by Zara Zenia
“Infernians are the sworn enemy of Dragselia and they will do anything to conquer and destroy it. It’s in their nature and it is what they will do to Vaxivia, too, if given a chance. We have family, friends, an entire planet of people we are sworn to protect.”
“I don’t understand. Are you soldiers or something?”
Zaruv, who had been silent until now, said, “We are the princes of Dragselia. Our brother, King Mulkaro, ascended to the throne, and we represent the direct line of succession.”
I felt my eyes grow large as I processed everything. Between Zaruv, Ragal, and the rest of the group, they pieced together the picture of their political exile.
“So the Infernians are hunting you because they want to destroy your royal line and take the throne unchallenged?”
“Yes,” Ragal said, “I know it doesn’t excuse the fact that I deceived you. I should have told you, I know that now. The thing is, every time I thought to reveal it to you, I let my fears stop me. I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, but it happened, and I was afraid that if I revealed my deception, I would lose you.”
He hadn’t lost me, and I wanted to tell him that, but in that moment, I wasn’t quite ready to let everything slide.
“How could you think so little of me? And it’s not like you lied to me once. You lied to me every day. You fabricated a whole business venture!” I felt my blood heating.
“I know, but you have to understand…”
I cut in, in a hushed voice meant just for him, “Understand what? That you seduced me for your own benefit and then realized you liked me? I don’t see why things had to go… as far as they did, for you to gain my assistance.”
He leaned closer, lowering his voice too. “You’re right, I didn’t have to take it as far as I did, but once I met you… I wanted you. If you believe nothing else, believe this: I didn’t fabricate a relationship with you. Everything we felt, everything we shared, was as real for me as it was for you.”
My anger was still simmering, but it was hard to maintain a tirade in the face of such candor. Part of me wanted to leap into his arms, part of me wanted to slap him, and part of me was worried about the implications of Tadisha being an alien spy.
The room had grown awkward in the face of our hushed exchange. I looked back at everyone gathered around the table. Half of them were aliens and that was still a little freaky, but I focused on the issue at hand.
“So, what happens to Tadisha?” I asked.
Charles replied, “She’ll be taken into custody and questioned about the Infernians’ plans.”
Karun nodded. “She has been established here far longer than we have been here, which raises many questions.”
I felt queasy, remembering… “She started working for my father first, was privy to all of his business dealings. She has a lot of knowledge about Steel City’s infrastructure and development plans.” The idea of an alien assassin working with my father was disturbing.
Charles added, the dark skin of his brow furrowing with concern, “Well, it seems we have confirmed the statements of the Infernian we interrogated last. Tadisha is likely not alone. We’ll need to start taking measures to sniff out the rest.”
Jennifer interrupted, “What about the ship? We salvaged what we could, and Andie and Karun secured the wreckage we found.”
I felt a pang of guilt, recalling that I had participated in their stranding, even if I hadn’t been fully aware of Tadisha’s sabotage of their vehicles.
Zaruv nodded, his arm around Jennifer. “Indeed, we need to make haste. Can we count on LCC to help us rebuild still, in light of the facts?”
I swallowed. “Yes, the only people who know that I terminated the project are Albert and Tadisha. We delivered the pods when we got back to town and my staff have already begun to work on them.”
A visible sense of relief settled over the room and I felt myself relax slightly with them.
A moment later, the table shook and the room seemed to rumble as a nearby explosion trembled through the ground.
We all jumped up and Charles led the way through a hidden back stairwell to the ground floor of the building. Emerging into the sunlight, we all watched as a large black cloud billowed into the sky, just north of us.
My thoughts raced and I quickly shouted over the noise, “That’s the LCC Industrial Campus!”
Everyone scrambled onto hover vehicles, and, without much thought, I climbed on behind Ragal, the physical connection feeling so good, even as we flew toward danger.
Chapter 17
Ragal
Flying toward the blast with Tasha against my back, I felt the adrenaline rush through my system. I wasn’t sure where we stood, exactly, but she was there with me and that, at least, had begun to quell the storm of my emotions.
We raced toward the rising black clouds that seemed to fan out and darken the sky overhead. The nearer we got, the more obvious it became that the main explosion had come from the same building which Tasha had shown us on our tour.
The blaze had spread to the buildings surrounding it, as well, and workers rushed out of the nearby structures. It was chaos. A fire on Vaxivia was a dangerous thing. Since the planet had such low levels of ground moisture, all fires had to be strictly controlled. Open flames essentially did not exist and this was a horrifying example of why.
As we pulled up, security vehicles were already dousing the fire with pyroretardant foam, but it raged in spite of their efforts. The building had been nondescript, with few windows, its plain beige exterior relaying nothing of the high-tech labs and construction facilities within its walls. Flames snaked out of every opening we could see, climbing rapidly toward the sky.
“The pods!” Tasha cried, her wavy black hair swirling in frenzied chaos in the drafts of heat pouring in all directions from the burning structure.
“Are you sure they are already here?”
“Yes, I had Li send them over in a container after we arrived at LCC,” she said, panic rising in her voice.
We landed quickly and ran toward the scene. Tasha’s face contorted into an expression of horror as she covered her mouth with her hand. The heat of the blaze flowed in waves over us as we were bathed in the awful orange glow of the climbing flames.
Screams echoed from inside as more emergency response and security vehicles continued to arrive.
“We have staff in there!” she shouted to the emergency personnel. “Use the hyrdoduct! Use anything we have!”
A detachment of workers ran to one of a series of small tanks with pipes connecting to the ground. Opening the tanks, they pulled out a thick rubber line that after several moments began spurting thick, muddy water. Once pressure began to increase, they hurriedly carried the line to the building and sprayed the blaze.
It was a mad flurry of activity as several other workers connected to more tanks, dousing the building in bursts of water. Still, no one seemed to be able to contain the flames. My brothers came to us and looked on with concern as the fire raged on.
Tasha turned to us, tears in her eyes. “My most trusted researchers were in there, studying the pods. They were my friends, my colleagues, my mentors… and they’re all trapped in there.”
Just then, a demonic cackle rose through the noise and chaos around us and underscored the human cries and screams of panic that followed.
“An Infernian,” Zaruv dolefully proclaimed to Tasha, who looked overcome by the horror before her. “This was a deliberate, hostile act.”
The heat radiated and forced us back for Tasha’s protection as something small near the building’s entrance burst from the flames. Exchanging looks with my brothers, I knew what had to be done.
I quickly grabbed Tasha’s arms and turned her to face me, “Tasha, look at me. Your workers will die in there if we don’t intervene. My brothers and I are immune to fire; we can get your people out, but I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
Tasha searched my eyes, unsure for a moment. Then, wordlessly, she nodde
d once with vigor. I knew it was probably a big step for her, for any Vaxivian, really. Trust and aliens were clearly not two concepts that aligned well here. The moment felt monumental, considering the fact that I had deceived her. In lieu of her direct forgiveness, this felt like a decent consolation and a step in the direction I hoped we could go.
I turned to my brothers. “Batri!” I called out to them, and they needed no further instruction.
The four of us shifted in tandem. The humans around us jumped back, startled, some of them dropping their equipment. A few ran from us, screaming, but most just stared in shock.
I looked back briefly to see Tasha watching me with a worried look. I knew we would face an Infernian within and they made for a wily foe, but I silently vowed that I would make it out of there and back to her.
There was no time for assurances as we flew into the flames, following the cries of the workers. We had only toured the facility once before with Tasha, but we knew the basic layout of the building.
Flying in unison, we navigated the large hallways of the office space near the front of the building, finding a small number of workers here and there. In turns, we stopped, shifted to free them, led them out, and then rejoined the group, following the sounds of more human screams.
Finally, in the center of the building, from the glass viewing windows of the clean lab, we saw a group of ten workers. They were shackled to a series of pipes that rose to a workstation in the center of the room.
They coughed from the fumes of the fire and screamed out for help. I broke the glass walls with a heavy blow from my tail, spraying shards everywhere.
Shifting, we all ran forward and struggled with their restraints, attempting to free them. The blaze was getting stronger, and, though our bodies could withstand the flight through them, the number of possible exits that wouldn’t lead us through a path of fire was narrowing rapidly.
Feeling the metal of the restraints bite into my palms, I threw all my might into unlatching them. I failed and saw that my brothers struggled, too, to use brute strength alone. I stopped and examined the bindings. The latches were held together using massively charged magnetic hinges. Even with Dragselian strength, we could not break them.
Thinking quickly, I grabbed a blunt tool from a counter and shouted over the roar of the inferno at a slender middle-aged woman in clean room gear. “I need you to look away and angle your body as far from me as possible! Got it?”
She looked back at me and, though there was terror etched into the lines of her face, she nodded.
Putting my mouth to the bindings, I breathed a small stream of fire on them, heating them, and then struck down at the bindings with all my might.
Though I had done my best to focus the heat on the metal latches, the whole of the restraints had turned scorching hot and had burned her wrists slightly. As a Dragselian, I had no concept of the pain one felt from a burn, but, based on the physical appearance, it looked excruciating.
Fortunately, her injury was not in vain, as the effort had been successful. The heat and impact had displaced the magnet’s dipoles and the metal latches clicked free with a small amount of additional force. Her hands broke free of the restraints and she jumped up feverishly, like an animal freed from a trap.
She clutched at the red, raw marks of her injured wrists but looked at me with gratitude and a mixture of fear and wonder in her eyes.
My brothers and I worked furiously to free as many as we could. At one point, the flames began to encroach into the lab. The heat passed over our bodies with no effect, but the workers’ panic was clearly rising. Pavar shifted again into his vibrant red dragon form, fanned out his wings and beat them, generating a wind to repel the flames.
Still, the fire had cut off our exits, and there was no way to get the humans out without them being scorched in the process.
Zaruv, bronze in his dragon form, suddenly burst into the air and flew straight up at the roof of the hangar-like lab. He didn’t slow as he collided with it and burst through the sheet of metal, creating a gaping hole.
Taking quick advantage, the rest of us scooped up hostages, one or two at a time, and shuttled them out, barely landing to drop them off before rushing back in. In two trips, we had them all out of the building.
They were singed, but they were alive.
Tasha embraced the woman I had freed first as I set her down, and she immediately summoned a medical worker to check her out.
Before I could go, the woman grabbed for me. “It was a woman—or she was a woman. She came in, demanding to know where the pods were. We were showing them to her when she started to shake and shriek. Her back ripped open, and wings burst out, her skin became iridescent, and her hair… it was almost alive, like serpents. She detonated the bomb, and we would have died, except the glass from the clean room is heat proof.”
I nodded, unable to speak in my dragon form, and followed my brothers back in to the burning building to search for the Infernian, leaving Tasha to comfort the woman.
With the exception of the metal skeleton of the building, everything within was largely destroyed. We worked efficiently, scanning every chamber, searching, hunting as the flames licked at the scales of our dragon bodies.
Our search ultimately proved fruitless. The Infernian, like all Infernians, was a coward, and it appeared the monster had already fled.
The remnants of the explosive were still visible. The device had been detonated directly beside the two recovered pods. For their part, the pods looked to have sustained some minor damage but were still intact.
I suddenly felt a jolt, like an electrical shock, and one thought came to mind—Tasha. Somehow, I sensed she was in danger.
I rushed out of the building, bursting free of the rippling currents of heat, and looked to where I had seen her moments before. She wasn’t there.
The female researcher that Tasha had been comforting was getting up off the ground, fresh cuts on her arms and forehead. Everyone around her was looking on in renewed fear. Andie and several other responders had pulsors aimed at the sky, but it was empty.
Tasha was gone.
Chapter 18
Tasha
Watching Ragal and his brothers shift into the startling forms of their dragon bodies was at once unsettling and incredible. Prepared for it this time, the transformation struck my scientific mind with amazement. Ragal’s great, black, shimmering form as he rose into the air before the flames, racing to save my workers, was more magnificent than terrifying.
He turned, looking back at me, and when I looked into his eyes, they were his eyes, not those of a monster. Shocking as it was to witness his body change, I realized he was still the man within. It felt like the ground quaked beneath me as my perspective shifted the same way his body had.
He had claimed to be immune to heat and fire, but still, watching him enter the flame-devoured building, I realized I was trembling with fear. He went forward, disappearing into the red and orange glow of the blaze like some kind of god of fire.
Zaruv, Karun, and Pavar followed him. It was a spectacular image and it felt like a moment of unreality.
I waited, feeling helpless and anxious, needing to know that Ragal was all right and bracing myself over the fate of my researchers. If anyone lost their lives over this, I knew I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. Even with the limited knowledge I’d had throughout this ordeal, I was still responsible for these people. They relied on me and the burden of their safety landed squarely on my shoulders.
Worry also nagged at my mind. I had heard that laugh too. It sounded too high pitched and resounding to be human. It wasn’t just the fire that Ragal would have to contend with. What if this was some kind of trap? The idea that he and his brothers were being hunted by such creatures, that they were infiltrating Vaxivia, it was just so much to process, and part of my mind resisted what the scope of all this meant.
So much was happening, I felt like the events were speeding past me and I was struggling to find a grip an
d hold on.
They ferried a handful of people out through a small side entrance shortly after entering the building, but then nothing else happened. Unease settled in as we all waited. Jennifer ran to assist the emergency personnel seeing to the first survivors, who were coughing from smoke inhalation. I ordered staff to focus their efforts at the entrances, which had been overtaken by the fire.
Finally, I saw the giant bronze form of Zaruv burst through the roof, exploding with force into the air, smoke streaming out behind him. He was the largest of the brothers, at least in dragon form, and his bronze body reflected the glow of the furnace below him, giving him an otherworldly look.
They began shuttling more survivors out, and, in the mayhem, I watched with amazement and gratitude as my researchers were carried to safety—injured, but breathing and alive.
I ran to Yolanda, a talented nanotechnologist who was heading a team studying Pod A. I wrapped her in my arms, hearing her tell Ragal about the Infernian perpetrator. He seemed to understand what she said and flew away, back into the building.
I squeezed her tight, a sense of relief rushing through me, until I heard her scream in my ear, the sound deafening and terrifying. I went to pull back, to see what was wrong—and something sharp bit into my shoulders and wrenched me off the ground.
Before I realized what was happening, I was already fifty feet in the air, looking down at the burning building and racing away from it. I began to struggle, panic setting in. I saw several people draw weapons and aim at us, but no shots came as I was dragged carelessly through the air.
Looking up, I saw my captor and she saw me, her beady eyes, gold with vertical black ellipses, like a snake, stared coldly back at me. I beheld her in all her awful glory, and, even transformed as she was, I knew her to be the woman I had called my friend. It was Tadisha, as hideous in her natural state as she had been beautiful in her disguise.
Covered in iridescent green and black scales, she bore two small black horns at her crown. Her hair coiled and moved like writhing tentacles about her face. Two delicate mint green wings beat rapidly like those of a small anxious bird, lifting us higher and higher into the clouds of smoke that wafted into the sky.
