by Piers Platt
In the pilot’s seat, Talus set the craft on a descent vector, heading into Olympus’ upper atmosphere.
“What do you have to do to disable the drone patrol?” Auresh asked.
Muir shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “They recognize our transponder’s access authority, and just move aside.”
Auresh grunted, and then keyed his wristpad.
“Release the tow cable as soon as we’re past the sentry line,” he said, speaking into the device’s microphone.
“This is the Starfarer, roger,” came the reply.
Through the viewport, the drone ships split apart, and the Liberty Belle drove through the gap, disappearing into the cloud layer, pulling the Starfarer behind it. A moment later, Muir heard a metallic clunk come from the ship’s stern, and Talus jiggled the joystick experimentally, weaving the ship through a loose set of turns.
“They’re unhitched,” he reported. “We’re clear.”
The clouds ahead of them parted. A fine spray of water droplets ran off the viewport, and they saw Mount Olympus appear below them.
“Head for the landing pad,” Auresh said. He spoke into his wristpad again. “Starfarer, make your approach and land as close as possible to the research center’s vehicle bay. Ground team reports the captive dragons are located there.”
The two ships set down nearly simultaneously, and Talus began powering the Liberty Belle’s engines down. Muir stood up.
“Stay right there,” Auresh told her.
“I was just going to help connect us to the docking tube,” she said.
“In due time,” Auresh said, his hand resting on a holstered pistol at his hip. “And certainly not without me watching you.”
Auresh leaned past her, reaching down into her station, and pulled a keycard on a well-worn lanyard out of the console. The computer beeped at him immediately, and the screen displayed a warning message:
>>>Ship’s master key removed; orbital launch capabilities disabled.
Auresh waved the key at Muir. “In case you were thinking about trying to take off while I’m not paying attention,” he said, smiling cruelly. He slipped the lanyard over his neck, and then nodded toward the ladder to the bridge. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Shep led the two newcomers into the research center’s conference room.
Falken studied them briefly, and then looked past them down the corridor. “What did you do with Muir and Talus?” he asked.
“They’re locked in the docking tube,” the younger man said, handing a set of handcuff keys to Kuda. The man wore a blue captain’s uniform. “Is that okay with you?”
Falken glared at him.
“He’s a troublemaker,” Kuda said, watching Falken.
“I see,” the man in the uniform said, meeting Falken’s gaze. “What’s your name?”
“Falken. What’s yours?”
The man laughed. “Auresh. Captain of the Starfarer.”
Falken frowned in surprise. Either that’s an alias or he doesn’t care if I know his real name. Which would mean he’s not worried about me telling anyone who he is. That doesn’t bode well.
“And who’s your friend?” Raynard asked, nodding toward the older man.
“This is Mr. Cadellium,” Auresh said. The older man glared back at him, clearly annoyed.
Shit, Falken thought. That’s his real name.
Auresh turned back to Falken, and touched a finger to the side of his temple. “I’ve got my eye on you, Falken.” The captain held his wristpad up to his mouth. “Starfarer: begin loading operations.”
On the conference room’s screens, the ship’s ramp lowered slowly to the ground. While everyone watched the screens, Raynard slid a pen and a piece of paper into his lap and scribbled on it, then held it against Falken’s leg under the table. Falken glanced down and read it surreptitiously.
Gonna kill us? the journalist had written.
Falken took the pen. Probably.
What do? Raynard wrote.
Working on it, Falken scribbled.
“You’ve got about two minutes, at most, before that ship is covered with dragons,” Luthena warned Auresh, watching the Starfarer on the external monitors.
“Is that so?” the captain asked.
Falken nodded. “She’s right. The dragons are all jacked up right now, with all the activity that’s been going on. Anyone you send out of the cargo hold is going to get eaten.”
“We’ll see,” Auresh said, unimpressed.
“They should go for the dragon inside the vehicle bay first,” Kuda told him. “The other one’s tied down.”
“Starfarer, did you monitor?” the captain asked, as a dozen men jogged down the ramp and onto the ground outside the bay.
“Roger,” came the reply. “Getting the far one first.”
The men wore matching black uniforms with pistols mounted in holsters on their thighs, and each man had a full-face oxygen mask on, with a small tank in a harness on his back. The majority of the men broke off and gathered around the dragon in the bay, and after several false starts, they managed to lift it between them, half-carrying, half-dragging the creature up and onto a wheeled cart that several other men had pushed down and out of the ramp. Then they pushed the cart, laboring to move the heavy dragon across the rocky ground.
“Incoming!” the radio warned. “Multiple creatures.”
At once, the men on the ground let go of the cart and pulled strange-looking pistols with conical barrels out of their holsters. Two dragons landed on either side of the men, who had formed into a loose circular perimeter around the captured dragons. The men lifted their pistols and appeared to fire at the dragons. Falken saw the air in front of the pistols shimmer, as if it were vibrating. At once, the dragons shook their heads, ears flattened against their skulls. One dragon took off, beating a hasty retreat, while the other managed to fly only a few yards, before crashing back down to the ground. In pain, it pulled itself behind a rock formation and lay there, shaking.
“See?” Auresh said, smirking. “We’re not fools.”
“Are those sonic cannons?” Luthena asked, aghast.
“Yes, they are,” the captain replied.
“Those dragons have ultra-sensitive hearing,” Luthena protested. “Using weapons like that – concentrated, high decibel sound waves – they’ll permanently damage their ears. The dragons won’t be able to hunt – they’ll starve to death.”
“Ask me if I care,” Auresh said.
Outside, several of the men continued to stand guard, weapons at the ready, while the others turned back to their work. In another minute, they had the first dragon up and into the cargo hold. The empty cart emerged soon after, and the men wheeled it over next to the snared dragon. They fumbled for a moment with the rope of the snare, then tugged the dragon’s limp form up onto the cart.
“More dragons incoming,” the radio reported. “Four of them this time.”
“I guess they didn’t learn their lesson the first time,” Auresh said. “I thought dragons were supposed to be fairly intelligent.”
Falken smiled inwardly. They are. And the minute you underestimate them … you die. He kept his eyes glued to the screen.
A large dragon swooped into view, but several sonic cannon blasts from the guards on the perimeter converged on him, and he turned sharply, crashing into the engine bank of the Starfarer. Falken saw the dragon scrabble against the hull, tearing at an engine nacelle as it desperately sought to escape the punishing sound waves.
“Engine damage!” the voice on the radio reported. “Ground team, get it off of us!”
Another volley of sonic blasts from the guards chased the dragon off-screen, but Falken had a sense that the attack was far from over. Five of the men had the dragon-laden cart halfway up the ramp by now – the remaining men started to collapse back toward the ramp as well.
A dark brown streak flashed across the screen, and suddenly the semi-circular perimeter had a noticeable gap – one of the
guards had simply disappeared, plucked into the air by the diving dragon.
Seen that move before, Falken thought. Here come the others.
It took the men on the ground several seconds to notice the hole in their perimeter, but before they could move to close it, the last two dragons arrived. The first landed right next to one of the guards and neatly flicked him onto his back with a twitch of its tail. Then it bit the next guard on the arm, tearing it off at the shoulder. The second dragon swooped in through the gap between guards, and landed on the ground in the middle of the circle. It bellowed loudly and then pounced, managing to catch two guards in its talons as it landed on them from above.
Panic gripped the surviving guards. They broke and ran, headlong, for the safety of the ramp, where the second captured dragon was just being wheeled inside. Falken saw the ramp begin to raise up – two of the guards managed to jump onto it and pull themselves inside, but the last guard missed his grip, and slid down to the ground below the ramp as it closed overhead. He turned to find one of the dragons swaying slowly behind him, jaws open. He ran, screaming, but did not get far.
“Well, that went well,” Falken remarked.
Captain Auresh shot him an icy glare, then spoke into his wristpad. “Casualty and damage report,” he ordered tersely. “And give me a status on the two specimens.”
“Stand by.”
“It looks like they got both dragons inside,” Kuda said.
“Let’s hope they remembered to put them in the cages,” Cadellium remarked.
“I’m sure they remembered,” Auresh shot back. “You’ll get your damn test subjects, don’t worry.”
The older man raised an eyebrow. “I warned you it would be dangerous.”
“You didn’t say we’d lose a third of the crew,” Auresh shot back. “I’m not sure I’m being compensated enough for the risks I’m taking here.”
Falken studied the two men. Looks like Cadellium’s calling the shots … sort of. Auresh must be the ship owner. That makes Cadellium the one paying for all of this.
It took the crew on board the ship several minutes to make sense of the chaos in the hold, and when they finally called back, the voice on the other end of the line was clearly rattled.
“Starfarer with the damage and casualty reports,” he said.
“Go,” Auresh ordered.
“We’re missing six men,” the voice from the ship told him. “I’d like to organize a search party—”
“No,” the captain said. “They’re dead. All of them. Where are the dragons?”
“The drugged ones? We got them in the cages.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes, sir,” the man on the radio said. “They’re both locked up. I think one of them’s starting to wake up, though.”
“What’s the status of the ship?”
“Not so good,” the voice told him. “Diagnostics say engine three is out of alignment, and there’s a fault-line fracture in one of the high pressure nozzles.”
“Is it repairable?”
“I believe so. The computer’s saying we could realign the engine by loosening and then reseating it in its socket. And it thinks a temporary weld could seal that fracture well enough to get us out of here. But we’re going to need to go outside to fix it.”
“Start gathering the necessary equipment,” Auresh ordered. “And be ready to open the starboard-side hatch – I’m coming aboard in a few minutes.”
“It’d be better to wait until dark,” Falken said. He checked the clock on the vidscreen. “It’s only a few hours from now. Your men will stand a much better chance of surviving the repair job.”
Auresh frowned at Falken. “Why?”
“Because dragons sleep at night,” Brondi said. “They sometimes hunt, but they’re generally much less active after dark.”
Shep crossed his arms over his chest. “They’re trying to stall us,” he warned the captain.
Falken shrugged. “The Liberty Belle is our only rescue ship, and nobody else knows what’s happening here … so I’m not sure what stalling would accomplish. But, hey – you didn’t listen to me last time I tried to warn you. I don’t really give a shit what you do.”
Auresh narrowed his eyes, thinking. Finally, he spoke into his wristpad. “Prep all the equipment, but wait until nightfall,” he said. “I’ll radio when we’re about to depart the research center.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain severed the connection, and turned to face Cadellium. “We’re stuck here for a bit. You might as well get what you need,” he said.
“Mm,” the older man said. He fished in his pocket, pulled out a data storage plug, and slid it into a port on the room’s computer console.
“What are you doing?” Brondi asked.
“Taking your files,” Cadellium said matter-of-factly, browsing through the computer’s directory. “All of them. And then deleting your copies.”
“So you can monetize our findings?” Brondi asked.
“Of course,” Cadellium told them. “In less than year, I expect to have the first immortality drug in clinical trials. That would make me the majority owner of the world’s most valuable pharmaceutical company.”
Luthena shook her head. “We’ve isolated the chemical components from dragon’s blood that halt the aging process. But we haven’t tried to synthesize them yet, and there’s no proof whatsoever it will work on humans. That’s a huge leap of faith.”
“No one in history ever became a multi-billionaire by shying away from risks,” Cadellium said. Falken saw that he was busy moving files off of the computer’s drive and onto his storage plug.
Brondi shook his head slowly. “That represents years of hard work, by a number of scientists, not just us.”
“You may take comfort in the fact that your hard work will be put to good use, then,” Cadellium replied, typing commands into the console. “But I’m afraid you won’t be getting any recognition for that hard work. I’m truly sorry about that.”
“It’s not about the recognition, it’s about equal access for all people!” Luthena said, struggling to contain her anger. “You’re going to charge a huge markup, and many people won’t be able to afford it.”
“You don’t get to be a multi-billionaire by worrying about morality, either,” the older man told her. “Not when there are profits to be made.”
Chapter 27
On Olympus, the last rays of the setting sun glinted off the white hull of the Starfarer, bathing the ship in red and orange light. Then the sun passed back behind the clouds, and slipped below the horizon. Minutes passed, and the twilight grew deeper, until eventually, night settled over the mountainside.
In the research center’s vehicle bay, Falken’s proxy sat up off the ground. He took several seconds to stretch the device’s arms and legs, testing to ensure that everything was working fully. Falken fingered the claw holes in his proxy’s chest – he could tell several ribs were broken, but the wounds had managed to miss the proxy’s main battery and muscle structure.
This thing’s still fully operational. Good.
He stood up then, and crossed to the bay’s airlock. Inside, he saw Auresh and Cadellium waiting as the room depressurized, oxygen masks covering the faces. Falken crossed over to the vehicle bay’s equipment locker, and drew out four noise cancellation staffs, slinging them over his shoulder. He turned to see the airlock hatch slide open. Falken switched the noise cancellation staffs on and gestured for the two men to follow him.
“It’s safe?” Cadellium asked. Under his mask, Falken could see his eyes were wide with fear.
“Not if you keep yammering like that,” Falken said.
They moved, slowly and deliberately, across the open ground toward the ship. Falken walked in front, carefully picking his spots, stepping lightly. He kept his eyes on the ship’s hatch ahead.
No sense watching for dragons – wouldn’t see them if they were out there, anyway. Not on a cloudy night like this.
&nbs
p; Finally, they reached the Starfarer, and passed inside the waiting airlock hatch. It slid shut, and Falken saw Cadellium breathe a sigh of relief. The men peeled off their masks a moment later, and then the inner hatch opened. Falken found himself facing a man in a black uniform with a rifle.
“Take him to the cargo bay,” the captain ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
Falken took note of the ship’s configuration as they walked – the captain and the investor headed in the opposite direction, toward the bridge and crew quarters, Falken assumed. He passed down a flight of stairs, and emerged through an inner hatch into a cavernous cargo hold, over two stories tall. Two large metal crates were bolted to the floor in the center of the room. Falken heard a loud hiss from the closest crate as he passed by it – something slammed against the inside of the crate, and he felt the deck vibrate under his feet.
At the back of the bay, a group of five men stood waiting for him, oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, holding a variety of tools and heavy equipment. They eyed Falken’s proxy with a mixture of suspicion and disgust, noting the gaping wounds in his chest, and the dried blood caked to his shirt.
“They’re awake,” the team’s foreman said to Falken, gesturing at the dragons’ cages.
“So I gather,” Falken said.
“They’ve been throwing themselves at the cages, trying to break out,” he said. “Anything we can do to get them to calm down?”
“Let them out,” Falken suggested.
The foreman shot him a sour look. Then he jerked his thumb toward the ramp at the back of the bay. “Captain says you’re going to help with the repairs. Keep the other dragons away while we’re out there.”
“I can’t keep them away,” Falken corrected him. “But I can try to make it so they don’t notice you.” He gestured to the noise cancellation staffs across his chest. “I’ll set these up around the area where you’re working. But they don’t eliminate noise, they just dampen it. You need to be as quiet as possible – that’s the only way we’re going to avoid drawing attention to ourselves.”
One of the crewmembers shook his head. “How are we supposed to be quiet, man? We got a busted line we’re supposed to weld. You know how loud a welding torch is?”
