She looked Coroalis in the eye. “I’m in.”
“I guess I am too,” Jack sighed, and Barbara nodded. “This assumes that they believe us, you know.”
“We’ll just have to convince them if they don’t.”
“I’ll reach out to them,” Coraolis said. “Here’s hoping they’ll still take my call.”
***
Nirvana left the surface with little fanfare. They’d paid their fees and bribes, and their ship had what it needed to get them back to humanity’s territory. There was no need to worry about where the next tank of fuel would come from or how to get out of Earth’s grasp. Their mission wouldn’t matter if there were no humans to save.
Coraolis stood in the cockpit, hands resting on the pilot’s and copilot’s chairs as he looked into the camera. Julia sat in her copilot’s seat and had twisted around so she could watch him. They were so far out in the galaxy they couldn’t conduct this call as a conversation. It would be more like sending email. They could only hope it would be received in time and Earth would take them seriously.
Just in case, they were sending the message to the Secret Council, to Earth Fleet Headquarters, and to every journalist Jack had an address for. One way or another, the message would get out.
“This is Coraolis. Once upon a time, I was a Mystic, and I worked with Earth Fleet to protect its interests and help with the settlement of the galaxy. I know we’ve had our differences, but I still see myself as a protector of life. That includes humanity, among others.” He paused, glancing down at Julia, before he looked back at the camera.
“A cosmic-level threat is approaching. If we don’t stand against it, we’re doomed. Three Mystics aren’t enough. It has to be every Mystic, from the newest recruit to the most experienced.
“This is our proposal. Meet us at Cavey. We need a plan and a weapon that will help us deal with these things. We’ll need the satellite we built and as much backup as you can give us. I hope to see you there,” he said.
Julia clicked off the recorder. “That was great, Cor.”
“I don’t know how convincing I was.” He sounded worried. “I guess we’ll see when we get there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dante stepped onto the E.F. space station Archangel Gabriel with a sense of déjà vu, despite the halls teeming with E.F. personnel and his own armed escort. Corporal Hansen, the soldier on his detail had specific orders. He wasn’t to engage in conversation with Dante. He was to put Dante down if he turned traitor again, no questions asked. He could understand their logic. This would be his third strike.
He retraced the path back to the hangar, avoiding the stares of everyone he encountered. Hansen followed a few paces behind, his combat boots making a distinctive sound as he clomped along. Dante suspected he marched that way to remind Dante of his presence. Maybe he was worried Dante would try something, with the crowd to give him cover.
The soldier had nothing to worry about, not that he’d believe Dante if he said so.
Dante was far more worried about the reception with his old friends. He was the sole Mystic sent to board Archangel Gabriel. There were a couple dozen ships in the system, all packed to the gills with Mystics, but not one would set foot on this station. They’d back the four Evolved up from a distance, in case this was all a trap. Dante was the liaison. He guessed that meant he was expendable. It didn’t say great things about poor Hansen, either.
Julia, Coraolis, and Jack were already in the hangar when he arrived, gathered around the satellite. Dante’s steps dragged, then he stopped a few feet from the door. They looked harder around the edges, and he didn’t need his abilities to see the weariness in their eyes.
They stared at him, and he didn’t know what to say. His feet didn’t want to move closer. He wasn’t sorry for what he’d done, but he regretted how it went down. He didn’t know how to say that, and the words didn’t manifest.
If only they’d stop staring.
Jack broke the ice. He strode over, his hand out. Dante stared at it, unmoving, until Jack grabbed his arm and yanked him into a hug, thumping his back like a choking baby. Dante took a second to process what was happening, then patted his friend’s shoulder.
“I missed you,” Jack said. “We all did. You look great.”
“I wish I’d been with you,” Dante replied.
That broke the dam, and Coraolis and Julia moved in for their turn with hugs and greetings. Dante blinked wetness from his eyes when Julia squeezed him around the middle. Then he did it again when Coraolis grabbed him for another embrace.
None of them asked for an apology, and he didn’t either. He’d betrayed them, and they’d abandoned him. They’d all suffered for what they’d done, but that wasn’t why he let it go. They were his family. They were the puzzle pieces he’d been missing all this time.
“I want to show you what we’ve been working on,” Coraolis said. “The dragons have been helping. They know a surprising amount about human technology.”
They led him to the satellite. It looked the same aside from some additional cables connecting different parts of the surface. An LED screen had been soldered to another cluster of wires. The more he looked, the more changes became evident.
“This is a quick and dirty redesign,” Julia told him. “They instructed us how to engineer the satellite so it would work as a weapon against those things. It still collects and intensifies the dragons’ power and wisdom but more destructively. Apparently, those things aren’t vulnerable to having their hearts changed.”
“By all accounts, they don’t have hearts,” Jack said.
Julia shuddered, then nodded. “I felt them myself. They’re more like sentient black holes than anything. There’s no bargaining with them and no fixing them.”
“Now that you’re here,” Coraolis broke in, “the dragons want to talk to all of us. If you’re up for it, we’ve got planning to do.”
***
Dante floated in a sea of dragons. The ancient creatures surrounded the Mystics. In constant motion, they circled Dante and the others, their attention focused outward. He supposed they were watching for the threat. Tension came off them in waves.
You have come.
The ancient dragon projected pleasure interlaced with anxiety. Dante thought he detected fear in the old dragon as well. That was terrifying. Something existed that scared the most powerful being he’d ever encountered.
“Yes, we’re here to help,” Coraolis said. He looked as shaken as Dante. He must have picked up on the fear, too. “How long do we have?”
Not long.
“I have a question,” Dante said, and everyone’s attention turned to him. The weight of the dragons’ focus was crushing. “Has anyone tried to talk to these things? Are we sure destroying them is our only option?”
“Here’s the thing I’m having trouble with,” Jack offered. “We’ve been gifted with love for the whole universe. I’ve met aliens that would be happy to kill me for my coat, but I still accept and care about them. They’ve got their role to play in the universe, like we’ve got ours.”
He hesitated. Dante put his hand on Jack’s shoulder, offering his silent support. He knew how hard it was to speak up like that, to put his friends’ actions into question.
“Go on,” he prodded.
“So…we’ve been living by that principle, that everyone is worthy of existence. Why is this different?” Jack asked.
Coraolis answered, “I think the difference is these things will destroy all life in the galaxy if we don’t stop them.”
“Okay but hear me out. What if that’s their purpose? What if they’re cosmic janitors, disposing of worlds that are past their, I don’t know, their sell-by dates? What are we doing if we stop that?” Jack glanced from face to face hoping someone had a compelling response.
“Surviving,” Julia suggested. “I know you didn’t feel what I did, Jack, but please take my word for it. They’re evil. They hate us and everything else that exists. There’s
no other word for it.”
“We’ve been hated before, even by our own kind,” Dante said.
“This is different,” she insisted. “They aren’t a pack of wild Yeti come to kill a few specific humans. They are outsiders. If they aren’t stopped, everything and everyone in this universe comes to an end.”
“Agreed,” Coraolis said.
“I can see your point. I just wonder…” Jack let the thought drift off.
“I see yours too,” Dante said. “I think we need to look at the greater good. We aren’t fighting them for ourselves alone.”
If I may. The creatures you speak of are objectively evil. They take pleasure in destruction, one of the dragons clarified.
“So do some humans,” Jack replied. “They still have a right to exist.”
Your reasoning is sound, but perhaps your self-preservation is lacking, the ancient one said. When we took away your flaws, we replaced your selfishness with a love for all things. Your need to survive was lost in the process. This was a mistake.
Dante doubled over. Fear created a pit in his stomach. He suddenly didn’t care so much about the rest of the universe. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to lose his friends. Most of all, he hated the monstrous things that were coming to destroy them. They were coming, and they had nowhere to run. Good thing he didn’t want to run. He wanted to fight.
“Forget everything I just said. We need to take these things out,” Jack said.
“I’m on board,” Dante agreed.
Julia and Coraolis said nothing, but Dante could see how tightly they held hands. They looked like they were afraid someone would pull them apart. He pitied the idiot who tried.
You humans are known for your viciousness when you are about to lose everything, your ruthlessness when it comes to survival. We have returned those things to you.
Coraolis cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’m feeling a little ruthless. Let’s take these things out.”
Agreed.
Dante’s vision blurred; he was overcome by a sense of overwhelming speed. His physical presence was left light years behind, but the same force that pulled him deeper into the Astral Plane reinforced his connection to his body. He wasn’t weakened by the distance. In fact, he felt more powerful than he’d ever been.
When his vision cleared, he was surrounded by an army of dragons and Mystics. A dragon was at each Mystic’s side, offering their support and power for the Mystics to channel. The ancient one, Dante’s old nemesis, had chosen him for a partner.
He hesitated. He didn’t want to touch it. The creature beside him was the architect of so much pain and suffering. Dante wasn’t the only one it had hurt. People still mourned and suffered over what this dragon had done.
“A little full of yourself, aren’t you?” he asked.
You and I have a connection. Despite our history, we are stronger together than we would be with anyone else, the ancient one said.
“Nice of you to decide that without me,” Dante groused.
The dragon arched its neck to look him in the eye. A river of grief, regret, and impatience filled him. His hands shook as he soaked it in. It was almost too much, but there was enough of his own emotions left he could feel anger, and he was glad the dragon felt that way. Maybe it would stop him from doing the same thing again.
I was wrong, but if you refuse to work with me, I will not be the one you punish.
“I know,” he muttered. “I just need a minute.”
A wave of bone-shattering cold washed over his astral body. The chill went so deep it burned. He couldn’t see. Everything was dark, and the cold overshadowed his senses. At the very heart of the chill, a terrible hunger arose.
We do not have a minute.
The dragon pressed him, forcing heat and strength into his very being. Dante clutched at the dragon, desperate for warmth, and the dragon gave it freely.
There. In the darkness that lay beyond their galaxy, he spied the enemy. Their long, snakelike bodies writhed in the void, carried by shredded wings streaming out behind them. Their silhouettes were so dark that they stood out against the void of space.
He tore away from staring at the monsters to peer at the other Mystics. They gaped at the enemy with expressions of horror on their faces. No one moved. No one blinked. They had become helpless as babes as the terrors bore down on them.
They were going to die. Worse, they’d be consumed alive, knowing they’d failed the human race without lifting a finger. After they were gone, every star and every living thing would be extinguished.
Dante had no one on Earth…or anywhere else for that matter. Every bridge had been burned, every connection destroyed. All his heart was on the front lines. Jack, Julia, Coraolis—they were all he had, and he was damned if he was going to stand idle and do nothing.
He balanced on his dragon’s neck, leaving his hands free. He drew up all the power he could hold, then released it as a spear the size of a Redwood trunk. It lanced through the center of the enemy’s mass and caught one of the monsters dead center. His stomach dropped when it hit. His ‘mighty spear’ had the relative size of a pencil against a human when it pierced the Wyrm’s flesh, yet the creature shrieked in rage, and the other Mystics broke from their paralysis. Coraolis threw balls of silver fire that grew larger as they flew through the ether until they exploded against the monsters’ flesh. A net from Julia’s hands entangled two Wyrms, leaving them vulnerable to Jack’s pillar of light as it burned a hole through the pair of them.
Beyond the Evolved, other Mystics joined in, raining destruction on the Wyrms. Every attack tore pieces from the creatures. Every moment of the resistance diminished them. Dante became one with his fury. He sent spear after spear into the creatures. He was rewarded by their horrific cries of pain when they struck home.
It was working! The Wyrms were losing mass and slowing. Dante surged forward, and the other Mystics followed. He pressed the attack again and again, while the Wyrms gathered into a defensive circle. More pieces flaked away from their bodies.
The enemies clustered. Someone whooped; Dante thought it might be Jack.
Three enemies lost their shapes entirely. Instead of falling apart, they merged into a titanic beast large enough to swallow Cavey’s star. Tendrils of pure shadow whipped from its body, striking at the surrounding Mystics, and they scattered to save themselves.
Dante dove downward, propelled by his companion. Cries of pain and fear emanated from all around as the Wyrm’s attacks found their targets. He was sweeping along the body, looking for a weakness, when anger-fueled cries reached his ears.
It was Coraolis. He shouted incoherently, his face beet red. He hovered between two dragons. He pelted the Wyrm with comets made of astral flame that exploded when they hit. The Wyrm writhed with every strike, snapping viciously at Coroalis, but his dragon companions kept him out of jaw’s reach.
Dante watched in awe. He wondered where the second dragon had come from, hoping a second would join him as well.
Then he saw Julia. She sprawled unmoving behind Coraolis, nothing so much as a broken doll. Beyond her, more Mystics lay scattered. Their dragons rallied, fighting to guard them, but without humans they couldn’t attack as they needed. They formed a defensive ring to ward off the worst from the Wyrms. They didn’t have the fire of a cornered human. They certainly didn’t react to the fallen the way Coraolis or the other surviving Mystics did.
His dragon shoved Dante aside, bringing him back to the very real danger he was in. He urged it to join Coraolis. He signaled Jack to do the same and, soon, the three of them were together.
He didn’t dare look at Julia. If she was gone, he didn’t want to know it. Not yet. He clamped his hand down on Coraolis and flooded everything he and his dragon had into his friend. Jack gripped Coraolis’s other side and did the same. He’d seen Julia, too, and his rage was nearly equal to Cor’s.
Around the Wyrm, the surviving Mystics banded. They shouted their angst into the void as they expended the l
ast of their energies into the Wyrm. They dodged and veered like angry hornets, avoiding the Wyrm’s wild attacks. They poured it on, ripping away pieces of their enemy. Its shredded bits disintegrated and vanished into the darkness. The creature paled, weakened, and then was gone.
***
Dante opened his eyes. He was on Archangel Gabriel. Every part of him ached. He wanted to sleep for the next year, but he couldn’t. He had to know.
Coraolis was holding Julia in his arms, his shoulders shaking silently. Dante forgot his own exhaustion and crawled to Coraolis.
“Cor…?”
He couldn’t bring himself to ask if she was okay. He was afraid to even look for a pulse. When Coraolis didn’t answer, Dante couldn’t wait. He took her wrist in his cold, weak fingers.
Her hand twitched, and she pulled it away.
Coraolis froze before he straightened, helping her into a sitting position.
“Are you okay?” Dante asked. “Wait, no, that’s a stupid question. What’s my name? Do you know who the president is?”
Julia blinked at him owlishly. “You’re Dante, but no, I don’t know who the president is. I’ve been away from Earth too long.”
Her voice sounded like it’d gone through a wood chipper, but she had spoken. She was alive! She rose slowly, wincing, but she got to her feet. Coraolis and Dante followed. Dante felt considerably wobblier than Julia looked.
“Where’s Jack?” she asked.
She was answered by a sound like tearing cloth. They turned to see Jack curled up on his side, sound asleep and snoring loud enough to wake the dead. The three stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, then their control disintegrated into laughter.
“We won,” Julia said barely above a whisper.
“We did,” Dante replied. “You should have seen Coraolis. He was like the wrath of God after you went down.”
“The dragons were right. We needed to be whole.” Julia took Coraolis’ hand in hers and relaxed, trying to gather enough energy to continue.
“It looks that way,” Coraolis proffered. “When I thought I’d lost you, I wanted to take that thing down.”
Dragon Invasion Page 23
