by Erica Rue
Brian moved past her to the other edge of the bulkhead. She was grateful for his sense of urgency as he peeked once more around the corner. He beckoned for her to follow.
With unparalleled grace, he picked his way across the expanse and disappeared around the corner. She did her best, and thought she was in the clear until her boot caught on a loose thread from her unraveling pant leg. She stumbled noisily around the corner.
She pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath while her heart pounded painfully against her lungs. Neither she nor Brian dared to look, certain the noise had caught the attention of the dragons in the room. She heard the clank of claws on the metal floor grates.
Brian grabbed her hand and led her down the corridor toward their goal, the separation mechanism. “Back to the cold,” he said.
Even if the dragons pursued, the frigid corridor would afford the pair some protection. Dione shivered. At that moment, a dragon appeared in the corridor and sniffed the very spot where she had stood moments before.
Its large yellow eyes found them easily, exposed in the barren hall. It wasted no time, spitting its pungent accelerant and whipping its tail with a crack and spark. The liquid caught fire, and the metal grate warped in the heat. The flames disappeared, but two more dragons filed in behind the first, and all three raced down the corridor.
Dione stopped and turned, keeping her breath steady as she sang the dragon song. Two stopped and hissed, but the lead dragon seemed unbothered. She looked back at her comrades and hesitated before resuming her charge.
Time to run. Dione heard Brian pick the tune up, so she sprinted until she reached him, where he was waiting much farther down the hall. Here in the narrow corridor, the heat from the fire in the nest room could not reach them. The dragon had halted and was sniffing the cold air, tail flicking angrily in the air. The immune dragon was mostly light brown, but had pale green scales around her eyes.
“She won’t follow. It’s too cold,” Dione said, no longer bothering to lower her voice.
“Good, let’s go.”
They could get to the separation mechanism and detach this segment, but how would they get back? She glanced back, and immediately regretted it. The dragon paced in the corridor, hissing, as if restrained by some invisible force field.
Dione reminded herself that there was nothing except the cold roaring through the ventilation system to keep the dragons at bay, and that dragons knew how to keep a fire burning in this ship, given the proper motivation. Intruders so close to their nest? There was no better motivation she could have provided.
They didn’t have much time.
36. DIONE
“Can you go any faster?” Dione called down to Brian. She had stayed in the corridor to keep watch while he worked in the maintenance tunnel beneath the floor. As much as she hated watching the dragon pacing, she couldn’t see it at the end of the corridor anymore. That, she found, was worse.
“Seriously?” Brian asked, eyes never leaving his work. “I’ve got the instruction manual pulled up as I work around this heavily damaged mechanism. Even with this thing constantly running diagnostics and telling me what to do, I’m still out of my element. When was the last time you repaired a ship within hours of seeing it for the first time?”
“I get it, I’m just worried. I can’t see Toasty anymore.”
“You did not name the dragon.”
“I did. Toasty. It makes her seem less terrifying.” Dione paced up and down the corridor.
“How do you know it’s a she?” he asked.
“I can see it in her eyes.”
“How scientific of you.”
“Just keep working,” Dione said. She stared down the corridor waiting for Toasty to return, but there was no sign of her or any other dragon. Maybe they were lying in wait, just out of sight.
“I’ve got to access another panel a little farther down. I’m almost done, I think,” Brian said.
“Understood.” Soon they would need to get back to the other side, and while Brian was busy working on the separation mechanism, she was planning their escape.
They would use the maintenance tunnels underneath the floors. It was obvious, and at this point the only solution. She called up the ship schematic on her manumed, trying to memorize as much as possible. They would need speed along with every other possible advantage. She still worried they might run into a dragon down there, but their only other path had a one hundred percent chance of dragons. She didn’t need to be good at statistics in order to figure out what option the odds indicated.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t realize Toasty was back. She had brought friends. They were piling up twigs in the corridor.
“They’re bringing the heat to us,” Dione whispered to herself. When she tried to estimate how long they had until they built enough fires to make it down the hallway, she relaxed. The corridor was long, and the cold air pumping out of the vents would force them to light and maintain frequent fires.
But before Toasty and company could light their little pyre, a loud bang echoed through the ship. Everything grew eerily silent.
Brian poked his head out of the floor. “What was that?”
Dione soaked up the silence before answering. “Listen.”
“I don’t hear anything,” he replied.
“Exactly. There’s no more cold air coming from the vents. The environmental control unit has stopped.” They exchanged a look. “Hurry.”
Dione faced down the corridor once again and watched Toasty light the pyre. She was still cold, but their timeline for making the repairs and getting out of there had just shrunk.
A constant parade of dragons created the next pyre, closer than the first. Toasty lit it. Dione could feel the numbness leaving the exposed skin of her face. Her shield of frigid air was dissipating so quickly, she doubted Toasty would even need her third fire.
Dione sang the dragon song, but Toasty and another dragon were unaffected. They hissed and continued their work, while the affected dragons piled their sticks as close to their adversary as they could stand. It was like a twisted bucket brigade, passing kindling down the line rather than water. At best, the song would buy them a few more minutes.
Toasty moved forward to light the next fire, but stopped, sniffing the air. She took a cautious step beyond the unlit pile of twigs. Then another. Dione stopped singing without realizing it.
She barely had time to react when she saw the dragon sprinting toward her. Toasty balked for a moment when she hit the cooler air. The last thing Dione saw before closing the flooring grate above her head was Toasty rushing straight for her. She practically fell down the ladder into the crawlspace, where she landed on her back. She groaned at the rough landing. Before she could register Toasty’s hiss and click, she saw burning droplets of accelerant raining down on her.
Her suit might have offered protection against a regular fire, but the fire droplets, fueled by whatever was in that accelerant, burned a few small holes in the suit before dying out. Strong arms pulled her out of the splash zone.
“Thanks,” she said. “These suits aren’t as fireproof as I’d hoped.”
“Considering it burns hot enough to warp metal,” Brian said, “I’d say this suit did okay. Better than nothing.”
“Fair point. How’s it going? We’re out of time.”
“Just finishing up,” he said. “Assuming the dragons don’t undo all my hard work.” He pointed to the molten metal hardening on the ground under the grate.
They were so close. There was only one thing she could do, even though it made her sick with fear. When she and Lithia played at the holos, she was the one solving the puzzle or finding the key while Lithia held off the hordes of minions coming their way, but not this time. She hadn’t spent her childhood fixing Artifacts like Brian. This was not her kind of puzzle. She would have to channel her inner Lithia.
She saw the fire extinguisher on the floor next to Brian. Another piece of her plan clicked into place.<
br />
“When you finish up here,” she said, “go back to the other side and wait for me in the middle section where it’s safe.”
“Like hell I will,” Brian said.
“You need more time, and I have an idea of how to give it to you. Once you’re done here, head back to the port door. I’ll meet you there.”
“No, I’m not going to leave you in here.”
“Splitting up is the only way I can get them away from you. Just finish up, get to the next segment, and prepare to detach. I need you to be ready.”
She didn’t wait for a response before turning and crawling parallel to the corridor. At the next exit, she climbed up, popped off the grate, and shouted in the direction she had come from. The dragons were clustered at the opposite end of the corridor around the grate she had disappeared through. “Hey! This way!”
Toasty and her dragon friends snapped their scaly necks in Dione’s direction. As they ran toward her, she ducked back into the safety of the crawlspace.
If these dragons wanted war, she would bring it to them. She crawled along noisily, making sure they could hear her. When the path branched, she clunked down one direction and left her gloves there.
As quietly as possible she backtracked, took the other path at the fork, and crept forward. She wasn’t sure if she had fooled them, but even a few extra seconds would make a difference.
If this plan even works. The cynical part of her brain whispered doubts. What if it’s not enough to stop them?
She shook her head. Based on the behavior she had observed so far, she had every reason to believe it would.
Her knees and wrists ached from crawling under the weight of the extinguisher, but she was almost there. She took slow, deep breaths, trying to bank as much calm as possible before the chaos. She mentally went through her repertoire of tools: the dragon song and fire extinguisher.
Just a little farther. She heard scrambling from a side tunnel. They were on their way. She picked up her pace, her knees banging painfully against the floor. There it was, the ladder.
A dragon poked its nose into her tunnel and bounded toward her, but her hand was already on the ladder rungs. She started singing, and the sounds of the advancing dragon stopped. Her heart thumped against her rib cage as she scrambled up the remaining steps and shoved the grate aside. She was still singing, but a bit out of breath.
The heat from the fire hit her, like leaving an air-conditioned building on a hot day. The dim red lights still flashed all around her. She had emerged into the large room where the dragons were incubating their eggs. The central fire roared larger than before, and only the very tops of the eggs were visible in the ring of dirt.
The two dragons that had been stationed there were backing away, hissing and whipping their tails in anger. She could hear Toasty and the other dragons coming, claws scraping against metal in their haste.
She readied the fire extinguisher and kept singing. She strode to the center of the room and aimed the hose at the fire, which was surrounded by the dirt-covered eggs. She pulled the trigger, spraying foam on the fire.
It was too big. Or too hot. But it was getting smaller.
The scrambling, however, grew louder, until Toasty and her pack entered the room.
The others balked at the song, shaking their heads and backing away, but Toasty and the other immune dragon charged toward Dione. She directed the spray from the extinguisher at them, but they dodged, splitting off in opposite directions. They were going to flank her.
She felt something hit the back of her legs, but it didn’t hurt. Accelerant soaked through the material of her suit, plastering it to her thigh and calf.
She gulped. Under no circumstances could she get too close to the fires around her unless she wanted to go up in flames. She doubted the efficacy of “stop, drop, and roll” in the face of dragon-accelerated fire.
The second immune dragon tried to spark her with his tail, but Dione was already moving out of range—and right into Toasty’s path. She leapt at Dione, who let out another blast from the extinguisher just in time.
Dione choked on the fumes and dodged again, but the weight of the extinguisher threw off her balance. She stopped singing and toppled over, cheek pressed against the warm floor grate as she continued to choke and sputter. She felt the vibrations of the rest of the dragons swarming into the room, more than the few that had been part of Toasty’s defense team.
She pushed herself up to her knees, but couldn’t stop coughing long enough to start the song again. The other dragons should be on her. Then she heard a deep tenor echoing in the chamber all around her. The dragons that had stormed into the egg room continued past her, hissing as they went. A few stopped and snapped at her, but kept shaking their heads like they were trying to shake water out of their ears.
Brian? she wondered. A man rounded the corner. Oliver. He carried a large, thick branch. She didn’t think it was much of a weapon, but now wasn’t the time to complain.
Toasty and the other immune dragon moved toward him, the source of the song that had scared off their kin. Their tails flicked and clanged noisily as they approached him. She saw Oliver’s eyes scanning the room for his son.
Dione managed to choke out, “He’s safe,” before another fit of coughing silenced her. Still on her knees, she tried to push herself up. One of her hands was covered in dirt. The eggs were right there. She still had a chance. Shrugging off the extinguisher with some effort, she scooped away the dirt, exposing two eggs. They were large enough to require two hands to hold, though she imagined a man like Colm, or even Oliver, could comfortably hold them in one.
She tossed the first toward Toasty. The shell shattered on impact, leaving a viscous smear and a small, limp lizard body. Toasty turned and sniffed at the mess before emitting a terrible, high-pitched screech. The other dragons waiting in the wings echoed back the screech.
The two immune dragons glared at Dione and would have rushed her way, if not for the other egg. She was holding it high above her head. Sweat dripped down her forehead. She couldn’t wait to get away from this fire.
“Keep singing,” she said softly to Oliver, trying to avoid triggering another coughing fit. She moved toward him, away from the ring of eggs. Toasty and her friend moved as well, putting their eggs at their back. They would not make the mistake of leaving the eggs unguarded again.
“We’re going to go down that corridor and leave through the port door. Brian should be there by now, ready to detach this segment.” She paused to recover, but talking was getting easier. “I’ll give them back the egg before we leave this segment.”
She carefully led Oliver down the corridor, past the corpses of the dragons they had killed earlier. A horde followed, and to an outsider, it might have looked as if Oliver was the dragon pied piper, leading them behind him rather than keeping them at bay. Toasty and her friend stayed much closer, snapping their jaws and clicking their tails, but never attacking.
They were at the door. When Oliver opened it, the two dragons on their heels lunged. Dione jumped, nearly losing her grip on the egg. There was no time to think. She rolled the egg down the corridor, hoping it would crack. The other dragon scampered after it, and Dione stepped across the threshold. Toasty, however, took her opportunity to attack with a flick of her tail.
Dione heard the door close before she felt it—intense heat, then pain. She screamed and collapsed to the ground, rolling in an attempt to quench the fire that was searing the skin, bearing it down to the muscle of her left leg. She scrambled to remove the suit.
Oliver’s reaction was immediate. He beat the fire with his own jacket and pulled the suit the rest of the way off, exposing the burn. Dione wailed and banged against the floor with her hands. Her vision swam when she tried to lift her head.
“Help me get her to the med bay.” It was Brian. She hadn’t heard him arrive. “How bad is it?”
“I’ll take her,” Oliver said. “Get us home and away from these dragons, then meet me in the
med bay.”
Dione felt herself being picked up, followed by immense pain in her leg. She screamed, and then there was only darkness.
37. LITHIA
Three figures approached the Aratian gates. The central figure was bound and blindfolded, and the hood of his green cloak was down. He was flanked by Theo and a tall, dark-haired girl with a bandage covering half of her face.
This is never going to work. Lithia and Cora had traded clothes for the charade, but there wasn’t enough time to do more. The bandage was suspicious, and Elijah would never fall for it. Just make it inside the walls. It only needs to work long enough to get you in the room with him.
At the gate, Lithia straightened her back and stepped forward to face the guards and put on her best Cora impression. She raised the pitch of her voice and let some of her own anger at Evy’s capture seep into her words. “Elijah is waiting for me.”
After searching them for weapons, one of the guards led them toward the Temple. The bustle Lithia remembered from her very first visit seemed subdued. While most carried on as if nothing was amiss, a few looked at her, eyes wide with concern.
Do they know about the coup? she wondered. Or is it the bandage?
The guard delivered them to the Temple. Elijah was waiting for them in one of the upper chambers that looked like it had been Michael’s office before he died. Her chest still ached from the broken ribs, but it helped make her the perfect decoy. She was useless for much else. While they tied Theo to the chair, she took the opportunity to discreetly tap on her manumed. As the guard bound her wrists to the arms of the chair, she looked around the room.
There was a shelf with a few books and trinkets. The desk was small and practical, free from clutter. The window sill held a distorted figurine that she assumed Cora had made for her father many years ago.
Asher, already untied, went to join Elijah. They embraced, the father planting a relieved kiss on his son’s forehead. Lithia was surprised that Elijah was capable of such an emotional display.
“The others, Dad,” Asher choked out. “It was a slaughter. If I had still been at the farm…”
