Guardian of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘There are sanitary facilities back here as well,’ I said. ‘No more huddling in the corner.’

  ‘Check the floor,’ Miko said, still fiddling with the control panel. ‘I believe there are panels in the floor and there’s storage underneath them.’

  ‘Really?’ I checked the floor; it was covered in grey textured carpet tiles. I lifted the edge of one of the tiles, and it wasn’t glued to the floor. She was right; there was a hatch underneath it. I lifted the hatch to find plastic and metal boxes stacked neatly inside. I reached down, pulled one out, and it sprung open when I touched the front panel. ‘Bingo.’

  ‘What is it?’ Haruka said, coming to sit on the floor next to me.

  I lifted the emergency pack containing the chemical lights. ‘This box has at least a hundred of these.’ I put them back and pulled out more boxes. ‘Non-perishable food rations. Water packs. Heat packs.’ The hatch under the next set of tiles was two metres long. I opened it to find a tent. ‘Excellent. Batteries, lighting . . .’ I grunted a short laugh. ‘A distress beacon. That’s exactly what we need.’

  ‘Make sure you don’t activate it!’ Haruka said. He lifted some more hatches. ‘Clothing. Blankets.’ He looked up at Miko. ‘How quickly can we move these into the cavern?’

  ‘Hold on, the ship is asking me if we’ve seen . . . us yet,’ Miko said. ‘We’re supposed to be in a search pattern looking for us.’

  ‘Tell them that you saw us,’ I said. ‘We appear to have a new type of ship that you’ve never seen before. It has stealth capability and can only be seen in short bursts. It appears to be on the run, trying to get some distance from them before folding out. You’re in pursuit, and request another shuttle for backup.’ I looked down at the emergency rations. ‘Another shuttle full of this would be very useful.’

  ‘You think they’ll believe that?’ Haruka said.

  ‘After seeing what the gates did, I think they’ll believe anything,’ I said.

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘Wow,’ Miko said, staring at the console. ‘They . . . wow. If we don’t capture . . . us, we will be executed. No assistance is forthcoming. When the homeworld finds out about this disaster, all our heads are on the line.’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘The crew of this shuttle are being blamed for the whole thing. We’re the scapegoats, and it’s their . . . our fault that we escaped.’

  ‘That’s technically true,’ Haruka said. ‘Let me know when you’re free to gate, and we’ll move these supplies to our people.’

  ‘I can do it now. Captain Choumali, please ask our people to give me some space to move the equipment in.’

  She stood, giving me the chance for a good look at her physique, and there was definitely maleness happening. She changed to dragon. ‘Let’s give these people some food, water, and warmth.’

  ‘Do you think we can eat the food?’ I said, turning one of the foil-wrapped rations over in my hands.

  ‘Haruka should eat one of the rations, and stay with the group for observation,’ Miko said. ‘If you’re all right in twelve hours, let the humans eat it.’

  ‘I object to being a laboratory subject,’ he said with dignity.

  ‘Do you object to being first to eat?’ she said.

  ‘That too,’ he said, the dignity becoming even more rigid. ‘It’s bad manners to eat when everybody else is going hungry.’

  ‘Just eat the damn cat food and help me carry this stuff to our people,’ I said, picking up a box, and shoving it at him.

  24

  Carrying all the supplies into the cavern took half a day with intermittent rest stops for Miko to get her breath back. At the end of it, Miko refreshed the air by gating some out of the cat ship’s hold. She and I returned to the shuttle, which was now nearly halfway to the planetoid. There were a couple of messages on the comms panel, and she changed to two-legged form to deal with them.

  ‘More threats,’ she said, her hands moving over the controls. ‘They’ve told the Dragon Empire that they’re holding us hostage, and not to approach or we’ll die – so they have time to recapture us. That would explain why nobody’s come to rescue us. They say that we should hurry and find the humans, and if we don’t return with the humans don’t bother returning at all.’

  ‘Option two, thank you,’ I said.

  ‘I said we’re chasing them but they keep disappearing. They said it again: come back with the humans or not at all. The supplies are in the cavern, the cats are held off for a while, it’s all done. I can stop.’ She sighed and lay her head on the panel. ‘That was exhausting.’

  ‘Rest,’ I said. ‘You’ve done so much. Take a break. The shuttle is on the right track, isn’t it? You don’t need to supervise the panel?’

  ‘No.’ She checked the panel again, and nodded to herself. ‘We’ll be at the potato in twelve hours. I can rest.’

  ‘Would you like a hug? It’s just you and me in here for twelve hours; we have privacy to have all sorts of hugs.’

  ‘I didn’t deliberately give us privacy,’ she said, standing and moving to one of the sleeping platforms. She curled up on it, still in human form. ‘There’s a couple of medical people in the cavern. They can watch Haruka for signs of toxicity from the cat food. Oh.’ She raised her head slightly and smiled. ‘Yes. A hug would be lovely, thank you, Captain.’

  I joined her on the sleeping platform and wrapped my arms around her smooth golden skin. She buried her head in my shoulder. ‘This feels so good.’ She looked up at me. ‘It might be better to keep your distance and not become attached to me, Captain. I won’t last long once we’re rescued. My fate is sealed.’

  ‘Not if we have anything to say about it,’ I said. ‘Haruka, Blake and I – all the humans – we will fight for you.’ I pulled her close. ‘When this is all over and everybody is rescued, we could run, you know. You and me, we could find a remote planet and they wouldn’t find us . . .’

  ‘Thank you, but I won’t run or hide. I will stand and tell my sisters that Marque has been lying. I will tell them that gating is safe. Of course, they won’t listen, but maybe next time it happens to one of my sisters they will.’

  ‘I’ll make them.’ I put my hand on the back of her head and stroked her soft hair. ‘I can feel your emotions, Miko, and I know that you want to make love with me because you think this is the only chance you will ever have.’

  She nestled into me. ‘That first day you came to Dragonhome, I was dazzled by your brilliance. Ambassador Maxwell was intelligent and driven, but your eyes . . . they sang to me. I’d never seen anyone like you, and I think . . . I have loved you since then? That sounds wrong; how could something like that happen the first time I see you?’

  I lowered my head, full of guilt. ‘And I dismissed you immediately. I believed them when they said you were inferior, and I treated you like a servant. The opposite is true. You are the match of any coloured dragon in the Empire, and your gold scales show just how superior you are.’

  She sighed deeply. ‘I will forgive you if you kiss me. I have seen Haruka and Masako do it, and I have wanted to try it forever.’

  I raised her face to mine and kissed her. Her mouth was sweet with the flavour of tea and honey and her tongue was exploring and sensitive. I ran my hands over her and her small penis grew, so I stroked it as I kissed her, enjoying the pleasure she broadcast in return. She didn’t have testicles behind the penis; there were labia and full female genitalia as well. I couldn’t wait to discover her most intimate parts and pleasure them.

  I pulled back slightly. ‘Can you gate my clothes?’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Then I need to take them off the old-fashioned way,’ I said, and stood. ‘We have twelve hours. Let’s make them the best twelve hours of your life.’

  Her huge eyes were full of joy . . . and love. It radiated from her.

  ‘I want you to live,’ I said. ‘Because when we return, I would like to hug you every day.’ I stepped out of the rest of my clothes and wrinkled my nose – I hadn’t
bathed in days. ‘When we’re home we’ll have a long bath so I’m clean and fresh and we’ll curl up in my big bed together.’

  ‘You smell delightful,’ she said. She looked me up and down with appreciation, and I felt her need. ‘I never thought I would have this chance.’ She choked. ‘Thank you.’

  I joined her on the platform and held her again. ‘Thank me when I’m finished.’

  *

  Her hands moved like lightning over the controls as she parked the shuttle with the airlock against the potato’s skin. She rose and took dragon form.

  ‘Ready, Captain?’

  ‘I’m your Jian, Miko,’ I said. ‘You can call me that.’

  ‘My Jian,’ she said softly. ‘Let’s save your people. I hope Haruka’s okay; it was wrong to use him as a lab rat with the food.’

  ‘You share a special bond with him, don’t you?’

  She hesitated, then nodded. ‘We both loved Masako dearly.’

  ‘I hope you can continue your relationship once he’s recovered. Your love would be good for him.’

  ‘That would be . . . wow,’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘He’s so strong and protective – he looked after me.’

  ‘I think I misjudged him,’ I said. ‘A lot of his attitude was because – like the goldenscales – he hates what he is.’

  ‘That’s so true,’ she said. ‘I would like to help him heal. I hope I have the chance.’ She realised what she was saying, and panicked. ‘But I am yours alone, if you would have me.’

  ‘As I said, I think your love would be good for him,’ I said. ‘Give him time. I’m not possessive; jealousy wasn’t a luxury we could afford with so few people left on Earth. My Earth spouses were the only people close to my age for hundreds of kilometres. I adore the idea of you receiving hugs from all sorts of people – after five hundred years without a loving touch, you definitely deserve it.’

  ‘I don’t deserve you,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t deserve you.’

  ‘Gate. Gate.’ She turned to the airlock. ‘Let’s do this.’ She created a gate, stepped into it, and it closed.

  I couldn’t see or hear what happened next, so I contacted Twofeathers. How’s it proceeding?

  Welcome back, Captain, she said. We think the food might be edible! Haruka had no reaction and some of the humans have tried it. Apparently it tastes vile, but food is food. Oh! There’s the gate, it’s about two metres above the floor, in the wall of the cavern. And it’s gone. Air is escaping, but not enough to suck us out of the potato. The gate appears, the air escapes for a split second, then the gate is gone and the cavern wall with it. Another gate appeared next to the hole the first one made. Holy shit this dragon is accurate: I can see the wall of the shuttle through the hole.

  Miko gated back into the shuttle. ‘I need to move it closer; I hope I made the hole the right size.’ She took two-legged form and sat at the controls. ‘Please ask them to tell me when the atmosphere stops escaping,’ she said without looking away from the controls.

  She ran the docking jets, which hissed on the outside of the ship, and it lurched then bumped into the potato. Awful scraping noises came from the hull as she forced it into the hole she’d created, and there was the sound of crumpling metal. The skin around the airlock folded inwards.

  Stop! The air isn’t escaping, the ship’s jammed in tight, and it looks good from here.

  ‘Twofeathers said stop,’ I said, and Miko shut down the jets.

  ‘Let me check to make sure it won’t float away and leave you without an atmosphere.’ She took dragon form again, and gated out.

  Five minutes later Twofeathers spoke to me. She’s here and says open the airlock, Captain.

  I went to the panel to use the airlock controls as Miko had shown me. Even though everything was marked in cat and I could read it, most of it was in abbreviated form that meant nothing. I tried to open the external airlock and it wouldn’t go.

  It’s jammed, she broke it, I said.

  Damn this dragon is a superhero, she replied. She just made the side of the ship disappear, in exactly the same place as the edge of the potato, so there’s an accurate join. She used multiple gates to carry the matter out without losing much air. She’s masterful. She says open the interior lock.

  I opened the interior door and the rich, musty smell of many unwashed humans entered the ship. I walked to the airlock door and saw their faces below me as they stood on the cavern’s floor surrounded by the blankets from the survival kits. She’d even made the angle of approach correct, and the ship’s gravity was already adding to their comfort. I hopped out onto the floor and went to Blake and Haruka as the rest of the humans cheered.

  Blake hugged me, and then Haruka grabbed me and embraced me as well.

  ‘The ship is giving us food, unlimited water, an atmosphere and gravity,’ Blake said. ‘Let’s turn on its radio to signal the Empire, and wait for rescue.’

  ‘She saved us all,’ Haruka said.

  ‘I’m calling her inside; we want to thank her,’ Twofeathers said.

  Miko gated into the shuttle and the people cheered again.

  ‘I need to make sure it doesn’t float away, and I’m telling the cat cruiser that we crashed,’ she shouted down to us. ‘Drink the water. Eat the food. I’m sure we’ll be rescued soon.’

  *

  Miko gated back into the dimly-lit cavern, and her face said it all.

  ‘Is that every location for twenty light years around us?’ Blake said.

  ‘It is, sir,’ she said. ‘I like to think there’s a place I’ve missed, but I’ve checked everywhere. The cats chose an excellent spot for the treaty: there are no stars or planets nearby because of the black hole. We won’t be sucked into it, but this planetoid is the only matter for light years around us. It appears to be an orphan that was captured by the black hole.’

  ‘Can you replenish our atmosphere?’ Blake said. ‘The air’s thin from you coming and going.’

  She lowered her head. ‘The cat ship repaired its drive. It’s back in warp.’

  ‘No dragon ships?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So the cats are still pretending to hold us hostage, and the negotiations are ongoing,’ I said.

  ‘The shuttle’s still broadcasting the message to the Empire?’ Blake said.

  ‘Yes.’

  He called Haruka over. ‘How much food is left?’

  ‘At one-eighth of a bar for each person, once every three days – we will last two more meals for everybody, and then one more meal for twelve people after that. Six days.’ Haruka gestured towards the shuttle. ‘I doubt its batteries will last that long, and then we’ll have . . . Miko, how long until we suffocate?’

  She sniffed the air. ‘The shuttle’s battery is at three per cent. The rate of decline is . . .’ She thought about it. ‘Ten days.’

  ‘Until the shuttle stops or until we suffocate?’ Blake said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Admiral, until you die.’

  ‘What about you?’ I said. ‘You haven’t mentioned yourself at all. You can live in a vacuum. Is there any way for you to escape?’

  ‘You are very kind, Captain, but I cannot create a gate more than twenty light years end-to-end in unfamiliar space without requiring a stop to rest and recharge in either a sun or a gravity well. The black hole is too far. This area of space is like a desert to me.’

  ‘I guess we saw this coming,’ Blake said. ‘We did our best. We didn’t give them the satisfaction of killing us. They don’t have the Earth, and they can’t approach Dragonhome without being seen. It’s a shame we couldn’t save the octopuses, but they aren’t much good as a weapon to the cats when they can’t even get within telepathy range of us.’ He grunted as he pulled himself to his feet. ‘Time to gather everyone together and have them record their last messages on the shuttle log, so that we have a legacy if anyone finds us.’

  ‘This is all my fault,’ Miko said as Blake called everybody to listen to him. ‘If I
had any telepathic ability, I could alert an energy citizen riding the black hole’s flare and you would have survived.’ She shook her head. ‘I failed you.’

  ‘What he said about saving Earth,’ Haruka said.

  ‘Take me,’ I said. ‘I’ll shout into the black hole.’

  ‘We already had this discussion, and we both know it’s pointless,’ she said. ‘You would vaporise before you said a single word, and there’s no guarantee anyone’s in the flare anyway.’

  I flopped to sit on the floor. ‘There has to be something we haven’t thought of.’

  ‘Face it, Jian,’ Haruka said, sitting next to me and putting his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into him. ‘We did our best. We haven’t lost. But sometimes, when you don’t lose, you don’t win either.’

  A brilliant red flash seared through the cavern, leaving dancing after-images.

  ‘Uh . . . Did anyone else just see a light thing?’ I said.

  There was a chorus of affirmations.

  The light flashed through again, and the people shouted with alarm and moved away from where it had gone through.

  ‘Twofeathers!’ I shouted. The light had gone through her, and she lay in two pieces. ‘Oh no. I know those injuries,’ I said with dismay.

  ‘Cats?’ Blake said. ‘They’re firing on us?’

  The light flashed again. It coalesced and hovered inside the floor, moving through the stone like a red flame.

  ‘Move back – it’s melting the floor!’ Blake shouted and people scrambled away from it.

  The light disappeared.

  ‘What was that?’ Blake said.

  ‘It’s one of those energy beings. The red ones,’ Miko said.

  ‘The suits,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, they wear spacesuits.’

  ‘Oh. One of those things,’ Blake said with distaste.

  ‘Come back and talk to us – we need help!’ I shouted.

  ‘They can’t communicate without Marque, Captain,’ Miko said. ‘I may be able to talk to it the way my coloured sisters do – but I’m not sure, I’ve never spoken to them before. Their minds are strange.’