The Dragon Circle

by Irene Radford

  Or so she believed.

  Taneeo and his followers continued to march toward the intruders, weapons and communications devices still proffered as peace offerings. The men’s eyes did not focus. They stared blindly ahead, walking as if bewitched.

  Taneeo grinned widely. He almost sauntered in triumph. The limp evaporated with each step.

  “I must stop the idiot,” Raaskan said. “How did he escape Pryth’s vigilance?” He tried to stand. Once more, Poolie held him in place. Nearly as tall as Dalleena, she was strong from long hours of working the fields and spindle.

  Raaskan glared at his wife.

  She returned his gaze levelly and with meaning.

  “Taneeo has to learn that not all problems can be solved with peace and compromise,” he hissed.

  “Especially when it means he’s betraying us,” Dalleena muttered. She didn’t care if the others heard her or not. She was leaving. One of them had to remain free and safe to tell Konner and his brothers about Taneeo’s betrayal and the defection of half the men from the village.

  Gritting her teeth, she dared the swamp. At least the mushy edges of it.

  When her knees felt soggy, she risked rising to a crouch. From that position Taneeo and his men were clearly visible. The intruders still gathered twenty paces away. They carried their weapons warily and balanced on the balls of their feet, ready to run forward in attack, or flee as events evolved.

  Neither group seemed to notice the rustling grasses where Raaskan and Poolie crept toward Dalleena. Beside a rotting tree snag they peered around, seeking the best path. Dalleena motioned retreat.

  “Big Red,” Raaskan whispered. He jerked his head toward the shaggy wild bull that had risen to its feet.

  It plodded toward the marshy verge of the pasture. Morning sunshine showed the sharp tips and smooth curve of his horns. From tip to tip, those horns spread as wide as a man could spread his arms. Big Red’s cows shifted their grazing closer to the tree line, away from the village and the armed intruders. Their red fur seemed to fade to gray and shadow as they merged with the protective cover. Movement alone would betray their presence to predators.

  Big Red, on the other hand, drew attention away from his cows. He pawed at the ground and bellowed his annoyance at the proximity of so many people.

  The bull stood between Dalleena and safety. He made enough noise to attract the attention of the intruders, across three fields and a swamp. Laughter from the intruders at the bull’s antics. They did not fear it. They should.

  “Stillness,” Raaskan said under his breath. “The hunted stands so still he blends into his cover. The hunter cannot see him until he moves.”

  Dalleena took a deep breath and willed herself to obey. Every instinct in her body told her to flee.

  If only Konner were here to protect her.

  But he, too, needed to stay free of the invaders.

  If only she could hear the words passed between the Others and Taneeo.

  The priest made a gesture and each of his followers moved forward in turn and deposited the weapon or communicator he held at the feet of the foremost guard. Other intruders crept out of the village. The ones with the most decorations on their clothing grabbed guns and comms from the growing pile first.

  When all of the stolen gear had been returned, the intruders, as one, turned their weapons upon Taneeo and the others.

  They crumpled to the ground, startled looks frozen on their faces.

  Fine thanks for their act of goodwill.

  Dalleena swallowed back the bile that threatened to choke her.

  Poolie rested a hand upon her shoulder in mute comfort. “We saw much the same actions from Hanassa before the Stargods liberated us from him. But Hanassa drew blood and gloried in death. The invaders have only stunned the traitors. These weaklings fear death and do not kill lightly. We must use this against them.”

  “Yes, we must,” Dalleena agreed. “I will watch. You two go and gather the others. You are more used to hunting stealthily than I. Go in secret. After sundown, before moonrise, we will liberate our neighbors. Also in secret.”

  But Konner and his brothers would return before then. She had to warn them. She would not allow them to stumble into a trap as wicked as a patch of devil’s vine.

  How could she watch the village and wait for Konner at the place he told her he would return?

  The betrayal becomes obvious. We must stop this. But we cannot. With our magic and awesome defenses, too many innocents would be caught in the storm. Even a dragon dream will not affect the traitor. For he is one of us.

  We will concentrate on the Others. We can accomplish something positive there. We pull upon the ship in orbit with our united minds. We will it to crash and never fly again.

  “Read the codes back to me from right to left,” Konner demanded. His voice sounded harsh, bruised to his own ears. He didn’t have time to worry about it.

  Twenty-four, twenty-three. The computer counted down the seconds.

  “Um, 763997 Alpha, um,” Loki stammered.

  Konner watched his brother’s eyes swivel right to left, left to right, and back again.

  Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen.

  “Standard protocol is left to right,” Loki protested.

  Konner felt like shaking his older brother. “Kat is left-handed. Like the rest of us. Her brain wants to read right to left even though she’s been forced to learn to read left to right. Give me the codes backward.”

  Kat opened her eyes wide. Her nostrils pinched and she clenched her teeth. He had guessed correctly.

  Ten, nine, eight, seven.

  “Alpha 7997367, beta, omega, pi.” Loki looked deflated.

  Konner punched in the code. His fingers moved rapidly over the interface. The countdown stalled at three. The bay doors creaked open, slowly. Oh, so very slowly.

  He breathed in short gasps.

  Kat slumped against her jump seat.

  “Strap in, everyone. We’re blasting out of here. Fast. Before Commander Leonard has a chance to scramble fighters.” Before the doors finished opening.

  Konner punched in the launch protocol. Engines fired beneath him. Cockpit lights dimmed.

  He felt lighter. His lungs drew in air more easily. Gravity lessened its drag on his muscles.

  That had to be his imagination. His body reacted to the surge of adrenaline and made him feel lighter. Momentum should keep Jupiter spinning and, therefore, the gravity at a normal rate far longer than this. Planetary gravity should only assert a minute influence on the ship at this time.

  He prayed. All they needed now was for the ship’s orbit to deteriorate too quickly, before Commander Leonard had time to evacuate all personnel and salvage much needed stores.

  Would hearing the death screams of hundreds of trapped innocents be worse than his vision of Lieutenant Pettigrew dying?

  He had to weigh the loss of innocent lives among the Coros if he failed in his mission to ground the IMPs for all time.

  Konner’s hands began to shake.

  “This is going to need some finesse, Loki. Can you take command?”

  “Finesse is my middle name,” Loki said on a big grin.

  “No, it isn’t. You are Mathew Kameron O’Hara,” Kat said.

  “A lot you know,” Loki said back. “Let me show you some real flying. Hang on.”

  Kat snorted. But she held on to the edge of her seat between her knees as best she could. The simple waist restraint on the jump seat offered only minor protection.

  Konner’s head snapped back as Loki slammed the lander forward. Gravity increased with acceleration as it compounded the spin on the primary vessel. Pressure built in his chest. He found it difficult to breathe.

  He heard metal scrape against metal. His teeth ached and his spine cringed. The lander edged through the partially opened doors with no room to spare.

  Then they burst free of the cruiser. Gravity fell back to an acceptable level. Loki flipped the lander around to circle Jupiter and a
im for the planet.

  A squadron of fighters scrambled into position to block them.

  “We’ll have to shoot our way through,” Loki muttered.

  ”The weapons array lay at Konner’s fingertips. Everything looked odd, out of reach, misplaced. Kim monitored sensors and engineering. The layout was backward from Rover. Konner should have engineering and communications. Kim should have sensors and weapons.

  “If I know Captain Leonard, she’s ordered her flyboys to take out the cockpit,” Kat said. A smug smile crept across her face. “They’ll leave the cargo area intact. She wants the king stone back. She won’t let your death stand in her way.”

  “We’ve a few tricks up our sleeves,” Loki muttered.

  “Why didn’t you just smash the crystal, Konner? Life would be easier,” Kim asked.

  In the back of Konner’s head, he heard the king stone crying out to its family of driver and directional crystals. It had never been alone since before it was a tiny seed in an omniscium bath.

  “Look out! Vultures at three o’clock,” Kim shouted.

  Konner slammed his palm flat on the interface, firing whatever responded. He closed his eyes and prayed that the fighters would veer away and no one would get killed. Least of all the king stone.

  Loki closed his eyes and pushed the throttle forward. One nice long smooth motion. Acceleration pushed him back into his chair. He listened to the ship. Listened to the constant hum of active minds. Waiting. Waiting until it felt right.

  He jerked the ship right and “down” relative to his internal horizon. Only when the ship began to shudder from the speed and angle of reentry did he ease up. Still without looking he thrust the controls to port, up, down, starboard, down.

  To his right he heard Konner mutter a prayer every time he fired weapons. Kim shouted orders to both of them. Kat sneered at every word said, every action taken.

  Loki tuned them out. Now he listened for the planet. The obscure, primitive, raw, and unforgiving place that had grabbed his heart and promised him everything he’d dreamed of. The place he had to protect at all costs.

  Without the king stone, the IMPs could neither leave, nor communicate with civilization. If every crystal tech aboard took continual shifts of two hours on, four off, Jupiter might achieve something close to light speed. Not enough to make it to the jump point in less than a year. Without the king stone, they could not jump. He had to keep them from retrieving the stone. Even if it cost him and his siblings their lives.

  Why hadn’t Konner smashed the crystal when he had the chance? But he could not read his brother’s mind and evade the fighters.

  Up, down, port, and starboard, always angling closer to the planet. The green atmospheric layer glowed beneath him. He plunged into it. Leveled out. Shot to port.

  His right side tingled where a bolt of energy seared the edge of the cockpit. A strange whistling came to his ears. More than tinnitus ringing against his eardrums from the rapid changes in direction and acceleration.

  “Sensors clogged,” Konner said on a sigh of relief. He’d not be shooting any weapons for a while.

  “Femto point hull breach,” Kim reported. As he said the words, he unstrapped and reached for the repair kit.

  “What is that stuff?” Kat leaned forward to peer out the windshield.

  “Diatomaceous plant life, lives in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere,” Kim replied. His hands were busy with a caulk gun filled with liquid cerama /metal. It would harden quickly and seal most small holes up to the diameter of a man’s pinky finger.

  “It eats the metal out of the hull alloy unless we bathe the shuttles every trip,” Loki added.

  “No wonder the planet looks green from space,” Kat said. Curiosity seemed to have calmed her antagonism.

  Loki felt like he had to say something. Anything. He couldn’t think what. The ship and his evasive course demanded all of his attention. If he thought about his maneuvers, he’d overthink and make a mistake.

  He kept up a course that made the foothill approach to the volcano look flat and easy. Occasional shots zinged past them. A few came close.

  “They are shooting blind,” Konner said quietly. He looked pale and shaken. Shooting back at IMPs had never bothered him before. Why now?

  Loki was a fine one to ask. He’d killed a man, Hanassa, and nearly followed him into death, linked to his mind by psychic talents.

  Another shot pinged the tail of the lander in a glancing shot. Enough to send him careening into a spin.

  “Have the fighters got new technology for listening to us?” he asked, not expecting an answer. “Tech we don’t know about.”

  Kat said nothing. She looked pointedly at the ceiling rather than return his gaze.

  “Not that I’ve heard,” Konner said. He usually heard about every innovation, public and military. “But we’ve been gone for months. Between civilized worlds for months before that. I thought I was up to date when we jumped to this planet. Maybe I wasn’t.”

  Kat bit her cheeks and kept her mouth closed.

  “Okay, little sister,” Loki whispered. “I’m trusting your silence to be a ‘yes’ answer. Not a word out of anyone. They may be listening to echoes of our voices.” Loki abruptly changed course. He nosed upward. A sharp climb almost took him out of the green layer of microscopic plants that should have blinded the IMPs’ ship as well as the lander’s sensors. He’d never spent so long a time in the green and wondered how much damage the plants would do to the hull before they safely hit dirtside.

  The shots continued, barely missing. They must be following engine emissions.

  “Going back to surrender?” Kat asked hopefully.

  Kim grabbed the ubiquitous duct tape and started strapping it over her mouth.

  Loki put the lander into a dive and shook his head at Kim. No sense in maintaining silence.

  “Not on your life. I wouldn’t give Captain Leonard the satisfaction,” Loki whispered.

  “You may have severed communications, but we have a diplomatic attaché aboard. Her father will move galactic parliaments to get her back.”

  A funny feeling began jumping in Loki’s sternum. Kim moved to close Kat’s mouth with duct tape anyway. Loki shook his head “no.”

  “You haven’t been in orbit long enough for the GTE to triangulate your position,” Konner said, also on a whisper. He didn’t sound as happy as he should. “And I’m betting that when you found the jump point you did not have time to transmit the coordinates.”

  Kat just sat there smiling smugly.

  Damn.

  “The diplomatic attaché can’t be too important if she allowed the captain to divert onto a wild lumbird chase,” Kim said. He shrugged.

  Loki breathed a little easier. The last time he’d communicated with Cyndi she had said she’d enter the diplomatic corps before she married the sniveling flunky her father had selected for her. But Cyndi would never allow a mere commander captaining an IMP cruiser to divert her for long.

  Unless . . .

  “Whose idea was it for Jupiter to sit long enough to search for the jump point?” he asked Kat, looking directly into her eyes, praying that he’d be able to detect a lie.

  “Mine,” she replied. “I knew you had disappeared at those coordinates. I’ve been searching for you guys for a long time. Easy to convince my captain that IMP priorities required us to investigate outlaws and smugglers before shuttling a dippo around the galaxy.”

  “And you just happened to mention to your blonde dippo why you could not deliver her to her destination on time,” Loki said quietly. His gut wanted to sink to his feet.

  “Of course.” Kat did not contradict the dippo’s hair color. “As soon as I mentioned the name O’Hara, she agreed wholeheartedly that we must pursue you. In fact, Lucinda Baines even took a turn at the sensors.”

  “Shit.”

  Loki forgot evasive maneuvers. He forgot the king stone. He did remember to polarize the hull as he put the lander into a steep dive into t
he atmosphere. Like he should have done in the first place. Instead he had needed to show off for his long-lost sister and impress her with his piloting skills.

  Nothing would impress Kat. She was an O’Hara. Dirtside, he and his brothers had allies. The O’Haras were gods on the planet below. A few fighters would not have a chance there.

  But he left his heart and his enthusiasm aboard Jupiter.

  “Cyndi,” he muttered over and over. Lucinda Baines. “Cyndi” to friends and her lover. How could he justify stranding every last person aboard Jupiter dirtside when one of them was the love of his life. The reason he had endured Mum’s manipulations and obsessions just to get enough money to bribe his way back to citizenship.

  He’d never get that precious change in status on the official database.

  And he’d never earn Cyndi’s forgiveness for hijacking her transport and stranding her in the middle of nowhere.

  CHAPTER 30

  (WELCOME! Welcome, welcome,) Irythros chortled in Konner’s mind. The red-tipped dragon flew loops and twirls around the fighters and the lander.

  “You’re going to crash into that thing!” Kat choked.

  Konner’s respect for her courage rose a facet. She didn’t scream, though clearly she wanted to. She clenched her eyes closed and began murmuring some personal prayer. He couldn’t catch the words.

  “Irythros is smarter than we are,” Konner replied, almost chuckling at the sight of the red-tipped dragon. “He will avoid us.”

  (Of course I will. Only a yearling silver dragon just out of the nest has so little control over his wings that he would make contact with Rover,) the dragon crowed.

  The others in the lander did not react as if they heard Irythros. He must be transmitting on a tight beam to Konner only.

  Hello, my friend, Konner replied, also on a tight beam. This telepathy talent was growing stronger with practice. Or maybe proximity to the dragon helped him. Any news?

  (Trouble.) The joy vanished from the dragon’s voice.

  What kind of trouble? Alarm built in Konner. Fear of IMP troops capturing and molesting Dalleena crowded out coherent thought.