When her sleep became crowded by unsettling dreams—dreams of smothering, and dark shapes reaching out to her through the blackness—she had known she had had to finally leave the army. And she was thankful when she had been picked up by the Border Guards, even if it wasn’t anywhere near as exciting. Most of the jobs were routinely tedious. But she was away from that place. Away from whatever power had a hold of that planet. Away from all its darkness.
At least, that’s what she thought.
When Lito heard the sound of the elevator approaching, she assumed it was another guard come to relieve her of her duties. She was glad. There was only so much marvelling to be done of Terevell’s surface, and she wanted to get something to eat and have a shower. But, when the elevator came to a clunking stop, and the doors snapped open, the man that emerged was the last person she had expected to see.
Lito frowned. “Section Chief Hanaway?”
She knew him of old. He probably didn’t remember her. They’d only crossed paths a handful of times when she was stationed on Genek. The army rarely mixed with the Patrol.
Hanaway tapped the side of his illuminated helmet as he stepped onto the gantry. Lito heard a hissing in her own as their comm links automatically merged.
“Border Guard Francesca Lito?” Hanaway had chosen a two-way frequency just between them.
“Yes.” What was he doing here?
“I’m sorry,” Hanaway said, and raised his fist.
Lito barely had enough time to react.
Wheeling to one side when she saw the pulse pistol in Hanaway’s hand, Lito still wasn’t quick enough to save herself from being clipped in the arm. She grunted in pain as she was flung backwards and landed against the balcony, every fibre in her body on fire. Such a pulse blast wasn’t deadly, but it was very painful as her muscles all the way down her left side constricted. Paralysis quickly took hold, twisting her left arm, crawling up her throat and left cheek. It had happened so fast her mind was still reeling as she slowly became aware of Hanaway approaching.
Lito managed to swivel her eyes upward. Hanaway slid his pulse pistol back into its holster.
“It’s nothing personal,” he said, as he looked her up and down. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Lito grunted. Splinters of pain danced up and down her body. She tried to unclench her left fist, but it was useless.
“By the time they recover your body, they’ll be no evidence of the pulse blast,” Hanaway was saying now as he looked down at his handiwork critically. Lito had the impression he was talking to himself rather than her. “It’ll just look like suicide. And your psyche profile will corroborate your state of mind.”
Lito turned her attention to her right side. Hanaway had clearly used a high setting on the pistol, just enough to render her immobile, though not enough to kill her. In normal circumstances it would be enough to paralyse her for up to six or seven minutes. The weapon of choice for the Ranger Patrol. But Lito had managed to avoid a direct hit, relying on the kind of reactive skills that had made her so successful in the Elite Special Services. Had she not been languishing as a Border Guard these last couple of years, she may have avoided being hit altogether.
“Alright,” Hanaway muttered. “Let’s get this over with.” He crouched down before Lito, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her toward him. Once she was propped against his shins, Hanaway slid his arms under hers and pulled her up, turning her so she was propped against the balcony. Now Lito understood what he meant to do. He was going to cut her adrift. Once she was hefted over the balcony rail and away from the artificial gravity, she’d be sucked into space.
“I wish there was a more humane way of doing this, of course,” Hanaway was muttering. “I won’t lie to you. It’ll be a painful end. But then, you—probably more than most—will appreciate why I have to get away from Genek IV.”
Hanaway slipped a hand against Lito’s helmet and found the oxygen filter. He wrenched at the tubes and suddenly a white, hissing gas began to fill the air.
He was leaving nothing to chance.
“Okay. You ready?”
Lito’s right hand twitched.
“Good. Now, you shouldn’t blame me. It was Gemini Sohn who put you in this position. Had she not been sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong, none of this would be happening.”
Hanaway bent down to grab Lito around the waist. Just as she managed to clench hold of the handle of her wolf blade strapped to her hip.
Lito had never been able to part with the weapon since she had left her command. While it sometimes brought back uncomfortable memories, it also reminded her of the veteran she was. Largely, she carried it as a useful tool. There was hardly any reason to rely on it otherwise. She was just glad that she’d kept it with her today, and that there was enough feeling in her right hand to curl her fingers around the hilt and drag it out of its sheath.
Hanaway began to heft Lito over the rail. For a second, she saw the brilliance of Terevell before her, and wondered if she even had the strength to lift her arm. But as Hanaway began to swing her over the edge of the balcony, Lito swung the knife around and jammed it with all her remaining strength into Hanaway’s neck.
Hanaway let out a howl of pain. He immediately let go of Lito and she slumped to the ground. Hanaway reeled backwards, clutching his shoulder, clattering into a rig of chattering data banks. Lito managed to turn her head. She could see Hanaway’s face lit brightly in the depths of his helmet. His expression was one of amazed horror.
“W-what did you do?” he croaked.
Lito took in a laboured breath. She anticipated she only had ten minutes of air before she began to suffocate. That would leave her only a few minutes as the paralysis wore off to make it back down to ground level.
“I was going to be…rich…” Hanaway put a gloved hand up to his neck. Blood was pouring down his suit. “I was going to get…” he heaved a breath, “…longevity treatment on Thirinal. I…I didn’t want to face the darkness. I didn’t want to face…them.”
A flicker of a frown passed Lito’s face. But she understood what Hanaway meant. At least, she had had dreams of what he meant
Then Hanaway dropped to his knees, his eyes rolling, before he finally collapsed, sprawling in a pool of his own blood.
THIRTY-ONE
1
“Blake? Blake! Can you hear me?”
It was Maddox on the comm link. After hearing Blake’s voice, Maddox had assumed radio silence was forfeit. The dragon hissed again, obviously picking up the tinny bleats with its sensitive hearing.
“I’m coming out,” Blake answered through gritted teeth.
“What do you mean, ‘coming out’? The dragon’s not in there?”
“Oh, it was in there alright. I’m bringing it with me.”
“Bringing it with you? What the hell do you…?”
But Blake interrupted. “Just get ready, okay? All of you.”
By the time Blake reached the entrance to the lair, his legs were like rubber. With every few feet he had managed to traverse, so the dragon had revealed more of itself, showing Blake just why the Red Matriarchs were said to be the apex of their species. It towered over him as the roof of the tunnel heightened, and as Blake finally moved out into the driving rain, it let out a snarl that sent a spurt of acidic saliva onto the ground just inches from his boots. The rocks sizzled, and steam rose, but Blake stood his ground. He turned his head very slightly once to his left, where he could just see Uldo and Maddox crouching behind the rocks, and then to his right where Cid was waiting in position.
“Is everyone ready?” Blake said into the comm.
“Where in the name of Bolg is it?” Uldo demanded. “And where’s your damn shield?”
“I had to turn it off.”
“Why?”
“Because of what I’ve got in my hands.”
“Dear God!” said Maddox. “Is that…an egg?”
But Blake hadn’t time for answers. Rather, his a
ttention was fixed on the entrance to the lair where the dragon’s huge shadow hesitated. It was narrowing its golden eyes. Blake could tell it was suspicious. Even so, its instinct to protect its young had drawn it to the limits of the cave. “Just wait until it’s in the open, okay?” Blake said. “Then Maddox, you try and swing around behind it while Uldo, you concentrate on its head. You don’t want it to retreat back into the cave.”
“Whatever you say.” Through the PTT comm link Blake heard a snap as Uldo thumbed off the Jag rifle’s safety.
Blake started backwards again.
At first, the dragon didn’t follow. As Blake made his way deeper into the killing zone, a brief glance over his shoulder to make sure he kept his feet, the beast stayed back in the relative safety of the darkness. Its golden eyes glowered through the rain, swivelling left to right and in the general direction of where Blake had acknowledged the rest of the party. It was obvious it knew that the thief that had come into its lair and stolen its egg was not alone. The question was, was its maternal instinct strong enough to override its own personal safety? How much would it sacrifice for its young?
“Where is it then?” Uldo demanded. By now Blake had come to a halt adjacent to the beacon. Still, the dragon lingered. Uldo and Maddox crouched behind their rocks in readiness, and Cid had thrown the net launcher onto his shoulder, his one glowing eye peering down the crosshairs.
Blake crouched. He propped the egg against the beacon, while keeping his lance trained upon it. A rumble of a growl reverberated through the canyon and Blake finally saw both Uldo and Maddox straighten in alarm.
“By the gods, that sounds big,” said Uldo under his breath.
“Why won’t it come out?” said Maddox.
“Because it knows what’s out here waiting,” said Blake.
“Then what do we do?” Uldo demanded.
Keeping the lance trained on the egg, Blake pushed to his feet and eased the tip of the crackling, smoking blade even closer to the outer shell so that black sparks slithered across its surface. This elicited a deep, warning snarl from the dragon, and Blake even smiled. “Yeah,” he murmured, even though he doubted the monster understood him. “You took from me everything I’ve ever loved.” He inched the lance even closer to the egg. The blade was almost touching the encrusted shell. The sunstones blazed. “And now I’m going to do the same to you.”
Blake gripped the lance harder in his hands. All it would take was a single, well-aimed swipe to crack the eggshell wide, open, spilling the unformed foetus onto the ground. Except, as he pulled the lance away from the egg’s hard and stony surface, that’s when Rygorath took its chance.
2
It was almost upon Blake before he could slash down with the aethyne lance. When the monster landed, the concussion against the ground was such that it almost knocked Blake from his feet. The egg dropped on its side and rolled. Blake staggered to regain his feet but knew at once there was no chance to damage it now. Not since the dragon was already heaving in a deep breath and forcing Blake to clench his hand to activate his shield, and just in time. The dragon threw open its jaws and vomited a great stream of liquid fire. Blake instantly dropped to one knee behind the shimmering oval light of protection, retracting his lance behind it, as a torrent of flame, hot enough to melt the rocks at his feet, enveloped the air around him.
Blake let out a shouted curse as a searing pocket of blue-white fire engulfed him, his shield alarms screaming at him, the number in the corner indicating its protective effectiveness, dropping rapidly.
“Shield at eighty percent…” the shield’s anodyne voice murmured calmly in his ear. “Shield at seventy percent…Shield at sixty…”
“God damn it!” Blake screamed through the crackling comm. “What the hell are you waiting for?”
And just as rapidly as the dragon had thrown down its cascade of fire, a blaze of gunfire began to pepper the dragon’s head and neck, sparking off its tough, stone-like hide.
At once, the dragon swept its head around and the flame followed in a great blazing arc of heat, spewing toward where the gunfire was coming from. By now, though, the flames were less furious as the dragon turned its head and were almost spent entirely by the time it swivelled to meet the onslaught of gunfire from Maddox and Uldo. Not that this made the monster any less of a threat. For as it shrugged at the sparks that danced across hide, it was already unfurling its huge wings, no doubt in readiness to launch itself into the air.
“Cid!” Blake emerged from behind his shield, barely able to see through the curtain of steam still hanging in the air. “Put the net down! Do it now! Before it gets off the ground!”
The dragon’s wings were almost fully extended. Blue flames dissipated from its jaws while it let out an angry roar, and Blake could see its powerful back legs crouching, its long, wicked talons pulling its body to ground.
“Now, Cid! Now!”
Cid climbed to his full height, balancing the launcher on his shoulder. The golem tilted his head to peer down the crosshairs, hesitating a second to make sure his aim was true, and just as the dragon gave a great flap of its wings scattering the rain and fog around it, Cid fired.
The net swept from the launcher, unfurling to its full breadth, counterweights spinning the mesh rapidly as it fell atop the dragon. Instantly, carbon fibre razor hooks latched onto the creature’s scales, snapping into place, tangling up the dragon’s wings. And even as it left the ground and tried to heave itself up and away from the continual automatic hail of fire that was being laid down by Uldo and Maddox, the dragon veered. With one of its wings pinned to its side, all the creature could do was let out a bellow of rage and surprise as it pivoted, swinging back down to earth and toward where Cid was lifting his metal head to appraise his handiwork. The golem barely had time to leap out of the way, flinging the net launcher aside as Rygorath smashed into the boulders upon which Cid had been perched. Then the creature rolled back, howling as it fell to the ground, trying desperately to right itself.
Blake swept his shield aside and stared for a moment as he saw the dragon try to roll on its side. A small flutter of grim satisfaction took hold of him. The net had worked. He hadn’t been entirely certain it would once he had seen the size of the beast. And what was even better, snagged as it was, Blake knew the razor netting was designed to tighten the more desperately the dragon tried to free itself, thereby affording him his best and perhaps only opportunity of killing it.
“Hold your fire!” he yelled over the comm, flapping a hand at Uldo and Maddox as they emerged from their hiding places. Blake retracted his shield and started to run to where the dragon was trying to right itself. “And keep back! I’m going in!”
3
Blake clasped the lance in both of his hands as the dragon lifted its head, its golden eyes burning through the rain. There wouldn’t be much time to cross the distance, he realised, so strafing to one side, he skipped up the edge of a boulder to give him leverage and used the momentum to throw himself forward. And just in time. The dragon swung around, heaving in another breath, but too late. Blake was already driving the lance down with all his weight and strength and felt the cold iron blade scythe through rock-like skin and deeper into flesh above the dragon’s jaw.
The dragon howled and swung away in agony and Blake was carried with it, still clinging to the lance, aware of the first hot burst of blood gushing out through the wound and over his arms, almost forcing him to lose his grip. He managed to hold on though as the lance slid free, and he dropped back to the ground again, rolling across the hard, wet ground just as the dragon released a great eruption of fire into the air.
“Christ!” Blake shouted into the comm, as he scrambled out the way. Fire was raining down and Blake had to engage his shield again, throwing it over his head. “Okay! Keep it pinned back! Fire!”
He needed to drag the dragon’s eye away from him before it dropped its head and directed that fire toward him. And while he had he had delivered a heavy blow to the monster (
there was a slick of black blood oozing down its neck and shoulder) he also knew that now was the most dangerous time of all. A wounded dragon would lash out arbitrarily, and with greater ferocity, and such rage was difficult to contain.
4
There came another bombardment from Uldo and Maddox, and a burst of rapid fire from Cid’s Starfall blasters as the dragon finally lowered her jaws. The heat of its breath had melted most of the netting around it giving it enough room to shake its neck and shoulders free. But even as it tried to slither out from the netting’s clinging embrace, it flinched under the continual assault that flashed off its head and shoulders. Cid had even crossed into the centre of the canyon by now and was walking straight toward the dragon. He raised his wrists, from which two ground-to-air rockets launched, hitting the dragon just below the wing and exploding in a great concussion of smoke and fire. The dragon roared. It looked as though it had been hurt. Although as Blake readied his lance again, he saw the danger Cid was in. Blake widened his eyes in sudden realisation. The golem was standing unprotected.
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