by Leslie Chase
Oh, the company had made a token effort. The training for the mission, as scanty as it had been, had included a couple of hours of first contact protocols. The entire thing had boiled down to 'do nothing, say nothing, contact base and wait for the experts to arrive.'
No mention of the aliens simply picking her up and carrying her away.
At least the one carrying her seemed to be the friendliest of the three. He'd been the one to protect her from the angry alien, and the third one... something about him made her shiver. He hadn't threatened her, but the way he'd looked at her had made Josie feel like she was a subject under the microscope, not a person.
Unlike this man. He'd looked at her in a way that made her blush, and under other circumstances that look would have been all she thought about. Even in her spacesuit she'd felt naked under his eyes.
It didn't take him long to get where they were going, though slung over his shoulder as she was, Josie couldn't see where that was. The whole journey, the only thing she'd been able to get a good look at was his ass. She had to admit that there were worse views.
"Stay," he said, and she bristled at his casually commanding tone. Maybe he doesn't speak much English, she thought. It had been a shock that he'd spoken any at all, but that didn't excuse him talking to her like that.
She looked around, and her objections died on her lips. The room was stunning, and completely unlike anything that she'd have expected. It was a huge space, almost more like a cave than a room in a building, but she could see that it was artificial. For one thing there was still air here, and for another there was water, a pool off to the side which looked deep enough to swim in. That couldn't have happened naturally, not here on Mars.
The lighting came from everywhere and nowhere, shining on the furniture carefully positioned around the huge chamber. Some of it she could recognize, tables and chairs and couches, all beautifully made from dark woods that couldn't possibly have grown on Mars. Others were strange to her, clearly artificial but meaningless to Josie's eyes, like the spire of blue crystal reaching from the floor nearly to the roof beside one of the chairs. Art, or some machine? She couldn't say.
What caught her attention most, though, was the surface she'd been dropped onto. It was unmistakably a bed. Huge, even by the standards of the giant aliens, it could have held a dozen people and she couldn't help wondering if that was why he'd brought her here, to this room. Her heart raced, and she felt her cheeks heating just at the thought of it. She scrambled back across the vast mattress, but the alien didn't follow her. He stood back, looking around, and the expression of deep sadness on his face made it clear that he wasn't thinking about her.
"What's wrong?" Josie asked the question before she thought about it, but something about his sorrow touched her.
He glanced back, as though surprised to see her, or at least to hear her. Shaking himself, he returned to the present.
"Nothing that need worry you," he said, not unkindly. "Much has changed since I was last awake."
His command of English surprised her. There was a strange, rough quality to his speech, not so much an accent as a sound given by an inhuman throat. Between that and the short, sharp commands he'd given her she'd thought that he couldn't manage more complex speech. Seems like I was wrong.
"What has happened here?" he asked before she could say any more. "How long have I slept?"
Josie shook her head. "I don't know," she answered. "We — I — just found this place, I didn't even know it was here until I came down and found you. I've got no idea how long you've been down here. I couldn't even guess."
Just thinking about it gave her shivers. It had to well over a hundred years, long enough that no one would have spotted the work to build this place or the spaceship that brought the aliens here. Or unimaginably longer, if this man and his friends were natives of Mars. His violet eyes met hers and his frown deepened.
"You don't know who you've found, do you?" Something changed in his voice, a deep pain growing in it as he sat down. He seemed angry, or perhaps hurt, when Josie shook her head. She shrank away, pressing herself to the head of the bed, as far from him as possible, but he didn't move to threaten her.
"I am Imperial Prince Verikan," he said after a long pause. "Heir to the Dragon Throne, Prince of the Elder Stars, Lord of the Golden Wing. And none of that means anything to you, does it?"
Josie shook her head again, and he laughed. It was a mirthless laugh, full of such pain that she wanted to go to him and hold him, to make it better. But she didn't dare go near him — who knew what he would do?
"Then you're not here to wake me because the danger is past, and you're not here to kill me as a rebel against my rule," Verikan said. "How did you come to be here? How is it that a human is in my palace?"
"We're just starting to explore this world," Josie told him, wondering if that was the right thing to do. The one thing her first contact training had taught her was that there were experts to talk to about something like this. I should probably just be telling him to contact my base.
Still, she continued. His eyes gazed at her, deep and hungry for knowledge, and she couldn't stay silent. Something in his gaze made it impossible not to keep talking.
"We developed a new space drive last year," she told him. "It's let us reach Mars easily, there are colonies setting up all over Mars now. I just happened to find your, your palace and I guess I woke you when I did."
The face he pulled at that could have been comical under other circumstances. It combined outrage, shock, amusement, and disbelief.
"Humans have developed a space drive?"
"What, is that so unbelievable?" Josie said, glowering at him and forgetting to be afraid. "Do you think we're stupid or something?"
It might not be a good idea to challenge him, she thought a little too late to stop herself. These aliens certainly had technology the like of which she'd never seen and there was no telling what they were capable of. And while this 'Imperial Prince' hadn't hurt her, one of his companions had tried to attack her. Even Verikan had dragged her off here without any concern about where she wanted to go.
Dragged her to his bedroom. The thought wouldn't go away. Perhaps it was because he was so damned attractive. Something about his strange, reptilian eyes and the intensity with which he looked at her made her want to hold him. To touch his skin and find out what his subtle scales felt like when she ran a finger over them.
Josie's cheeks heated further as she thought about that. Damn it, it's been too long since I've been around a man I can stand. She tried to keep her other thoughts hidden behind the angry glare.
He didn't seem to take any offense. Perhaps worse, he laughed. Josie felt her cheeks heat as she glared at him, crossing her arms. Verikan shook his head and held up a hand.
"I apologize, that was unkind," he said. "Your species is simply not advanced enough that you could have reached us without help, though. Crossing the gulf between worlds when you've only just mastered the making of steel... no. Someone gave you that drive, and that suit that you're wearing."
Josie frowned, confusion mixing with her anger and other emotions. "Steel? What are you talking about? Humans have been using steel for ages. We've been in space for over a century."
A look of confusion spread over Verikan's face and he shook his head again. "No, I've seen your world. I've visited it, fought your knights. Their swords and armor were well made, but the best vehicles you had were pulled by horses. You can't have developed space vehicles this fast."
"Knights? " Josie said. There was a look of dawning horror along with fear on Verikan's face. "That was a long time ago. How long were you in that tank for?"
He didn't answer, but the look on his face told Josie more than words could have. Verikan leaped to his feet and paced, shaking his head. It was a denial, but she knew he was just hiding from the truth of it.
She wanted to get up and go to him, to hold him and comfort him as he came to terms with what he was feeling. But she was afraid
, too, afraid of the rage she could see in him as he paced, his hands flexing.
His pacing brought him to a table, and he stopped. Paused. Grabbed a crystal sculpture from it and with a savage strength dashed it to the floor, shattering it. Red crystal shards scattered everywhere as Josie shrank back, and Verikan stared down at the mess, his jaw tightening.
"I shouldn't have done that," he said quietly after a moment. Josie almost didn't hear him, his voice was so low, and if he hadn't spoken in English she wouldn't have thought he meant for her to hear.
"It'll be alright," she answered awkwardly after a moment, not sure what else to say. It wasn't a very convincing bit of reassurance, but she couldn't think of anything better.
His eyes fixed on her again, and he shook his head. There was a tiredness to his gaze, to his posture, that hadn't been there before. After a moment, he straightened up and looked away.
"No," he said with a calm finality. "No, it won't."
4
Verikan
Verikan looked into space, taking deep breaths and trying to focus. The human female stared at him, and he tried to convince himself that she was lying. That the human technology had been given to them, that maybe it hadn't really been that long.
He couldn't make himself believe it. She couldn't be that good a liar, her confusion was too perfect. And even if some other spacefaring civilization had given humans the technology, how long would it have taken them to build up to an expedition across space?
How long for their language to change from those he knew to what this human spoke?
Shaking off the chilling thought, he turned to face her again. She looked back at him, frightened and confused but still determined, and he realized he knew next to nothing about her.
"What's your name, human?" he asked. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded flat and quiet. The shock of so many changes at once was taking its toll.
"Josie Connor," she said, and he nodded an acknowledgment. Maybe focusing on her would keep him from feeling so unstuck in time.
"Welcome, Josie, to the Dragon Empire," he said, bowing formally with wings spread wide. His parents would be shocked to see him greet a human with such dignity, almost as though she were an equal. Verikan pushed that thought aside. She had saved his life, and she called to the fire in his blood as none of the princesses his mother had introduced him to ever did.
"What does that mean?" she asked, looking more confused than ever. "What the hell is the 'Dragon Empire’?"
Verikan sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. It seemed that he wasn't going to escape the past today. He might as well stop trying.
"At its height, the Empire controlled half the galaxy," he told her. "The last news I had from home was of a rebellion, some of our conquered races rising up against us. I was meant to finish the conquest of this system and return home, but then—"
"Conquest?" she said, cutting him off mid-sentence. His mouth snapped shut, unused to interruptions like that, and she continued. "You mean you're here to invade the Earth?"
"Of course," he said, seeing her anger and feeling his own rise in response. "The Dragon Empire claims all the stars."
"No wonder there was a rebellion, then," she said, glaring at him. He narrowed his eyes, but he couldn't find a response. He could understand it, too — who wouldn't fight for their freedom? But his Empire's direction had been set long before he was born, and he had a duty to his people.
He wondered if that was why his father had sent him here. Earth was to be such an easy conquest, hardly a battle at all. Maybe it had been intended to toughen him up and quash his doubts about the Empire? Verikan shook his head again, sadness drowning his anger. Now he would likely never know.
"Things have changed while I slept," he said. "The rebels attacked here, too, destroying the planetary atmosphere generators. It was a cowardly strike, no honor in it — killing everyone on the planet in order to hurt the Empire. Still, it worked. It would have killed us all if Askelon hadn't managed to set up the survival pods in time. We were supposed to sleep until the Emperor sent a relief expedition to wake me."
He suppressed a shudder at the memory of the chaos following the attack. There had been so little time, Mordrak's guards had dragged him to the survival pod while Askelon was still working on it. They'd sacrificed themselves to save him, and he'd only just realized that they must be long dead.
Josie looked at him, her own anger fading. She bit her lower lip, a gesture that looked insanely adorable to Verikan, and then unfolded her arms.
"I don't understand half of this," she said. "Did you just say that Mars used to have breathable air?"
Verikan nodded, relieved that she was talking about something other than the invasion. The look in her eyes told him that was a deliberate choice on her part, an attempt to find something that didn't upset her so much to talk about. That's good, I don't want to fight her, he thought, and then wondered why that mattered to him.
"For a little while, yes," he said, answering her question and distracting himself from his own. "The Empire set up a base here while we observed your world, and that meant making the place a little more habitable. The atmosphere wouldn't last long without the machines, though, and those were the rebels' first target. If Askelon hadn't gotten us into the suspension pods, we would have died along with everyone else."
"But we can all breathe in here," Josie said, confused. "Why couldn't you just stay inside?"
"The self-repair systems must have fixed the airmakers in the palace," Verikan said. "Given the damage they took, that must have taken... I don't know how long. A long time. When you woke me I thought that you'd repaired them first, but no. They had long enough to fix themselves."
Thinking about the failure of the airmakers sent a shiver through him. It was no death for a warrior, choking as the air ran out. Of course, the rebels wouldn't have stood a chance in a fair fight so they'd chosen the dishonorable route to victory.
What happened to the Empire? It might have taken months, years even, for a relief force to reach us here, but not centuries. Taking a deep breath, Verikan pushed that aside. Josie couldn't answer those questions. She was struggling with huge questions of her own, and that was irony enough to make him smile.
He had brought her here to interrogate her about the changes to this solar system, but he was finding as many questions as answers. And Josie was learning at least as much as he was. Some interrogator I am. Mordrak would be tearing what he wanted to know from her right now.
The thought made him pulse with rage, the fire burning in his dragon heart threatening to overwhelm him at the mere thought of someone hurting this female. Verikan shook his head to clear it as she spoke again.
"There were cities on Mars," she said, wonder filling her voice. "And you, you came to visit us on Earth?"
"We did. To challenge your greatest knights, to test ourselves. That started long before I arrived, of course. I wasn't here long before..."
His voice trailing off, Verikan couldn't keep himself from thinking about the rebellion, and the lives it had cost. The settlement on this world had been small, but that still meant thousands of dragons and their servants spread across the world in small settlements. All dead now aside from those Askelon had rescued. Dead and buried by the red sands.
I failed them, failed to keep my people safe. He knew he was being unfair to himself, there had been nothing that he could do. But the thought gnawed at him anyway. He was an Imperial Prince. The subjects of the Empire were his responsibility, and every one of them on this world had died.
Josie's hand landed on Verikan's shoulder, startling him. He restrained his urge to pull away, accepting the tentative comforting touch. Why she felt the need to help him he didn't know, but he appreciated it. The sadness and sense of loss threatened to overwhelm him, and Josie kept it at bay.
They sat together quietly for a long time before he spoke again.
"There are things I have to know, Josie. About your world, about your people."<
br />
She tensed at that, withdrawing her hand. Fear and determination showed on her face as she watched him warily. "I won't help you invade my home. Don't ask me to."
"Josie—"
Verikan's response was cut off by the loud wail of the palace's alarm, and he jumped to his feet. Warrior's instinct narrowed his eyes and he bared his teeth in a snarl as he leaped toward the door. The last time he'd heard an alarm in this palace, it had signaled the end of everything.
"That's the intruder alarm," he said, shooting a look back at Josie. She stared, wide-eyed and afraid. "Wait here — you will be safe, no matter what's happening. I will return when I've dealt with the danger. If you hunger, the foodmaker is over there."
He didn't wait for her response. This was his chance to vent his pent-up anger at a deserving target, and he could barely contain his rage. Rage at those who had killed his subjects, wrecked his world, and perhaps destroyed his empire. With a snarl he threw himself forward, shifting as he went. His body lengthened and grew into his warform as he rushed through the door, now large enough that he barely fitted through.
With any luck he'd find a foe he could take his rage out on.
5
Josie
Josie gasped as she watched Verikan change. Already terrifying and impressive, Verikan transformed before her eyes into something else. His body lengthened and he sank to all fours, growing into a true dragon. Huge and powerful, he barely fit through the doorway.
It was still unmistakably him, though. The red scales were the same, though they now covered the whole of his powerful, sinuous body. His wings were bigger but otherwise identical. She couldn't doubt the evidence of her own eyes.
Staring after him, she didn't know what to think. It was too much of a surprise for her to react to. The doors slid shut behind the magnificent dragon, and finally she managed to shake off her paralysis. With a shocked whimper she scrambled backward, falling off the bed.
