by Piers Platt
“What are you doing?” Vina asked.
“Disabling the trauma cutoff,” Falken told her. “Normally the proxies are programmed to stop streaming their feed at a certain level of damage. Basically, if your proxy is being torn apart by a dragon, it severs the connection before it gets too traumatic for you to experience. But the proxy can still function at that point, technically. So even if I’ve only got a torso and one arm working, I want to stay in it, in case I can somehow help with the capture. We don’t have the luxury of being grossed out on this.”
“Good luck,” Vina said, a frown of worry crossing her face. “Be careful out there.”
“You be careful in here,” Falken told her, eyeing Shep across the room. Falken took Vina in his arms, pulling her close for a hug, surprising her. “The research center has a long-range communicator,” he told her, whispering in her ear. “If you can do so without alerting Shep, try to get a signal to the police at Harrison’s Waypoint.”
“Ready, Falken?” Brondi asked.
“Ready,” he said. He let go of Vina and climbed into the displacement pod.
* * *
Falken opened his eyes and found himself standing in the dim twilight of the research center’s vehicle bay. A chest harness was holding him in place – he unbuckled it and stepped down into the bay. Beside him, three other proxies stepped out of their own harnesses within the container. All were generic, nondescript male proxies – unlike the versions he and his guests had used on the Ecolympus, these proxies were not built to resemble their user.
He saw one of the proxies turn and open a footlocker next to the container. The proxy pulled out several items of gear, including a permanent marker. Then the proxy drew a large, black L on its chest.
“I’m Luthena,” she said. “Who’s who?”
“Brondi,” the proxy standing next to her said, pointing to himself. “Good idea.” She marked a large B on his chest, then labeled both Falken and Kuda, too.
“Okay,” Luthena said, capping the marker and tucking it away. “Let’s gear up.”
Falken took a noise cancellation staff out of the locker and slung it across his chest, setting it to Active Cancellation mode. Then he activated a second staff and handed it to Kuda.
“It’s already on,” Falken said. “Don’t mess with it.”
“Okay,” Kuda said.
Brondi and Luthena had donned their own staffs as well.
“How do you want to trap?” Falken asked them.
“We’ve got spring-snares and tranquilizer guns,” Luthena said, passing out short-barreled rifles to each of them. “No sense going very far. I’d suggest we set the snares right outside the vehicle bay, then put a couple staffs in Lure mode, and take cover just inside the bay. Whatever lands we tranquilize, then get the hell back inside.”
“How do the tranquilizers work?” Kuda asked, eyeing his weapon.
“Just like a regular gun,” Brondi said. “Which I assume you’re familiar with.”
“The snares will hold the dragons close to the ground, if we anchor them right. Then we’ll have a better chance of hitting them with a dart. The tranquilizers are dosed to put an average-sized dragon to sleep for a couple hours,” Falken explained.
“What if more than two dragons come?” Kuda asked.
“Then we cross our fingers, and hope we have enough darts to fend them all off,” Luthena said. “Otherwise they get a nice meal of proxies.”
She slung her gun over one arm and pulled a large case off of a shelf on the wall, grunting. “Damn things are heavy even for a proxy to carry. Falken, get the other one?”
“Got it,” he said.
They each grabbed a handle, Falken and Kuda carrying one case, Brondi and Luthena the other. When they reached the bay’s outer door, Brondi set his side of the case down and jogged over to a control panel mounted on the rocky face of the wall.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” Luthena said.
Brondi hit the door switch, and the door shuddered and then rose slowly up into the ceiling, squeaking slightly as it did so.
Back outside again, Falken thought.
Beyond the bay door, the wrecked Ecolympus truck sat facing them. The morning’s rain had passed, but the day remained cloudy and gray. Falken scanned the sky, but it appeared clear of dragons. The only sign of Greban was a large bloody patch on the ground several yards away, and a noise cancellation staff bent in half. Falken shook his head.
He died saving us … saving the men who betrayed us.
Angrily, Falken tugged on the carrying case, pulling Kuda behind him. The four of them hurried outside – Falken and Kuda peeled off to the right, while Luthena and Brondi stopped halfway to the wrecked truck. Falken lowered the case toward the ground carefully, but it slipped out of Kuda’s hand and hit the earth with a dull thud.
Falken mouthed Quiet!, and pointed up at the sky.
He knelt next to the box and flipped open the clips along its side, then swung the lid up. With Kuda’s help, he lifted the snare device out of the case and set it down on the ground. Then he mimed an unrolling motion, and Kuda nodded. Slowly, they unfurled the device’s rope, laying it out in a wide loop along the ground. Falken hurried back to the device and ensured the spring was loaded, and the device’s motion sensor was active. Then he pulled two metal cables out of the other end of the device, each of which ended in a heavy-duty, spring-loaded cam device. He hooked those to his proxy’s belt. Kuda eyed the tools warily, but Falken ignored him.
It’s not a weapon, relax.
He looked up to find Luthena watching him, waiting next to a rocky outcropping, a pair of cam devices in her own hands. Falken stood up and spun in a slow circle, eventually locating a flat patch of rock not far away. He crossed over to it quickly and squatted down, finding a narrow seam running across the rock, splitting it in two. Falken pulled one of the cam devices off his belt and folded the springs back, collapsing it. Then he gave Luthena a thumbs up. She showed him an open palm, held up.
Wait.
Brondi crossed over to Kuda and took the other man’s noise cancellation staff, holding it with his own. He gestured for Kuda to head back into the vehicle bay, then flashed Luthena a thumbs up signal, too. Luthena nodded and held up five fingers, then four, then three, two and one. When she closed her fist, Falken slipped the cam device into the crack in the rock and let it go. It snapped open, expanding to grip the inside of the crack with a sharp, metallic clank. Falken’s noise cancellation staff did little to cover the noise. Falken hooked the second device off his belt and, still squatting, jammed it into another portion of the crack several feet away. Then he wrapped both cables around his fist and pulled on them, hard. The cables went taut, but the anchors within the rock didn’t budge.
“Set!” Falken called. He stood up to see Luthena resetting her second cam device into her chosen rock – it had not caught right on her first try.
“Go!” she said. “I’ll be there in a sec.”
Falken hurried back toward the vehicle bay, being careful to give the snares a wide berth. Brondi stood between them, waiting with the noise cancellation staffs in hand.
“Okay, set!” Luthena called.
Brondi nodded and switched both noise cancellation staffs to Lure. He sank one into the ground next to Falken’s spring device, and tossed the second over by the snare he and Luthena had set. Then the three of them ran for the bay, not caring anymore of the noise they made.
Just inside the door to the hangar, they stopped, joining Kuda.
“Get your tranq guns ready,” Luthena ordered, unslinging her weapon. She reached over and flicked a switch on the side of Kuda’s. “Safety,” she explained.
“When they get here, aim for the chest, below the shoulder wing joints,” Brondi said. “The closer you get to the heart, the faster they go down.”
Falken held his rifle up and peered along the sights, watching the gray clouds.
“Are they coming?” Kuda asked, after
a moment.
“Without a doubt,” Brondi said. “They always come.”
A gentle breeze played along the open ground in front of them, rippling the stalks of the mushrooms.
“I see two,” Luthena noted. “One high, the other coming in low, just over the horizon.”
Falken spotted the high one first, then shifted aim and studied the lower dragon, which seemed to be much closer.
Something familiar about that one …
Falken’s eyes fell on the totaled truck once more, and with sudden clarity, his encounter from the morning came rushing back to him.
“Hey, uh … you guys remember the female that totaled our truck and nearly killed me this morning?” Falken asked.
“The big one?” Brondi replied. “Of course. Why?”
“Here she comes,” Falken said.
Chapter 24
Vina, Ed, and Shep watched the research center’s exterior camera feed, which Shep had found through a link on the conference room’s vidscreen. The picture was grainy and off-color, but they could clearly see the four proxies just outside the vehicle bay, carefully setting up traps along the ground. Shep chewed on a thumbnail nervously, his pistol set on the table in front of him.
Vina cleared her throat. “Nobody’s checked on Raynard in a while,” she said.
Shep glanced across the conference room at the entrance to the infirmary, then concentrated on the screen again. “He’s probably still doped up on painkillers,” he said. “Just let him sleep it off.”
“Can I check on him? Just to be sure?”
“Why?” Shep asked.
“He might need help. He could be having a bad reaction to the drugs,” Vina suggested. “I’m just saying, we should check.”
“So check,” Shep said. “Quickly.”
Vina pushed her chair back and stood up.
“Vina,” Shep said, eyeing her suspiciously, one hand on his pistol now. “Leave the door open.”
“Okay,” she said.
She crossed the room and tapped on the infirmary door. With a soft squeak, it slid open. It was dark inside the infirmary, the lights dimmed except for the glow of monitoring equipment arrayed around Raynard’s bed. Vina stood beside the sleeping journalist, and scanned the various displays, trying to make sense of the numbers and graphs. Finally, she laid a hand across his forehead. It was hot and damp.
“I think he has a fever,” she called out. “He’s very warm.”
“So?”
“I think the wound might be infected,” Vina said.
“He got bitten by a dragon,” Shep called back, with annoyance.
Not bitten, clawed, Vina thought. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw Shep and Ed still watching the vidscreen.
“I’m going to see if there are any antibiotics in the medicine locker here,” Vina said.
She stepped out of view of the conference room, and pulled open several cabinets, rifling through supplies on the shelves. Then she spotted a computer on the desk next to the cabinet. Vina took another look over her shoulder, but Shep and Ed were completely out of view now, blocked by the infirmary wall. She bent over the computer, tapping on the keyboard to wake it up. The screen flickered on, but showed a boot-up screen for several seconds.
Come on!
Vina pushed some supplies around the cabinet noisily. Finally, the research center logo appeared on the screen.
Okay, now we’re in business. Where’s the communications app?
She clicked through several menus, and finally found the communications suite. Vina selected the Compose window, and rapidly typed a message: Olympus under attack, trying to steal dragons. Being held hostage at research center. Liberty Belle hijacked. Please send help!
“I think I found the antibiotics,” Vina called. She clicked on the To: button, and searched for Harrison’s Waypoint, but no entries came up.
Damn it.
Vina typed Colonial Guard and several entries appeared. She clicked on the top one, someone by the name of Jiyake. Then she felt a fist grab her by the hair, and she was hauled bodily backwards, away from the computer.
“Ahhh!” Vina screamed.
She heard the loud BANG of a pistol and suddenly the computer screen shattered and went dark. Snarling, Shep dragged her by the hair back out into the conference room, then tossed her onto the floor. He leveled the pistol at her, his face a mask of fury.
“Did you find the antibiotics, Vina?” he seethed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, holding her hands up to ward him off.
“What do you think, Ed?” Shep asked. “Should I kill her now, or wait until the others get back, so I can make an example of her?”
“No, please!” Vina begged.
Ed eyed her coldly. “I imagine Falken put her up to this little stunt,” he said. “I’d wait until they get back.”
Shep laughed. “You’re still an asshole, Ed. But I’m starting to like you.”
“What the hell is going on?”
Shep spun, whirling the pistol around to find Raynard leaning against the door frame of the infirmary. His pants were cut open at the leg, and a web of intravenous tubes and monitoring cables trailed behind him. He looked exhausted, as if the door frame was the only thing holding him upright. But his eyes burned into Shep.
“What the hell are you doing?” Raynard repeated.
“Welcome back, Raynard,” Shep said, keeping the pistol pointed at him. “You better come have a seat at the table with us.”
“Where’s Falken?” Raynard asked.
“Falken’s not in charge anymore,” Shep said. “I am. Now: sit.”
* * *
“Good god,” Brondi said.
The big female spread her wings wide, flaring in for a landing. Her wings beat the air, and then she folded them smoothly along her back, settling down directly on top of the Ecolympus truck she had so recently torn to pieces. She sniffed the truck beneath her experimentally, and Falken saw the truck settle lower down, her great bulk pushing it deeper into the muddy earth.
“Should we shoot it?” Kuda asked, his voice trembling.
“No,” Falken said.
“No way,” Luthena echoed, awestruck. “Tranquilizers would just piss her off.”
In front of the truck, the noise cancellation staffs were continuing to broadcast their injured faun noises – the dragon leaned forward off the truck, craning her neck over the snares.
Suddenly, a second dragon dove into view and slammed into the earth in the middle of the trap Falken had laid, pinning one of the noise cancellation staffs to the ground. The snare jerked at once, the heavy duty rope cinching tight around the smaller dragon’s hind leg. The dragon screeched and leapt upwards, dragging the snare device along with it, but before he could fly more than a dozen feet into the air, the two anchor lines snapped taut. The dragon was jerked backwards – it crashed to the earth in a flailing jumble of wings and tail.
“While he’s down, now!” Brondi said.
“I got him!” Luthena replied. She brought her rifle up and fired.
Falken saw a tranquilizer dart bury itself in the dragon’s flank. It bellowed again, and jumped into the air, flapping its wings as it struggled to break free of the snare.
“It’s not working,” Kuda said.
“Give it time,” Luthena told him. “He’ll go down.”
“Guys …,” Falken said, warningly.
The big female, who had been momentarily distracted by the newcomer, was now facing them, her ears pointed straight at the foursome. As they watched, she stepped down off the top of the truck and stalked toward them. Behind her, Falken saw another dragon arrive – it landed on top of a rock formation, choosing to give the large female plenty of space.
With deliberate slowness, Falken set his rifle on the ground.
“If she gets snared …” Luthena whispered.
“I know,” Falken said. “I’m going to try to draw her off.”
He stepped out of the bay, moving to his lef
t. The big dragon continued forward, stopping for a moment to sniff the second noise cancellation staff, then turning her attention back to the foursome outside the bay. Falken reached down and switched the staff across his chest to Lure. Her great head swiveled at once, zeroing in on him as he moved farther away from the other three.
Come on. This way.
The beast hesitated, and Falken could see her sensing the air with the gill-like organs along her neck. Kuda, his rifle pointed at the dragon, shifted slightly, and Falken heard the rustle of his clothing brushing against his skin. The dragon heard it, too – her head turned back to face Kuda, Luthena, and Brondi. Her jaws gaped wide. She lunged forward, and in two quick steps she had covered the distance to the bay. At the same instant that her jaws snapped shut over Kuda’s proxy, the snare pulled tight around her leg.
Fuck! Trapped the wrong dragon, and we’re already down a proxy.
Falken dashed forward, hurrying toward the snare device. Brondi and Luthena scrambled back into the bay, while the dragon lifted her head up, swallowing most of Kuda in a single gulp – the stumps of his proxy’s legs were all that remained where he had once stood. The dragon struck out with her tail next, landing a blow on Brondi that sent the scientist’s proxy flying across the vehicle bay and into the rocky wall at the far end.
Falken sprinted under the dragon’s wing, and then fell to his knees next to the snare, searching for the release switch, but before he could throw it, the dragon finally sensed the cord around her leg. She turned and bit at the device, knocking Falken onto his face in the mud. She bit again, crushing the device, but the snare remained tight around her leg. The creature roared in anger, and a massive set of talons slammed down on top of Falken, punching fist-sized holes through his proxy’s chest.
Ouch. That would have hurt.
Then the dragon was up into the air, roaring and jerking against the anchor lines. Falken pushed himself up off the ground – for a second, the two cables held, but first one and then the other frayed and then snapped, and the big dragon disappeared up toward the clouds, trailing the broken device behind her.
