by Clay Kronke
He opened the port hatch, stepped down to the ground and walked around to the front of the ship. He found himself walking with slower, more deliberate movements as he got closer to the creature and looked up at it with a lame smile. He had never been this close to a conscious dragon without being encased in Vermithrax's protective armor, and he felt exposed and vulnerable. But if Gareth was trusting it, he would too, though he was fighting every instinct he had to run back inside the ship.
He heard a crunching sound and turned to see Gareth and Mira walking around the corner ahead, followed by—
"I'll be damned," Aris said, recognizing the tall frame and the bushy blonde hair. "It's you."
Petra's face brightened as she recognized Aris in return and stepped up in front of him. "Captain," she said.
Aris laughed. "You might just be the last person I expected to see in this place. How in the worlds did you get here?"
Petra shrugged. "Hitched a ride."
"With the religious nuts?" Aris frowned. "What possible reason could you have to come here with them?"
Petra looked embarrassed. "Would you believe I was looking for you?"
"How'd you know we'd be here? We didn't know we'd be here."
"Oh listen," Gareth explained, "she's managed to accidentally be one step ahead of us pretty much the entire time. She only ended up here because the Brotherhood didn't know the proper name of this world, so Petra thought they were taking her to our dragon planet."
"Wow," Aris said. "That was fortunate."
Petra cringed, looking at the ground. "Not completely."
Aris looked up at the wizard, who shook his head a fraction. "Oh, right," Aris said. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Petra said with a thin smile. "I've said my goodbyes."
"Of course," Aris nodded, then looked up at the dragon. "So, uh, how do we get her on board?"
"I'll get her," Petra said, turning to walk over to where the dragon was perched.
Aris shot a questioning look at Gareth, who shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure what's going on," Gareth said, "but Petra needs to stay with Lirwe – the dragon – until they're on board."
"You learned her name?" Aris said. "You haven't done that before."
"Actually, that was Petra," Gareth said. "She and the dragon are … linked? I don't know, but she's the reason the dragon is even here, so they're probably going to be sticking together." They looked over to where Petra was standing. The dragon had inclined its head and both looked like they might have been conversing, though there was no sound.
"Got it," Aris said. He turned to Mira. "If you'll get preflight started, we'll get them settled." Mira nodded and stepped up into the ship, Gareth went toward the back and made his way up into the hold, and Aris walked over where Petra was standing, looking up at the dragon.
He stepped up next to her. Her face was calm, but she looked deep in thought. He almost didn't want to interrupt. "Hey," he said. "You okay? Sounds like you've had a pretty rough couple of days."
She laughed and attempted a wry smile. "Have you ever gone through something," she started, "that changes the way you see … I don't know, yourself, your life, everything? I don't feel like I know who I am anymore." She turned to look at Aris. "That girl you met back on Boone? She was naïve, scared, ignorant. Dragons were monsters, wizards were myths, and life was normal." Her face contorted, and tears welled up in her eyes. "But all of that's been ripped out from under me and I feel like I'm a lifetime away from where I was."
Aris nodded. "You feel like you can never get back to where you were, when things were simpler, better, safer. You wonder if you've maybe lost part of yourself, a part you're afraid you'll never see again." He leaned in closer, and there was a note of authority in his voice that made Petra feel like he was speaking from experience. "But don't let yourself be tricked into thinking you've been damaged. Extreme circumstances don't always change who you are, but they do show you things you might not have known about yourself." He smiled warmly. "Don't worry, you're still the same person, just a truer version."
She looked at him for a long moment, a mix of emotions on her face. Finally, she took a deep breath. "I'll try to keep that in mind."
"Now," Aris said, looking up at the dragon that was still somehow waiting patiently. "You want to help me get her on board? I'm not used to dealing with one that isn't, well, unconscious."
Petra nodded. For the next twenty minutes, they reconfigured the hold to clear enough room, and with Petra's guidance, Lirwe crawled on board, curled up in the center of the space and appeared to go to sleep. Aris left Petra and Jor with Gareth to get situated, and went up to the cockpit to find Mira finishing her preflight check.
"Everyone settled?" she asked as Aris sat down.
He shrugged. "As much as possible," he said, engaging the engines and taking the ship up into the air. "The dragon barely fits in the hold, and Gareth is sitting with Petra in the commons."
"Good," she said. "The girl didn't have an easy time down in the caverns, she shouldn't be alone right now."
Aris nodded. "And he'll get her caught up with what's going on," he said. "How are you?"
"Anxious," she admitted. "We haven't heard from Frakes since before we left. We don't know what's going on with her investigation, and we don't know what she's doing with Voss." She turned to Aris and he could see a mix of anger, fear and determination. "I don't trust her. She seemed too focused on Kale to be objective about everything else around her."
"I wouldn't worry too much," Aris said, trying to be comforting but also diplomatic. "Frakes is opportunistic and headstrong, but she's not the bad guy. Besides, you know as well as anyone that Voss can take care of herself."
"That doesn't make this any easier," Mira said, her voice breaking for the first time. "If we don't get her back in one piece—"
"I know," Aris said, putting a hand on hers. "And you don't have to trust Frakes. Trust me. We'll get through this."
"I hope you're right," she said, taking a deep breath and trying to get back on task. "What's our next move?"
"Once we're out of the cluster, we contact Frakes, let her know what we've got," Aris said. "Hopefully she'll have an update for us as well."
"You don't sound optimistic."
"It's all I got at the moment," he said.
The intercom crackled. "Hey guys," Gareth's voice came across. "We're getting close to the orbiting dragons, Petra says keep the course straight and slow and we shouldn't have any trouble."
"How does she know?" Aris asked.
"She doesn't, but Lirwe does," Gareth said. "She will apparently clear the way for us."
Aris looked at Mira, who shrugged. He checked his monitor. They were approaching the layer of asteroid fragments surrounding the planet, but none of the dragons had yet moved from their positions. "That's incredibly helpful," Aris said. "Thank you … or, thank her."
"Will do," Gareth said, then signed off.
Aris looked at Mira. "Hey, I'll take it."
They sat in tense silence for the next few minutes as they passed through the dragon layer, watching the monitor, keeping engines primed for a quick exit, but ultimately not needing one. Aris exhaled as they increased speed, putting the planet behind them. A few minutes more and they started passing through the inner layers of the Voort cluster. As the way cleared and space between fragments increased, a signal alert popped up on the monitor, indicating an incoming transmission.
Aris frowned, opening the channel. "This is Cobalt, go ahead."
"Finally," Frakes' harried voice came across. "I've been trying to contact you for the last twenty minutes. We have a situation."
"Apologies Commander, we've been in a dead zone," Aris said. "What kind of situation?"
"Your sanctuary platform just appeared outside our defense perimeter."
Aris and Mira exchanged a look. "
Avernus?" Aris said. "I didn't think it could leave orbit, what's it doing on Pyriom?"
"I was hoping you could tell us," Frakes said. "They're not answering our hails, and energy readings indicate their shields are active."
Aris opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. He had accepted that someone inside the Sanctuary was involved, but he hadn't been convinced that it was its leadership.
"Cobalt?" Frakes prompted.
Aris shook his head. "Might want to get your 'I told you so' out of the way," he said. "I was hoping the Sanctuary wasn't behind this, but it looks like you were right."
"That's nice," Frakes said, her voice curt, "but I need help. We're scrambling fighters right now, but I don't know how well we can defend against a dragon attack."
"Get everything you can into the air," Aris said. "You may still have some time. Outside of slipstream they can't move very fast, so it'll hopefully take a bit for them to get into position. I'm going to assume the capital is the target."
"Most likely," Frakes agreed. "We've already issued an evac order, but I don't know how much good it'll do."
"Try to keep them busy," Aris said. "And keep an eye on their shields. They'll have to drop them before they can drop any dragons. We're on the way, but it'll be a while before we get there."
"Got it."
"What about Voss," Mira cut in. "Is she okay?"
There was a brief pause. "She didn't contact you?" Frakes sounded surprised. "We released her hours ago. She was heading down to Vorsk with her uncle last we saw."
Frakes sounded sincere, and Aris could see at least a little of Mira's tension ease, but he was anxious to end the call. "We'll check in with him, thank you," he said.
"Be quick. And bring reinforcements if you can. Frakes out."
Aris and Mira looked at each other for a long moment. What had been a slowly escalating series of attacks on progressively populated worlds had now seemingly reached its endgame. The Republic capital planet of Pyriom was the heart of the human population and the most populous world in their sector.
And it was, in many eyes, everything that was wrong with civilized space. The Republic had spread to every continent on the planet, assimilated and homogenized nearly every regional culture into its nation-state and, despite its wealth and scientific progress, had generally become the living symbol of overcrowded, capitalistic excess.
The fact that the Republic had spent the last several generations spreading to new, sparsely populated or uninhabited worlds had led to the theory that the rash of dragon attacks were a political act of terror against the Republic as an entity. But the claiming of uninhabited worlds for colonization also led to the parallel theory that the attacks were ecoterrorism against terraforming and colonization as a concept.
The attack on Aelden, however, cast doubt on both theories, as the elves had no political or cultural ties to the Republic, and it brought suspicion on the Dwarves, who had a long contentious history with the elven people. However, it was culturally out of character for both races, which just further muddled the entire situation.
Aris suspected the first theory was the more likely, with the inclusion of Aelden as merely a diversionary tactic, but regardless of whether the motive was political or ecological, the ends all seemed to point to the Republic homeworld. Aris had assumed that it was an eventuality, but he had thought it would be later rather than sooner.
Now they were out of time. All they could do was join the fight and hope they could somehow minimize the damage.
"What now?" Mira asked, her eyes wide.
Aris shook his head. "Now we have a race. By the time we get there, they may have already launched their attack, and we'll have…" his voice trailed off as a thought occurred to him. "We'll have very little window."
"To do what?" Mira asked. "We can't stop a dragon attack. Best we can hope to do is slow it down."
"Exactly," Aris said. "Pyriom has an impressive defense fleet. If we can run fighters as interference, it might buy enough time to disable the source of the signal."
"And you know how to do that?"
"No, I don't," he admitted. "But if we can get back before the fighting starts, we can get on board Avernus. Then we might have a chance." He could see the skepticism on Mira's face. "Look, I know it's a long shot, but it's the only idea I have."
"We're going to need help," she said.
Aris nodded. "I know. See if you can pull up anything on Avernus itself – schematics, shift details, system reports – anything that might narrow down where we need to target."
"And you?" she asked.
"I've got some favors to call in."
• • •
Petra sat in the commons at the table across from Gareth, who had joined her once he had gotten Jor secured in the guest bunk. "I don't really know where to start," she said, fidgeting absently with her hands.
"Hey," Gareth said, putting his hands on hers. "You're not being interrogated here. I just want to understand what it is you're trying to accomplish." She felt herself begin to relax at his touch, and she looked up, finding a calm, sympathetic expression on his face. She breathed a little easier. "I mean," he continued, "something drove you to come all this way on your own."
Petra cringed a bit. "That's the trick, isn't it?" Petra said. "Two days ago, I would've been able to explain to you exactly why I was doing this. Today, I'm wondering if I wasn't just being stupidly impulsive."
Gareth frowned but Petra continued. "Have you ever felt like you didn't fit in? I spent my life feeling that way. Doesn't help that I look different than everyone I know. I've always been tall, skinny, and pale, which is not a bad thing, but when you grow up being teased for it, it starts to get really exhausting, you develop an aversion to people. Which is probably why I got into art as a hobby, it was something I could do on my own. I wasn't competing with or against anyone but myself – and I got good at it! But I live in a mining town, so nobody sees it as a real skill, and everyone wonders when I'll get my head out of the clouds and start doing something actually productive with my life."
She took a breath, somewhat surprised all of that had tumbled out. She looked up at Gareth, who was still listening intently. "So I've always been kind of between two worlds," Petra continued. "I live in this place that's all about agriculture and mineral extraction and I don't have an interest in any of that, and my sister Viv – who's not really my sister, but she and her mother have been the only family I've ever known – keeps trying to get me to expand my skillsets, but nothing feels right."
Petra felt tears welling up, but she was compelled to continue, as much for Gareth's curiosity as for her own need to get it all out in the open. "I feel … displaced, like I'm not where I'm supposed to be, but I don't know how to find wherever that is. For a while, I thought that might be with my actual family, but I never had any connection. My father moved to Boone when I was an infant and remarried there after he met Viv's mother. But then he died when I was five and I grew up not knowing really anything about him. I had always just assumed he was a traveler from one of the other city-states, so I never asked about it, but it wasn't until you showed up that I found out he wasn't even from the same planet."
"I was wondering where I came into all this," Gareth said.
"My entire world got turned upside down," she continued. "All of a sudden, I could explain so many things – why I didn't look like anyone, why I didn't act like anyone, why my stepfamily didn't ever talk about my father, and why I always felt out of place – all of a sudden, it all made a lot more sense, and yet I still didn't know anything!" Petra's voice was rising as she spoke, her words coming out faster as she struggled to get through her thought before the breakdown she knew was coming.
"But you showed up," she continued, "and suddenly there was the potential for an answer. You looked enough like me that the mere possibility that you and my father might
be from the same place was more than I could pass up." Her voice broke and she paused, taking a breath. "All of a sudden, I needed to know." She looked up at Gareth, tears blurring her eyes. "And it overrode all of my common sense. My best friend tried to talk me out of it but was going to come with me anyway. He didn't get to, and that's probably for the best, because my other friend did, and he ended up getting killed." She stopped, looking down at her hands. "Because of me."
"You can't blame yourself," Gareth said.
Petra looked back up at him, her face hardening a bit. "I know," she said. "We avoided death probably five times today, it shouldn't be a surprise it caught up to one of us. And after everything I've gone through to get here, I should feel vindicated. I did find out where my father was from – where I'm from. But I don't feel any different." She shook her head. "It wasn't worth it. None of it was."
"I don't know if I'd be so quick to write it off," Gareth said. "Loss is difficult, it's destructive, and it often exposes parts of ourselves we'd rather not see." He shrugged. "You may not have gained that sense of belonging you set out to find but look at what you did. You filled in a critical piece of information that you'd been missing, one that, it sounds like, you wouldn't have even known where to start looking more than two days ago. And you went after it." He sat back in his chair. "Would you have done that a year ago? A week ago?"
Petra exhaled, shaking her head. "No," she said. "Honestly, if you'd told me even a week ago that this is where I'd end up, I'd think you were on something."
"Then don't be so hard on yourself," he said. "I mean, how many of us truly feel like we know where we belong? Almost all of our people are in a similar situation." He paused. "How much do you know about Acradia?"
Petra winced a bit. "Not really anything," she admitted.
Gareth's expression darkened. "Did you know we no longer have a home to go back to?"
"What do you mean?"
"Acradia is dying," Gareth said, his voice flat. "It's still there, technically, but it's come apart at the seams, and almost all of its people have already fled. The Acradian High Council has been trying to locate a suitable new world for our people to resettle." He allowed himself a sarcastic smile. "A sanctuary, if you will. But right now, most of our people are scattered. There are a few generation ships floating around with a large percent of our population, but a lot have simply settled on other worlds, wherever they could find space. I haven't really had a home since my family picked up and left almost twenty years ago. That's when the mass exodus started."