A DK’s beam suddenly shot and struck a stray piece of wood floating between building lanes. The wood glowed and disintegrated.
Dive. Rion’s telepathic order urged her on.
She spied another silver DK shooting down at them from above. A third one shot up from below. Marisa tucked her wings into her body and focused on staying on Rion’s tail.
Behind them, an explosion rocked the air, battering them with giant pressure waves that threatened to knock her out of the sky.
She glanced over her shoulder at the building they’d just left. It was easy to spot. The fire inspector’s vehicle was landing on the roof, its lights flashing yellow and orange.
Enforcers positioned themselves in a tight net around the building. But the fire inspector waved them back.
Rion must have seen, but somehow he flew on, his pace relentless, jogging right, zooming left. She followed his weaving and darting between the moving vehicles and buildings, which kept them hidden from the deadly beams slicing the sky.
Stomach rising up her throat, she flew. Any moment she expected a flash of light, followed by the pain of her cells disintegrating.
The threatening silver balls maneuvered as one, coordinating their attack. Clearly picking up the dragons’ movements, the DKs spun, aimed their disintegrating rods at them. Beams of light flashed close enough for her to feel the heat.
She held her breath, bracing for pain.
Land. Rion deployed his massive wings. She did the same. Her wings were strong but not made for this kind of sudden stopping. Wind pressure tore at her straining limbs. She banged down hard on another roof, skidding, dropping, and rolling but finally came to a sliding halt on a slick cool surface.
She couldn’t keep plummeting and crashing from building to building. Her wings felt too heavy to lift. How long since she’d slept? Or fed on dragon food? She was no superhero.
At least the DKs had stopped shooting, but they flew in closer, began to surround them. If they trapped them, they’d be dead.
We can’t stay here, she told Rion.
Don’t move.
But the DKs—
Let them come. All at once. His determination and certainty came through with his thought.
Primal fear zinged down her scales, and her pulse spiked.
But Rion, who had been through as much as she had, stood tall and proud. His nostrils flared. His eyes gleamed with a predatory fury.
The DKs flew closer. She trembled at the sight of hundreds of the silver disks closing in.
Rion opened his mouth, displaying huge sharp teeth. He bellowed, roaring fire. As his flames streamed over the DKs, the silver disks to the right exploded. Marisa breathed fire on the disks to the left, until the sky twinkled with their deaths.
Rion had turned the trap back on them. That was brilliant.
Fly. Rion spread his wings and soared. They flew past the heaviest traffic toward the rim. He didn’t stop until he spied a skimmer, a lightweight flying craft, parked on the roof of a building.
After they humanshaped and dressed, Marisa flung herself into his arms. “I don’t know how you avoided the DKs for so long. It’s almost as if you knew where they were going to shoot before they aimed.”
His arms closed around her. “I had a flash.”
“And you memorized the pattern so we’d be safe?”
Rion’s gray eyes darkened with shadows and he pulled her close. “In the flash, we were killed.”
“You saw us die?” Marisa gasped. “Then how did you know we could…”
He caressed her back, his voice even, firm, and confident. “I have faith that I can change the outcome of my flashes.”
She wrapped her arms more tightly around him. “But if you hadn’t changed our future…”
“I told you I’d protect you. I won’t let you die.” He nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head. “I finish what I start.”
“Promises. Promises.” She squeezed her arms around his waist tighter, savoring his warmth, the feeling of being alive.
Reluctantly, Rion pulled away and opened the skimmer’s hatch. “Let’s hope the Enforcers are now looking for dragons, not humans.”
“But if they listen to the tracer recordings, they’ll know we’re heading to the space museum. It’s not safe to—”
“We’ll just have to get there before the Enforcers do.”
She was about to climb into the skimmer’s passenger seat, when she heard a soft fluttering. Her pulse leaped and she jerked around, fearing one of the DKs had escaped their fiery breaths and caught them.
“Relax.” Rion climbed into the pilot seat. “Merlin’s back.”
She slid into the passenger seat. “How did he find us?”
Merlin settled between them. From his beak, he dropped a chrome object into her lap.
Marisa picked up the shiny metal piece, peered at it in confusion. “What did you bring us?”
She didn’t expect an answer.
But Rion’s voice rose in excitement. “Be careful with that. It’s the key to our survival.”
In a world of conflict, during the fight for survival, it is the job of thinking people not to be victims, nor to be on the side of the executioners.
—KING ARTHUR
11
Marisa looked down at the crystal and metal object, then back at Rion. “This is the key to our survival?”
“Over the last few years, I’ve had three flashes about that key.” Rion steered the skimmer in a wide arc toward the museum. “Every flash was exactly the same, which is unusual. My flashes don’t often repeat.”
“What did you see?”
“A man’s hand inserted the key into a lock. Then this solid rock wall opened into what appeared to be another dimension.”
Marisa tried to keep the skepticism from her tone. “Another dimension?”
“Inside the rock was a room filled with switches, lights, and monitors, a huge wall-to-wall instrument panel.”
Marisa carefully zipped the key into the backpack. If Rion believed the key was important, she wouldn’t argue. While she didn’t understand his flashes and wasn’t willing to take their importance on mere faith like he did, she couldn’t discount them, either. Not after he’d just saved their lives by flying safely through the DKs’ pattern.
Ten minutes later, Rion parked the skimmer outside a huge building sadly in need of renovations. A sagging roof, cracked cornices, and peeling paint didn’t inspire her confidence.
Upon their arrival, a docking tube extended from the museum to their skimmer’s hatch and attached with a clang of metal on metal. A pressure lock hissed, and she expected Rion to escort her through the tube to the museum.
Instead, the hatch’s iris opened. Four Enforcers aimed weapons at them.
They were trapped.
Someone must have listened to the tracer recordings and sent word ahead to these Enforcers. Was their mission over before it had begun? Were they about to be executed?
Beside her, Rion didn’t move, giving the Enforcers no reason to fire. The faceless shiny helmets shot a shiver of terror down her spine. Their complete silence reminded her these guys didn’t negotiate. You broke their laws and they executed you. No trial. No judge or jury.
She braced for pain. Death.
But the leader simply motioned with his baton-like weapon for them to enter the docking tube.
A dark swath of feathers flew before them, and Marisa averted her gaze from the owl. That the Enforcers took no special note of the bird comforted her a little. At least Merlin might escape.
The Enforcers pressed weapons at their backs, forcing Rion and Marisa to march through the metal passageway. While she and Rion hadn’t been shot on sight, they’d broken enough laws for sweat to bead on her forehead and under her arms. That the officials hadn’t bothered to even search them for weapons was a measure of the Enforcers’ intimidating confidence.
But Rion’s knife was no match for four armed men. Fighting would only get him hurt
or killed. Dragonshaping inside the tubing or museum wasn’t an option, either—not with the probability of an I-beam ending up embedded within their dragons’ large masses.
When the docking tube ended, the men herded them into the museum and down a series of brightly lit hallways, painted dull gray, with lots of closed doors. Marisa saw no one except their captors.
Mouth dry, she risked a glance at Rion. Very slightly he shook his head, his signal not to do or say anything.
She’d seen him under pressure before. He’d been calm, but tense. Now he was filled with… stillness.
Moments later, the Enforcers stopped, opened a set of double doors, and gestured them inside. Behind them, the doors clanged shut. Frightened, she twisted her hands together. Rion reached out to steady her.
For that brief instant, she clung to his strength. Clung to the realization they were still breathing.
When she looked past him into the room, she saw a man standing by a large window. Tall and whipcord lean, he had gold-tinged skin, blond hair, hollowed cheeks, and an aristocratic nose. He turned the greenest eyes she’d ever seen on them, his gaze speculative. “You are Sir Rion from the land of Chivalri, sector of Camelot?”
Sector of Camelot? As in King Arthur and Queen Guinevere’s Camelot? Marisa sucked in a breath and forced it out slowly. She supposed if the transporter at Stonehenge had worked fifteen hundred years ago, she shouldn’t be so shocked at references to Camelot on this side of the galaxy. For all she knew, travel fifteen hundred years ago through the transporter between Earth and other worlds had been common.
The man turned his attention to Marisa. “And you are from Earth?”
“You’ve been eavesdropping?” she asked, her stomach sinking.
The man nodded. “After you destroyed the tracer, we could no longer track your progress, but I’m pleased you came here.”
“Really?” She couldn’t get a bead on him. Despite his civil welcome, she sensed he was making a great effort to appear cordial. But why? In her experience, men in power didn’t treat their captives well unless they wanted something.
Rion nodded curtly. “And you are?”
“Sir Drake. Head of the Enforcers in this quadrant and a loyal Toran citizen who should execute you.” He frowned, his eyes hard and brilliant.
“But you aren’t going to.” Rion folded his arms over his chest. “Why?”
Drake gestured for them to sit. “Because I am the last native-born Toran in charge of Enforcers.” His words hadn’t answered Rion’s question, but maybe the picture cube Drake was handing Rion would explain what was going on.
Rion shook the cube and videos showed on every side. At first Marisa didn’t understand what she was watching. She saw Enforcers shot by what appeared to be other Enforcers. As far as she was concerned, she wouldn’t mind if they all killed one another. Good riddance.
Rion frowned and tossed the cube back to Drake. “The Unari Tribes are taking over Tor?”
Marisa kept back a gasp. Drake had said he was the last native Toran Enforcer in charge. She’d missed the implication of Drake’s statement that offworlders were now Enforcers, but Rion hadn’t.
Drake’s hand closed around the cube. “I believe the Unari have taken over every single position of power among the Enforcers—except mine.”
“And that’s why you aren’t executing us?” Rion searched the man’s eyes with calm deliberation. “Because the Unari are a bigger threat to Tor than we are.”
What was Rion thinking? That the enemy of his enemy was his ally?
Sir Drake stood and paced, his hands clasped behind his back. “We cannot fight the Unari without help.”
Their help? Was Sir Drake asking them for help to rid Tor of the Unari? She held back a frown. What could she and Rion possibly do to help?
“I can tell you what they did to Honor.” Rion’s voice was grim. “The Unari pick planets with a centralized power base, where it’s easiest for them to plant moles and weaken the infrastructure from within.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Drake said.
“Tor has one supreme ruler, correct?” Rion waited for Drake to nod before he continued, “Suppose the Unari placed their own man here as supreme ruler? Or as the supreme ruler’s chief adviser?”
“They could cripple us from within.”
“And when they invade, there’s no organized resistance.”
“The Unari may have already replaced some of our politicians with their own people,” Drake admitted.
Rion frowned. “With one central government on Tor, with consolidated power at the top, you make an ideal Unari target.”
The concern in his eyes matched Marisa’s deepest fears for her own people. She had grown up believing that unity created strength. That it was a good thing to sacrifice national priorities for the well-being of the world community. It bothered her that the earth she’d left behind was well on its way to forming a global government.
Back home, Europe had gone to one currency decades ago, and Asia, Africa, and North America had followed suit. The United Nations had blurred the old lines between borders. The soldiers of many nations fought for the Peace Alliance.
Had Earth also consolidated too much power in one place? Were they ripe for a Unari takeover, too?
Drake turned and faced Rion. “If we decentralize, form different countries of Tor, with separate governments, would it make it harder for the moles to infiltrate us? Make it harder for the Unari to conquer us?”
“It would. If you can get your politicians to listen. But you don’t have much time,” Rion warned. “If the Unari are already here, it won’t be long until they cut off communications and close down your transporter.”
Marisa watched Drake’s lips tighten. He hesitated.
Finally, he leaned forward and glowered at Rion, as if the threat to Tor was Rion’s fault. “You agree that power should be spread out and shared?”
Rion calmly stared the other man down. “I do.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed. “I find that very hard to believe.”
Rion spread his arms. “I once thought Chivalri had the best system of government on Honor. That all Honorians would be better off under one central ruling body. But I’ve lost my home. I see things… differently than I once did. If I could return to Honor, I would make sure each realm is ruled by its own leader and governed by independent legislatures.”
Tension between the two men arced through the room. Clearly, there was no love between them. No friendship. No trust. Their only bond was a hatred of the Unari. Would that be enough for Rion to form some kind of agreement with Drake so she and Rion could complete their mission?
Rion was speaking as if he was negotiating from a position of strength. Yet as far as she knew, he had nothing to offer. What was he up to?
Refusing to undermine Rion’s bargaining position, she kept her face blank, her eyes staring out the window. She didn’t know what Rion was planning, but she trusted him to think fast on his feet.
With their lives on the line, taking a backseat wasn’t like her. It had been such a long time since she’d trusted a man. But at the moment, letting Rion take the lead seemed natural. He bore the weight of the negotiation well, without so much as a flinch of emotion.
He appeared steady, in total control. “Is there a spaceship in the museum I can use to fly home?”
She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Was the ship here? Would Drake actually allow them to go free?
Ever so slightly, Drake nodded.
Rion’s voice remained businesslike. “In return for your looking the other way, I’m prepared to offer something valuable in return.”
“What?” Drake asked, eyebrow raised.
Rion leaned over the desk, his face intense. “Dragonblood.”
Marisa sucked in a breath. Tor and Honor had fought for centuries over their differences. And for over a thousand years, Honor hadn’t given up the biological advantage.
The sheer beauty of Rion’s plan, str
engthening the Torans so they could fight the Unari, was not only brilliant, it would become a galactic legend—if it worked. Yet there were parts to this exchange she didn’t understand. She and Rion were prisoners here. There was nothing to stop Drake from taking their blood by force and giving it to the Toran people.
Drake scowled at Rion. “What trick are you playing?”
“None.” Rion’s face remained open, honest.
Marisa found herself holding her breath and had to remind herself to relax.
Drake eyed Rion with cynicism. “For centuries Tor and Honor have been either at war or vicious competitors. Dragonshaping gave Honor the advantage. Why would you give that up?”
“If Torans become dragonshapers, you can out the moles. You can kick out the Unari.”
“But if they are already here and they also become dragonshapers—”
“The Unari can’t dragonshape. Their genetics won’t allow them to morph.”
Marisa expected Drake to accept immediately, but the man remained cautious.
“And how would our becoming dragonshapers help you?” Drake asked.
“You fear Honorian dragonshapers, and as long as you fear us, you won’t help us, and we won’t become true allies. For us to have a real alliance, we need to be equals. Genuine equals.”
“You think after centuries of mistrust, your dragonblood will unify us?”
“It would be a start. As a gesture of good faith, I will give you our dragonblood—no matter whether you decide to give us the spaceship or not.”
“No matter if we help Honor or not?” Drake leaned forward, his eyes intent. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you’ll fight the Unari here on Tor. And anyone who fights my enemy helps my world. Any Unari foothold in this solar system will eventually hurt Honor. But you can’t effectively fight the Unari without dragonblood. You don’t even know who they are.”
Marisa realized the problem of outing Unari spies on Earth would be much more difficult. Every Honorian could dragonshape. Apparently, so could every Toran. But on Earth, only ten percent of the population had the correct genes. And a chill skimmed down her spine as she imagined the frightening scenario where Unari infiltrated Earth’s governments, military, and conglomerates.
Rion Page 10