by Clay Kronke
"That's about the same time my father showed up on Boone," Petra said, her eyes widening as a memory came back to her. "I had a brother, too. He and my mother died at the same time, not long before that."
Gareth nodded. "Your little town is quiet, out of the way, surrounded by nature, with not that many people who would ask a lot of questions." His voice was distant. "Your father likely wanted someplace peaceful, but also someplace as far removed from Acradia as possible, someplace that wouldn't remind him of where he had been … or what he had lost."
Petra caught the wistful look on his face, and the way he spoke made it sound almost ideal, and she got the very real impression that he had wanted a similar experience. Gareth seemed to see the question on her face and nodded. "That would have been nice," he said. "My family was similarly devastated. We lost my sister, and then we lost our home. We left in a hurry, travelling with a group of other families, drifting for a while, looking for a place to settle, but all we ever found were obstacles. We eventually met up with one of the generation ships and were granted our own space. It wasn't much, but it was stable."
"Generation ships?" Petra asked.
"Basically, floating cities," Gareth explained. "They're deep space transports, with room for hundreds of families, storage for supplies, environmental levels for hydroponics and food cultivation, facilities for education, recreation, medical, fitness, basically anything a society would need to sustain themselves over a long-term voyage. They were meant for colonization, for travelling to worlds far outside this sector, where even slipstream travel would take years." He chuckled. "Ironically, what had been designed to facilitate the expansion of our culture ended up being a lifeboat that kept us from going extinct." His smile fell. "We are an endangered species. Estimates vary, but no more than twenty percent of our population made it off the planet before it became inhospitable. And most of that is scattered across the sector. I had aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends that I left behind, and haven't seen since the exodus."
"I'm sorry," Petra said. "That sounds awful."
Gareth waved away the comment. "It's all right," he said. "I've had years to adjust. And I'm not trying to minimize your ordeal, I'm just trying to let you know that you're not alone. I felt the same way at the time, but life moves on, situations change, and you find ways to adjust. I was a staff surgeon when I met Aris for the first time. He was in the Ranger Corps and we had both been assigned to the same ship. We spent two years under that command, and at the end of it, he was one of the only steadfast friends I had. So when he left, I went with him, and we ended up at the Sanctuary, me in clinical and him flying contract before finally transitioning over to the Kingsguard where we picked up Mira and Voss. We've been a team now for four years, and for those four years, they've been my family. This ship has been my home." He smiled. "When you're adrift in the worlds, you learn very quickly what is important to you, and what is not, and that family and home are what you make of it."
Petra nodded, suddenly feeling very weary.
"It's all right," Gareth said again, his voice soft. "You're young, you have time. This isn't a puzzle that needs to be solved right now. Once we get through this, then we can worry about where we go next." He stopped, tilting his head as he looked at Petra. "In the meantime, I can at least show you the world your family came from, if you'd like."
Her face brightened. "Yes," she said. "I would like that."
"All right," Gareth said, lifting both of his hands. "Lean toward me, close your eyes, and relax."
"Oh," Petra said, realizing what he was about to do. She fought down a sudden wave of nervousness and sat forward, leaning on her elbows in the middle of the table. Gareth also leaned forward, and brought both of his hands up near Petra's head. He paused, and she realized she was staring intently at his hands. "Right," she said, closing her eyes.
He placed his left hand along the side of her head, just under her ear, wrapping his fingers around to the base of her skull to support her head, and rested the fingertips of his right hand on Petra's forehead. A few seconds passed, and Petra felt her muscles relaxing, her tension seeming to drain out of her. "All right," Gareth said, his voice soft and calming. "Open your eyes."
She did, and was startled to find herself surrounded by purple. She was alone, yet she could still feel the pressure of Gareth's fingers against her forehead. "Your eyes aren't actually open," his voice said, answering her unspoken question. "You're looking into one of my memories, seeing it in your mind, not with your eyes."
She looked around. She appeared to be standing on a balcony, overlooking a rolling garden, filled with trees and flowering plants in various shades of blues, pinks and greens. The trees were tall and thin, like smaller versions of evergreens, but with thick, waxy leaves, and everything was glossy and bathed in a pinkish glow from the bright purple sky. She looked up and could see the edge of a canyon in the distance, and a ridge of craggy, sharp mountains beyond. There was a thin layer of blue clouds slicing through the middle of the sky, and licks of lightning danced along under the cloud layer, occasionally dropping to the ground below. It was constant, but it wasn't violent like a thunderstorm. It reminded Petra of sheets of summer rain, shifting with the wind, but made of flickering plasma instead of water. It was hypnotic and beautiful, and the more she looked around, the more of it she saw. Thin tendrils of lightning were everywhere, stronger toward the horizon around the mountain, but even here near the balcony she could feel a crackle of energy in the air.
It was at once familiar yet completely alien. Petra felt a kind of bittersweet longing, which seemed odd considering this was the first time she had even seen the world, until she realized she was undoubtedly feeling the emotion attached to the memory. She suddenly felt as though she were prying, and leaned back, breaking contact and bringing her back to reality. She opened her eyes and was back in the commons, sitting across from Gareth at the central table. He was lowering his hands, his eyes watery, with an expectant look on his face.
Petra smiled, not really knowing what to say. She didn't have a tangible emotional attachment to a world she had never known, but at the same time felt a sort of distant sadness that she would never get to experience it. Still, it was enlightening, and put the strange memory she had acquired into better context. "Thank you," she said sincerely, settling on brevity.
The door opened, and they looked up as Aris walked in.
"Well," Gareth said. "What's the story?"
Aris laughed, a short, nervous bark. "Everything's gone to hell, and we're about to land in the middle of it," he said. "Avernus just showed up over Pyriom."
Gareth's face fell slack. "Oh, I was really hoping we were wrong."
"What?" Petra asked, lost.
Gareth turned to her. "It seems the Sanctuary has been behind all the dragon attacks," he said, "and now they're sitting above the capital of the Republic with the capability of launching an army of them." His voice was calm, but there was an urgency in his expression she hadn't seen before.
"Frakes is preparing a full-scale defensive," Aris continued, "mobilizing pretty much their entire fleet, but there's a good chance that won't be enough."
"Does she still have Voss?" Gareth asked.
"No," Aris said, "and that's our other problem. Frakes let her go, and she was supposedly with Kale, but we checked in with Vorsk and they don't know where they are. Kale's ship never came back, and they can't establish communications with it. Voss's personal comm is also reading out of range, which means she's on a ship it's not synced with, or it's been deactivated."
"That's not good."
"No," Aris agreed. "So we're on our way to Pyriom to try and help."
"What's the plan?" Petra asked.
Aris cringed slightly. "We're … kind of making that up as we go," he said. "We think that if we can get there before they drop their holds, we can get Gareth and Mira on board. They'll try to disable or d
isrupt the signal controlling the dragons from the inside. Mira's working on the logistics right now. Meanwhile, I'll join the fleet and we'll try to run interference to buy time." He exhaled, sounding tired. "Though there's really no way to know if that'll work, as we've never dealt with this many dragons before. Outside of the rare occasion when two are together, we've only ever encountered one at a time."
"So you don't have a protocol in place for defending against … what do you call a group of dragons, anyway?" Petra asked. "A flock? A fleet?"
Gareth's eyes narrowed. "A ruin."
Petra swallowed.
"And no," he continued. "We don't."
"We won't be able to completely stop the advancing dragons," Aris said. "But we should at least be able to slow them down."
"None of Frakes' ships have plasma armor, though," Gareth pointed. "They may not last long."
Aris nodded, his mouth drawn thin. "I know," he said. "I put in a call to Kingsguard ships in the area. I don't know how many we'll get, but we can take point if we need to."
"And Lirwe?" Gareth asked.
"She's your ride to Avernus," he explained. "The hangar bays will likely be defended from incoming ships, but a single dragon should be able to slip in at the corner above the weapon emplacements."
"Good," Gareth said. "We'll need her with us once we're there."
"For what?"
"Well, they'll be under some level of lockdown," Gareth said, "and my access won't go far, especially if we've been found out. We might need her to, um, open doors that we wouldn't otherwise be able to get through."
"That's a good point," Aris said.
"Of course, then we'll need to set her loose to round up all the others once the signal has been cut," Gareth finished.
"I think that's where I come in," Petra said, her voice oddly distant.
Aris looked surprised. "What?" he said. "That's not a good idea."
Petra's head was cocked to one side, listening. After a minute, she looked back up. "I know," she said. "I don't like it much either. But I'm her…" She trailed off, turning to Gareth. "What was the word you used?"
"Interface," Gareth said, turning to Aris. "She's right, she needs to come. None of us will be able to direct Lirwe otherwise."
"Don't worry," Petra said. "She says she'll protect me."
Aris looked from one to the other of them, confusion marking his face.
"She's been listening," Petra said.
"They have a telepathic link," Gareth explained.
"Oh," Aris said. "Great. I still think it's a bad idea."
"She intends to set her kind free," Petra said, her eyes unfocused. "Then she'll need my help getting through the shields." She frowned, looking up at Gareth. "What shields?"
"The magnetic shield surrounding the city," he explained. "The controlled dragons can presumably get through because they're being operated remotely. But Lirwe won't be able to unless she has guidance."
"What does that mean?"
Gareth exhaled. "It means you get to be a rider."
The door opened again, and they turned to see Mira walk in.
"Did you find anything?" Aris asked.
She nodded. "Yes. We have two target points, a third if we can't get to the first two. And we have less than an hour, so we need to gear up."
"Grab a set for Petra," Gareth said, standing up. "She's coming with."
"Really?"
He nodded. "Long story, I'll fill you in." He turned to Petra. "If you'll wait for us back in containment, we'll be there shortly." He and Mira then walked out into the corridor. Aris gave her one last hopeful look before following them out as well, leaving her alone in the commons.
Petra took a breath, then stood up from her chair. She walked out into the corridor, now empty and silent. She turned and headed around the medical bay at the center of the ship and stepped up to the double blast doors at the rear. She hesitated, looking at the wide slab of metal, a dozen different thoughts running through her mind. Everything had happened so fast, and she felt so much farther removed from where she had wanted to be than she could have possibly predicted. She had spent so much energy trying to get to this point, trying to find these people, and now that she was here, she didn't know what to do next. On top of that, she was staring down some kind of confrontation she still didn't completely understand, and the fact that she was preparing to play a role in it was at once surreal and quietly terrifying.
She wished Bran were still with her. Even when he didn't know what to do next, his presence was a comfort, and made her feel more confident about her own choices, partly because she knew there was someone there who could help if it went wrong. Now she felt more alone than she did when she started this whole crazy quest, and more than anything she just wanted to go home.
Do come in, child. She heard the voice in her head and snapped back to the present. She took a deep breath and pressed the button opening the doors to the containment hold. She walked in and around the shield wall to find Lirwe curled up in the center of the floor, consuming most of the space in the hold. On entry, the dragon lifted its head and looked her way.
"Did you catch all that?" Petra asked, walking up to the space directly in front of the creature's head. "It seems we're going into battle."
You don't feel ready, Lirwe's voice spoke into her mind.
"No," she said. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what's going to happen, and … I don't know how much help I can possibly be."
Stay with me, and you'll be safe, Lirwe said, and even though there was an undercurrent of power and tranquility in the dragon's voice that helped calm Petra's nerves, she still felt terribly unsure.
Worry not, Lirwe continued. I can sense the discord within you, the doubt, but there is also great strength. You carry with you the drive and determination of your people. You are the closest to kin I have met since the great rift that separated the two races, and you remind me of the time our peoples still lived together.
Petra looked up into the faintly glowing red of Lirwe's eyes, shaking her head. "I don't feel like a part of that," she said. "I feel like an outsider looking in, afraid I'm about to be noticed and asked to leave. The only problem is I don't know where I'm supposed to be."
This troubles you. Lirwe's voice softened, but it was not a question.
"I was raised on a world that wasn't my own," Petra said, "by a family that isn't my kin."
You feel this somehow diminishes your existence?
Petra looked at the floor. "I just feel lost."
It's natural to question what it is you are actually searching for.
Petra started pacing. "I thought I was looking for my father," she said. "Now, I don't know."
You fear you may be seeking him in the dust.
Petra shrugged. "I don't think I ever expected to actually find him," she admitted, stopping and looking back up at Lirwe. "Seems like a fool's hope now. I really just wanted to find out where I came from. Where I belong."
My dear child, Lirwe said, bringing her head down to eye level, forcing Petra to look at her. Do not confuse one for the other, for they are not always the same thing.
Zero Hour
Aris sat at his controls, watching the countdown as Gareth walked back into the cockpit. He wore a sleek, dark green environment suit, and he was pulling on gloves as he stepped up to the center console. "Just a few more minutes," Aris said, looking up from his countdown.
"The kid's all set," Gareth said. "One of Mira's secondary suits fit her with some minor adjustments, she's got a working comm, and right now she's getting a scale hook primer."
"You think she'll hold up?" Aris asked. "She seemed a bit of a mess down on the planet."
Gareth shrugged. "She's determined. If she can escape a dragon attack and a ship crash only to end up befriending the actual queen of all dragons,
then she's likely capable of more than we give her credit for."
"Point," Aris said. "All the same, try to keep an eye on her, huh?"
"Will do. I'll let you know when we're set to go." Gareth walked back out, leaving Aris to sit and watch the countdown. He tightened his seat's harness restraint, released weapons hold, and hoped like hell they could handle whatever they were getting themselves into. The proximity alert sounded, and he looked back at his monitor. The countdown reached zero, and he pulled the lever, cutting the slipstream drive and bringing Vermithrax back into normal space. Ahead of him was the blue-green planet Pyriom, the seat of the Republic. And sitting in orbit above the northern hemisphere was the Sanctuary orbital platform Avernus, surrounded by the entirety of the Pyriom planetary fleet moving into defensive formation.
Aris angled toward the front of the formation, increasing speed. He opened a channel. "Commander Frakes, this is Vermithrax, do you copy?"
"We read you, Cobalt," Frakes' voice came across.
"I'm not seeing any activity," Aris said as he drew closer to the group. "Have they made a move?"
"No fireworks yet," Frakes said. "There haven't been any declarations, or communication of any kind, no shots fired, and no offensive launched, so we're taking up a perimeter."
"I know, you can't move until they do," Aris said.
"They seem to have found their position, though. They haven't moved in more than ten minutes."
Aris checked his sensors. Topography of the surface showed they were directly over the capital, confirming his earlier suspicions. "We've broadcast the usual warnings," Frakes continued. "We have a counter-offensive ready if they launch fighters and we're authorized to open fire at the first sign of aggression."
