Alone in the simulation room without his computer-generated opponent, Drakkar Skinner spoke into the badge on his harness: “We’re here?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the voice from the badge. “We’re on course and on schedule, headed directly for Lernaea. And we’ve heard from Holman and Goss. The operation at the Orochi Cascade is on schedule as well. Soon everything will be in place for you.”
Skinner smiled, the kind of smile that a man usually reserves for a partner beckoning him to bed. His eyes narrowed while his inner mind opened wide with the fulfillment of a desire long deferred which would soon be his. “Excellent,” he said in a voice as coarse as the skin of the imaginary rhinoceros alien that he had flailed and pummeled in the simulation. “I’m on my way to my quarters now. Don’t disturb me until we reach Lernaea unless there are some unforeseen circumstances.”
“Yes, sir,” said the voice from the badge. “Bridge out.”
Slowly, Drakkar Skinner unlocked the parts of the flying harness from his chest and shoulders, making the wings fold up tight and the tail retract into the power unit on the back. He pulled the device from him and stood for a moment, looking about the simulation room and savoring the victory he had just won there against an adversary made of algorithms, photons, force fields, and pixels.
It would not be long now before the dream of a lifetime became reality and Skinner actually was a weredragon and not a mechanically and virtually enhanced simulation of one. And once he was the being that he had for so long yearned to be, the galaxy would open itself to him as it had never done before, not even with all his wealth and power and minions and bedmates.
It would open itself to him—because he would bring all of his new dragonly power, and the power of his mutated soldiers, to bear in forcing it open. In Earth’s old myths, dragons stood guard over treasures. In Skinner’s reality, he would be the dragon who took whatever treasures he desired at will from whatever planet harbored them. The authorities and defenders of all those planets would rise up against him, set themselves to opposing him. There would be battle. There would be destruction.
And Drakkar Skinner laughed, a low and lusting laugh. He was going to enjoy it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The cargo ship sat on the banks of the Orochi River. It was a long, dull-grey industrial craft, looking every bit out of place with the churning river rapids lying on one side of it and the forest on the other side, and the wide, thundering whiteness of the Orochi Cascade looming more than a thousand meters on the jagged cliff upstream. People in plain clothes, a few of them in half-dragon forms, milled about, guiding tank units out of the ship’s open hold.
The units were fitted with antigrav motors that enabled them to float off the ground, or over the surface of the water. There were also smaller collector units, also fitted with antigravs, designed to drop beneath the surface of the river and fill themselves with water to be transferred into the tanks. The operation was getting underway quickly.
The appropriate bribes had been paid to the appropriate people to ensure that the cargo ship’s flight plan was not filed. Soon the ship would take off and no one, including the Knights of Lacerta and the Dragon Corps, would be any the wiser. Drakkar Skinner would have his prize, and those who served him today would be rewarded, first with power, then with places at the top of his empire.
Burl Holman and Enzo Goss were alone on the bridge, having paused in their preparations to supervise the collection when Goss came to the mob lieutenant to report a piece of news. Holman sat in the captain’s seat, listening to Goss, who faced him with a look of dead certainty.
“You’re sure about this?” Holman frowned, rubbing his chin.
“I checked,” said Goss. “It’s for real.”
“Explain this to me again,” Holman said. “From the beginning.”
“All right,” said Goss. “There’s this Lacertan I know: Liona Vess. She used to be with that Prince Tynan Moran, the one who’s testing that fertility drug. She’s in the dungeon now for trying to have Moran’s lover sold on the Chithisian flesh market. When they were first together, Moran didn’t know the other circles she moved in until she got caught. She used to tell me about times she’d had with Moran and his friends, who she pretended to like, from before Moran found out about her. Not all of Moran’s friends were from his society. For a while Moran got a taste of a ‘regular dragon’s’ life by joining the Corps. He was a full member and he didn’t take any special privileges. He insisted on being just another Squire. And he was close with a couple of them, a Squire Elaina Hood and a Squire Brogan Holt. She used to show me scans of Moran and these two Squires, going out together, drinking together, flying together…”
“Right, I get the point, the three of them were tight,” Holman interjected.
“They were tight,” Goss continued, “and I kept the scans that Liona shared with me. And last night, when we were recruiting at the spaceport, I got a feeling about one of those two new recruits. I had a feeling I’d seen him before somewhere; I just couldn’t place him—’til I thought about how Liona would have loved watching the recruitment, and I had a hunch. So I looked up her scans of herself and her ex and his friends—and that’s when I saw it. I’ll show you.” He tapped on his cuff and commanded, “Display Vess-Moran scan series.”
Like a congregation of multicolored fireflies, little holograms blossomed into the air from Goss’s holostorage unit. They hung there between him and Holman, and Goss further commanded, “Select,” and touched his fingertip to a few of them. The ones he touched lit up brighter than the others, and the others disappeared, leaving only five of them. The remaining scans enlarged, and Goss said, “Rotate 180 horizontally.” The floating holograms swiveled around to present their “front” sides to Holman. The mob lieutenant looked carefully.
There was a picture of Tynan Moran in uniform with two other Squires, a male and a female. There was another of Moran and the two of them by a fire pit, and another of the three of them in an elegant-looking place that Holman took to be Moran’s home. One scan showed the trio at the beach with Liona Vess, and another was just Tynan and the other male Squire. Each time Holman’s face rested on that one male Squire, the one who was not a Prince in Squire’s armor, Holman’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. The senior mobster said, “I just talked to him this morning. He’d been screwing the one who came to the recruitment with him, the human woman. They were together this morning when I gave them their orders. This is him.”
“That’s him,” Goss confirmed. “Except he isn’t any ‘Roman Carnes’ with any record of fraud and extortion and assaulting a Squire. He is a Squire. That is Squire Brogan Holt. He’s not a con. He’s regular Corps.”
Holman shook his head and let out a hot, heavy breath almost like the snort of a bull. “Well, that other woman from last night, this isn’t her in the scans. The woman Holt was with, Darice Greene, she’s not Lacertan, so she’s definitely not Corps. She must be wearing somebody’s badge if she’s working with him, but she’s not a Squire and not a Knight.”
“She’s dangerous, though. They both are.”
Holman straightened up in his seat while Goss tapped his cuff and made the holograms wink out. “They’re not the only ones,” he said.
“So they’re gonna be here this morning, right?”
“They’re due any minute,” replied Holman. “They were ordered to get themselves inside the operation and they’ve done it; they must be part of some sting. Too bad we’ll have to pull their stingers for them.”
“What have you got in mind to do?” asked Goss.
Holman considered his options. “We could just snuff them, but…remember the way the two of them fought last night? Maybe there’s another use for them.”
“Like what?”
“Use your imagination,” Holman replied. “As soon as we get the tanks to Mr. Skinner, he’s not going to want to wait around. He’ll want a drink and a bath first thing. He’ll want to try out what it’ll do for him�
�”
Goss’s dark features lit up with a twisted and perverse delight. “Oh…” He laughed, a sick and sinister little laugh. “You’re right.”
“Think how touched the boss will be,” Holman pointed out, “if we bring him another little present along with his Draconite water.”
“Not to mention how generous Mr. Skinner can be when he’s feeling grateful.”
“Really generous. It makes him happy to give a reward when someone does him a little something extra. What we have here…this is ‘extra.’”
“So how are we doing this?” Goss asked.
“Before Squire Brogan and his friend, whoever she’s working for, get here, this is what we’ll do…”
_______________
The Corps issued Brogan and Gabrielle special weapons for their rendezvous with Holman and his people, for they certainly could not have gone into a nest of interplanetary criminals with standard weaponry, especially an official Lacertan powerblade. It would have raised too many red flags. So each of them was issued a power stick: a slimmer, sleeker version of a powerblade not commonly used by Corps or Knight personnel. Brogan slipped his power stick into a pouch on the leg of his skin suit bottom; Gabrielle put hers in a deep pocket on the leg of her fatigues. Neither of them was necessarily expecting trouble—yet. But precautions were always good for the trouble that one was not expecting.
As ordered, when their nondescript hovercar drew near the Orochi Cascade, Brogan and Gabrielle put out a comm link to their new “boss.” The coordinates for landing were relayed to them on a scrambled channel and they headed for a spot on a plateau looking out at one of the most awesome waterfalls in known space. At the landing place, a bald spot on the plateau where the trees parted, they found a place to touch down amid other ordinary-looking craft, and climbed out.
They made the hike down a trail to the appointed spot by the river, and there they found the place where the cargo ship waited with the tank units floating over the ground of the riverbank and the collector units floating out over the water. They recognized many of the faces of the people standing by the shore from last night’s recruitment—including the two men who greeted “Carnes” and “Greene” upon their arrival.
“It’ll be a simple process,” Holman told them. “You’ll be assigned a collector pod, a tank, and a control unit. You’ll be responsible for getting the pod out into the water, letting it fill itself up, and getting it back up here to empty into the tank. You’ll repeat the process until the tank is filled to capacity, which the control unit will tell you, then you’ll get the tank into the cargo hold of the ship. Easy, right?”
“Easy,” Brogan agreed.
“Straight and simple,” Gabrielle said.
“Good,” said Holman. “Then let’s get to work.” He glanced over his shoulder at his associate. “Enzo, you want to give them their control unit?”
Goss drew a handheld device from a pocket on his shirt. “Which one of you wants to take this?” he asked.
“I’ll direct,” said Gabrielle. “Carnes can collect.”
“I’m fine with that,” said Brogan.
“Here you go,” Goss said, stepping towards Gabrielle with the device. Gabrielle was just about to reach for it and take it from his hand, when Holman held up his own hand.
“Wait a minute,” Holman interrupted.
Goss stopped and the eyes of his associate and the two recruits all turned his way.
“Something wrong?” Brogan asked.
“It’s stupid of me,” Holman replied. “I always pay attention to details. I don’t ordinarily miss things like this. There is just one detail about this job that I didn’t bring up. We should cover it and make sure we’re all of the same mind about it before you get started.”
“What’s that?” Brogan wondered.
“Enzo, show them,” Holman directed.
At the higher-ranking mobster’s bidding, Goss pocketed the control unit again, then touched his cuff, commanding, “Display selections from Vess-Moran scans.”
Though he was a reptile inside, the hairs on the back of Brogan’s neck stood up at the mention of the names Vess and Moran from one of the criminals that they had been sent to infiltrate. Not wanting to show any sign of alarm, he imagined how a knot of sudden heat must be twisting up inside Gabrielle at this moment. His hands began to itch.
Into the air around Enzo Goss blossomed five holograms, the five that he had chosen for Holman’s scrutiny. Brogan and Gabrielle did not need to see them close up to tell who was in them, or to see the colors of Corps armor skins on the figures that they showed.
“If you really assaulted one of your fellow Squires,” said Holman, “you must have faced some very stiff discipline—Squire Brogan.”
Now Brogan did glance over at Gabrielle as he took a step back from Holman and Goss. He saw Gabrielle standing her ground—but taking an anxious breath through her nose. Brogan kept one hand near the pouch containing his power stick, but his first impulse was to talk. Might this situation be salvaged with words? It was a desperate gambit, but one he was ready to try.
“Now, Holman,” said Brogan, “you know how easy it is to fake a scan. People doctor images all the time. Kids do it. Everybody does it.”
Holman nodded in a way that suggested how unconvinced he was. “That’s true. You’re right. They do,” he replied.
Enzo tapped his cuff again and made the scans disappear. “The thing is, no one doctored my memory. And I remembered my old friend Liona Vess telling me about how her ex-lover, Tynan Moran, was in the Corps and had close friends who were Squires.”
Fixing a steely gaze on Gabrielle, Holman asked, “And you, ‘Darice,’ who is it that I really have the pleasure of welcoming to our little operation this morning? Who really sent you to us last night?”
Gabrielle thought quickly and grasped onto the best, simplest available explanation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She indicated Brogan: “I just met Roman when I came to Lacerta looking for a new gig. I didn’t have any idea he was with the Corps. I would never have—”
“Never have gone to bed with him if you knew he was a spy?” Holman cut her off, mocking. “It would seem to me that the most natural lay for one spy is another. My guess is, you must be with Interstar Intelligence—or maybe the IBI. Now which is it? Whose agent do you happen to be, ‘Darice’?” The way he said her assumed name carried a strong and unmistakable tone of menace.
The only thing more menacing than Holman’s tone was the look on his face, and on that of Goss. And what was happening all around them now. The other members of the water collection team had stopped what they were doing and were looking right at Gabrielle and Brogan. No one was smiling.
Growing edgy now, Gabrielle took on Brogan’s tactic as a last resort. “Listen, I know a few things about how scans are doctored. We can sit down, figure this out—”
Holman cut her off again. “We do not have time to sit down and figure anything out. We’re on a strict schedule. Mr. Skinner expects things when he expects them, and we’re already losing time dealing with bogus recruits who were sent to spy on us and set us up for some kind of interplanetary bust. So I wish you would stop insulting us and just tell us who you really are.”
“And then what?” Gabrielle asked, her muscles tightening.
Holman’s only response was to draw a pulse pistol from the holster on his belt. At his side, Goss did the same. And more ominously, everyone else up and down the riverbank produced a weapon as well. Everywhere Gabrielle and Brogan now looked, there was someone with a pistol or a power stick trained on them.
“You actually will get to live. For the time being,” Holman answered.
Brogan had heard enough. Talking was over. He called upon his dragon form. His head and neck shifted; his skin turned to scales, his hands to talons. His wings and tail erupted from the slits in the back of his skin suit. In the same instant, he pulled his power stick and activated it, extruding a rod of glowing energy from th
e device. Gabrielle did likewise with her weapon, scanning the scene and taking in how ridiculously outnumbered they were.
“Drop those,” said Holman, his pistol aimed at Gabrielle while Goss pointed his at Brogan. “It’s no good.”
In response, Brogan opened his dragon jaws wide and let loose with the most blood-curdling, screaming dragon roar that he could pour from his lungs. The sound ripped its way up and down the riverbank, cutting into everyone present, shocking not only Holman and Goss and the other thugs but also Gabrielle. That instant of shock was long enough for Brogan to move. He made a dive to one side and swept Gabrielle from her feet and into the crook of his strong and scaly dragon arm. Then, with the strongest beats of his wings and the strongest thrash of his tail, he took off, straight up into the air, over the heads of the gathered minions of Drakkar Skinner.
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