Saved by the Alien Dragon

by Stella Cassy

  Another “little joke” of his, I suspected, since my turn never seemed to come. I knew why, of course. He must have been well aware of my recurring nightmares, and determined to continue to subject me to them, as nightly reminders of the price of disobedience to the Pax.

  And it worked. God, did it work.

  So once again, when I put my head to the pillow and succumbed to sleep, I was instantly returned to the first year I spent in the N-7 mines alongside my husband Daniel.

  The banging and clanging sounds were always the same, probably because they weren't part of the dream – they invaded my brain from the outside world, as the mining equipment continued to pound and hammer and smelt, every hour of every cycle. But I knew it was a dream because the faces around me were different, largely because almost none of the original slaves I'd arrived with were still alive. The shafts were much lower as well. They hadn't been hollowed out as much yet, and the effect was extremely claustrophobic. The shadows gathered around us eagerly on the rock walls, like a gang of robbers preparing to close in and smother us.

  Knowing what happened – how it ended – some might think the worst part of the nightmares were their bloody and inevitable conclusion.

  They weren't.

  The worst part was the beginning. Seeing Daniel again, close enough for me to reach out and touch. The way he smiled through his pain and fear, trying to comfort me. The hard edge in his eyes which promised he'd never be beaten or broken, and that he wouldn't let such things happen to me either.

  As though he'd had a choice.

  Yes, that was the worst part. Being made to forget, even for a moment, that Daniel was gone forever. That the cruelty of the universe had snatched him away from me, leaving these gory nighttime phantoms as a ghastly consolation prize, an abomination of the love we had for each other.

  But then came the rest. There were words, but they didn't matter – they were drowned out by the endless noise of the machines, creating a flickering silent horror film I could never escape. Gohak’s predecessor Mershel, sneering and brandishing a crackling electro-lash at me because I wasn't working fast enough for her. Daniel stepping in front of me without a moment's hesitation to protect me, raising his forearm so the slithering length of electricity wrapped itself around it instead of striking me.

  The surprise and humiliation on Mershel's face at his audacity. The contempt. I'd never seen such unbridled spite on the face of any living creature before in my life.

  Then one of the Vence guards was summoned to hold me in place, laughing in my ear with breath like rotting meat as I was made to watch what happened next: A centaur-like Coovooan, leading the biggest, hungriest, most vicious Nk'athen in the mine –the one they called “Big Blue,” due to the diseased discoloration of its thick and veiny hide.

  The Coovooan unhitched the muzzle from the beast, withdrawing his hands with lightning speed to keep them from being bitten off. Then Mershel shoved Daniel toward the monster, cackling heartlessly and wincing away from the sprays of blood and gobbets of flesh.

  On Earth, long ago, many kitchens had sinks which were equipped with things known as “Dispose-Alls.” They were aptly named, to be sure – any soft matter fed into the maws of these devices was rapidly shredded to nothingness by the rows of grinding blades inside. Some careless humans had even managed to accidentally lose fingers and hands in accidents involving the machines.

  The mouth of the Nk'athen was very much like a Dispose-All. And that's exactly what it did; disposed of all of my husband in a wet roar of tearing skin and cracking bones, crunching and swallowing and crunching some more, so quickly and efficiently that Daniel barely had time to scream before the creature's gizzard closed around his head. There had been a final, terrible snap as Daniel's skull was compressed, allowing the Nk'athen to swallow it.

  Then came the moist blue tongue, flicking out over and over as it cleaned the last few drops of Daniel from the fine hairs on its muzzle.

  It took three Coovooans to get the harness back on the Nk'athen's head, but Mershel's point had been made eloquently. The Pax Alliance had already taken my freedom. With a snap of their hairy white fingers, they could take anything else they pleased if I didn't do everything in my power to prove I would never resist them.

  And no matter how hard I worked, a voice inside of me relentlessly insisted that they still could. The collar around my neck, the displays of respect and favoritism from Gohak and the other overseers –in the end, they meant nothing. I could still be extinguished without a second thought and replaced within half a cycle. The voice told me that Gohak hadn't been joking after all. That I'd never see Earth again. That for all I knew, the Earth I'd grown up on no longer existed – it was just a lifeless, strip-mined ball of mud, a bombed-out graveyard drifting in space forever.

  I fought that voice every day. But it wouldn't be denied. It was constant, implacable, just like the sounds of the mines themselves, the booming, the...

  Explosions.

  I was jolted awake by the noise. At first, I tried to convince myself it was just a mining accident – after all, they happened at N-7 with alarming frequency. The overseers didn't bother with the expense of safety measures and failsafes when it was far cheaper to let slaves die and replace them with new ones. So machines broke down and killed the workers operating them, or shafts full of natural gas went undetected and resulted in lethal blasts.

  But no. These explosions sounded different to my trained ears. They were oddly rhythmic, preceded by a whistling screech from above, and the initial booms almost seemed to contain a throbbing undertone.

  Space-to-surface bombardments and energy weapons.

  “What's going on?” Gordon mumbled sleepily, raising his head from his hard cot a few rows away from mine.

  “The mining colony is under attack,” I replied tersely.

  “Good.” He rolled over, pulling the thin, scratchy blanket over his head and making a show of going back to sleep.

  I jumped out of bed as some of the other slaves began to stir, my mind racing. The Pax Alliance didn't have many enemies – most of the worlds whose inhabitants opposed them had been integrated into the empire, enslaved, or exterminated. There was only one opponent of the Alliance organized enough to conduct an all-out assault on a mining camp like this one, at least according to the snippets of conversation I'd gleaned from casually eavesdropping on the guards and overseers.

  The Hielsrane. A race of greedy and rapacious raiders who, from all accounts, were able to transform from scaled humanoids into massive reptilian beasts resembling the dragons of ancient Earther legend. They felt threatened by the continuous expansion of the Alliance and coveted the precious metals the Pax mined and hoarded.

  And now they were here, guns blazing.

  Another series of quantum plasma warheads struck the outer defenses of the compound, and the floor bucked and rolled beneath my feet. I lurched over to the console next to the door, keying in my overseer code to open it. I'd never even considered using this privilege to attempt escape. I knew there was no way for me to leave the planet. Not to mention the fact that the Vence would find me, erasing all the special treatment I'd earned through my loyalty and reducing me to the status of just another lowly slave again. All I'd done, all I'd sacrificed, would have been for nothing. I'd die starving and in chains.

  And that's exactly what would occur if I sat back like Gordon and allowed the Hielsrane to overtake the camp. To the Pax, I was a valuable asset. To the Hielsrane, I'd be one more human slave to be abused and bartered, bought and sold and tormented to death.

  I couldn't let that happen. This was a classic case of the devil I knew versus the devil I didn't, and I wasn't taking any chances.

  What's more, I recognized this raid as yet another opportunity to distinguish myself. If I helped Gohak fight off the invaders, I might earn another promotion, more comfortable living conditions, privacy, a weapon of my own...maybe even a chance to return to Earth.

  I ran down the corridor a
s metal plates and illumination fixtures rained down. The first platoons of armed defenders were running in the opposite direction, toward the area where the attackers' shuttles had touched down – skittering Vence, galloping Coovooans, hopping Mosets, all taking orders from Pax. It seemed like utter chaos to me, which shouldn't have been a surprise. The colony was equipped with defensive armaments, but to my knowledge, they'd never been used against anything more threatening than small packs of short-range corsair vessels.

  I headed for the command center, banging on the armored doors. “Gohak! It's Natalie!”

  There was a faint series of beeps as Gohak keyed the right code into the access panel, and the door slid open. Gohak peered out furtively, a blaster in his paw. “Get inside!” he hissed, his voice tinged with panic. “Now! Now!”

  I stepped in and he shut the doors behind me quickly. “Have they reached the slave quarters?” he asked.

  “Not yet, but if the guards can't fend them off, it's only a matter of time. And based on the way the other slaves were reacting to this assault, I'd say there's a better than average chance they'll use this distraction to revolt and escape. They might even join the raiding parties, thinking their chances are better with the Hielsrane than with us.”

  As I told him this, my eyes were drawn to the bank of security screens lining the walls behind him. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The Hielsrane were even larger and more fearsome than I'd imagined – dragons, dozens of them, swooping and pouncing on the Pax and their allies, beating their massive bat wings and tearing them to pieces.

  The floors were slick with at least five different colors of blood, like some obscene rainbow. The defenders were slipping and sliding in it, the energy discharges from their weapons missing their marks wildly and scorching the metal walls. If it hadn't been so terrifying, it might almost have been funny. Running a mining camp made these Pax brutes and torturers, perhaps, but not soldiers or warriors. When faced with the onslaught of the Hielsrane, they were helpless fodder, nothing more.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Gohak repeated over and over again, like a mantra. “This is awful. Why? Why are they attacking us now? What are we going to do? If they overrun the camp, I'll lose my position! I'll be stripped of my rank by the Pax Alliance! I'll be exiled!”

  I grabbed Gohak by his fuzzy shoulders, shaking him to make him snap out of it. “Listen to me: If they overrun this camp, you will be torn apart and eaten by those dragons. Let me help you. Give me a weapon, and I'll get us both out of here. We can try to make it to one of the other camps, regroup, gather reinforcements...”

  “I can't,” he breathed, his eyes as wide as saucers. “I can't give a slave a weapon, don't you see? It's against regulations! The trouble I'd be in, just for even considering it!”

  “You don't have a choice! Once the raiders fight their way into this chamber, we'll both die!”

  Suddenly, something huge and heavy slammed its bulk against the thick door of the command center. Again. And again. And again. The metal began to buckle under the weight.

  “Is there another way out of here?” I asked Gohak urgently. “Some kind of secret passage, an escape hatch, a ventilation duct, anything?”

  “Y-Yes, of course.” Gohak's voice was high and quavering. It sounded like he was going to faint at any moment. “B-B-But I can't tell you. It's against regulations, don't you understand? What if you tell the other slaves? What if they use that knowledge to escape? No, we must obey regulations, no matter what happens, the regulations must be obeyed...”

  “I'm not like the other slaves, you stupid, stubborn little fool!” I screamed. “You know that! Now give me a weapon and tell me where the escape hatch is, so we can get the hell out of here while we still can!”

  “Yes.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Yes, all right. You may have my blaster. I just have to use it once more, and then it's all yours, to do with as you wish.” He raised the muzzle of the weapon to his temple.

  “No!” I yelled desperately.

  “I'm sorry.” He gave me a pained smile that was almost a grimace, his eyes wide and bulging and insane. “Can't surrender the camp to raiders. Not while I'm alive. Not allowed, you see. Regulations. You understand.”

  He pulled the trigger, and the side of his skull erupted in a shower of turquoise brains, splattering against the wall. He slumped forward, dead before he hit the ground.

  I didn't have time to be shocked or disgusted. The door had been torn almost completely from its moorings, and behind it, I heard a series of overlapping roars which sounded like cruel laughter. I bent down, grabbed the blaster, and aimed it with a trembling hand.

  The door finally gave way, and I caught a brief glimpse of dragons, too large to fit through. The first one had reddish-orange scales which looked as though they were creased and crisscrossed with numerous battle scars. As I watched, his musculature rippled and contracted, his mass reducing to a humanoid shape and size. The sight was so strange and hypnotic, I almost forgot to fire.

  Almost.

  The blast hit him high on his right arm, near the shoulder, and left a smoking black spot on his armored hide. I checked the setting of the weapon – it was as high as it would go, enough to practically vaporize most other humanoids.

  The attacker looked at me with an odd mixture of surprise, amusement, and contempt. “Why, you arrogant little—!”

  He started toward me, but the one behind him – who had also transformed into a humanoid (and a rather attractive one at that, I had to admit) – stopped him. “Wait. Don't hurt her.”

  “'Don't hurt her?'” the first one balked. “Did you see what she did to my arm? I'm going to rip her head off!”

  “Don't be such a hatchling, Ranel. Stal can patch you up good as new when we get back to the ship. But look at her collar –it's pure durabilium. Worth a lot. She's not like the other slaves. It appears as though she might be in a position of some authority here.”

  “I can rip her head off from that position! Watch me!”

  The other one sighed impatiently. “What if she has valuable information about the other mining outposts? We need to take her alive.”

  So they hadn't overrun the other mining camps on the planet yet – just this one. That information seemed like it might be useful to me, and I filed it away in my mind accordingly.

  The dragon-man called Ranel rolled his eyes, extending a claw to me. “Very well. Hand over your weapon, and you won't be harmed. Continue to resist, and so help me, I'll snatch that gun away from you, crumple it up, and make you eat it.”

  I considered my options, then relented, giving him the weapon. Anything to stay alive...and buy more time.

  4

  Dashel

  “Ow!” Ranel snarled as Stal, the ship's healer, ran the scale-printer over his injured arm to repair the damage the blaster had done. “Where the hell did you get your medical license, anyway, huh? A Delevnian whorehouse?”

  “If I had, I'm sure you'd have seen me there,” the old physician croaked dryly. “Unless, of course, you were passed out in the corner with a bottle of Fraxian ale in your claw and a sagging teat between your lips. Now stop squirming, or I'll have to start all over again.”

  I tried not to laugh as Ranel grumbled, doing his best to hold still. He'd always hated doctors. More than that, he hated being forced to endure their ministrations; he saw it as a sign of weakness, and often seemed to long for the days when warriors would either survive or succumb to their wounds without medical meddling.

  “There. It's done.” Stal deactivated the glowing tool, putting it back on the shelf where it belonged. “But next time, I promise you, I'll be sorely tempted to save myself the trouble and simply amputate. Regardless of the nature of the injury.”

  “Thank you for seeing to him, Stal,” I said. “He appreciates it tremendously. Don't you, Ranel?”

  Ranel bared his teeth at me. “I'm going to go see if I can reach the officers commanding the drop-shuttles. Maybe they can give
me a preliminary report of how the raids on the other camps are going.” He walked out, his claws curled into fists.

  “And now that I've bandaged the Mighty Warrior,” Stal rasped, “I suppose I should go down to the planet's surface and see to the slaves you've inherited thanks to this raid. Unless, of course, you were planning to bring them up here?”

  I shook my head. “No room. This vessel wasn't exactly built for taking prisoners. It was all we could do to find adequate accommodations for the human woman.”

  Stal nodded wearily. “Then I'll take the next drop-shuttle down. We wouldn't want any of the poor dears suffering from untreated wounds or ailments. It might detract from their resale value.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” I agreed. “But before you go...you did conduct a thorough examination of the woman, yes?”

  “Quite thorough.”

  “And you didn't find any anomalies?”

  Stal scowled at me impatiently. “Well, I didn't find any cosmic wormholes, warp bubbles, or tears in the space/time continuum in her large intestine, if that's what you're asking.”

  I tried to keep my composure. Stal was a brilliant healer, and I was extremely fortunate that he'd been assigned to the Wyvern. Still, his persistent sarcasm and generally obtuse nature could be quite grating. “I mean viruses, bacteria, or any other sort of infections or maladies that could endanger the welfare of the crew.”

  “Oh. That. Yes, now that you mention it, I did find that she was incubating several unknown but potentially dangerous extraterrestrial parasites, not to mention a bad case of Volarii Green Plague.”

  “Really?!”

  “No, Captain, of course not,” he snapped. “It's my job to make sure any entity brought aboard is quarantined and given a clean bill of health before anyone else is allowed to interact with them, and that's exactly what I did. I've inspected her for every known disease in the galaxy, checked every cell in her body for unknown elements, and scrubbed her with a laser bath just to be sure. She's probably cleaner and healthier now than she was the day she was born.”