by C H Duryea
As they watched the grassy plain in the distance gradually resolve, something struck Zeke as odd.
“Does the tree line around that clearing look awfully straight,” he asked. “Like clear-cut straight?”
Harbinger jolted and pointed ahead. “Structures,” he said excitedly. “A settlement! We have civilization, folks!”
Then Zeke saw it. They were still far enough out for it to be barely visible, but a definite geometric pattern emerged like an image slowly developing on old photographic paper.
“The Heisenberg corollary?” Zeke asked, looking at Narissa.
Narissa stared out at the view with a strange mix of wonder and apprehension.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Well,” Zeke said, “let’s hope they’re friendly. And technologically advanced enough to help us with getting the power back online.”
“At least friendlier than the Tozzk,” Vibeke added.
“It’ll be good,” Augie said, “to have some solid ground underfoot for a while.”
“And breathe some honest-to-goodness unrecycled air,” Harbinger added.
Zeke allowed himself a smile. “I want to climb one of those trees.”
“Do you want to jump in the lake?” Vibeke suggested.
“I don’t see any large bodies of water.”
“Likely beyond that ridge,” Augie said, pointing. “Something’s feeding that waterfall.”
“I hope these birds up here put us down someplace where we won’t alarm the locals,” Zeke said.
“Wherever they set us down,” Harbinger said, “get ready for First Contact. Do we observe the Prime Directive?”
Zeke looked at him.
“I don’t follow.”
The ship jerked upward, and the dragons banked to starboard, putting distance between them and the canyon wall.
“Hang on,” Zeke said, expecting a return to their approach vector.
But then the ship, under the massive dragon claws, banked hard again to port.
The granite face of the cliff swept directly into their path.
“Hang on!” Zeke yelled.
Then they swept upward until they were level with a narrow opening in the crest of the granite face.
They were inside that opening faster than any of them could react. The gap in the rock gave way to a shadowy side canyon floored with what looked like loose rockfall and scree.
“What the hell?” Harbinger yelled.
And then they heard another sudden set of scrapings from outside, and suddenly the Friendly Card was under her own momentum again.
The dragons had let them go.
The dark floor of the narrow canyon came at them—fast.
“Brace for impact!” Zeke shouted.
Then they hit. The crew was thrown and most spilled to the deck as the ship skidded along the scree-lined surface. A deafening and terrible shriek of tortured metal accompanied their landing, and they only avoided rolling over because the starboard stabilizer didn’t break off. When the Friendly Card finally ground to a halt, the nose cone was half buried in shattered rock and scorched debris. The lights and screens of the navigation console blinked with light, briefly, then went dark again.
Zeke was dazed, and he felt like the straps of his seat harness had been ready to quarter him during the crash. He hit the release and climbed shaking out of the chair, his body aching in protest.
“Is everybody okay?” he croaked. He was answered by a weak chorus of groans.
“There is nothing okay about any of this,” Vibeke said, pulling herself up from the deck. “But I don’t think I’m hurt.”
Augie withdrew his arm from a tangle of wire from a shattered console and pulled himself over to Narissa.
Harbinger slowly stood, holding his glasses. They were broken in half at the nosepiece.
“Damned if I left my back up pair on my desk,” he said.
Qaant Yke strode onto the flight deck.
“We have landed,” he said.
“I hope you’re using that term ironically,” Zeke said.
“I have a great liking for iron,” the alien said. “But I do not know this ferrous compound you call ‘ironically.’”
“Guys,” Vibeke said, staring through the viewport. “Does that look like what I think it looks like?”
“What?” Zeke said, turning to look.
“The rubble. It’s scorched. And it’s not all rock.”
They all looked. Scattered among the shattered stone, the blackened bones of some huge creature was visible. Perhaps a number of them. Femurs and ribs poked out of the debris, some standing taller than Zeke.
“That is not comforting,” Augie said.
“It makes complete sense,” Harbinger said, “if you understand where we are.”
“Care to elaborate?” Zeke asked.
“This is a dragon eyrie.”
“A what?” Vibeke asked.
“A nest,” Augie said. “If what Chuck surmises is accurate, the creatures that bore us here probably think we’re lunch.”
A huge, knuckled claw smashed the ground just beyond the viewport. An enormous ridged and scaled head came into view as the dragon lowered its long neck and met their gaze with fiery red eyes.
And then the whole of the Friendly Card trembled as it roared.
Thirteen
The two dragons stalked a circle around the Friendly Card. They poked and pecked with their pointed snouts and occasionally shot fire against the hull that was absorbed by the ablative exterior. Narissa watched them from the starboard ventral port.
“Should we be concerned about what they’re going to do?” she asked. “I mean, once they figure out that they won’t be able to open us up like a can of tuna?”
“It’s quite possible,” Harbinger remarked as he sat repairing his glasses, “that they’ll just give up.”
“I would be okay with that,” Vibeke said.
“And simply push us off the edge,” he said as he finished his repair job with a length of electrical tape wrapped a few times around the bridge.
“Not okay with that.”
“We gotta figure out a way to keep them from damaging the ship any more than they already have,” Zeke said. “I want us spaceworthy as soon as we can fix these power systems.”
“You will find that difficult,” Qaant Yke said.
“Care to elaborate?” Zeke asked.
“There has been a valence shift.”
“You told us. You lack the appropriate translation.”
“I lack the eloquence of my forehatchers.”
“We have weapons,” Narissa said.
“Which are also offline,” Harbinger responded.
“Not the ship’s guns,” she said. “We have an impressive arsenal of high-powered portables in the hold—or have you forgotten? They won’t be affected by the outage.”
They all looked at each other.
“It may be our best option,” Augie said, “to make ourselves appear difficult to eat, or at least highly unpleasant.”
The ship rumbled as a dragon stalked by outside the viewport.
“All right,” Vibeke said. “Who goes out there?”
“I do,” Zeke said. “I think the portable multistage gauss cannon will have the best chance of piercing those hides. I’ll take that—and a plasma rifle as a backup.”
Vibeke looked at him. “You’re not going out there by yourself.”
“Is this you being gallant?”
“I’m going with you, boss,” Harbinger said. “I can give you cover.”
“All right,” Zeke said. “Let’s go. We’ll go out through the loading bay.”
They went down to the hold and unpacked the hardware. Zeke picked up the gauss cannon.
“Charged and ready to go,” Harbinger said. “I prepped it in flight.”
Zeke slung it over his shoulder and picked up the pulse rifle. “What are you bringing?”
Harbinger held up a six-terawatt portable atom
-mauler. “My favorite,” he said.
“Since when have you had experience with weapons like these?”
“Never,” he clarified. “My RPG favorite.”
“Great. Just leave the dice inside.”
Zeke checked the observation port in the manual hatch. “They’re not in sight. Let’s get out there and find some cover.”
They readied their weapons, and Zeke spun the wheel to disengage the lock.
They nodded to each other, prepped themselves, and then Zeke threw the door open.
The air outside smelled like burnt tires and rotten meat. Zeke nearly gagged.
“At least it’s real air,” Harbinger wheezed, trying to hold his breath and talk at the same time.
They crept out onto the debris field, picking their way carefully from one charred monolithic bone fragment to the next.
Zeke signaled for Harbinger to watch one direction while he watched the other, they both waited, weapons raised. The eyrie was quiet and still.
“Power up,” Zeke whispered, reaching for the power switch on the gauss cannon and throwing it.
Nothing happened.
He threw the switch back and forth repeatedly. He should have heard the signature high-pitch whine as the weapon charged, but it was silent. He lowered it and raised the plasma rifle. It too was unresponsive. He turned to Harbinger, who raised his mauler, took aim at a large rock a few meters away, and pulled the trigger. Again—nothing. The weapons were inoperative.
“Back inside!” Zeke barked, and they both turned back toward the ship.
And were met by the sight of the two dragons, perched on top of the Friendly Card, wings spread dramatically and peering down at them.
They roared, and Zeke and Harbinger ran.
Both dragons beat their wings and rose into the air. One flew over and landed on the ground with a thunderous crash just behind them, as the other came down between them and the open hatch door.
Zeke and Harbinger skidded to a halt.
“Any suggestions, boss?” Harbinger asked.
“I don’t know,” Zeke said. “Club them in the feet with these useless hunks of metal?”
Suddenly something small and dark shot over their heads and struck the chest plate of the far dragon.
Harbinger looked up and did a double take. He tried to straighten his crooked glasses and pointed.
“Look!”
Qaant Yke jumped from the hatch and onto the leg of one of the dragons. He latched on and climbed up the creature’s scaly flank. The dragon sensed the intrusion and twisted its huge body and sinewy neck into a corkscrew trying to get its jaws on the alien.
The other dragon caught sight of the new intruder and roared its displeasure at its sibling being used as a climbing wall.
Qaant Yke held out his hand and his flying metal death-ball completed a long arc around the canyon and landed back in his hand. He flung it again and this time struck the opposite dragon in the snout. It roared in pain and apparent outrage and spat a column of flame at the other. But Qaant Yke had already jumped free of the first dragon and caught the death-ball in mid-air as he came down. He landed a few meters from Zeke and Harbinger.
“Get inside,” he said and let the death-ball fly again, this time clocking the dragon he had just disembarked from.
“What about you?” Zeke asked. “They’ll kill you too!”
The dragon behind Qaant Yke prepared to spit another stream of fire. The alien caught the death-ball as it finished another arc, and he whipped it back over his shoulder, bashing the dragon’s head with enough force to make it stagger back.
Zeke and Harbinger dashed for the open hatch. They reached the ship and climbed aboard. Augie, Narissa and Vibeke were ready to help them up.
“Close the door,” Harbinger said, scrambling away from the bay doors.
“No,” Zeke responded. “We can’t leave him out there by himself.”
An explosive sound and a blast of heat made him turn. Outside, both dragons focused their fire on Qaant Yke, who stood like a statue between them. As the blinding fire and obscuring smoke swirled, they lost sight of him.
Zeke thought that nothing living could possibly withstand such immolation, but when the flame and smoke cleared, Qaant Yke stood there, death-ball in hand, smoke rising off him. When the ball flew again, it struck both dragons in the same arc.
“What the hell is that ball made of?” Augie wondered.
“And what the hell is Qaant Yke made of?” Narissa asked.
The alien caught the ball again as the two dragons side-stepped around him, staring, leery and frustrated. Qaant Yke stood and stared at them before raising the ball in his hand.
Both dragons spread their great leathery wings and took to the air. In three beats of those massive wings, they were already over the lip of the canyon. They vanished from sight.
“How does that mechanism of yours work?” Augie asked Qaant Yke after he had returned to the hold and the hatch was sealed behind him.
“It does not—work,” Qaant Yke answered. “It simply is.”
“Can we talk about more pressing issues?” Harbinger said. “It’s bad enough that the ship’s out of power, but the weapons as well? Is everything that works off a current out of commission?”
Vibeke picked up a hand blaster from the pile of weapons, threw the switch, aimed at an empty patch of the deck and pulled the trigger. Nothing.
Narissa took the gun and turned it over in her hands.
“It could be,” she said, “that some quantum variable in the electrons of this space somehow prevent the kinds of power exchanges we need for our devices to work.”
Zeke looked back at Qaant Yke. “Your magic shotput seems to work.”
“It does not work. It simply is.”
Zeke paused and squinted at the alien. “Hey—you just saved my life again.”
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean, wouldn’t letting me get killed out there get you out of your obligation to fate?”
“As I explained the first time, I am weak.”
“Buddy, you’ve got a strange definition of weak.”
Augie followed up on Narissa’s point. “If what you are saying is accurate, my dear, and I have no reason to doubt it, then we have a much graver problem than simply a disabled ship.”
“Meaning?” Vibeke asked.
“Meaning,” Narissa said. “Our tools, our systems, our weapons, everything that makes the makes the Friendly Card work—including the Frogger, and your NeuralNav, Vee, will not work as long as we’re here. By all our standards and metrics, this is a non-technological world.”
“A non-tech world?” Harbinger asked. “Then how do we fix the ship?”
“We don’t,” Augie said. “We’re stuck here.”
Zeke shook his head. “I don’t accept that,” he said. “There’s gotta be something we can do.”
“Like what?” Vibeke asked.
“I don’t know. But there’s that settlement down in the valley. Maybe we can find some answers there.”
“Do you know how long it’s gonna take to get down there?” Harbinger said. “We’re at least a kilometer above the valley floor.”
“Then we better get started,” Zeke said. “Come on, everybody. Figure out what we’re going to need, and we’ll take whatever we can carry.”
“Zeke, no,” Vibeke said, crossing over to him. “We can’t leave the ship.”
“Vee, those dragons will not be gone long. If we want to get away from here, we have to do it now.”
“But shouldn’t someone stay with the Card?”
“Out of the question. We have to stick together.”
“But what if those things come back and shove the ship over the edge?”
“Who’s going to stop them?”
“Qaant Yke can. And I can stay with him.”
“I will not remain,” the alien said. “I must accompany Hezekiah Travers.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Zeke said.
“We can’t just go—” she insisted.
“Zeke?” He turned at Narissa’s voice, and she raised her eyebrows at him as if to say, so you’re going to ignore my advice again?
He took Vibeke by the shoulders—but gently. She was shaking.
“Listen,” he said quietly. “The autoslop is offline. Which under any other circumstance would be a reason to celebrate. But we have almost no food on board or water. We can’t stay. The Card isn’t going anywhere. The NeuralNav is not going anywhere.”
“Maybe I should try plugging in?” she suggested. “It draws a portion of its power from my electrical field. Maybe it can still work.”
“No,” Zeke insisted. “If it hooks into your bioelectricals, there’s no telling what this place’s grudge against electricity will do to you. And if that’s me being gallant and stupid, then call me a chivalrous idiot.”
Vibeke calmed down and stared at Zeke. Her pale blue eyes seemed to acknowledge that she knew he was right—but she wanted to kill him for it anyway. She reached up and took his hands—and pushed them off her shoulders. She looked at the others.
“What are you looking at?” she said. “We have work to do.”
There wasn’t much to pack, so they concentrated on dividing what supplies they had bought on the station and what manual tools happened to be on board that anyone thought might help. Qaant Yke proved capable of carrying quite a bit.
“What about the weapons?” Harbinger asked.
“What about them?” Zeke asked. “They’re just added weight.”
“Chuck has a point,” Augie said. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. It’s possible we could find a way to make them operational. In which case, it may be worth our while to have one or two on hand.”
“Fine,” Zeke said. “Everyone take one. A small one—just in case.”
Zeke selected a small handheld pulse blaster with a haptic interface wired into a harness that strapped around the forearm. He rolled up his sleeve and fastened the apparatus.
“That little pop gun’s probably fine for date night on Thetus Two,” Vibeke said. “But if we get these weapons working again, you’ll want something with a little more stopping power.”
“Well, I feel like an idiot swaggering around with some huge blaster on my belt.”