Enslaved by the Alien Dragon Page 15

  On the heels of that question, the ground vibrated pervasively beneath my feet. I clenched my jaw.

  “Did you feel that?” Deveron asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Hopefully we can make it to Thirren before our engines fry,” Deveron said. “Otherwise—"

  “We’ll make it!” I said firmly, cutting Deveron off. “Inform the crew and slaves of our landing. Any word from the fleet?”

  “No Commander,” Deveron replied. “As far as we know, Gyygnar and Wyvern are the only two ships on their way to Thirren.”

  “Has the Royal family been informed?” I asked.

  “Moddoc assured me the message has been sent,” Deveron said.

  I snarled under my breath. “That Drakon has proven himself to be incompetent thus far,” I spat. “Let’s hope he doesn’t prove so again.”

  “I will be at the control center shortly,” I said, before turning off the internal coms connect.

  When I turned back to my bed, Yvette was sitting up and watching me wearily. She was still naked and she hadn’t bothered to cover herself with the sheets that lay strewn across her legs. There was something extremely titillating about that kind of confidence. As I moved closer, I noticed that there were small bluish-grey bruises that peppered her milky white skin.

  “You’re hurt,” I said, leaning forward to touch the bruise on her arm.

  She looked at it indifferently. “It’s nothing,” she said, with a shrug. “I’ve had worse.”

  I didn’t know why, but I winced. She’d had worse? Why did that make me feel so terrible?

  “Are we close?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “I should go back to the scullery,” she said abruptly as she got out of bed and looked around for her slave’s garments.

  She froze when she realized they were heaped on the floor in a pile of tattered shreds. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “That was my doing.”

  “Do you have anything I can put on now? I can’t walk out of your chambers naked.”

  “I’ll have one of the slaves bring fresh garments for you,” I promised.

  Yvette’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to send a slave up with clothes for me?” she repeated.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Is there something wrong?”

  “I just… I don’t want anyone to see me like this,” Yvette said, stumbling over her words a little.

  I cocked my head to the side. “Are you ashamed?” I asked.

  She paused, taking stock of my expression, trying to figure out how best to say what she was obviously feeling.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “You are my owner,” Yvette said, in a soft voice. “And I just went to bed with you… willingly. What does that say about me?”

  There it was.

  “I will inform the slave who brings up your new clothes to leave them outside my chambers,” I said, trying to keep my tone unaffected. “No one will see you.”

  Then I turned and walked out of the room without a backwards glance at Yvette. I heard her call out to me, but I didn’t wait to hear what she had to say. Did I have a right to be angry? I probably didn’t, but the stubborn part of my brain outweighed the logical part of it.

  I headed straight for the control room and I found Bletchgor, Deveron and Gormson all congregated there. They were preparing the ship for landing and I saw that the red buttons that powered the light speed engines were still ablaze.

  “Once we enter Thirren’s atmosphere, we need to switch out of light speed,” I said.

  Gormson turned to me with worried eyes. “The engines have overheated,” he replied. “I have a fear that switching to the turbo engines will cause a problem.”

  I gritted my teeth and walked over to the control panel. The vibrations alone were telling me that the ship was in a precarious state and our engines were unstable.

  “What do we do?” Deveron asked, looking at me for command.

  I took a deep breath, thankful at least that this latest development would keep my mind off Yvette. “We wait till we’re one micro jump away from Thirren’s atmosphere,” I said. “Then we switch off our light speed engines and immediately turn on our landing sonars.”

  “Excuse me?” Bletchgor asked, looking at me as though I had just admitted to joining the Pax Alliance. “You want us to switch out of our light speed engines only one micro jump from Thirren?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll crash,” Bletchgor insisted. “We’d be travelling at light speed… it’s much too late to make the switch.”

  “Not if we transition immediately to our landing sonars.”

  “It’s never been done before.”

  “We’ve never needed to do it before,” I countered. “We do now if we want to land this ship. If we don’t, we run the risk of having our engines blow up. If that happens there won’t be time for anything… including shifting.”

  Gormson and Deveron exchanged a glance and Bletchgor continued to look at me with his mouth hanging open. “Does anyone have a better idea?” I demanded.

  “We don’t have time to decide,” Deveron said. “We’re two micro jumps from Thirren now. We only have a few microns to make a call.”

  “I’m giving you the order,” I said, putting on my commander’s voice. “You will do as instructed.”

  Bletchgor looked sick as he turned towards the control panel and prepared for the craziest landing plan I had heard to date. I refused to let myself feel doubt. I had to remain confident in this plan because it was the only hope we had.

  “Coming up,” Deveron said, as he began a countdown.

  I felt my heart beat thunderously against my chest, and for one briefly insane moment I wished Yvette was here by my side.

  “Now!”

  Bletchgor turned off the light speed engines and the whole ship roared furiously at the change. The floor’s vibration snaked up my legs and almost threw me off balance. We were still hurtling down from space so fast that it was making my eyes water. What had I done? This was not a plan. It was suicide.

  “The landing sonars,” I yelled. “Turn them on!”

  Bletchgor stumbled towards the control panel and turned on the button that activated the landing sonars. I heard the dull whooshing sound of sonars being let off and a moment later I realized the vibrations had slowed somewhat. We were still falling fast but I was hoping the sonars would soften the landing somewhat.

  “I see land,” Deveron said, bracing himself against the impact.

  “Me too,” Gormson confirmed.

  I wasn’t worried about the land hurtling towards us however, because my attention had been caught by something in the air.

  “Fuck,” I breathed, as I recognized an army of Pax destroyers tunneling their way through to Thirren.

  Our speed far outmatched theirs and we had passed by a whole legion of destroyers on our way to Thirren’s soil.

  “Did you see that?” Gormson said in a panic.

  “We’re going to make it before they do,” I said, realizing our increased speed had just propelled us into Thirren’s atmosphere faster than the Pax destroyers were moving.

  “How many did you count?” Deveron asked.

  “They are countless,” I said, my heart sinking with the knowledge that we wouldn’t be able to fight them off.

  “What is that?” Deveron gasped.

  “What?”

  “I think the Dragon Shield has been activated,” Gormson said, squinting into his monitors, one of which was going wild.

  “What do we do?” Deveron asked. “The shield will prevent us from entering—"

  “We have to trust that the guard will see us coming and allow us a pocket hole to get in,” I said. “They know all our ships. They will recognize this one.”

  All my second commanders looked skeptical, but I knew our guard would not fail me. They were the best of the best and they would be looking for help in light of the coming assault.

  “Alert the whole ship,” I commanded. “Ever
yone needs to brace themselves. We’ll be hitting land in mere microns.”

  Gormson made the announcement and the sound of his voice echoed through the ship like some magnanimous overlord.

  “We’re approaching the Dragon Shield,” Deveron said, and I saw his scales grow rigid with tension.

  I held my breath and watched as the monitor went wild. I braced myself, preparing to come to a sudden stop, but my eyes caught the little refraction of light as the Dragon Shield was pulled back to allow us to enter Thirren.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed through gritted teeth. “Yes!”

  Immediately after we had passed through the shield, I saw the power of our sonars kick up the dust of Thirren’s dry, unrelenting earth. I was about to warn my second commanders when we hit the ground with such ferocious intensity that I was thrown to the side onto the floor next to Gormson.

  I blinked once, wondering if the ship had caved in on us. There was something heavy on top of me, something that was blocking out light and preventing me from rising.

  “Commander?”

  “Bletchgor,” I grunted, realizing that he was what had landed on top of me.

  I pushed him off and rose to my feet. I looked around and breathed a sigh of relief. The landing had been a violent one, but the Wyvern was still intact. Immediately, I felt a spasm of affection for the old ship that I had once resented. It had succeeded in bringing us to Thirren despite all the odds against us.

  “Open the main hatch,” I said. “And get everyone off from there. Immediately!”

  “Yes Commander.”

  My first thought after issuing my orders was Yvette. Where had she been during the landing? Was she safe now? I raced out of the control center only to find that the elevators were jammed. Cursing furiously, I raced through the massive, winding tunnels whose ceiling lights had faltered. So much for all the credits I had spent on repairs. It looked like the Wyvern would need another serious upgrade after this. I chided myself for getting ahead of the situation. First I needed to make sure all my crewmembers and slaves were safe.

  I heard heavy running footsteps behind me, and then Deveron caught up with me. “The elevators are shot,” he said unnecessarily.

  “Open the chute hatch from here,” I instructed him, glancing towards the massive oval frame with a giant spoke wheel in the middle. It needed to be cranked, but for a Drakon that was an easy enough task.

  Deveron got to work and I glanced around me. There seemed to be some obvious technical mishaps with the internal lighting because of our severe landing, but the Wyvern had mostly stayed intact. I heard a loud groan and the chute door wheezed open at Deveron’s push. I heard the chute extend out from the bottom of the Wyvern and I immediately started for the exit.

  “Make sure all the other chutes are deployed as well,” I instructed Deveron. “I want everyone off this ship immediately.”

  “Yes Commander,” Deveron nodded.

  The chute was a long silver metal runway that extended down from the ship. I sped down and moments later my feet touched the red-black dirt of my home planet. Usually I was glad to be back after months of space travel, but today my heart was beating erratically in my chest and I could sense muted panic clawing its way to the surface. I could see chute hatches being deployed from around the ship and I moved in a circle, following the body of the Wyvern to make sure everyone was getting out ok.

  “Commander!”

  I turned to see a tall muscular Drakon with a gold scales dancing along his skin. He was wearing the emerald green and gold onyx of the Royal Draconian Guard.

  “We recognized your ship at the last micron,” he said. “We very nearly kept the Dragon Shield in place.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t,” I said. “We risked a lot to get here in time.”

  The Drakon looked at me with pale silver eyes. “Commander, I fear you are too late already. Look to the skies.”

  My eyes moved up wearily and I felt chills bolt up and down my spine until they had unfurled along my wings. The skies were dark with Pax destroyers. They were tiny compact ships that might have seated four Drakon but could probably hold up to twelve Pax soldiers. Each destroyer was a steely black but the missiles that clung to the sides of the crafts like fat little wings were a deep and sinister crimson.

  “Are those…?”

  “Hellion missiles,” the Drakon soldier replied. “Fuck.”

  Hellion missiles had been known to decimate entire cities and each Pax destroyer was equipped with two. I tried to count the number of destroyers in the air but I realized it didn’t even matter. There were enough.

  “Commander,” the Drakon soldier said, turning to me hopelessly. “The rest of the fleet—?”

  “Gyygnar should be landing shortly,” I replied. “You will need to open a pocket hole for Commander Dashel’s ship too.”

  “Gyygnar landed microns after yours did. But what about the rest of the fleet?”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. “We’re on our own,” I said.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw that the Drakon guard looked pale and nauseous. He was younger than I had first realized and I wondered how many battles he had really seen. In my opinion, you weren’t a true Drakon until you had seen at least a dozen.

  “What provisions have the royal family made?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Commander, we didn’t know what was happening until we were beset by the destroyers. No provisions have been made. No defenses have been prepared. No plan of attack has been decided.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You didn’t receive a message from Gyygnar?” I asked. “From a Drakon by the name of Moddoc?”

  “No Commander,” the soldier replied, shaking his head.

  I clenched my jaw as potent rage coursed through my body. “Very well then,” I nodded, trying to accept the harsh reality of our situation. “We have only one route available to us now.”

  “Commander?”

  “Prepare the escape pods,” I said. “We need to evacuate Thirren of all those who cannot fight.”

  “Draconia has been evacuated, Commander,” the young Drakon said. “The city is empty.”

  “Where have the ships gone?” I asked.

  “Heilbronn,” the Drakon replied.

  “Heilbronn is only a temporary respite,” I said. “Both cities need to be evacuated. You need to leave Thirren.”

  “Leave Thirren?” the young Drakon repeated.

  “Look up at our sky,” I said, spinning him around and forcing him to look up. “They have come to conquer and conquer they will. We have no chance at winning. But we can at least put up a good enough fight to allow our people to escape. Do you understand, Soldier?”

  The Drakon nodded and his pale gold scales seemed to have lost their lustrous beauty. “Yes, Commander.”

  “Go on,” I said. “Inform the guard of my orders.”

  He had just turned to leave when I called after him. “Soldier… what’s your name?” I asked.

  “Zebiro,” he replied.

  I nodded. “I will remember it.”

  Then I turned swiftly and headed back to the Wyvern. Bletchgor and Gormson were standing outside the main chute hatch. I could see a throng of crewmembers standing alongside panicked slaves who were looking to the skies with undiluted horror.

  “Gyygnar?” I asked, addressing no one in particular.

  “Just landed,” Gormson replied. “Deveron is over there waiting to receive Dashel. I doubt he’s fit to fight but—"

  “Moddoc,” I spat. “Where is he?”

  Gormson looked taken back by my violent tone and balled fists. “I… he should be with Dashel.”

  I nodded and made for Gyygnar. As I stalked off, I craned my neck back. “Find me the human girl,” I yelled, uncaring of who heard me. “I want to speak with her.”

  I didn’t stay long enough to give explanations. I rushed around the Wyvern to the open space beyond it where Gyygnar had landed. I had no time to savor the sweet smell of Thierry
trees that created a vanguard in the distance. I had no time to admire Thirren’s patchwork red-orange skies. I had no time to appreciate the fierce beauty of the rust red mountains that formed a backdrop to the expansive forests that a whole host of wildlife called home.

  Steams of Drakon and slaves alike were exiting the large ship. I scaled around it until I spotted Natalie off by the main chute, surrounded by Dashel’s second commanders. I immediately realized that Moddoc wasn’t among them.

  “Dashel,” I called as I approached.

  He was on his feet, but he was leaning against Marek, his brow already creased with perspiration from the pain of his injuries.

  “My brother!” Dashel said, the moment he saw me. “I was—"

  “Where is Moddoc?” I demanded.

  Dashel stopped short. “He is… he was here—”

  “He chose a different exit,” Natalie spoke up, her hand flitting to her husband’s arm every few seconds. “He might be on the other side of the ship.”

  “I doubt it,” I breathed darkly.

  “Ranel!” Dashel asked. “I know you don’t like Moddoc—"

  “He never informed Thirren of the Pax’s imminent attack!” I growled furiously.

  “Ranel,” Dashel said again. “It does not matter now. They are closing in. They could attack at any moment now. The Dragon Shield is powerful, but it will not hold them off for long. Once they have breached the defense—"

  “We need to get all non-fighting creatures off Thirren immediately,” I said, finishing Dashel’s thought.

  Natalie came up behind Dashel and put her hand on his shoulder. I could see the gentle swell of her belly underneath the tight black leathers she wore. It must have still been early, but her clothes could hide nothing about her condition.

  “That includes the two of you,” I said firmly.

  Dashel ground his teeth together. “I can fight,” he said.

  “No,” Natalie and I both said together.

  “My love, you still need to recover,” she insisted. “This is one battle you cannot fight.”

  “Listen to your wife,” I said. “I don’t have the time to protect you if you insist on fighting today. Do you want to be responsible for my distraction?”

  Conflict raged on Dashel’s face, but I knew his sense would overrule his desires in the end. He had always been the most logical of all the commanders. He dipped his head down in an admission of acceptance and I saw Natalie’s face color with relief.