Ruin of Dragons

by Clay Kronke

  "What was that about overpowering the—"

  "Quiet," he hissed. "I don't know what happened, but we've been given an out. I suggest we use it."

  They walked on in awkward silence, making their way to the rear lift cluster that took them down to the main level. Another few minutes down a central corridor brought them to the primary hangar bay. Kale's ship, a small, heavily armored transport, still sat at the ready, and the guards dutifully walked them right up to the rear, where they turned to flank either side of the entry hatch. Kale stopped and looked at both of them, still expecting some sort of trick, but when neither moved nor spoke, he shrugged and climbed on board. Voss followed close behind, and in another minute the hatch had shut tight and both were in the cockpit going through preflight.

  Voss looked around. "You've upgraded," she said. On the outside, the ship was bulky, rusted, and old. But inside, it was as sleek and technologically advanced as any ship she had been in.

  "I don't like people knowing what they're up against," Kale said. "The busted exterior also affords me a bit of anonymity."

  "So what now?" she asked.

  Kale shrugged. "We go home," he said. "Somebody stole some of my Falkes, and I owe them a visit."

  "Yeah, well, that's nice," Voss said. "I need to get a hold of my crew, let them know I'm okay. They're likely doing something stupid to try and get me out of here."

  "I would expect nothing less," Kale said, getting the go ahead from flight control and switching the engines over from standby. "What's their comm network?"

  "Already ahead of you," Voss said, putting in her earpiece, syncing her handheld to the ship's computer system and opening a channel. "Vermithrax Three-two-seven-actual, this is Wasp, do you copy?"

  She waited a minute, then repeated. Another minute went by. "No response," she said, checking the screen on her console. "Their comm doesn't seem to be active."

  "You need me to drop you somewhere?" Kale asked as he took the ship up and angled it out of the hangar.

  "Maybe?" Voss said. "I don't exactly know where we are, and Avernus might be a bit out of your way."

  They passed through the magnetic shields and swung downward, a large brown planet immediately filling the viewport. Kale frowned. "We apparently never left Vorsk."

  "So not even remotely on your way."

  "Don't worry about it," he said. "I'll get one of my boys to take you."

  "I appreciate that, but I'm sure you have better—" Voss stopped as she noticed three ships sitting just above the atmosphere begin moving toward them. "Are you expecting an escort?" she asked.

  Kale looked up. The ships approaching were moving into an intercept formation. Not much detail was visible at this distance, but it became quickly apparent they weren't part of Kale's fleet.

  "Those aren't mine," he said, checking his comm board. "I don't know whose they are, they're not broadcasting." He turned to his rear monitor. "And Frakes is already gone, so it seems we're on our own."

  Voss was running a scan. "Those look like the same old model assault craft we dealt with last time we were here," she said.

  "What?" Kale asked. "When?"

  "Right after we left your place, we got jumped by an unmarked," Voss explained. "Chased us around the canyons a bit, but we lost them in the old city. These must be their backup."

  "So you think they're here for you?" Kale asked.

  "You don't?"

  He shrugged. "Does it matter?" Kale said. "I have a lot of enemies, one more or less isn't going to make a difference."

  Kale was bringing weapons online and diverting power to the pulse armor. "And this isn't exactly a skiff I'm driving," he said. "Strap in." He immediately pushed the ship into a dive, punching the main engines. In his rear monitor, he could see the three ships break off from their course to pursue, increasing their speed to match. Flashes appeared on the wings of all three, and a second later they could feel the vibration of multiple impact tremors as they took the first round of fire.

  "They're not wasting any time, are they," Voss said as Kale spun the ship into a roll, dodging a second salvo as the three pursuers angled in closer, firing new rounds across the back quarter.

  An alarm popped up on Kale's console. "They're going for the engines," he said, swatting it silent, "but I've got better armor. Hang on."

  He killed the forward thrusters and yanked left, spinning the ship around until it was facing the ships behind them. He grinned wide and cackled as he kicked the thrusters back to full, lurching forward toward the center of the three. Voss tightened her grip on her chair's armrests as they closed the gap with alarming speed. Kale reached over to the weapons panel and uncovered a couple of switches, waiting until they got a bit closer. Their pursuers didn't deviate, still on their head-on course.

  "They think I'm going to blink," Kale said, pushing his engines even more. "No dwarf would make that mistake."

  The gap continued to close, and just when Voss thought she was going to find out just how strong Kale's armor was, the other ship pulled up at the last second, avoiding a collision.

  Kale was ready. He opened his topside cannons, slicing into the other ship's lower hull as it passed overhead, damaging their reactor and disabling their engines, leaving them drifting in space. "Two more!" he laughed, swinging the ship around to start after the others.

  He finished his turn, but the other two ships were no longer in sight. He frowned, checking his monitor. Object proximity sounded as they appeared on his sensors, but he had no time to react before the ship lurched with a violent screeching impact. Alarms went off all across his console, they lost forward momentum almost immediately, and their view was partially obscured by the nose of one of the ships. The attackers had apparently decided to forego trying to disable his ship by conventional means and had instead rammed up against them, one from above and one from below, catching them in between.

  Kale tried his main engines, but one side had become inoperable from the impact, and most of the maneuvering thrusters were physically blocked by the other vessels. Trying to shift to either side gained him nothing, and the grinding vibrations of the ships' hulls compressing into both sides of his ship only served to damage more systems and set off more alarms in the cockpit.

  "We can't move," Kale said. "They're clamping us in."

  "That's a new one," Voss said. "They're damaging their own ships in the process."

  "It's working, look," Kale pointed. Vorsk, which had been filling much of the viewport, was now dropping out of sight as the two ships pinching them in were rotating away from the planet. Kale sighed and switched his engines over to standby, sitting back in his chair with a huff. "Shutting down," he said. "We'll be better equipped to fight once we know what the hell is going on."

  As they finished their turn, a new ship slid into view, a large bulk cruiser, one normally used for carrying large freight, with its central hangar open and empty.

  "Well," Voss said. "This day just keeps getting better."

  voices

  Petra didn't know how long she had been lying there. She might have dozed off once or twice, it was difficult to tell. She sat up, feeling a slight head rush as she did so. I can't stay here anymore, she thought. She took a deep breath, flexed her neck and arms a bit, then turned around.

  It still made her stomach bunch up, seeing him lie there, his face frozen in consternation. But the shock had worn off somewhat, and instead of the wracking panic she had initially fought down, she was now feeling oddly self-reflective.

  "I really screwed this up, didn't I?" she said in the direction of Bran's body, her voice echoing in the stillness. A sudden pang of guilt cut into her and she could feel tears welling up again. "Why did you come with me? We'd have both been happier if we'd stayed home. You wouldn't have had to keep getting me out of trouble." She laughed, a sharp, derisive snort. "You'd still be alive. And I wouldn
't be here, right next to you in the ground, on a planet in the middle of nowhere, injured, starving, and likely about to die of dragon-related trauma."

  She shook her head. "Why did you come with me?" she said again, her voice a whisper. "We didn't know each other that well, we only crossed paths at the market a few times. You couldn't have thought all that much of me." She frowned. "Though you clearly did – you were always the one who talked to me. Was I a curiosity? That weird skinny kid from the mining town? Or was there genuine affection there, and I was just too self-absorbed to notice?"

  She laughed, and more tears seeped through underneath. "Figures," she spat. "I find someone that likes me, and I get them killed." She sighed, and looked at Bran's empty face, her hollow feeling returning. "I don't even know if you have friends, or a family. I didn't really take the time to find out. I'm not very good at this, am I?" She sighed again. "If I get out of this alive, I'm making some more friends."

  She clenched her jaw, turning back to Bran. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "You deserved better than this." She took a couple of deep breaths, then leaned forward, putting both hands on either side of his head, wincing slightly. His skin was already stiffening, and the heat was receding quickly from his body. As gentle as she could, she turned his head so it was lying at a more natural angle, facing up toward the ceiling. She then straightened his arms out and placed his hands at the center of his chest.

  "There," she said. "Now you don't look like you've been stepped on."

  She stood up, and for the next twenty minutes, Petra silently gathered rocks and chunks of broken cave formation and started laying them around Bran's body. Layer by layer, she built up the stone until it covered him completely, forming as close to a burial mound as she could manage.

  She rummaged through her pockets, feeling like she needed to leave something with him. She had left her shoulder bag in the ship, so all she had on her was a couple of hair ties and her sister's folding utility knife that was still in her pocket. She looked down at it, frowning. This whole thing had started with the knife, when she was down in a hole trying to cut roots away from a tunnel that had held a sleeping dragon.

  It was fitting then, she thought, that it would end here, using this same knife. She reached up, cut a small cord of hair from the back of her head, and fashioned a loop with it, securing it together with one of her hair ties. She placed the loop on top of the mound of stones and smiled.

  "See you in the next life," she said, straightening up and turning around, looking out into the chamber. Her smile faded, and a growing sense of dread threatened to overtake her as she started to assess her situation. She didn't know which way to go to get out of the cavern she was in. She didn't know if there had been any new collapses that would prevent her from reaching the surface. She didn't know if the ship they saw was still up there, and she didn't really know if it was the same one she thought it was. There was a very real possibility that she was stranded, not only down in the cavern, but on the planet, and the crushing weight of that much potential isolation was enough to spur her into movement.

  "Let's see if I can salvage what's left of this one." She looked up to the side wall, toward the tunnel they had come out of. She couldn't tell which specific one they had used, so even if she could scale the wall up to it, she wouldn't be sure she'd be going the right way. She looked over to the far end of the space instead. The phosphorescent crystals surrounding the entrance to the next chamber seemed to beckon her closer.

  Seems like my only real choice, she thought, and started for the end. It was a longer distance than it looked, and every one of Petra's joints ached as she walked, her lungs hurting with each breath. She looked up as she went, letting her eyes trace the rivulets of fluorescent crystals that wound their way along the cavern ceiling, to the lines of stalactites and columns that dropped down from the ceiling nearer the edges of the space.

  She stopped about midway for a moment to catch her breath and froze as she felt a whisper of movement behind her. She spun around, scanning the chamber, but saw nothing. She strained her ears, but there was nothing but a gulf of silence. She heard another murmur that sounded like distant voices, and she spun back to the crystalline passage, listening. She couldn't tell if it was coming from the chamber beyond or if it was reflecting around the room. She started toward the passage again, trying her best to walk silently so as to better hear any errant noise. A few more steps and she heard it again. It was definitely coming from the next chamber. "Hello?" she called as she got closer, hoping she had finally found the others.

  She reached the passage and stepped up to the entrance. A relatively even connecting corridor between the two chambers, it ran about a dozen feet and was completely encrusted with iridescent crystals. As she walked into it, the phosphorescent glow emanating from the crystals seemed to coalesce around her and grow brighter. She stopped, looking up at the crystalline forms. They weren't like any formations Petra had ever seen, reflective, shimmering with purples and oranges while also glowing somewhat from within. And the glow grew brighter the closer she got to them. She reached a hand up toward the top of the passage, watching as the blue glow was drawn to the crystals closest to her fingers.

  She kept walking, mesmerized, as the passage lit up around her. It also seemed to be reflecting sound, as the murmur of voices was much more prevalent, though she couldn't make out individual words. "Hello?" she called again, her own voice reverberating around her. She got to the end, stepped out into the next chamber, and stopped cold.

  It was maybe a third of the size of the previous chamber, but where that one had been mostly stone and sediment formations, this one was almost completely crystal. Most of the walls and ceiling were encrusted with the same iridescent formations, and the entire chamber seemed to be filled with a gold and blue shimmer. And jutting through the center of the space, rising up out of the floor and spearing down from the ceiling in a jumble were enormous hexagonal crystalline shapes, all at the same diagonal angle. Some thin, some as wide as the stone columns, all were dozens of feet in length and filled much of the chamber.

  The light from the crystals seemed to move with her, and shifted from blue to purple to green. It was like nothing she had ever seen, and she stood transfixed, completely enveloped in its surreal existence. And there, in the center of that space, the murmur of voices seemed to surround her, an echo of something she couldn't pinpoint, sound that she seemed to feel but couldn't hear directly. It was beautiful, fascinating, and disquieting all at the same time. The light in the chamber shimmered, and a new voice could be heard, clear and distinct, directly behind her.

  "Castle, we have a survivor."

  Petra spun around, her breath catching in her throat. Standing just inside the crystalline passage were two dark shapes, lean silhouettes standing behind a bright light atop a long staff being held by the figure in front, a figure much taller than her.

  The staff lowered, the light on the end extinguishing, and as Petra's eyes adjusted, she could see the clear shock on the wizard's face.

  "I'll be damned," Gareth breathed. "It's you."

  Petra, overcome with relief, shouted "I found you!" and threw her arms around him, and before she even realized what was happening, she found herself sobbing into his collarbone.

  Gareth, stunned, looked over at Mira, who had an equally surprised expression on her face. You know her? She mouthed. He nodded, handed his staff to Mira, then put his arms around Petra in return, letting her cry.

  At the contact, he was struck by a wave of images in rapid succession. Flashes of memory, he saw hands covering a man with pieces of stone; the head of a dragon emerging from a tunnel; the inside of a ship flashing bright red; the dark interior of an underground catacomb; flame and debris and dragons flying overhead; a waterfall in the middle of a tall cylindrical building; feet walking between stacks of shipping containers; a bustling outdoor marketplace; burning buildings and a ruined bell tower; and
finally – most surprisingly – a woman falling to her death on Acradia.

  He stepped back, putting his hands on Petra's shoulders as she looked up into his face, gasping.

  "What—?" she started, taking a few deep breaths. "What was that?"

  Gareth looked at her closely. "What did you see?" he asked, his voice low and quiet.

  Her eyes were wide. "The same thing I've been seeing the last couple days: a purple sky, lightning, and a woman falling into a chasm after the ground breaks. I thought I was going crazy. It felt like a memory, but I knew it couldn't be mine—"

  "It's mine," Gareth said, his voice barely a whisper. "That was my sister. She was about your age, and I was only five, when she died…" his voice trailed off. He seemed lost in thought for a moment, and Petra was about to say something when he came back. "That's what I was thinking about," he continued. "When I was at the bar, and you put your hand on my shoulder…"

  Petra's face was a giant question mark, but before she could say anything, Gareth was turning to Mira, whose eyes were similarly wide.

  "I saw her yesterday on Aelden," Mira said.

  "It seems she's been following us this whole time," Gareth said. "Aris and I ran into her on Boone. You were already making for the extraction point, otherwise you might have met her too."

  "I almost did," Mira said, turning to look at Petra, who was completely confused. "Twice. I saw you from the bell tower, though I don't know if you noticed me." A dawning look crossed Petra's face as she remembered, but Mira continued. "And then again when I was on Aelden. You were in the archive building. How did you get there from Boone?"

  "I stowed away on a freight transport," Petra said, frowning as she studied Mira's features. "Were you the security guard we ran into?"

  Mira nodded. "I was posing," she said. "I had my own objective."

  Petra's face seemed to clear. "Of course. I thought we got away a little too easily."