Dragon Redemption

by Valerie Emerson

  “Dante?” Jack stared at him. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying there’s a space between the physical plane and the Astral. I can access it for brief periods, but we’ll need to move fast. Really fast.”

  Jack looked thoughtful in the pale light of his screen. “Will it work for Bava?”

  “I like our odds better than fighting our way off this ship. What do you think?” Dante looked up at Bava. “You want to give it a shot?”

  “Yeti do not fear human magic.”

  Something heavy slammed against the door. Voices shouted from the other side.

  “Okay. Stay close to me. Night Thorn, we’re coming to you.”

  “My engines are warm, as always.”

  Dante closed his eyes and reached out for his dragon. Within seconds, his essence wrapped around Dante. Together, they extended into the Astral plane—Jack with his hand and mind, the dragon with his spirit—and the barrier between worlds opened. Green and violet tendrils curled up and away from its edges like smoke.

  “Stay close to Bava,” Dante told Jack. “I don’t know how a non-Mystic will handle this.”

  “Handle what?” Bava squinted at the wall.

  “Here.”

  Jack took Bava’s arm and stepped through the hole in the dimensions, drawing Bava’s arm after. The Yeti reared back when his arm vanished into the portal, dragging Jack back out.

  “What is this?” Bava demanded.

  “Human magic,” Dante said. “Sounds like you’ll need to keep your eyes closed, Bava. Jack, can you lead him? I’m not going to last forever.”

  The Yeti squinted at the hole and mist-like tendrils. “You cannot fool Bava, friend of Jack. This is not human magic.”

  Jack took a firm grip on the Yeti’s hand. “It doesn’t matter what kind of magic it is, as long as it gets us back to the ship, right? So close your eyes and trust me, friend. This’ll be over in no time.”

  Bava growled beneath his breath, then nodded and allowed Jack to lead him through. Dante followed after, closing the portal behind him.

  Jack waited while holding on to the big Yeti’s arm. They stood on solid green and violet light, floating in the heart of an aurora. Dante led the way, following his dragon’s urgings and his own senses to a second rift, this one on the ground.

  Their furry companion, eyes shut tight, made a chuffing noise—the first complaint they had heard from him. Dante peered back. The big guy was wilting. He was working his mouth like a bad taste had gotten in there and nested between his teeth.

  Dante took the Yeti’s other arm, helping Jack guide him. A startled whumph escaped Bava’s mouth when they went through the gap, yet he made no sudden movements. He simply let go and flew through the opening.

  Jack followed, then Dante. Vertigo swept through him as he fell through the rift in space, only to find himself standing on a surface his center of balance insisted was a wall. He squeezed his eyes shut as the portal closed behind him, then sank to the ground.

  “I can’t believe we made it,” Jack said, though his voice sounded far away.

  Bava grumbled something about food, but even with the translation, it sounded so distant Dante strained to hear. It was enough to know they’d escaped. He had to leave the rest to his friends—at least for now.

  Dante closed his eyes and drifted.

  Nine

  Coraolis sat in the pilot’s chair. He was surrounded by screens filled with visuals and readouts. Red Star had changed her displays to read out in English, yet he still had a hard time following.

  Some info the Pirr vessel gleaned was beyond anything a run-of-the-mill Earth Fleet vessel could detect. It pulled measurements from the wormhole in front of the ship that had no translation in any Earth language, and those numbers constantly fluxed.

  He nudged one of the holographic screens. “Is this normal? Should the numbers be bouncing around like this?”

  “No.” Star brought up a holographic of the wormhole. The opening’s elliptical outer edge rotated in place with plumes of white energy spinning off of it much like a windmill’s arms. In short, ordinary activity. The next part looked off. The shape of the wormhole tunnel fluctuated with every surge of energy passing from one end to the other. Some sections expanded, others contracted so narrow Cor doubted even Star could pass through. Most alarming, the edges of the tunnel partially unraveled in sections and emitted energy into non-space outside of the passage.

  “This is worse than the last one, isn’t it?” Julia leaned over Cor’s shoulder for a better look.

  “Much worse,” Red Star agreed. “I cannot recommend this course.”

  Coraolis stared at the unraveling parts of the tunnel. He couldn’t recall in any of his studies as either student or instructor a single description about wormholes coming apart or collapsing. “I’ve never heard of anything like this. This is…”

  “This is the only way forward,” Julia said, squeezing his shoulder. “At full-phase velocity, we’re, what? Six weeks away from another jump point? You said that, didn’t you, Star?”

  “Five weeks, five days, and two-point-four hours.”

  “Right,” she said softly. Cor looked up at her; she, down at him. They’d shared so much since meeting one another, and he told her in a glance he was with her, whatever she decided. Her hand still laid on his shoulder. He reached up and gave it a squeeze.

  Julia smiled at Coraolis. “The risk is worth the reward. We cannot lose the time,” she said.

  Cor reached out and shifted the diagram. He considered one of the thinnest bottlenecks and, as he watched, it grew wider as another section contracted.

  Julia blew out a long and slow breath. “I can sense it. Can you feel it, Cor? There’s something powerful on the other end of this wormhole.”

  He nodded slowly. He did feel something. A great power awaited…if they were brazen enough to chance the fluxing, remote wormhole. No other space traffic lingered here. They’d jumped radically from point-to-point, leapfrogging through space time. This was the closest a human had ever been to the heart of the galaxy. Red Star informed them the Pirr never ventured this close to the center, either…out of fear.

  The ship sighed—a human expression she’d picked up in the last few weeks—and shifted her displays to show the wormhole from different angles, calculations scrolling in Pirric glyphs. “Mathematically, odds increase of a wormhole’s vacillating structure the closer it is to the galactic core.” The ship spoke slowly, as if reluctant to share this information. “Wormholes are dangerous to navigate at the best of times, requiring advanced computation and navigation skill. Every variable adds more risk. There are…many variables to consider here.”

  Julia began to pace the small room; Coraolis stayed in his seat and watched her. “But if we fail, the Pirr end up with dozens of Evolved or more, far outnumbering us. Assuming we get back in time.” She looked at Coraolis. “Cor?”

  “You already know I’m with you.” He looked at the screens and waved his hand to bring them closer. “And I trust you, Star. Whether we can do this or not, you’re the ship I want to be in.”

  “Flattery is the way to a woman’s heart. I take it you must know the adage.” Red Star sighed again, sounding very human. “I agreed to help you in whatever endeavor you undertook. If you wish to go to the underworld, who am I to say otherwise? I am bound to take you there.”

  “You’ve been studying Earth mythology.” Coraolis stood. “Do what you can to avoid that; the whole ‘underworld’ thing, not the studying.” He reached for Julia’s hand. “Let’s strap in.”

  Julia took his hand and smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.” She looked confident. Ready as ever.

  But Cor knew her better than anyone. He saw the little tics that betrayed her anxiety. He would be at her side when they went through, whether they were atomized, pulled apart, or flung alive into non-space-time, he’d never let Julia go. He was with her until the end.

  Journeying through most wormholes, surges of e
nergy tend to make stomachs flip, but rarely anything more serious. Sometimes rookies became ill, like seasickness, but passage was less turbulent than entering a planet’s atmosphere. Coraolis likened it to the waterslides he was fond of as a child. The last wormhole they’d passed through was like that at first, then it ended in some dodgy rapids and a shuddering return to space-time.

  This wormhole was a cocktail shaker. Red Star calculated and course-corrected in degrees of nanoseconds. Nada had joined Coraolis and Julia before they entered, strapping in and affirming her agreement they were doing the right thing.

  Presently, Nada shouted obscenities while clinging to her seat. She opened her eyes and saw Julia and Cor across from her and could tell in the flickering variance of hues and intermittent brightness and blackness, their faces were drained of all color.

  Red Star periodically announced they were on course. This time she asked, “How is everyone doing? The CO2 levels appear to be spiking in the gallery.”

  “That’s just because we’re all hyperventilating back here,” Nada shouted. “But, otherwise, we’re all doing great! Nothing to worry about!”

  She looked across and saw Coraolis gripping Julia’s hand. His lifeline. And Julia squeezed back just as hard. Nada looked at the empty seat next to her and wished someone was there to hold hands with. At that moment, anyone would do.

  As suddenly as it began, it stopped.

  Coraolis groaned. His insides felt like tossed salad. He lifted his hand off of Julia’s and looked at her. She was bleary-eyed and pale but offered him a thin-lipped smile. Nada gave them both a thumbs-up and muttered something about needing a stiff drink.

  “What’s our status?” he asked Star, his voice weak.

  “We have…we’ve reached our destination.” Red Star’s voice was hushed with awe. “You should come see this.”

  A viewscreen manifested in thin air, as tall and wide as the front wall of the cabin. Half of the screen displayed a diagram of a star system. Seven stars orbited the same point in space. The stars in the diagram moved, tracing their paths and forming a sphere.

  The object in the center was less defined; in the diagram, it was a dot at the center of the system. On the other half of the screen, he could see that it wasn’t another star, but couldn’t make out any details. One of the stars was passing behind that central object, the others too far apart to be captured in the same shot.

  Nada stood and went to the screen, reaching out without actually touching it. “What is that? A dragon’s nest?”

  “I’m having trouble getting a read on it,” Star said. “There is an energy field around it my sensors can’t penetrate. Odd. I’m getting data from the visible light spectrum more than any other.”

  The screen zoomed in. The small dot became a floating sphere in the darkness. Star’s display registered it as no more than fifty kilometers across; too small to be a moon, and its surface was as polished as a cat’s eye marble. A disc bisected the sphere. Buildings rose up from the surface, surrounded by lush swaths of greenery that were mirrored on the underside of the disc.

  “That’s…impossible. Do you see any signs of life?” Julia asked.

  “I can’t penetrate its energy field. I suggest speaking to your dragons,” Red Star said.

  “I suppose you’re right.” Coraolis was sorry to say it; he wanted to take a closer look, maybe explore the disc in person. “Just put us in orbit around it. We’ll go Astral and—”

  “I can’t stop.” Red Star replied, then muttered something in Pirric. “My engines are in full reverse, but the sphere is pulling us in.” The tremor in the AI’s voice Coraolis had heard before, but never from a ship. He pressed his hand against the wall as if it were the flank of a nervous animal, unsure if she could even feel it.

  “A tractor beam means they want us alive,” Coraolis stated. “Even if they’re hostile, we’ve got a chance.” He patted the wall again, and the lights went a little dimmer. “We’ll get out of this.”

  “Of course we will.” Red Star huffed, as if offended, but her lights had turned a rosier shade of gold. “Just don’t take too long to free me. I am made to soar.”

  Julia put her hand on Cor’s back. “Let’s get ready for our welcome wagon, shall we?”

  Coraolis nodded. They suited up to exit the ship. When they entered the energy field, Red Star announced the atmosphere was breathable and the weather was mild as an early summer day on Earth.

  “Magic,” Nada remarked. “Gotta be.”

  They agreed not to carry any weapons. What resistance could they offer anyhow? Coraolis calmed himself, tapping his earpiece, making sure they stayed in contact with Red Star and one another.

  The door slid open. No one waited to greet them.

  Coraolis leaned out, looked around, and pulled back in. “There’s no one,” he said to Julia and Nada.

  He stepped out onto the dock and took in their surroundings. The dock was a small, dome-shaped chamber with soft-cushioned furniture placed around the room. A circular platform surrounded by handrails stood opposite the airlock and was at least twice as wide as Coraolis was tall. The open shaft above the platform told him it was a lift.

  “Hello?” he called out. “Anyone here?”

  “I can’t sense anything.” Julia joined him, followed by Nada. She furrowed her brows as she looked around the room. “If anyone lives here, they’re so alien I can’t identify them.”

  “How likely is that?” Nada asked.

  “Not very.”

  “I have been scanning ever since we passed the energy barrier. Life signs are minimal. I don’t think you’ll see anything more complex than a tree,” Red Star added. “I believe I was captured by an automated system.”

  “Hopefully that makes it easy to turn everything off.” Coraolis walked over to the lift. “Let’s take a look around.”

  The lift ascended on a silent cushion of air. They clustered at the center of the platform, backs to each other. Coraolis believed Julia and Red Star when they said there were no complex readings for life signs, although that didn’t take smart machinery or AI into account. He intended to stay on his toes.

  The lift stopped at the edge of a glade. Earth-blue blanketed the sky with thin streamers of cloud; stands of trees blocked off the horizon and some odd buildings interspersed the woods. The air, heavy with the scent of wildflowers, seemed to welcome them with familiarity.

  “This looks like Earth,” Julia remarked.

  A pathway made of polished stone led to a pearlescent white tower perhaps three stories tall. They made their way to it and found a silver door as the only access, yet it wouldn’t budge. They moved on to another building, a shorter structure made of the same flawless stone. It, too, was locked, without any apparent keyholes or keypads.

  Coraolis wasn’t deterred by the locks, and he didn’t feel the need to force the doors. Indeed, a feeling of contentment had settled over him. He was curious, yes, but it hardly seemed a good reason to infiltrate the structures here. From time to time he saw flashes of movement in the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look, nothing was there.

  He walked through a gate to a meticulous garden. Julia and Nada followed, and the three stopped before wide benches made of the same gleaming stone as the buildings. Surrounded by flowers and plants, they were familiar, yet also removed from anything he’d seen on Earth, as if more evolved and brilliant than Earth’s flora.

  “There’s something very peaceful about this place,” Nada said. She sat on a bench and brushed a violet flower with her fingertips. It bobbed gently, following her hand as she drew it away. “Where are the people?”

  “It’s peculiar,” Julia said. “It feels to me like any intelligent living creatures are long gone. Whoever lived here…I don’t know.” Julia peered around, smiling. “It’s amazing their technology still works. Everything about this place is amazing.”

  “If they’re all gone—whoever they were—who’s caring for everything? I mean, the gardens are so well
tended,” Nada said.

  “That’s what I mean,” Julia replied. “Their science, it still works. They may have left thousands of years ago, tens of thousands…”

  “Let’s ask the dragons,” Coraolis suggested. “They must know we’re here. It’s time to say hello.” Coraolis pulled his feet up on the bench and crossed his legs. He looked at Julia. The way the violet flower had moved toward Nada interested him, and it also made him feel the need to be wary. “Jules, I’m sorry to ask this, but will you keep watch on us while Nada and I go?”

  “Are you sure we should? We’re right in the middle of the dragon’s nest, aren’t we?” Nada pointed out.

  “Until we find the release for the tractor beam, we don’t have a choice. They might know how to help.”

  Julia stood, leaving Nada to get comfortable on the bench. “Just be careful,” she said, positioning herself between them and touching Coraolis. “I’ll make sure nothing disturbs you while you’re out.”

  “If you see something coming, feel free to disturb me.” Nada chuckled as she adjusted her position, pulling her feet up and crossing her legs.

  Julia squeezed Nada’s shoulder. “You have nothing to worry about.” She turned and kissed the top of Cor’s head, then offered him a warm smile. “Good luck.”

  He nodded, reassured she watched over their bodies.

  Coraolis smiled at Nada, nodded, and closed his eyes. Together, they entered the Astral Plane.

  The passage from the physical world was easier than it had ever been. He felt sucked through to the other side. His senses became aware of swirling energies crackling across his skin—a thousand snaps of static electricity. Nada appeared beside him, wide-eyed. He reached for her…and was cut off by a dragon the size of a bus.

  The dragon radiated curiosity. She swooped around the Mystics, swatting at them with her tail without making contact. Her ruby-colored eyes blazed as she made another round.