“He’s trying to hatch them,” Malice said to himself. He counted the eggs again. One was missing. As he neared the eggs he realized his mistake. One was not missing exactly.
The dragon inside had hatched.
Malice shivered at the thought of a live dragon. Even a baby one at some ten feet tall, with a wingspan of four times that. A rudimentary ability to fly at birth was encoded into its genetics. And with the fire breathing capabilities all dragons were known to possess at birth, Malice knew he was in trouble.
He felt a cold draft beat down on him as a large shadow glided across the floor.
He glanced up into a pair of enormous jaws. With no time to aim and shoot, Malice threw himself across the floor and rolled. A jet of flames roared after him. Singeing his armor.
He shot back with everything his Curse Maker could throw at the young dragon in an attempt to disorientate it. The dragon slashed and burned at mini-missiles, rockets, and flares, batting them away with its ferocious claws. Bullets bounced harmlessly off its armored scales. Its great wings tore the Spelltech netting to shreds.
Malice soon came to realize what he most needed in the world was the one Recruit he despised more than any other. Night Fear.
A shadow came up behind him. He spun on the balls of his feet and brought up his Curse Maker. He squeezed the trigger. His Curse Maker announced it was out of ammunition.
Night Fear’s face appeared in the afterglow of the Dragon’s fire. She reached up and pushed aside the tip of Malice’s barrel.
The familiar snorting of dragon nostrils pummelled her ears. It was about to sneeze burning snot in their direction at a hundred thousand miles an hour.
Malice pushed her to the ground as a deafening sneeze shattered his helmet visor and a torrent of burning snot eviscerated everything in its path, but the remaining eggs.
“You can borrow my Curse Marker if you really want to shoot me, Mage Marshal,” she said. “Or we can catch ourselves a Dragon.”
“Ever caught a dragon before?”
“I played rough with a few when I was a kid,” she said. “What’s the game plan?”
“It can sense your Wydra blood. I’m hoping that will confuse it enough to think you’re its mother.”
“Like hell it will.”
“Long enough for you to get close, while I sneak up behind,” he said and drew a flaming short short out of his armed thigh-sheath.
The plan worked perfectly. Except for the part Malice neglected to mention. When the dragon finally realized as a humanoid, Night Fear lacked the necessary milk producing teats to feed a hungry newborn. And of course, the famous dragon temper.
Fiery.
And this dragon wasn’t getting its own way.
As Fear stood by the other eggs, the dragon landed, coiled its great wings around her in a protective manner, she supposed. It began to nuzzle and lick her face.
All the while, Malice climbed its tail and its scaly back. The longer it stretched and contorted its neck nuzzling Fear, the more it exposed the spaces between its scales. Malice plunged the short sword behind a crack in its ear armor.
The dragon’s scream unleashed a hurricane resounding around the cargo hold and sending Malice toppling backwards down its neck to its tail. Its great wings unfurled and swiped at the remaining eggs.
The dragon slumped to the ground and Fear ordered her Curse Maker to seal it in the largest Quarantine bubble it could create.
She ensnared the wounded dragon. It collapsed inside the contracting bubble. Its wings bound tight around its snout.
Gully appeared by her side.
“Where the hell you been?” she asked.
“Hunting for our Warlock. He gave me the slip. I heard the noise and figured he was in here.”
“Well, he’s nowhere,” Fear said and called out to Malice. “Gully turned up!”
Malice lay in his back and waved to indicate he was alive. He sat up. Shook his head.
Gully pointed into the darkness at a figure creeping up on Malice. “Behind you!”
Malice spun around. Fear fired a volley of mini-missiles into the Warlock. Like a ghost, the warlock vanished.
Malice climbed to his feet and walked over to where the Warlock had a moment before stood. There was nothing. No residue of human flesh. It made no sense.
“A decoy spell!”
He knew the spell maker had to be nearby to create the decoy spell. Malice glanced over his shoulder at Fear and Gully.
He knew one of them was the shapeshifter.
But which one?
He reached for his Curse Maker. It indicated its nanobots had manufactured a new supply of ammunition and embedded lethal spells.
He whispered, “Curse Maker, Stealth Assassin.”
His finger rested on the trigger. He aimed the gun at Fear and Gully.
Fear yelled, “What the hell? Is that the thanks I get?”
“One of you is the Warlock,” Malice said.
“How can you tell?” Gully asked and snorted.
In the after glow of the Dragon Fire, Malice saw a glimmer of shiny green slime on the nostrils of one of the Recruits. He aimed and squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 6
A silent plasma bullet tore into Gully’s forehead. He collapsed.
Fear screamed. “You bastard,” she shouted. She knelt beside Gully. Placed her fingers by his neck and felt for a pulse. She found nothing.
“He’s dead, you son of a—”
Gulley’s face began to distort. His blue hair vanished. Replaced by the bald head of a much older man.
Malice came to her side. “Meet Jugo Hex,” Malice said. “One of the galaxy’s deadliest Tech Warlocks.”
“How did you know?”
“Fairy Flu,” Malice said. “Jugo had magic Dust allergies. Let his Flu shots lapse.”
“And it killed him.” Her eyes popped wide. “So where’s Gully?”
They found Gully unconscious and sleeping off a Sleeping Beauty spell.
“Recruit Gully will be up and with us in about a century or two,” Malice said.
“Unlike somebody I could mention,” Fear said, “seems Jugo wasn’t a cold hearted killer. Just a business man.”
“Anyone who deals in magic is the worse kind of killer,” Malice said. “And for that snide remark you get to carry Recruit Gully back to Star Marshall One.”
“Would you change your mind about helping me if I thanked you for saving my life?”
Malice snorted. “I’m just doing my job.”
“You could have killed me alongside Jugo Hex. But you used your knowledge and experience to find a better way. I want to learn that.”
“I didn’t,” Malice said. “I planned to kill you each in turn for disobeying direct orders to stick close.”
She laughed. “Well, here’s your chance.”
He ignored her and walked over to the dragon. It was still alive. It stared up at him with eyes that seemed too human for him to stomach. He put a bullet between its eyes.
Fear felt the bullet. “Feel good about that, do you?”
“Dragons are too dangerous to be kept in captivity.”
“Tell it to the Wyrdra.”
“I shall someday. If they ever let me into the Nec Void.”
“You could have saved the dragon for research,” Fear said. “Even better, as an experiment in humanity. You got a personal grudge against dragons?”
Malice refused to answer.
“Come on,” Malice said. “We’ve got some eggs to quarantine.”
Fear laughed. “Mage Marshal Malice, I’ll never figure you out, will I?”
***
Back at Sheriff Town, Malice reported via the holographic video link to Star Marshal Scar.
“Good work, Malice. Anything else?”
“Star Marshall, why did you bring me in from the cold,” he asked. “Last time we spoke you made clear I’d be stationed at Sheriff Town permanently. I’m off the streets and out of the space lanes for good you
said.”
Scar sighed. She took out a safe-talk spell tech device that guaranteed two minutes of privacy from spy-spells and clicked it on. “Jugo accessed confidential skin maps of me. This means one thing.”
“There’s a mole in the Service.”
“Exactly. A high-ranking individual. Or more. I can trust no one. Except you.”
“What if I’d failed in the mission?”
“But you didn’t.”
Malice sighed. So where does that leave us?”
“We have future betrayals to look forward to anytime soon.”
“Unless you order interrogations of the entire high council of Marshals.”
“What’s the point? The spy obviously has the use of truth-twister spells or standard detection would have spotted him or her by now.”
“Then there’s nothing for it,” Malice said. “Execute the entire council.”
Scar laughed. “You’re only blowing smoke up my ass because you know I fantasize killing them all. I do love your wicked sense of humor.”
“Who’s joking?”
Scar rolled her eyes. “Speaking of fantasies, how about you come by my place later. I’ve a whip made of dragon hide I’d like you to try on me.”
He felt attracted to her attitude. Her passion to defending humanity against the onslaught of magic. He even admitted to himself that he was attracted to her physically. Especially as she appeared over a hundred years younger than her natural age.
He smiled and said, “Recently impounded a Magic Dust smuggler’s orgasm spells that apparently last for days.”
“You don’t say?”
But as far as he was concerned he was at war. Duty came first.
“Got an academy to run, remember?”
She sighed. “And I’ve an entire galaxy to protect from itself. Dismissed, Mage Marshal.”
THE END
AGI
Read it now for FREE with Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
The countdown begins.
Our planet nears extinction and the deadline approaches for the launch of the final ship in the mass emigration to Mars.
Eight hours until the last ship.
No one wants to be among the unlucky ones left behind.
What happens to the rest of us?
If Lieutenant Arc of the Rogue Android Rehabilitation Division fails to discover why an android murdered four humans, he will never see his family again.
Read it now for FREE with Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
Star Coven
The Star Coven books may be read and enjoyed in any order.
Read it now for FREE with Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
One man against the most powerful clan of magical assassins in the galaxy. What could possibly go wrong?
When Mage Marshal Wolff discovers his estranged daughter is to be inducted into the outlawed Star Coven, he knows he will do anything to save her.
But to save his daughter means entering the Nec Void. The last area of unbridled chaos magic. A forbidden zone, jealously guarded by the Wyrdra and punishable by death.
Can he save her life without starting a galactic war?
**Please note: one or more characters are inflicted with a profanity curse and exhibit highly contagious symptoms that are occasionally hilarious and inventive.
Read it now for FREE with Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
Mage Marshal (A Star Coven Story)
The Star Coven books may be read and enjoyed in any order.
Read it now for FREE with Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
Policing the galaxy against magic, Mage Marshal Malice is having a bad day.
It’s Mage Marshal Malice’s daughter’s birthday and he’s stuck babysitting a Rookie Marshal on street patrol in the most dangerous magical place in the galaxy. What could possibly go wrong?
**Please note: one or more characters are inflicted with a profanity curse and exhibit highly contagious symptoms that are occasionally hilarious and inventive.
Read it now for FREE with Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
Genesis Invasion Trilogy
"You have sixty minutes to find it, steal it and bring it to us, or… she dies."
With news of an alien armada heading toward Earth, the world descends into panic. Alex Caine and his wife Sarah flee Rome on the first flight home to be with their family.
At thirty thousand feet aboard a plane traveling home, Alex discovers his wife Sarah is missing. No one believes she boarded the plane with him.
He searches the entire plane, but Sarah is nowhere to be found.
Then he gets the cellphone call that will change his life forever: You have sixty minutes to find it, steal it and bring it to us, or… she dies.
The Genesis Invasion Trilogy includes the books: Genesis Gene, Genesis Child and Genesis Revelations.
Valiant (Jurassic War Universe book 1)
FEAR THE FRONTIER. FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.
One man’s obsession to save his family collides with an ancient alien civilization’s secret agenda and threatens Earth’s fragile galactic peace.
The passengers and crew of a galactic cruise ship mysteriously vanish. Ten thousand citizens of Earth.
Without warning.
Without a trace.
Pushing the fragile peace between the four major alien civilizations to the brink of war.
For Commander Zen Dax of Earth’s United Space Fleet it’s personal. Solving the mystery may lead him to his missing wife and son. Or bring destruction upon humanity.
Standing in the way of his desperate plan to save them is a galaxy of conspirators, assassins, spies, saboteurs, killer robots, lethal renegade smugglers, merciless alien factions, and even Dax’s grizzled captain of USF warship Valiant.
To save his family, can Dax convince his captain and the crew of Valiant to defy their masters and risk a galactic war to find the truth?
The Asteroid Thief (Jurassic War Universe book 2)
The first killer in space is fear. The second is one of her crew. In the race to terraform Mars, the winner takes all, but time is running out!
To save her kidnapped daughter’s life, Argo’s first officer Delta Blair must steal the most valuable asteroid in the galaxy. To save Earth’s population from war and famine, Space Fleet’s undercover agent Zen Dax must protect that asteroid with his life.
But someone on mining ship Argo is killing the crew one-by-one and unless Delta and Zen can team up to solve the murders, they will be next.
Thank you for reading.
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