Ruin of Dragons

by Clay Kronke

  Petra squinted. Below, she could just make out the groups of dragons ahead of her. Little more than pinpricks of black, she could see flecks of orange and red trailing from them as they entered the atmosphere. Petra's hope sank as she realized they might be too far behind to help.

  "Castle, this is Stork," Petra said. "We're outside and headed toward the planet, but I don't think we'll be able to catch up in time."

  "Copy that," Aris said, "give me two minutes."

  Petra held on tight as Lirwe coaxed a little extra speed out of her system, the plasma expelled through her vents increasing. It seemed to help, but they still had a very long way to go. Petra didn't have time to wonder what Aris had in mind before the dark shape of Vermithtrax was suddenly pulling up alongside them, matching their speed.

  "Climb on," Aris's voice came across. "I'll give you a lift."

  Before Petra could respond, Lirwe was shifting over, bringing herself over and twisting around until they were over the topside of the ship. Vermithrax moved up slowly until the dragon was within arm's length. In one swift movement, Lirwe extended both legs and the foreclaws on her wings and grasped onto protruding sections along the top. She flattened her wings and pressed her body against the ship.

  Do hang on tight, Lirwe said.

  "Right," she said. "Castle, we're on."

  She felt a vibration course through her as the ship's engines kicked in and they rocketed down toward the planet's surface, and Petra could feel the immediate shift in gravitational forces as they accelerated far faster than they had been. They quickly closed the gap, covering the distance to the group of dragons in a matter of minutes. As they approached the tail end of the second group, she felt a sudden deceleration as the ship slowed. "This is where I let you go," Aris said. "I need to get back."

  "Copy that," Petra said. "Thank you, Captain."

  Lirwe let go of the ship and continued to drop as Vermithrax slowed, then looped up to head back to the battle.

  Petra felt new vibrations as they started through the top layers of the atmosphere, and Lirwe shifted position to protect Petra from the burning air currents buffeting their reentry. Another minute and the currents started evening out, Lirwe straightened and Petra could see where they were headed again. They passed through a few wispy layers of clouds and she realized the groups of dragons had pushed forward and were farther ahead than they had been. Lirwe was slowing down.

  "Are you okay?" Petra asked.

  Do you feel that? Lirwe replied. There is a magnetic field ahead.

  "I … don't know," Petra said.

  It won't affect you the same way, but you might be able to detect it, possibly a tingling sensation along your skin as we approach.

  "Kind of?" Petra said. "What's that mean?"

  It means I'm going to need you to guide me. The shield will disrupt my neural pathways, which will be disorienting, then painful.

  "Is there another way?" Petra asked.

  No. It's used to keep dragons away from technologically centered civilizations, but this group is being controlled remotely, so the shield won't affect them the same way. I don't have that luxury. If I press on it will render me temporarily inert, so I need you to guide me, keep me on as straight a path as possible until I regain consciousness.

  "Are you sure?" Petra said.

  The shield extends for miles in every direction. There is no other way.

  Petra looked down to the surface that was swiftly approaching, then to the group of dragons that was slowly pulling away from them. "I don't know if I can do that."

  You can do it. Concentrate on the connection. See me as simply an extension of you. My body is your body. My wings are your wings. Not much time, hold tight.

  Petra took a breath. "All right," she said. "I'll tr—"

  The word wasn't even out of her mouth when Lirwe started seizing up underneath her, her muscles tensing, her body writhing in wracks and spasms. Even though the dragon had her jaw clamped shut, Petra could hear Lirwe's voice in her head.

  And she was screaming.

  Petra held on tight, hoping that whatever was happening would be over soon, but she didn't have to wait long, because almost as quickly as it started, it was over. Lirwe's limbs went slack, her wings flopped back up against the sides of her body, and they were in freefall.

  overkill

  Gareth stepped off the lift onto the upper of the two engineering levels. He stood in a wide corridor that led past several control stations before ending in a wide service lift that led down to the main level. As he walked down the corridor, he noticed there were no technicians at those stations. He stepped up to the first one. The monitors were active, and their systems were running. Taking a closer look, it seemed there were also some automation protocols running. Gareth frowned. "I'm getting the impression this isn't a very big operation," he said.

  "What makes you say that?" Aris's voice came back.

  Gareth stepped back into the corridor. "It's been way too easy to get around," he said, heading for the second lift. "I've had to avoid two, maybe three patrols, but the rest of the time the corridors have been empty."

  "Are you complaining?" Aris said.

  "No," Gareth said, stepping onto the lift. "I just find it odd. Did they send everyone not involved out on assignment? Give everyone the day off? Are we going to find a bunch of noncoms tied up in the basement?"

  "You're complaining."

  Gareth rolled his eyes. "This is how my brain works. I need to understand." The lift doors opened, and he stepped off onto the main level, a cavernous space that surrounded the thruster reactors and the power generator core. "None of this makes sense. This was a good organization, with a good mission. Did it go bad from the inside or was it all just a front from the beginning?"

  "Well," Aris started, "the Sanctuary is a complex machine with countless moving pieces that have been in motion for decades. The Kingsguard was a just a motley collection of independent forces before being brought together under one umbrella by the Sanctuary. If it was a front from the beginning, then it was a hell of a long con. I'm more inclined to believe it rotted from the inside."

  "I hope you're right," Gareth said. "Because if not, it calls into question every other thing we've done the last four years."

  He could hear the sigh on the other end. "Don't I know it," Aris said. "But don't get too distracted while you're waxing philosophical. They may not be expecting anyone to go for the power generators, but there'll be safeguards in place."

  "No doubt," Gareth agreed. "But I'm hoping that because this idea is stupidly dangerous, there won't be as much in the way of actual security personnel."

  "I would like to point out that I wasn't the one to suggest you step into the reactor core," Aris said.

  "I know," Gareth said. "The system will likely have its controls locked out, so the only way to shut it down will be manually, from the inside." He shook his head. "I'm just complaining. This isn't going to be fun."

  "Won't the energy flow just divert around you?"

  "Yes," Gareth said. "Doesn't mean it won't hurt." He stepped up to a massive cylinder in the center of the space. It was covered in plate shielding, had an elaborate series of wide electrical conduits coming out of several junctions ringing the top of the cylinder, and it extended down below the floor grating for several levels, requiring a spiraling catwalk that circled the cylinder to its base, allowing access to all its maintenance points. Gareth took a breath. The one he wanted was at the very bottom. "I'm here," he said. "Wish me luck."

  "Don't die," Aris's voice came back.

  "Thanks."

  Gareth looked around. Just like the level above, he couldn't see anyone around, which continued to surprise him, as this was the kind of area one would expect some amount of personnel present. Stepping up to the ladder, he started down, the space becoming darker and more cramped as he w
ent. He reached the lowest catwalk, circled around to the front, and climbed down one last set to the control station at the bottom. As he had suspected, the controls were locked out, and he couldn't shut down or modify any of the active systems. According to the monitor only a few of the major systems were operating at full capacity. Clinical systems and the residential areas seemed to be dark, as did most of the inner ring, with the exception of Control. Engineering, navigation, life support, and communications all had their power allocation at normal levels, as did the outer hangar bays and cryo storage, although there was one odd spike in the cryo grid that was getting an abnormally high amount of energy. He checked the grid designation against the ship schematics in his handheld and found it belonged to one of the ancillary cryo chambers, one usually reserved for staging specimen that were about to be reintroduced into the dragon population down on Harr. However, it wasn't big enough to prep the numbers they had already seen being launched. He made a mental note to check it on his way back out.

  His attention was drawn to a sound above, and he looked up to one of the upper catwalks where a figure was visible through the floor grating. Gareth couldn't tell if it was a system tech or a trooper making a round, but it didn't really matter. In a minute, they would know he was there.

  He stepped up to the maintenance hatch, disabled the safeties, and opened the outer door. It was a short air lock with a heavily armored inner door that was only about half Gareth's height. He looked up as an alarm started screeching in the main engineering area, accompanied by a strobing light that cast flecks of red down through the walkway grating onto the lower part of the reactor. He could hear the footsteps get louder as their owner changed directions and started down to the lower area.

  Gareth stepped into the airlock and secured the door behind him, then bent down and opened the inner door, revealing the bottom of a wide circular chamber that immediately flooded the airlock with highly charged particles. He could see thick arcs of energy flashing past just inside the chamber, and tendrils of electricity licked around the inside of the airlock and chased over Gareth's skin and all of the inner surfaces.

  "Just like a stormy day back home," he said.

  He heard a knock and turned around to see the alarmed face of a man at the small porthole in the outer door. He wasn't wearing a helmet and looked more like a system tech than a soldier. "Hey!" the man shouted, his voice slightly muffled through the door. "What are you doing? You need to come back out!"

  "Sorry," Gareth shook his head.

  "You can't be in there," the man continued, "you could do serious damage to the reactor."

  Gareth nodded. "Yeah, that's kinda the point."

  The man's expression grew somehow even more alarmed. "You don't understand, if you shut down the reactor, you shut everything else down as well. You'll get us all killed."

  Gareth smiled. "You're welcome to come in and stop me," he said, looking down at the tendrils of energy that were washing over him. "Though I doubt you're properly equipped."

  "I'm alerting security," the man said.

  Gareth nodded. "I understand," he said, then turned and crouched, stepping into the generator chamber and pulling the inner closed behind him. He was immediately struck by an intense wash of energy and pressure that nearly knocked him off balance, and he found himself leaning up against the inner door as he turned around and straightened up.

  He was at the bottom of an immense cylindrical chamber. He stood between two massive conical converters, part of a set of six that rung the bottom of the chamber, and identical to three more sets at higher intervals. Issuing from the points of each of the converters were equally massive streams of white-blue energy, flowing inward to the center core of the chamber, where the energy joined a glowing, indistinct blur that was the power regulator, a spinning mass that spanned the entire height of the chamber. Gareth was fascinated. He had never stood in this close a proximity to that much raw power before, and he could feel his skin tingling with energy. But he wasn't sure which section of the mechanism to target. His intention had been to disrupt the power flow, but this was far more complex than he had imagined, and the energy arcing around the chamber was faster and more intense than he could have anticipated.

  He looked at the converters and decided they were probably where he should start. The energy streams were emitting about shoulder height, and if he could disrupt the flow into the regulator, it might be enough of an imbalance to trigger a shutdown of the system.

  He stepped up next to the crackling particle stream and took a couple deep breaths. He stepped into the stream—

  And was immediately thrown bodily backward as a sudden brief wall of power flowed into him and knocked him down onto the floor of the chamber. Gareth gasped, blinking as his vision cleared and his senses returned to him. He had been unprepared for the sheer force of the energy, and he had to lie still for a minute as the sudden shock seemed to momentarily negate his motor functions. But as he looked up, he noticed a few errant arcs of plasma coming off the spinning regulator and sparking along the lines of conduit running the length of the inside of the chamber. Good, he thought. He was hoping that the calibration in the system was precise enough that even a minor fluctuation in power would cause an imbalance, and that looked to be the case, he just needed to make a bigger impact.

  He stood back up, shook his head, and prepared to try again, but instead of stepping completely into the stream, he decided to start by skimming the edge of it. He cupped his fingers, widened his stance and pointed his other hand away from him so the energy would have more of a straight path. He clenched his jaw, tensed his entire body and eased his hand into the flow.

  About half the intensity of the last burst, it was still enough of a jolt to make Gareth feel like his insides were being flash fried, but he managed to stay on his feet, and as he watched, the energy flowed across him and away from his opposite arm, arcing into the spinning regulator. He shifted position, pointing his arm away from the regulator and aiming it at the next converter over. The energy connected, burned through the outer housing and caused a breakdown that sparked across the surface of the converter. Gareth stepped out of the flow and watched as the energy being emitted sputtered, then started escaping along the seams of the housing, flowing back on itself and out in multiple directions.

  Sensing the power buildup in the converter, he dove for the inner maintenance hatch. Yanking the door open, Gareth ducked into the airlock just as the damaged converter exploded, sending chunks of metal and machinery out into the chamber, where they were immediately sucked into the spinning regulator. The converter was still leeching power, but instead of directing it into the regulator, it was flowing out and up along the inside of the chamber, and Gareth could see sparks and errant tendrils of energy as other converters began to be affected. And the imbalance of power caused the regulator to begin spinning faster.

  Gareth shut the inner door and bolted it. "That wasn't quite what I was going for, but it should do the job," he said. Climbing back out into the accessway, he found multiple alarms blaring. He checked the monitor again and found power levels within the reactor rising, while power output began to fall. Alerts on the monitor were blinking, warning of imminent failure.

  "Ah, hell," Gareth said, starting up the ladder back to the main engineering level. "Guys, we've got a problem. Instead of shutting down the reactor, I may have accidentally made it go critical and, um, doomed us all, so I suggest we get off as soon as possible."

  He heard a crackle in his communicator but no response. "Guys?" he tried again. "Castle, do you read me?" But there was nothing.

  "Great."

  • • •

  Voss and Kale walked down the long, empty hallway, escorted by a contingent of eight armed troops. They had come out of a service lift onto the main level in a side passage that had emptied out into the east quadrant corridor, and were finally in an area Voss recognized, heading toward the
center of the station.

  "What do you think?" Kale asked, leaning in close.

  Voss looked around. The guards didn't seem to be paying very close attention, but she didn't want to take any chances. She turned to Kale and, keeping her voice down, started speaking in Dwarvish. "They are either taking us back to holding, or up to command," she said.

  Kale looked at her, a brief flash of surprise in his expression. "They seem to be taking pains to keep us alive, though," he said. "I suppose that's encouraging."

  "Confirms my theory that we're being set up," Voss said.

  "Typical," Kale frowned. "Attack the humans and the elves and blame the dwarves."

  "Except there are elves involved, which makes very little sense."

  Kale shrugged. "Every culture has extremists. There have been uprisings in every House throughout Dwarven history. If your leaders are sending your own people down the wrong path, do you accept your place in line, or do you fight against it? Personally, I wouldn't be where I am if I didn't answer the latter."

  "Yeah, but what is there in Elven culture that cries out for revolution?" Voss countered. "They don't wield power inappropriately, they don't cultivate inequality or injustice, they don't oppress their people—"

  "But they do not stand up to those that would," Kale pointed.

  Voss pondered that as they walked on in silence for another moment or two. Then she had an idea. "Well this has been fun," she said "but I'm bored. Are you ready to go yet?"

  Kale rolled his eyes. "I don't know," he said, "I still haven't had a tour of the place…"

  "Well," she started, "we're coming up on what we like to call the Inner Ring…" As she talked, she held her hands up in front of her with the pretense of gesturing and showed Kale that she had unclipped her wrist binders. "There you'll find concourses leading off to each of the three main divisions of this facility." The hall they were in emptied out into a wide, circular corridor with a high, domed roof, and second level walkways that looked out into it. They turned and walked past the main lift cluster, and Voss frowned.