DONAR

by Bonnie Burrows

  “We’re not the pampered lizards Uncle Xorian thinks we are,” said Conran. “My brother and I are dragons as much as anyone else born on Lacerta. We have instincts of our own.”

  Donar agreed. “We can handle ourselves out there.” He tapped a bulge at the hip of the bottom of his skin suit. “And it’s not as if we haven’t come prepared, ourselves.”

  Putting a hand on an identical bulge at the hip of his suit bottom, Conran said, “We are not helpless by any means. We can defend ourselves if we must. Or attack if we have to.”

  “Still and all,” said Meline, “the Knights are in charge. You’ll follow orders, both of you. Understand?” She had no qualms about flexing her Knightly authority as she had been trained to do. Despite the brothers’ wealth and position, she was the authority and she would exert it as she saw fit.

  “We understand,” said Conran.

  “Yes,” Donar simply added.

  And the vehicles of the Knights skimmed along on their way into the wilderness.

  _______________

  Across the meadow was a stream, wide and deep with rushing and babbling water, leading further and deeper into the Corvulth Glade. Damara the cralowog appeared at the bank of the stream and took long strides down the incline toward the edge of the water. She did not wait to be all the way at the bank of the stream before she gave one final, mighty and prodigious leap into the air, hurling herself up higher and more easily than anyone might expect of so massive a creature, and stretched all four limbs out to her sides.

  Her glider folds spread out at her sides, making her a spectacular sail of fur with her tail trailing behind her. She appeared almost to be a living kite for the few seconds that she sailed through the air until she reached the water just at the part where the shallow part turned deep. She hit the surface and a huge white splash surged up on all sides of her. The animal disappeared into the rush of the stream, and the waters closed behind her and flowed and swirled onward.

  The hover vehicles of the Knights arrived at the stream, and the car carrying Brianne and her companions retracted its roof, just as the cralowog took her leap. The two crafts came to a stop in the air over the stream.

  “Did you see that?” Donar almost shouted. “The way she launched herself and unfurled like a carpet! What a beast!” Catching himself, he turned to Brianne. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean…”

  “No,” said Brianne proudly. “You’re right. She is ‘quite a beast.’ And she deserves every bit of our protection.”

  “What now?” Meline asked.

  “We’re going to have to travel downstream behind her, following her with sensors,” replied Brianne. “We can’t tranquilize her until she comes up onto land again. She can hold her breath under water, but not while she’s sedated. She needs her voluntary reflexes to breathe while she’s submerged, and the tranquilizer will seize them. So, we’ll have to follow and wait.”

  “You heard her,” said Meline to Voran at the controls. “Probe beneath the surface with sensors and head downstream.”

  “Downstream it is,” acknowledged the other Knight.

  The car took off, following the flow of the water beneath it. Conran, Donar, and Meline could feel Brianne's concentration focusing to razor sharpness, all of them vicariously sharing the scientific thrill of the hunt with her. The hover van carrying the other Knights and Burton and Sondra swooped in behind them, Meline sending them a message of what they were doing. The other vehicle followed along.

  With the two crafts sliding along through the air, following the flow of the stream, Brianne touched the cuff of her sleeve and said to no one in particular, “As soon as we get to her coordinates I should be able to bring up a sensor echo visually…” A few minutes ticked by and the light in Brianne’s eyes contrasted the calm on her face. “I think I have her.” She touched another place on her cuff, and a hologram leapt into the air. It showed a dorsal silhouette, rendered in light, of Damara in the water, her limbs extended out and her ribs unfurled into fins, her body swaying and her tail twisting and curving in an aquatic dance.

  “Moving along pretty well, isn’t she?” Donar remarked.

  Brianne’s face blossomed into a proud little smile. “There’s my girl.”

  And suddenly, there was a sound, a shocking noise that made Brianne look up, alarmed, from her hologram and made Donar and Conran flinch. Meline moved to the front of the vehicle where Voran was. “Proximity alert!” called Voran. “Incoming—we’ve got company.”

  Meline called into the badge on her armor top: “Van Beta, proximity alert. Are you reading? Over.”

  A male voice came through Meline’s badge. “Skimmer Alpha, this is Van Beta. We’re reading six inbound targets, coming in fast. Scans indicate non-organic humanoids, armed, with jet packs. Over.”

  Voran cut off the alarm. Meline called back, “Engage with targets; we’ll do the same. Over and out.” Drawing her powerblade, she turned back to address Brianne, Donar, and Conran: “The three of you, keep your heads down. Traffic is about to get a bit nasty.” Without another word, the Dame of Lacerta put one foot up on one edge of the craft, morphed quickly to semi-dragon form, and pushed herself off and into the air, swishing her tail hard and spreading her wings.

  At the moment she was aloft, a hatch on the van behind them slid open and three more Knights as man-dragons flew out to join her. The four dragon combatants climbed high into the air. Despite Meline’s caveat, Brianne and the brothers could not help but look up to where the Knights were going. In the air overhead, half a dozen grey shapes appeared, swooping in fast.

  Brianne, who by this time had shut off her hologram of Damara, cast a worried look at the brothers. As one, Donar and Conran’s hands went to the bulges at their hips and each one withdrew from his own suit a shiny cylindrical weapon of his own. “If they get anywhere near here,” said Conran, “we’ll have a surprise for them.”

  “What are those?” Brianne asked apprehensively.

  “Pulse clubs,” replied Conran. “They give off bursts of magnetic force. Ironically, we used to play at target practice with a lower-powered version of these, with Kalum and Xhondor, when we were little dragons.”

  “We brought the grown-up versions along, just in case,” said Donar.

  Brianne’s whole body tensed up. She braced herself for what was to come and silently asked the universe to see her to the other side of it.

  High above, four dragon Knights advanced at six flying androids. Taking aim with the firing ends of their powerblades, the winged reptilians attacked. Streams of energy cut through the air. The androids banked and swerved to evade them. The Knights, expecting this, made a firing pattern to shoot beams into the paths of the automatons. One beam caught one android, turning it to a spinning, flailing mass of limbs.

  One of the android’s companions swerved into another beam and met the same fate. Both artificial bodies went twirling down to the bank of the stream. Having evened the odds, the Knights prepared to fire off another round and whittle down their opposition. But the androids had a counterattack.

  From niches on their chests, the artificial beings drew out spherical devices. Flying fast at the Knights, they raised their arms and hurled the spheres. The dragons attempted to pull up or swerve away before the objects struck them—only to find that the object was not to strike them. In an instant, the sky was lit up as if four miniature suns had burst in the air over the stream. Everything became a sheet of shocking, painful whiteness into which Meline and her three comrades disappeared.

  The blast of blazing intensity reached all the way down to where Brianne and the Quist brothers sat in the hovercar. They all lurched downward, flinching, covering their eyes. Brianne cried out from the cruelly luminous discharge. Voran, as shocked as the three of them, lost control of the vehicle, which went into a violent spin in the air over the rushing water.

  In a moment, the monstrous flash faded. Voran, blinking and shaking his head hard, managed to pull the craft out of its spin and bring
it to a hovering stop. He looked over his shoulder, squinting and blinking, and called back, “Are you three all right?”

  Brianne and the brothers got themselves sitting up straight again, dazzled, with heads shaking. Frightened, Brianne asked, “What was that? What just happened?”

  “Photon grenades,” answered Voran. “Illegal for anyone but Knights and Corps to have.” He cast his blinking eyes upward, straining for a look at what was going on above. “I think they’re in trouble,” he said grimly. Standing up and drawing his own powerblade, he said, “I’m going to have to get up there. You three will have to sit tight.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” said Conran, holding up his pulse club. “Just get after them; we’ll take care of Brianne.”

  Donar nodded, holding his own club with one hand and taking Brianne’s hand with the other. “Get them,” he said.

  Voran morphed to half-dragon, gave a leap into the air, unfurled his wings and thrashed his tail, and shot off towards the sky.

  Brianne and the brothers, left in the hovering vehicle, watched Voran go. They all looked up again to where Voran was going and saw four winged figures making mad, crazed loops in the air. Brianne’s heart sank, knowing that Meline and her fellows had caught the light blast in mid-flight. The hover van behind them had also come to a floating stop, and another Knight, who had been piloting it, came streaking up into view, his weapon at the ready. It was now four Knights blinded in flight, two more coming to their aid—and four androids unimpaired against them. Brianne’s sinking heart turned cold.

  The four blinded Knights were helpless. They became like living missiles with no guidance, flying and spiraling downward, desperately trying to break their momentum with outstretched wings. Meline swooped down, out of control, and crashed into the boughs of a stand of trees. Another Knight came barreling in behind her, into a nearby tree. They disappeared into the greenery, which erupted in clouds of leaves and branches. A third Knight plunged downward into a growth of bushes. After a terrible crackling, he did not move.

  That left only two Knights against the four androids. The automatons, with mechanical speed, drew force-beam guns from packs at their hips, and fired at the reptilians. Just as quickly, Voran and the other Knight engaged the energy blade ends of their weapons and slashed them through the air. With searing flashes, they deflected the bolts. It became an aerial dance of dragons and androids with beams slashing forth and blades making streaks in the air to block them. But the two dragons were outnumbered.

  Their defense against the attacks of the androids was a flurry of spinning and bursting lights, but the assault of the androids broke through. An android’s beam caught the Knight who’d piloted the van in one leg. Reeling in shock, he spun out of control and went into a spiral towards the trees. Only Voran was left now.

  The four automatons closed in and he switched from defense to offense, firing in a blanketing pattern at them. He struck one android and sent it plummeting for the ground, then force beams from the remaining three caught him in the shoulder and hip. Stricken, he dropped with wings flailing, twisting his tail and straining his wings to aim for the bushes.

  Brianne, Conran, and Donar had watched the entire battle from the hovercar, and now knew that only they were left. Brianne turned pale. She put her hand on her holster where her cyber-tranquilizer was sheathed and sensed the utter futility of drawing a weapon that would work only on organic creatures. She and the brothers stood up together and faced the descending automatons. A lump raised in Brianne’s throat at the sight of them drawing nearer, looming larger in their sight. In a second, the artificial attackers would be upon them.

  The three androids came down within range, weapons at the ready. The Quist brothers put Brianne behind them and raised their pulse clubs. “Crouch down, Brianne, onto the floor,” said Conran in a tone that made it an order, not a request. In response to his tone, Brianne dropped to her knees and huddled against one of the seats. She swallowed hard. She was afraid even to breathe.

  The next thing she heard was the piercing sound of the pulse cannons in the brothers’ hands going off. She dared to look up at them and saw them swerve from one side to the other, firing at the advancing foes. She looked on as shadows swept over the open car from above, and saw the brothers spin and pivot around, continuing to fire, and knew that the three flying automatons were now circling them, surrounding them from different points. Her mouth opened and turned dry. No scream escaped her lips.

  Then there was a flash, not as bright and searing as that of the photon grenades, but shocking enough, right in the carriage of the car. One twin’s body went into a spasm and crumpled next to her. And now, Brianne did cry out, horrified: “Donar!”

  She crawled over next to the fallen brother while the other twin continued firing. She checked Donar for a pulse and found it. He was only stunned. But now her skin was pale and clammy with growing fear. Brianne looked up again at Conran, firing away in every direction at the circling androids. Another flash lit up and Conran staggered, falling against the front seats. He leaned there, supporting himself, breathing heavily, straining to hold up his weapon and continue firing.

  On a pure, terrified impulse, Brianne leapt to her feet beside Conran and took him by one shoulder to steady him. Conran, half-groggy, half-angry, glared over at her. “We told you…to stay down. Get back…”

  A force bolt came searing in, striking Conran on one side and hitting Brianne with a glancing impact. Conran toppled in one direction, falling against one side of the hovercar. “Brianne!” he cried. The last thing he saw before sinking to the floor was Brianne flying and spinning back in a whirl of limbs—over the opposite side of the vehicle. The last thing he heard was a dreadful splash.

  Darkness closed around Conran’s mind, snuffing out one final thought. If Brianne were stunned or unconscious when she hit the water, it would carry her away and she would not stand a chance.

  Then everything went black.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Your… ‘friend’…is gone,” Kalum Quist gloated.

  The three remaining androids had taken matters in hand for their rendezvous with their master. Kalum had kept his distance, letting them go in ahead of them and transmitting to him everything that they saw. Through their electronic eyes, Kalum had seen the battle between the androids and the Knights, the final assault by the trio of automatons on Conran and Donar, and Brianne Heatherton’s fall into the stream.

  Once their opponents were down, the androids rounded them up; the unconscious Knights had morphed back to human to heal the injuries sustained when they fell. Now they sat on their knees in the grass bordering the bank of the stream, their hands shackled behind their backs in energized manacles.

  With them, bound in the same way, were Conran and Donar, their own morphing back to human having healed them of any bruises and contusions from having been shot with force beams; and Burton Hawkes and Sondra Kimura, whom the artificial men had seized from inside the Knights’ hover van. The Knights’ vehicles, of which the androids took control, now sat on the grass nearby near Kalum’s hoverjeep.

  Kalum paced the grass back and forth like the general of some ancient army surveying the scene of a battlefield in which he had conquered some opposing horde and savored his victory.

  “I’m sorry for the loss of Dr. Heatherton,” Kalum said, eyeing his cousins with smug, mock sincerity. “I’m grateful to her for bringing my quarry here to Lacerta. None of us will ever forget her—will we?” The hint of a venomous smile on his face was just enough to show his cousins how monumentally pleased he was at having taken everything from them: his own prize, and theirs.

  The twins remained silent, watching Kalum through eyes filled with a tormented mix of fear, anguish, grief, and rage. Inside, Donar and Conran were both torn to shreds. Consuming their minds and hearts was the image of Brianne, stunned senseless, flying over the side of the hovercar and into the stream; further shocked by her impact with the water, carried away, the waters sweepi
ng her off, claiming her body and her life.

  As one, they shuddered and trembled with the agony of having been unable to help her, to save her. And through it all, the hatred that they felt for their cousin burned like the fire exhaled by some mythical dragon. If they could, they would have breathed out that hatred onto Kalum and incinerated him where he stood.

  “You sick, stupid, filthy bastard,” Conran snarled. “We always knew you never cared about anything but getting what you wanted. But this…this… You’ve killed Brianne, damn you. This is on you. All on you.”

  “And for what?” Donar practically hissed. “To hunt down and slaughter an innocent animal? For a trophy? For one more chance to show nature that you’re better than it is? You are sick. You are filthy. And you’re going to suffer for this, I promise you.”

  “Will you make me suffer?” Kalum asked, more overtly smug now. “In your position I wouldn’t be making such promises.”