McAlister said. “You just found out the dragon’s mainly machine, aren’t you terrified?”
“Not really,” Arowana said. “We met a cyborg lion once, it was pretty much the same thing. Only, the lion parts would have started out as a real lion, whereas this probably started life as a lizard or something.”
“Or a giraffe,” Hawthorn said. “Look at that neck.”
“Or a dragon,” Hart said. “Maybe someone found a real dragon and made a robot version to fool everyone.”
“I knew you people were stupid,” McAlister said, “but you’re beyond hope. Dragon, kill them all.”
“Kill us?” Hawthorn asked. “What the what? The four of us discussed this before coming down here and I was the one sticking up for you.”
“Kill them,” McAlister repeated. “Now.”
The silence stretched for several moments.
“Not killing us,” Arowana said.
McAlister stared into the eye once again and said, “Elaine McAlister, Jovian Estates. I commandeer your programming. You report directly to me. Hold on, what did you mean, the four of you discussed this?”
“Four,” Ruby said, stepping into view from behind the dragon. She was still in armour but had removed the helmet. “Gordon’s right, he was defending you. Not sure he’s going to do much of that now you just ordered this thing to kill him.”
“When we realised the dragon was a cyborg,” Arowana said, “Beth shut the thing down and reprogrammed it. It doesn’t respond to you now.”
“Which is fortunate for us,” Hawthorn said. “This dragon came down in a pod. We thought it was Carpoan but it’s not. It belongs to your employers, McAlister. Jovian Estates. They take employees’ rights seriously there, it seems.”
“They employ these devices in emergency situations,” McAlister said, still shocked she was no longer in control. “I don’t understand, it should work.”
“We’re past that,” Hawthorn said. “Colonel Ruby here has been hunting the dragon since it came down because she knew if you provided the face and voice recognition, you could have gained control of it. The dragon would, presumably, have sent a signal to your employees to retrieve you once the recognition codes worked, but that’s not going to happen now.”
“Which means,” Hart said, “the pod’s not Carpoan, like I thought. I was wrong.” She looked to Arowana. “It’s amazing when you come across someone who can admit they’re wrong. Makes a pleasant change from hanging around all the stuck-up control freaks.”
“Beside the point,” Hawthorn said before Arowana could punch her in the face or something. “McAlister, this dragon of yours is ours now. It’s sent a signal to our ship and we have someone on the way to pick us up. We’re leaving Valetudo, so the only problem is what to do with the two of you.”
“There’s no question there,” Ruby said. “You’re giving my prisoner to me.”
“To be returned to Carpo for execution?” Hawthorn asked. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s not your decision to make.”
“I think it is. We’re the ones with the dragon.”
“A dragon I just took down with you.”
“Selling real estate is not a capital offence.”
“I can’t believe you’re still defending her.”
“There’s no reason for anyone to die here today, Colonel.”
“I get what’s happening here,” Ruby said. “You’re all in this together. You were sent here by Jovian Estates along with the dragon. Carpoan justice must be served.”
“Whoa, hold on,” Hawthorn said. “This is supposed to be the end of the fighting. We made friends with you, subdued the dragon and revealed the villain. Our ship’s coming to pick us up, we shouldn’t be fighting.”
Ruby stepped away and raised her arms. Hawthorn knew she was depleted of missiles but there was no telling what other armaments she had stored away in the armour. He supposed he should have made a proper inventory when they removed it during the time she was their prisoner, but he had been more concerned with patching up Arowana.
“Ideally, she’d come back with me,” Ruby said, “but I have the authority to execute her here if I’m forced to. We Carpoans like for everything to go through the courts so all executions are perfectly legal, but I’m reaching that stage now where I don’t care.”
“Ruby, wait,” Arowana said. “Gordon’s right, we don’t have to fight.”
“You’ll give me McAlister to take back to Carpo?”
“Well …”
“Just what I thought. What about you, kid? You with them or me?”
“I’m with them,” Hart said. “I’ve seen too many people die. Colonel, maybe we could reach a compromise.”
“Compromise? There are no compromises with justice. You’re all bleeding-hearts, I should have known. No warrior spirit among any of you. You’d have made lousy Carpoans. Stand aside or I start shooting you all.”
Hawthorn stepped before McAlister. “Colonel, stop. You have to see reason.”
“I’m the one with the gun; I don’t have to see anything.”
“That’s a very disturbing thing to say.”
“Still the truth, though.”
Hawthorn looked across to Arowana, who raised her eyebrows with a glance to her right. Hawthorn knew what was sitting to her right, for it was big enough. They had control of the dragon and if they could get it to recognise Ruby as a threat, they still had a chance of defeating her.