by Juno Wells
Braxan glared at him again, but the relief of having the bolt out made it less fiery than he wanted. “My origins are not in doubt. I thought that was settled some time ago. Do you wish to reopen the issue? It's fine with me. It's been some time since my claws tasted royal blood.”
Braxan's princedom was on the outskirts of the Kraz Empire, and while he was doubtlessly an Ultraco, and doubtlessly the son of King Bariant, there were some who had suggested that his mother had not been of noble blood, or even an alien. That had led to a few fights earlier in Braxan's life, but he had settled them with his fighting ability and his obvious strength.
Dacron hid a yawn with his hand. “Oh, I'm not spoiling for a fight, Prince Braxan. I'm just saying what others will say when it becomes known that your Mate is an alien.”
“She's not my Mate,” Braxan repeated, but this time, the statement lacked conviction. It was strange. The dragon had never done anything like it before. The dragon part of any male Ultraco would recognize the Mate before the human part did, and then it was settled. Once and for all. But it happened in different ways. There was never a set pattern to how the dragon determined it, but there was never any doubt when it did.
Braxan groaned at the thought. Was there doubt this time? That defiant face, her jaw clenched, her damp hair blown out of her face by the air he set in motion by flapping his wings. The scent of her, so scared, so female.
Flame, such beauty! Such bravery! Then taking him – and the dragon! - completely by surprise and shooting at him. The mere idea was ... just unreal. He barely had time to veer a fraction to the right to prevent the bolt from hitting him in the middle of the dragon's chest and right through its huge heart.
And still it didn't hate her! Still it claimed her and promised to get her. And it casually killed some Pirgks who had snuck up on her and were a second from killing her. It killed their allies. That had never happened before as far as Braxan knew.
Dacron had a point. If the Emperor took issue with the events today, then he wouldn't hesitate to come here in person, light years from his home planet, to set them straight. He was old now, Emperor Kraz. With age came stronger greed. And dragons were greedy from birth, valuing their hoards of gold and gemstones above everything else. Kraz's hoard was the largest in history, it was rumored. Of course only Kraz himself knew, because no one else was allowed to enter his immense vault. It was said to fill an immense vault the size of a mountain range. Only the very top of the hoard was visible as it grew up into Kraz's throne room from the vault below. That way, the Emperor could lie on his hoard while also taking care of the matters of his empire.
Somehow, the possibility of having to confront an angry dragon emperor seemed less important to Braxan than the woman.
“I have to see her again,” he mumbled to himself, then looked up. “What?”
Evec stood there, holding out a stein. “I said, would you like a Dimri, Captain.” The young male had a concerned look on his superhumanly handsome face.
“Aye. On the table.”
Shit. Caught daydreaming in front of the Ultraco flight he was supposed to lead. He swung his legs under the table. Picturing her in his mind had produced a very physical and very visible effect in his pants, and he had to hide it.
Evec carefully placed the stein of ice cold Dimri brew on the ancient wooden table and bowed slightly. He was still somewhat awestruck by Braxan. And probably by Dacron, too. They had both long since made names for themselves as legendary Ultracos.
“Thank you,” Braxan growled. At least he had the presence of mind to do that.
He looked around. Dacron was sipping his drink, staring into the fire as if deep in thought. Karox was still holding and examining the bolt of some kind metal with a nasty component that made the dragon in him recoil. Evec sat down and pretended to not look at Braxan. In the way of the young, he was entirely oblivious of his own worth, nervous of not measuring up to the older dragons.
They were a good flight.
No. They were the best flight he had commanded. Dacron with his speed and fierce intelligence. Evec with his agility and raw talent. Karox, always direct and dependable and seeing the little things that might pass others by. Himself with the heat of his flame and his unprecedented strength and ferocity.
Demons below. What if there was no doubt and she was his Mate? The impossibility of it! An alien Mate? A pure human, no matter how breathtaking? An enemy of their allies, the Pirgks? The room spun around him.
He was old enough, that wasn't the problem. Six hundred years was about right for a Mating. So far, he had avoided it, and some had started to ask questions about it. Even he himself had wondered about it. But now it seemed possible that the reason he hadn't found his Mate yet was that she was an alien living on a far-away planet.
He looked around the Great Hall of his spaceship that took them around in the galaxy to the hotspots where Emperor Kraz wanted to help one side in exchange for gemstones or gold for his hoard. If she turned out to be his Mate, how would his life change? Could he still be a mercenary for the Emperor, or would he have to do something about it? The Dragon Emperor would not let him go just like that.
He took the stein from the table and tasted the Dimri brew, cold and refreshing. In the forefront of his mind was only this: he had to see her again. Both because he wanted to and because he had to find out if she was indeed his Mate. How in space would he arrange it?
Evec pointed to the stony wall of the hall. “The Pirgks are here, Captain.”
Braxan looked up to the sensor screen, disguised as a huge painting on the wall. Despite the ship's peculiar design, the old-fashion castle style that Ultracos liked, it still had all modern equipment.
The ugly spaceship that belonged to the Pirgk general was approaching.
“No doubt they have more for us to do,” Dacron said. “If today's performance didn't make them want to cancel the whole deal.”
“Very well,” Braxan said and touched his hand to the wound. It felt as if there was still something lodged in there, something that the dragon in him hated and feared. “We will see what they want. Let them past the moat. But no further.”
He got to his feet. Then the room spun around him, he heard Dacron sharply yell something, he saw Karox turn in surprise and then the stone floor came up to meet him.
6
- Amelia -
“Amelia! I was hoping I'd run into you.”
They had almost made it to Mac's when a man in a filthy utility suit came towards them. He was young, but his face was drawn and he had obviously had a long day.
“Hi, Josh. Coming in for a beer?”
Josh looked longingly at the door that was like all the other doors on the base, except this one had a blue neon sign saying 'Mac's' above it. “No such luck. Well, maybe later. No, Hanson asked me to find the dragon's blood, the drops that dripped down to the ground. But it's a big planet and I can't pinpoint the place where it might be. You got the time to help locate it?”
Amelia sighed. That sounded like it would take a while. But it was important. And no one was ever completely off the clock on the base. If something needed doing, it had to be done. Referring to union rules and contract clauses wasn't going to help. “Sure. I think I can probably find it. If you can round up some bright searchlights.”
“Great. You'll just direct me, and I'll crawl around on the ground looking for it. Wouldn't want anything to happen to your jeans.”
Josh was one of the few men on the base that Amelia could see herself dating. He had a cheerful and can-do manner that everyone liked. But before she went into space on Outward Expansion duty, she had decided that she wouldn't get a boyfriend unless he was clearly the one. And after she'd been there for a while, she had seen too many casual relationships go sour to regret her decision.
“All right. Let's go.”
“Hey, and what about me, Laundry Woman?” Daria protested. “What about our superheroes' night out?”
Amelia winked. “Can't you use
your superpowers to keep my foam cold? I'll be right back and we'll hero it up.”
Daria opened to door to the bar. “Okay. But if I get captured by villains while you're away, just look for the trail of beer nuts that I'll leave.” She waved happily and entered the bar.
Amelia came with Josh to the airlock, grabbed one of the suits that were hanging there and pulled it on. The memory fibers embedded in it adjusted themselves to her size, and she reflexively checked the pockets. Medpack, flashlight, comms. Everything there. Then she and Josh went outside in the cold, sulfuric-smelling air and got onto a six-wheeled vehicle that was used for anything that had to be done on and around the base.
Josh drove them fast out to the approximate spot on the sand where Amelia had found Jean. “This about the right place?”
Amelia looked at the tracks in the sand. Now, when both the red and the white sun had set and only eight of the nineteen moons were in the sky, the alien desert looked completely different from earlier that day. But still, this was where she had confronted the dragon. Remembering it didn't send shivers down her spine. Because it had made her feel weird. Afraid, but still ... hot.
She got off the six-wheeler and pointed. “About twenty yards that way.”
Josh started trudging in the direction where she was pointing.
She squinted to the distance. “In fact, it looks like something is shining-”
There was a sound as from a cleaver splitting a head of cale, and then Josh just sagged to the ground in front of her and hit the sand without a sound.
Amelia screamed in surprise, and then in fear. Because there were hands on her now, strong hands around her face and her waist and her shoulders. Someone was trying to grab on to her.
She screamed again and did her best to writhe and shake the hands off her, but they were strong arms.
And hairy. And very smelly.
She broke off her scream in an unpleasant gurgle because she had to retch. The smell was too terrible for words, just sewage and decay and rot. And now the many hands held her still.
Still she fought with all her might. All she needed was to hit the button on her comms that would activate the distress alarm, and then she would light up as a blue square on the control room screen and the sentries from the base would rescue her. But the hands held her.
She heard grunting and wheezy breathing. And then they pulled her away, backwards, as she kicked and struggled and screamed. They were pulling her away from the six-wheeler and away from the base, towards the direction the alien attackers always came from.
She turned her head and the world came crashing down on her when she saw one ugly alien face, distorted and misshapen.
She was being kidnapped by the Pirgks. Josh was probably dead.
And no one knew.
7
- Braxan -
The gold coin was heavy in his hand. The metal felt cold to his fingers, but warm to his mind. Warm and inviting and his. Only his. It was a hexagon of the purest gold. On one side it had a symbol of some ancient alien empire, and on the other side some writing in an equally alien script. He remembered exactly how he had gotten it, a hundred and sixty years before. It was very beautiful. And it made him long for more of the same.
It made a marvelous little clink as he tossed it luxuriously in among the other coins and treasures that filled the giant room. Before, when the spaceship which was now his lair had belonged to someone else, it had probably been a hangar bay for smaller spacecraft. Now it housed his hoard and nothing else, many cubic yards of shining gold and sparkling gemstones and glittering diamonds and precious metals from a thousand alien worlds. It warmed the dragon's mind to see it, reassured it and calmed it. The gold and gems were the dragon's preference, and it could tell in an instant if as much as one tiny diamond was missing. He remembered where all of it came from. Every coin, every little gemstone. They were the history of his whole life, from the Birth Bracelet that was somewhere at the bottom of the heap to the two hundred raw gold nuggets that had been his payment for the latest mission for Emperor Kraz. He has asked for that specifically. He loved the gold.
His hoard was the purpose of his life, as it was for any dragon. Growing the hoard was the ultimate goal for everything they did.
And now he needed it, needed its healing qualities.
Because he had fainted.
Right in front of his whole flight he had shamefully fainted. In the Great Hall of his own lair, no less!
He had come to right away, but still ... the humiliation of it!
He grabbed his chest where she had shot him. There was something unwholesome still stuck in there, he just knew it. It ate at him and made him weak. The dragon recoiled at it like it would do for nothing else. She had shot something evil into him, something that had made him faint.
What had she done to him?
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and opened them, to be rewarded with seeing the entirety of his hoard in front of him. He tried to feel the wonderful, glowing sensation that always came over him when he saw that. No Ultraco could be far away from his hoard for long at a time before the longing to touch and see it again became very strong. So much of him and the dragon was in this room, in his hoard. The mere idea that someone might threaten it or plan to steal it was enough to make him clench his jaw in anger. He guarded his hoard with his life. Nothing else came close in importance.
Except ...
A face hovered unbidden in front of his mind's eye, as sharp and clear as if she had been there for real.
No! He wouldn't allow himself to think that thought. Nothing came close to his hoard. Not even ... that.
But the magic was broken. The enjoyment of the hoard wasn't enough this time. For the first time ever it didn't satisfy him completely.
He clutched his chest. He was poisoned. That was it. That arrow had contained poison that prevented him from enjoying his riches.
He slammed the door and locked it, looking around him suspiciously to check if anyone was spying on him. He knew no one was. Dacron, Karox and Evec all had hoards of their own, and they knew as well as he did that spying on another Ultraco enjoying his hoard was the ultimate dishonor. He didn't know where they kept them. Not on this spaceship, certainly.
Ultracos were extremely possessive of their hoards, sometimes up to and even well beyond the borders of insanity. Braxan's own father, King Bariant, now never left his vault. His meals had to be brought to the outer door, and then the dirty dishes had to be collected an hour later. No one had seen the king for a century. The only sign that he was still alive was that he ate the food. All he did was guard his hoard.
Braxan shook his head as he made his way through the ship, clutching the oozing wound in his chest. Whatever she had shot into him was still there.
His mind lit up with a sudden insight. She had put it in there. Could she then not take it out again? Of course! It would make sense. If anyone could, it was her. The one who had inflicted the damage could reverse it. Indeed, perhaps only the one who had inflicted it could cure it.
The idea warmed his heart. And it would mean that he could see her again. His true hoard.
What? He frowned in puzzlement at the strange thought. He had just seen his true hoard. Gold and gemstones was all he needed. Yes, of course. A slip of the mind, nothing more.
He came to the exit, Changed to the dragon shape and threw himself out into the blackness of space, folding his wings back into Far Travel configuration.
Soon now.
8
- Amelia -
“Take your fucking hands off me!”
She fought them and screamed until her throat was raw and her muscles exhausted. They didn't reply with anything but grunts and heavy breathing into her ears.
Then there was nothing else to do than resist sporadically and try not to throw up then their stench assaulted her nostrils too hard.
She had to slow them down. Her only hope was that someone would notice that Josh and she had been gone for
too long, and then they would investigate and see the six-wheeler, find Josh and then see from the tracks in the sand that she had been abducted.
Then what? They would probably send out rescue parties in vehicles and follow the tracks. If she could slow down this band of stinking Pirgks who were pulling her away, maybe it would be in time. But she would expect to see some lights from the vehicles pretty soon now if they were to find her.
The rescue party wouldn't stray too far from the base, even to rescue someone. It was becoming clear that the Pirgks were much more numerous on this planet than anyone had suspected, and they could probably easily overwhelm a rescue force if they ambushed it.
“Let me go or I'll fucking kill you!”
Well, she had to say something. She didn't think they were that many in this gang, maybe just six or so. But they were strong and determined. And their hands often strayed to her chest and her crotch, just testing and feeling.
There was no doubt about what they had in mind for her. They had gang-raped Jean, probably trying to breed with her, and then tried to kill her when she had escaped. They probably had the same in mind for Amelia. Except the escape part.
The terrain changed and became rockier. That meant they were getting closer to the outer edge of the crater where Belzon Base was located. That edge was so far away that there was pretty much no chance that any rescuers would go that far. If the dragons hadn't destroyed the drones, the base could have used them to scout for her and for small bands of attackers, just like this one.
Amelia felt the panic rise and her hope dwindle. And the sky was getting brighter, which meant that the orange sun was about to rise. The Pirgks were always more active in the orange sun than in the half-darkness of night.
Suddenly the Pirgks stopped dragging her. Their grips on her changed, and Amelia tried to slap the emergency button that would activate the distress beacon on her comms unit. Her finger was a half inch from it when a big, hairy hand grabbed her hand and pulled it behind her back.
