The Dragon Circle

by Irene Radford

  “I have to destroy a king stone,” Konner muttered.

  The giant blue crystals that communicated along transactional gravitons to mother stones and kept the rest of the crystal array working as a unit lived. All life was sacred. He’d already had a premonition about killing a human being. Killing a king stone . . . “I’d rather rip out my own heart.”

  “Maybe we should uncloak again,” Loki suggested, nervously tapping his fingers against his thigh. The three brothers and Dalleena lay prone beneath Rover, waiting, watching the sky.

  “Patience,” Kim counseled him. He, too, felt the urge to move. He settled for running his hands through his unruly red hair. He tugged at the leather thong that tied the mane at his nape.

  “How long has it been?” Loki asked.

  “Less than ten minutes,” Kim replied. He looked up at the sun’s position and checked it against the length of the shadows. The Tambootie in his system told him more precisely the time, their location, the nearest magnetic pole, and that he needed another dose to keep those senses enhanced. But he could not determine the location of the lander Jupiter had launched just after dawn local time.

  “If we uncloak again, they’ll know the blip on their sensors isn’t a fluke,” Loki said.

  “It takes more than ten minutes for a lander to fly from the volcano to here,” Konner spoke up at last.

  He’d seemed very moody this morning for a man who had found his soul mate. At least Kim presumed Konner and Dalleena had found each other last night. The way their shimmering auras merged when they leaned their heads together told him more than the whispered confidences they shared. Dalleena had no business on this adventure. But Konner had insisted.

  Kim should have brought Hestiia with him. His wife had more right to accompany them than the Tracker.

  Right had nothing to do with it. Skill and talent decided the duty roster, he reminded himself. He winced at how his vocabulary returned to the jargon of space farers and how his speech seemed more clipped and rapid after only a few hours in the company of the newcomers. The lazy dialect of the locals lingered on his tongue and he savored the poetry of the idea behind the words. Efficiency lost importance among people who measured time in moons, seasons, and generations rather than digital femtos and metric minutes.

  “They come,” Dalleena said. She held her right hand up, palm outward, facing south.”

  “How far?” Konner asked.

  Dalleena raised her left shoulder in a half shrug. “Far. They come closer.”

  “They must have emerged from the shadow of the volcano,” Kim mused. Communications, sensors, magic went haywire within the confines of the crater. The meadow outside, where the water was sweeter than in the cave offered marginally better electronic performance. “So what do we do when they get here?”

  “You, Kim, surrender to them. Offer to lead them to where the others are hiding. Loki and I will take the lander back to Jupiter.” Konner did not look happy about that.

  “The rest of the crew will have to evacuate once we break the king stone.” Loki looked positively gleeful. “Once we do that, the crystal circles will lose connections and stop working, their orbit will decay, and the ship will crash. The crew will have ample time to evacuate with adequate supplies.”

  “You should take Ross Duggan and Paola Sanchez with you. We should cannibalize as much as possible from the ship. Like fuel for Rover,” Kim suggested

  “No.” Konner put on his stubborn face, jaw thrust out, eyes narrowed, and shoulders reaching toward his earlobes. “If something goes wrong, they’ll be tried for mutiny. Maybe treason. I won’t let them take that risk.”

  “Not your choice,” Sergeant Duggan said. He walked boldly up to their hiding place beneath the cloaked shuttle. Corporal Sanchez stood right behind his left shoulder where she was in a good position to protect his back.

  “You can’t see us,” Loki choked.

  “I can if I know what to look for and where. Besides, you three are making so much noise even Pettigrew could find you.”

  “The Others wander,” Dalleena said. She held her hand out, more to the north.

  “They are probably following the signature of the lander. Salt water will confuse the signal. What part of the ocean did you ditch it in?” Ross Duggan asked.

  “Deepest trench I could find,” Konner grunted.

  He and Kim got to their feet at the same time. Both reached to open the hatch.

  “Time to uncloak again,” Kim said.

  “I can do this, little brother,” Konner muttered.

  “But you don’t want to. Let me help, Konner.” Kim tried to place two fingers from his dominant left hand upon his brother’s temple. Experimenting with Hestiia had helped him find this the best way to enter a person’s mind and soothe disturbing dreams and thoughts.

  Konner ducked away from his touch.

  “I know what I have to do, Kim. You can’t ease that burden.”

  “It should not be a burden.”

  “But . . . a king stone?” Konner shivered.

  “Maybe Loki or I should dismantle the king stone. Neither of us is atuned to the crystals as you are.”

  “That is just it. One cannot remove a crystal from the array unless one is atuned to them. Especially the king stone. It has its own defenses.”

  Kim gulped. “You should not do this alone. I’m coming with you and Loki.” And he’d take a stash of Tambootie with him, in case he had to intervene with more than his wits and his strength. He fingered the dry leaves in his pockets. Was it enough.

  A roar approached from south by southeast.

  No more time to think. The IMPs had found them without uncloaking again.

  “We have to do this. To preserve our home. To save Hestiia and all the rest,” Kim muttered to himself.

  “Amen,” echoed his brothers and their two new allies.

  “Something is wrong.” Dalleena looked at her tracking hand. “There are two landers.” She shifted her palm to face due east as well as south.

  “We need two distractions now.” Kim pounded his fist into his other palm.

  The first vessel approached slowly from the south. It circled three times and hovered before settling to the ground thirty meters from the cloaked shuttle. The long tubular vessel, painted black with white IMP insignia looked alien and menacing in the waving grassland. Five heavily armed Marines poured out of two hatches. They surveyed the area with weapons at the ready. Three techs holding sensors emerged more slowly. They sported holstered pistols, and rifles slung across their backs.

  “That’s Lieutenant Commander M’Berra. Executive officer of the Jupiter.” Sanchez pointed to the ebony-skinned man with tight black curls clinging to his scalp who jumped down and surged forward, pistol cocked and trigger finger itchy. He had the tall stature of a man raised on a bush planet. Unusual for a bushie to rise so high in the ranks. His family must be very important back home.

  Another ten Marines followed him out of the lander. Immediately, the vessel lifted and hovered.

  The second lander touched down, deployed another twenty Marines, and took off. The two craft circled the area, one clockwise, close in. The other circled higher, in the opposite direction two kilometers out. Both ships opened ports for pulse cannons.

  “Now what?” Kim slumped down and stared at the grass. “They are smarter than we expected.”

  CHAPTER 23

  IRYTHROS, I need your help, Konner called with his mind. If only he had a bit of the Tambootie that Kim touted so highly.

  “Loki, your telepathy is better than mine. Call a dragon,” he whispered.

  One of the techs jerked his head and his instrument in their direction.

  Konner held his breath. No one moved. The tech shook his head and moved his instrument around. Lieutenant Commander M’Berra waved his troop forward in the direction of the shuttle. They, too, remained silent.

  Only a matter of a few steps before they ran into Rover, even if they could not see it. Upon contac
t, their instruments would penetrate the cloak, understand it, and never again be fooled by it. With that information, Jupiter’s crew would be able to find Sirius.

  He needed to act. Fast.

  “Just be ready to disappear.” Sanchez scooted out from under the shuttle. Before Konner, or anyone else could stop her, she ran around the vehicle and approached the IMP squad from an angle at a fast trot.

  “Hurry,” she said, breathless. More breathless than she should be after such a short sprint. “They’re after me. They . . . they have a dragon!” She pointed to the east and north, across the river.

  Instantly, all the techs shifted their instruments away from the shuttle to the direction in which the corporal pointed.

  “Calm down, Sanchez,” Lieutenant Commander M’Berra said. He placed a comforting hand on Sanchez’s shoulder. “You must be hysterical, Corporal. There are no such things as dragons. Now report. Slowly. Calmly. And rationally.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Sanchez took two long slow breaths. The techs and their protective phalanx of Marines edged a little to the north and away from Konner and the others.

  “The locals welcomed us with open arms and a feast last night,” Sanchez said. She shifted her weight and shuffled. Her movement forced M’Berra to make nearly a quarter turn.

  “When we woke this morning, all our comms and equipment had been stolen, the locals had disappeared, and this immense creature was perched on a boulder the size of a house staring at us. Lieutenant Pettigrew tried to shoot it. It attacked. Then the noise of the landers frightened it off. It . . . it flew, sir. On wings a full five meters wide.” She gulped. “I believe Lieutenant Pettigrew is injured, sir. Legs a mess of abrasions. Medic Lotski has nothing but water to wash the wounds. Everything else was stolen, sir.”

  “Why in Allah’s name did Lieutenant Pettigrew trust the natives. And where is the lander?”

  “I do not know, sir.”

  “Where are the rest of your squad, Corporal?” M’Berra sighed heavily and shook his head.

  “Back this way, sir.” Sanchez pointed upriver, well beyond the village and the shuttle.

  Duggan ground his teeth.

  Konner touched the sergeant’s shoulder, much as M’Berra had calmed Sanchez.

  “Sensors indicate a population center of about one hundred bodies due east of here,” a tech pointed his instruments directly at the village, half a klick away.

  Konner swallowed his frustration.

  “Corporal Sanchez?” M’Berra raised an eyebrow in question.

  “Could be, sir. I got twisted around running to catch you. Lots of landmarks look alike. The natives took all my equipment. I ran too fast to observe my position as carefully as I should.” She wiped sweat off her brow and looked very pale. The medic grabbed her elbow to steady her as she swayed in her tracks.

  “One fine actress,” Loki mouthed without a sound.

  M’Berra activated his comm. “Find a landing place with good cover and wait for us,” he barked.

  “What about the smugglers?” a sergeant reminded his commander.

  “They aren’t going anywhere. Our first responsibility is to our own.” M’Berra stalked in the wake of the tech toward the village. The entire squad followed without question.

  When the last of them disappeared over the rise and the roar of the landers had receded south, Konner crept out from beneath the shuttle and its electronic cloak.

  “Now what? Sanchez saved our skins, but we didn’t get a lander. Nor did we get fuel for the shuttle.” Disappointment rode heavily on his shoulder.

  He breathed easier, though. Relief. He would not have to kill a king stone today.

  “Magnificent woman,” Loki let his gaze linger in the direction Paola Sanchez had disappeared with the landing squad. “Too bad she isn’t my type.”

  His brothers looked at him strangely.

  “Open your eyes, Loki. She is precisely your type,” Kim chuckled.

  “She’s too much like Mum,” Loki protested.

  “Not in the least.” Konner smiled and looked lovingly at Dalleena.

  Loki’s back itched with something more than physical irritation. Could they be right?

  He decided to change the subject rather than examine his emotions too closely. “How far away do you suppose the landers went?”

  “Couple of klicks from here,” Duggan said with a shrug. “The pilots don’t want to be too far off, in case the villagers, or the dragon, gives them any trouble. But I wish Paola hadn’t gone down a crystal conduit without a sensor like that. She’ll be up on charges before the day is over once M’Berra discovers she lied.” He rubbed his knuckles against his teeth in a worrisome gesture.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll find a way out of this. Now let’s see if we can find the landers.” Loki slapped his new friend on the back hard enough to shake him out of his doldrums.

  “Minimum flight crews aboard. But every member of Jupiter’s crew is fully trained and most are combat veterans. Even the judge and lawyers,” Duggan said.

  “I’ll fire up Rover’s sensors and find the landers,” Kim said. He keyed open the hatch. “We’ve got some stunners and probably the element of surprise.”

  “We’ll have to uncloak to get a reading,” Konner warned him, hard on his heels.

  “You aren’t the only one who manipulates systems beyond factory specs.” Kim smiled widely.

  “The landers are there.” Dalleena held up her hand palm out and faced due west. “A short walk, hardly a full sun mark.”

  Duggan looked to Loki for an explanation. “Primitive timekeeping. One sun mark or one candle mark is roughly one hour.”

  “About three klicks.” Konner beamed with pride as he pulled Dalleena against his side. “She’s almost as good as your sensors, Kim, and untraceable.”

  “Get the stunners, Kim. We’re walking,” Loki called to his youngest brother.

  “A body could get mighty tired of walking,” Duggan grumbled.

  “Get used to it. Once we take care of this little problem, walking is about the only form of transport,” Loki replied. “Unless you want to round up some wild horse hybrids. Locals call them steeds. That’s a good name for them; can’t really call them horses anymore.”

  “Um, Loki,” Kim stammered as he handed out stunners, even to Dalleena. “I think I should go back and check on Hestiia, the village . . .”

  Loki snorted. Kim wasn’t complete anymore without his wife. A total waste of a good man.

  But he had to admit that when Hestiia stood at Kim’s side, his logic was clear, he acted more decisively, and he led the natives with superb instincts.

  “Pryth and Hestiia have taken them all to the next village. Hestiia will be safe with her brother and father,” Konner said. “M’Berra will find only his own people trussed up like wild lumbirds ready for the spit.”

  “You could have told us that!” Loki protested.

  “Didn’t want to spoil the surprise.” Konner and Dalleena grinned at each other like moonstruck Acadian Jolilbirds. They mated for life, and if one lost a partner, never found another mate, and often died of loneliness and a broken heart.

  Loki shivered at the thought of tying himself so completely to any woman. Even Cyndi. Certainly he planned to marry the love of his life, but he’d never imagined either of them being completely faithful. Life was too full of adventure for that.

  Paola Sanchez would demand monogamy from her mate. And St. Bridget help the man who strayed from her side. Good thing she’d announced that she expected no commitment from Loki. She had a larger agenda than finding a spouse.

  “What about Taneeo?” Kim asked. “Is he still free.”

  “Hardly, with splints on his leg and his other injuries.” Konner shrugged. “Even if he does harbor Hanassa’s spirit, he can’t move around enough to betray us.”

  “I don’t like that Captain Leonard sent M’Berra down with the second wave,” Duggan said, rubbing his knuckles across his teeth. “She usually
saves her big guns for more desperate situations.”

  “She’s lost track of twenty of her crew and an expensive lander. I’d be part of the second wave if I were her,” Loki replied.

  “Not our captain. She stays with the ship unless she has no other options. That’s accepted military protocol. And believe me, you don’t want to get her into a corner with no options. She’s one fierce lady with a mind as sharp as a laser cutter.”

  “Was, um, er, the Jupiter chasing Sirius about five months ago?” Loki’s stomach felt like it wanted to sink to his toes.

  “Yeah, we were. Thought the captain would split a few skulls when Command called her off the chase. She wanted to capture you guys like her life depended on it.”

  “If Jupiter was called off the chase five months ago, why are you all here now?”

  “Captain Leonard got hold of the report of how Sirius disappeared through an uncharted jump point. She detoured from delivering a diplomatic attaché to chase you down.”

  “Tenacious, isn’t she?”

  “Obsessed.”

  “Just like Mum?” Kim piped in. His voice sounded mischievous. His face looked grim.

  “Just like Mum. This mission could be a real pain in the ass,” Loki muttered. He shook his head.

  An idea slammed into his brain with the force of a pulse cannon.

  “Your Captain Leonard wouldn’t be tall and red-haired, would she?”

  “No. That would be Lieutenant JG Kat Talbot, our helmsman. Captain Leonard has black hair and blue eyes. Pale skin and a figure to make a man look twice. Maybe four times. But she’s all business aboard ship. Doesn’t tolerate flirting among the crew, especially not with her.”

  “This Kat Talbot . . .” Loki prompted. “Tall with red hair. Green eyes?”

  “Green eyes that spit fire. Another woman you do not want to cross.”

  Just like Mum. It can’t be. I’d know if it was her. Wouldn’t I? Loki could not dismiss the nagging questions.