by Clay Kronke
Mira's stomach lurched, as it all clicked into place. The reason they hadn't encountered much resistance once onboard, the reason no one had taken pains to stop them, and the reason they were now trapped. Greyc believed in her cause so strongly, she was willing to sacrifice herself and everyone around her to achieve it.
Mira shook her head. "History won't remember you as a martyr," she said. "Your legacy won't be more than a common terrorist. Will there even be anyone to take up your cause after you're gone?"
"I'm surprised you more than anyone didn't see this coming," Greyc said. "Have you spent so much time among humans that you've become myopic to your own people? There is a revolution brewing beneath Aelden's shiny, sterile façade. I am merely opening the door."
"Don't pretend you know anything about my people," Mira spat. "You may have convinced a handful to your cause, but you can't be so delusional as to think you're somehow advancing the elven nation."
"That's where you're wrong," Greyc said, running fingers through her hair and tucking the loose strands behind the prominent points of her ears. "I am the elven nation."
Mira felt the blood drain from her face. "You…" she started, her brain grasping to make sense of it, but the words didn't come.
"Yes," Greyc nodded, her back straightening, her voice filling the room. "My name is Elya Greyc Ceregren, of the last Royal House, and my family's legacy will be fulfilled."
"Ceregren," Mira breathed, and there was clear awe in her voice, with an unexpected note of reverence underneath. She reached down and plucked the halfaxe from Voss's grip and passed it to her other hand, turning it around to point the opposite direction.
Voss looked up at her in shock. "Um, what are you doing, blondie?" she asked, her voice hushed. But Mira didn't respond, her gaze fixed on the smug expression widening across Greyc's face.
"She's realizing she can't fight this," Greyc said. "None of you can."
Mira stared at the elf in front of her, her world slowly tipping upside down. The royal lines had extinguished centuries ago, and in elven cultures, the last of the royal houses had faded into something more resembling mythology. "But you wanted this," Mira said, her voice barely above a whisper. "House Ceregren, Borold, Halderon, they ushered in the era we're living in now. They were revolutionaries. Heroes. Bringing all the houses together was one of the things they fought for, died for. How are you possibly carrying on their legacy?"
"History does paint a rather biased picture, doesn't it?" Greyc said with a sneer. "It also leaves out the bloody revolution that culminated in the fall of those three houses. The truth is more painful, and a bit less picturesque. We didn't build a new society out of our altruistic sense of brotherhood and unity. It was taken from us at gunpoint."
"Is that why you attacked Aelden?"
Greyc scoffed. "The Elven Nation was once the most powerful civilization in this part of the galaxy. We were revered for our strength, our knowledge, our advancement, and our purity. But when our nation buried our order of royalty to build an alliance of sovereign states, we became fractured. Weak." She spat the word. "Aelden is no longer the pinnacle of enlightenment it once was. It is a burrow of mixed culture, a subservient lapdog, a shadow of its former self. Aelden has forgotten what it once was, and the capital is where that degeneration started. They killed our legacy, they started the homogenization of our culture, and they allowed the humans to spread, helping perpetuate the blight." She smiled again, a hollow, cold smile. "Now they are all being cleansed, and the balance can be restored."
A rumble vibrated through the floor, followed by several concussive tremors. An alarm sounded, accompanied by a red light illuminating the wall panels in the room. Mira could see one of the system monitors with a similar red flashing alert next to the power levels indicator. Critical Failure was emblazoned across the screen in large, bold type. No one at any of the control stations moved, however, and Greyc continued to smile. "This is the end," she said. "And you, I'm afraid, must share it with us."
Mira felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Voss standing next to her. The dwarf had a calm, almost serene expression on her face, and she seemed to look into her very soul. "I'm right here, Mira," she said, her voice soft. Mira smiled a fraction, putting the hand not holding the halfaxe around Voss's shoulder.
Another series of explosions rumbled through the station, shaking the floor under them and feeling much closer. They were out of time.
"Voss is right," Mira said, her face hardening. "We're not dying today."
She squeezed the trigger on the halfaxe's pulse weapon, firing several successive shots behind them, the rounds ripping into the bay of windows and destroying the central section. The room exploded with noise as the viewpane supports and shattered glass were expelled outward in the decompression, while a completely new alarm added its shrill note to the din. Mira and Voss were standing close enough to the window that they were pulled bodily backward, and as Mira felt herself falling, she dropped the axe and pulled Voss to her, holding her tight as they were sucked out into space. The air was forced out of their lungs, the sudden drop in temperature caused their muscles to seize up, and as they drifted away from the orbital, they clung to each other, trying to hold on as long as possible before losing consciousness.
• • •
Petra shut her eyes as Lirwe dove down and cut across the top of a line of advancing dragons. She opened her jaw and expelled a long, continuous stream of plasma as she strafed across a dozen different creatures. Petra looked behind them as they swooped back up, watching as the group scattered as each one dipped and started flying erratically in turn. She turned back around to look ahead of them and her face fell.
The front line of dragons had reached their target and were diving down to start their attack runs. "We're not fast enough," she said. They had destroyed the control units on a third of the advancing creatures, but they were still too far behind the front line.
Lirwe let out a roar, probably the first one Petra had heard, and started driving hard for the front wave, rising above the mass and making for a point where she could dive and use gravity to speed her advance. As they reached the apex of their arc, Petra heard a sudden sound like distant thunder and looked around. Except for a couple of wispy layers in the distance, the sky was almost completely clear, and she looked up just in time to see a succession of bright flashes lighting up the inner ring of the orbital high above. Her breath caught in her throat. "I hope that means what I think it means," she said, turning back to the group of dragons they were now soaring over. For a long moment, nothing happened. The line at the front reached their targets and began their strafing runs, opening their jaws wide.
But instead of flame, a cacophony of loud barks and squeals started, and each creature began shaking their heads and flying erratically in turn, starting at the front in a wave that swept through the entire group until the ordered lines of creatures devolved into a roiling swarm.
Hold on tight, Lirwe said, and immediately nosed downward, diving into the middle of the mass and letting out an earsplitting shriek that Petra could feel in her teeth. As they passed through the center, the creatures turned and fell in line behind them. Lirwe swooped out of her dive and climbed back up into the sky, quickly followed by the bulk of the dragons in the mass. She circled back around, and as Petra watched, the rest of the dragons started flying in the same pattern, one by one, until the entire group had formed an unending ring of creatures in the sky. As Petra looked around at her circular cloud, her ruin of dragons, she started laughing, feeling a shuddering wave of elation, amazement and relief wash over her.
• • •
Mira gasped, opening her eyes to darkness. She shut them again as she became aware of the pounding headache behind her temples. "Ow."
"Welcome back," a voice said next to her.
She opened her eyes again, her vision swimming a bit as she tried to focus, and she
realized she was looking up at the dark ceiling of Vermithrax's containment hold. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and Voss's head leaned into view over her. Mira looked around. She was lying on the floor of the hold in the center of the space, and Voss sat cross-legged beside her. "We made it?" Mira said.
Voss nodded. "Thanks to you," she said, helping Mira to a sitting position and brushing the hair out of her face.
Mira smiled, cringing slightly. "Do you have the same headache I do?"
Voss laughed, leaning in close, their foreheads resting against each other, and Mira could see that there had been worry etched into the dwarf's face. "I'm glad you're not dead," Voss said, her voice soft. "I couldn't do this without you."
Mira leaned back. "Contemplating our mortality?" she said with a smirk. "That's not like you."
"Quiet," Voss said, putting her hand on Mira's cheek and pulling her in for a kiss. They sat there for a long moment, losing themselves, before parting.
"I love you too, shorty," Mira said, grinning.
Voss sat back, swatting at Mira's arm. "You surprised me back there, princess," she said. "That was a gutsy move, launching us into space. I would've pegged you for something a bit more, I don't know, diplomatic."
"We were kind of out of options, weren't we?" Mira said, then shrugged. "Seemed like something you would do."
Voss considered that. "I think I would've aimed the opposite direction, honestly. How'd you know we'd get picked up before we asphyxiated?"
Mira smiled. "Aris must've noticed our comms were jammed," she said. "I saw Vermithrax hovering close to the station when we were standing at the window."
A metal snapping sound caught their attention, and they turned to see Gareth putting his folded environment suit back in the storage locker off to the side. He turned and walked toward them. "I told him you were headed that way," he said as he stepped up to where they were sitting, offering a hand to help them up. "He figured you might try an escape hatch, but … blowing out the front of the bridge worked, too."
"Glad to see you made it, too, stick," Voss said, taking his hand and pulling herself to her feet. She then turned and offered her hand to Mira.
"I was less certain about it than you were," Gareth said as the three of them headed for the cockpit. "Dragons ate through the bottom of cryo while I was in there. Luckily, I was able to grab onto one and ride far enough out of jamming range to call for a lift."
They walked in and sat down at their stations. Aris was angling the ship down toward the surface, past the floating wreckage of disabled fighters. Mira turned to Aris. "What about Petra?" she asked.
"She's fine," Aris said. "She and Lirwe made it to the surface, and the dragons have been rounded up. They're waiting just outside the city. Frakes is recalling other carriers to transport them home, and to try to move Avernus up to a higher orbit." He frowned, looking over to the derelict orbital sitting dark in space, its entire center section a smoky haze of burnt support beams and gaping holes, surrounded by a slowly expanding cloud of debris. "Or at least position it out over the ocean before its orbit decays too much."
"That's why she brought Avernus," Mira said, her voice distant.
"What?" Aris said.
"In previous attacks, the dragons were always transported to their targets by carriers," she said, "and I wondered why she'd need the entire station here this time."
"I assumed it was numbers," Gareth said. "The last attacks were also smaller scale, a dozen creatures at most. But here, they unleashed hundreds."
Mira nodded. "I'm sure that was part of it, but while she was talking, she made it sound like this was always supposed to be the end of their quest. She knew she was going to die here."
"They were positioned directly over the capital," Aris added. "She probably had plans to scuttle the ship at the end."
"Burn the city to the ground, then drop an orbital on it?" Gareth said. "Overkill was not in this person's vocabulary."
As they descended toward the surface, a silence set over them, and for a long moment, no one said anything, taking in the scene around them as the city became more distinct ahead. Finally, Mira broke the silence. "What now?" she asked, her voice uncertain.
Aris shook his head, not looking away from the viewport. "I don't know," he said. "There will be inquiries, investigations. The Sanctuary is likely finished, the Kingsguard might have to go back to being an independent organization, and we may or may not be out of a job. But we move forward." He sighed, turning to her. "I've already spent too much time looking backward, wondering where my life should have gone, regretting that I didn't end up where I thought I would." He shrugged. "I can't do that anymore. That's not fair to you." He turned so he could see Gareth and Voss as well. "You three have helped shepherd me through this last phase of my life, and I don't think I fully realized that's what was happening. But whatever comes next, I can't imagine better partners to face it with."
loose ends
The sun beat fiercely down on the narrow gully that was Main Street, the wind coming off the Kur mountains whistling down the cobbled avenue. Viv stepped out from under the overhang in front of the outfitters and headed up to the Post and Mail work site with a new box of supplies. The remains of the building had been broken down over the last two days, and they were now beginning to build the framework for the new walls. Viv set the box down on the workbench where several people were cutting lengths for new frame sections. "Thanks," one of the guys said, digging into the box and pulling out a case of nails and tossing it up to another man sitting on a scaffold.
Viv smiled and continued out to the front of the building where two others were conferring over a set of plans spread out on a second workbench. "Here you go," she said, stepping up to the first and handing him an invoice for the supplies. He smiled, stuffing it into a pocket and turning back to the plans. She stepped back, watching absently for a moment as people moved across the various stages of the ongoing work.
Remembering where she had to go next, she turned and walked across the street and stepped up into the overhang in front of the shops at the town center, heading for the blacksmith. As she turned the corner, she nearly collided with someone coming up the walk. "I'm terribly sorry—" she started, but her words tumbled to a halt as she looked up at the tall figure, taking an involuntary step backward. She had barely registered the long gray cloak and the metallic staff when the hood pulled back revealing a thick mass of wavy cornsilk hair.
"Petra!" Viv leaped up, pulling her into a tight embrace. "You're okay," she breathed, holding on for another moment before releasing and stepping back. "Thank god, I've been worried sick. Rowan told me everything."
Petra looked at her sideways. "Why aren't you mad?" she asked.
Viv's eyes narrowed. "You think this is the first time you've disappeared on me?"
Petra cringed. "I'm sorry—"
"No," Viv interrupted. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept anything from you. You deserved to know who your father was. Did you…" she hesitated, seemingly unsure how to ask. "Did you find him?"
Petra smiled thinly, feeling a little bittersweet about the whole thing. She had come back, after crossing three different planets and having her entire world changed, with really only one concrete piece of information, and even though its implications were still spooling out in front of her, the entire impetus for her journey still lied in a nebulous future she had no idea if she would see. But she had also come back with a stronger sense of her own place in the universe and was beginning to make peace with the uncertainty that she had been living with for seemingly her entire life. Her father was still a mystery, but it was a mystery that didn't need to be solved right then.
She didn't know how to sum up the dozen different emotions that were playing across her head, so she simply nodded and said, "I found what I needed to find."
Viv regarded her for a long moment and seemed to realiz
e how much was going on under the surface. Her face brightened, and she smiled warmly, putting her hands on Petra's shoulders. "You can tell me all about it tonight," she said. "I want to hear everything. In the meantime," she turned Petra around and gestured toward the blacksmith workshop. "Come give me a hand. I could use your help."