Hatchling Read online

  “If you get there first it won’t come to that.” Aran rested a hand on her shoulder, then pulled her into a fierce hug. “If she arrives first…the very last thing Frit wants is another war. Get there and investigate, and we’ll see where we go from there.”

  “I love you,” Nara murmured. She raised a delicate hand to caress his cheek, which drew a smile.

  “I love you too.” He shook his head and offered a self-deprecating laugh. “We don’t make very good demons, do we?”

  “Don’t we?” Nara purred wickedly. “We get to decide what being a demon means.”

  And that was the real heart of it. In Xal’s day being a demon had meant being a brutal killer, but it had also meant being a dutiful scholar. That latter part had been lost, though they were working to restore it.

  “Goddess-speed,” he offered, but Nara was already gone.

  Aran turned back to the Mind of Xal, and to the hundreds of demonic legions practicing below him. Already they were the finest ground force the sector had ever seen.

  If it came to war the sector would be ashes before this was done.

  1

  The first time I sat down in the Remora’s captain’s chair might have been the proudest moment of my life. The aged drakeskin leather had been bolted around an ancient metal base that had likely graced hundreds of captains before me. It was almost like joining some sort of distinguished brotherhood, in my head at least.

  My squad and I had done the impossible. We’d gotten off Kemet, hours before it came apart. We’d woken a Great Ship, and used that ship to save the heart of our culture, along with our best and brightest students.

  It had been a pretty good day.

  There were costs, of course, and our pilot’s haunted face bore the marks. Rava’s sunken eyes spoke of long nights, mostly spent with Briff playing Arena as a way to distract herself from her father’s fate.

  Well, foster father, as it turned out. Arcan had raised her, but Rava and I shared a father.

  My dad sat on his hoverchair directly behind Rava, critiquing every motion of the controls. He was trying to force knowledge into her like he’d be dead in an hour, which always worried me given how lethal our line of work was.

  “Rava, take us around the remains of that cruiser, then kill thrusters,” I ordered as I forced myself to relax into the cracked leather.

  Who knew how ancient it was? Millennia old? Older? Drakeskin didn’t really age in a controlled climate. If I ever had a minute maybe I’d scry back and look.

  My sister’s deft touch guided the tiny Remora around the looming cruiser, its rusted out hulk long since picked clean by generations of scavs and relic hunters. We came to rest in the vessel’s shadow, and our spin perfectly matched theirs, effectively cloaking us from passive scans.

  I tapped the comm button on the chair’s right arm. “Vee, we need you on the bridge, please.”

  The viewscreen showed our target, an utterly massive pyramid that had clearly inspired those we’d erected on Kemet. The silvery surface was broken with what appeared to be magical circuitry, and a trickle of light emitted from both the tips and all along the base.

  Most of the ship appeared dormant, though here and there sections of runes were still active. Easily a third of the ship, I’d wager. Did it have atmo?

  Boots thumped up the catwalk leading into the bridge and Vee emerged a moment later, a grease smudge on one cheek and a pair of goggles on her forehead. Her auburn ponytail was tucked into her environmental armor, which she’d started wearing the moment we’d left the Word of Xal. There was no sign of the helmet.

  She took one glance at the screen, then gave a knowing nod.

  “That’s the Flame of Knowledge,” Vee said as she moved to stand next to my chair, on the tier above the pilot and navigation consoles. “I know little of its current situation. We don’t go there. There is no edict, but enough lurkers vanished that the rest of us avoid the hulk. Every five or ten years someone will decide to try their luck. They don’t come back.”

  I nodded patiently, though she’d given me almost exactly the same speech just before we’d taken off.

  “Right now I’m more interested in your engineering knowledge.” I nodded at the Great Ship, which was even larger than the Word. “Is the bridge more likely to be at the tip, or in the very center of the ship, do you think?”

  Unfortunately, the Guardian’s repository of data lacked schematics for the other Great Ships, which had apparently guarded such information closely during the reign of the dragonflights.

  Vee opened her mouth to reply, but the viewscreen rippled, and a familiar blue Q appeared to signify an incoming connection. A moment later the screen shifted to show Minister Ramachan’s familiar face, seated behind her familiar Shayawood desk on her flagship, the Lance of Seket.

  My mother stood behind her, arms folded in clear support. An ambush then. I’d expected a parting message, but hadn’t been sure what they’d ask for. They’d given in a little too easily to all my demands for supplies, and for a charter that would allow me to explore the Great Ships unimpeded by any surviving authorities.

  “Minister.” I offered a warm smile. “Now isn’t a great time. We’re in lurker patrolled space, and there could be…other players out here as well. What can we do for you?”

  I thought I managed very captain-ish, though neither woman seemed impressed. Maybe I needed a beard.

  The minister leaned in toward the screen, and fixed me with her ‘I’m in charge’ stare. “Jerek, your mother assures me that you are the real deal. You can get things done, and the Word wasn’t a mere fluke. I’m going to be straight with you. The Inurans have us right where they want us. We survived, but the bill is coming due. When their trade moon arrives they’ll expect nineteen billion credits in commerce. If we can’t provide that within seven days we forfeit the Great Ships as collateral. As the deal was signed before you salvaged the Word…we’d legally have to turn him over as well.”

  That punched me squarely in the gut, and I rose shakily to my feet. That amount of money was…unthinkable. I glanced back up at the screen. “Who could even afford that kind of credits even if we had something to sell them?”

  “It’s possible,” my mother interjected, her icy eyes and joyless expression a testament to how serious the situation was, “that the Inurans themselves might be willing to buy a salvaged Great Ship, though it is far more likely they’ll refuse to buy it, then collect them all. If we could get word to Shaya or the Krox, or even the demons of Xal, then perhaps we could find a buyer. That’s our problem. Your problem is finding something we can sell.”

  “I can do that.” I nodded, approaching the screen. It was go time, and I had done my homework. “The Flame of Knowledge was a galactic library. They deposited all their knowledge there, and scholars from all over the galaxy—and apparently beyond—came to study with the goddess who ruled it. Her name has been erased from history. Magically erased, if the Guardian’s account is accurate. If that library still exists…well, I don’t know if it will fetch nineteen billion credits, but it’s got to be worth a lot.”

  “Let’s hope it’s enough. I expect daily reports, though I must warn you there is a chance the Inurans will be magically jamming all missives, in addition to blocking quantum. It wouldn’t be the first time they isolated prey.” The minister finally relaxed, if only a hair. It was as if speaking the truth aloud freed her somehow. Her shoulders squared under that business suit. “Maker watch over you, Jerek. We’re counting on you.”

  The communication died before I could reply, and the screen resumed the view of the Flame of Knowledge, its pyramidal structure slowly rotating in an internal spin that drew hundreds of ancient hulks into her orbit.

  “Rava, take us in slow,” I instructed. My sister—it was still weird thinking of her that way—still seemed down, but I’d already seen that activity helped keep her mind off things. I had just the thing. “If we encounter any resistance you have permission to use all twelve missi
les in the first salvo. End it.”

  That drew a grin from her. Progress! Rava drummed her fingers along the console as we slowly drifted out from under the cruiser we were using for cover. Our spin made us appear derelict, just another ancient corvette drifting among hundreds of others.

  “Good job, kid,” my dad growled, the admission making me blink a few times. Damn. My father gave out compliments like he only had three left and they were all spoken for by someone better than your sorry ass.

  Those three words meant the sector, and I hoped my sister knew it. She’d earned it.

  Our battered hull was right at home, and any passive scans would turn up nothing. Active scans or magical scans were an entirely separate matter.

  “Vee,” I asked quietly as we passed a gutted destroyer. “Do the lurkers possess much fire magic? Do we have to worry about scans?”

  She shook her head, and replied in a bare whisper. “Fire is rare. Air is common. Dream and life less so, though it wasn’t always so. Life used to be the most common of all. We do not possess much in the way of divination magic, though we have repaired many active scanners that could still pierce our defenses.”

  I returned to the captain’s chair and sat heavily. The Heka Aten armor made me feel like a real relic hunter, but real relic hunters died every day. Yesterday’s heroics don’t buy today any favors.

  That was clever. I should write that down, and find a way to work it into conversation with Vee.

  The Remora drifted closer to the Flame, and no lurkers jumped out as we passed a battleship whose main cannon was largely intact. Enough so that I tensed when we passed in front of the barrel, which was larger than our ship.

  “Evasive maneuvers!” Rava barked, shattering the silence. She slammed the controls forward, and both feet worked the pedals with a grace I could scarcely believe. She made my father look like an awkward amateur, and he was one of the best.

  I scanned the viewscreen, but there was no enemy vessel. No sudden lurker attack.

  There was, however, an adult Wyrm that dwarfed the Remora, with shining white scales. Her chest suddenly expanded as she sucked in a breath despite the impossibility of such a thing in a vacuum.

  Wyrms weren’t bothered by little things like physics.

  The Wyrm breathed, and a cloud of liquid white plasma washed over the Remora’s outer hull. A horrid metallic pinging began as the vile star-stuff ate through the outer layer, and continued through the bulkhead connecting to the bridge.

  I slammed a fist down on the comm button. “Prepare for explosive decompression! Briff, get to the aft cannon. Now!” He’d be the only one able to survive the lack of atmo.

  I glanced up in time to see a tiny hole sizzle into existence almost exactly above my head. The terrible scream of oxygen rushing through the gap overpowered my yells.

  It couldn’t get worse, right? Oh, yeah, it could.

  A draconic claw the size of a spellrifle punched through the hull, and a slitted eye maneuvered itself over the hole. “Give me the armor, boy, or I will take it from your corpse.”

  2

  I sat in the eye of a terrible maelstrom, atmosphere and the screams of my companions sucked through the hole in the bulkhead. An adult Wyrm lurked on the other side of that hole, and was ready to tear this ship, and me, apart for my Heka Aten armor.

  Instinct took over.

  Both hands came up and I balled them into fists, then channeled the first spell that leapt to mind. It was the same spell I’d used on Vee when we’d first encountered each other. The spell that I’d trained myself to use when threatened.

  I cast the most powerful dream bolt I could, and as the purplish magic flowed from my fist toward that slitted eye, there was just enough time to wish I’d used a void bolt instead. Wyrms were highly resistant to magic, in their adult forms at least.

  The magic splashed into the eye and the face disappeared.

  My father was already moving. He’d retrieved the patch kit from the wall, and zoomed his hoverchair up to the hole the Wyrm had made. The ragged tear was maybe half a meter across, just shallow enough that the rubberized patch snapped into place over the hole, instantly ending the flow of oxygen.

  “Rava, get some distance and hit that thing with everything we have,” I panted, my voice visible in the frigid air left in the wake of exposure to the void. I pressed the comm button again. “Briff, you in position?”

  “Green!” he rumbled back through the speakers in the chair.

  I sagged gratefully into my chair. We could breathe. Literally. “Get a line on that Wyrm, and light her up with everything you’ve got.”

  “Missiles away, Captain,” Rava barked, all professionalism as her hair floated in the sudden near vacuum. Ice crystals puffed in her breath.

  “They’re not going to do squat to a critter like that,” my father panted. He punched one more clamp into place to set the seal. “We’ve also lost the crawl space and ducts, and our armor is paper on the top. She knows it too.”

  “I’m aware,” I snapped, then hit the comm button again. “Kurz, are you secure? You have anything that can annoy an adult Wyrm long enough for us to get some distance? Can you throw a ghost at it?”

  “Green, Captain,” crackled back over the comm, Kurz’s cultured voice a marked contrast to his sister. “There is little I can do without a spell matrix or a direct line of sight.”

  “Understood. Get up to the bridge. If she comes back it will be here,” I ordered, then fixed my attention on the viewscreen.

  The rear left portion showed the aft camera, which displayed a cloud of finned missiles streaking toward the Wyrm’s glittering white form. Her claw came up, and she began to sketch glowing sigils. Life, water, life.

  “Dammit,” I snarled. “She’s erecting a ward.”

  Sure enough a latticework of sigils swirled around her, and formed a cocoon of magic just before the missiles struck. Explosion after explosion wreathed the ward, but while they discolored the magic they did not pierce it.

  “Briff!” I roared. “Hit her with the gauss cannon.”

  “Can do, sir!” Briff roared back.

  A streak of white shot from the cannon affixed to the Remora’s rear. The hunk of iron punched through the discolored wards, and slammed into the Wyrm’s chest.

  The blow didn’t do much damage beyond tearing a few scales loose, but the sudden momentum hurled the Wyrm into a derelict freighter, which shattered into debris on impact.

  “Get us to the Flame, Rava!” My hands tightened on the arm of my chair. I felt so powerless. I wished we had a spellcannon, or a matrix, or some way for me to use the little training I had.

  The Wyrm spun behind us as we picked up speed. She stopped, then reversed course in our direction. We had a lead, but she was much, much faster than our little corvette. If only we had that spell matrix. Now that I had void magic I could probably increase the vessel’s top speed by an order of magnitude.

  “Keep firing, Briff,” I ordered, as I struggled to maintain my calm. “Rava, find us a place to land. I don’t care where. Whatever we can reach quickly. This is definitely going to be a race.”

  The Remora rumbled as the gauss rifle kicked again. This time the Wyrm dodged out of the way, though doing so slowed her. At the same time, since we were firing from the aft cannon, it increased our own momentum.

  The pyramidal Great Ship dominated the viewscreen now, and it grew ever larger as we closed. The sight of that behemoth smothered conversation in a way even the Wyrm couldn’t.

  “Estimated time to docking?” I demanded from Rava.

  “Uh,” she managed as she checked a readout next to the throttle. “Something like twenty-five seconds?”

  “Jer,” my father asked. “What are we going to do if the dragon follows us inside?”

  “We’re going to kill it,” I delivered with as much confidence as I was able. “Right now we can’t fight, because we have no spelldrive or spellcannon. Inside the Flame we can debark, and attack as a group
. We just need to get into a situation where we can bring numbers to bear. Even a Wyrm will fall back if we make her.”

  I didn’t have any of the confidence I was trying to peddle, but my father nodded, and turned his attention back to the viewscreen.

  “Jerek? You watching this?” Briff’s voice crackled over the speakers.

  I realized he was talking about the Wyrm, who’d come to a complete stop. She was sketching again. Air, air, air.

  “Oh, crap. Brace yourselves!” I hurriedly buckled my harness, then willed the Heka Aten’s helmet to slither over my face.

  Just in time.

  A bolt of blue-white lightning crackled across the space between the Wyrm and our engines. It happened so quickly that beyond an afterimage I wasn’t even certain I’d seen the spell.

  The bolt slammed into our engines, which detonated spectacularly. I heard the thruster sheer off the hull, and winced when a fat cloud of dark black smoke rolled onto the bridge from engineering.

  “Get those suits sealed!” I roared through my suit’s speakers. Oxygen was likely to be an issue shortly, whether or not the dragon tore the hull apart.

  The Flame grew ever larger on the viewscreen, but we could also see the Wyrm rapidly narrowing the gap. I seized the arms of the chair again as the Remora closed with the Great Ship.

  “Come on,” I murmured. “Just a little bit more.”

  The gauss cannon kicked again, and a white streak zipped by the Wyrm, forcing her to slow for a moment.

  She gave a shriek that somehow echoed through the void, then dove at us with lethal ferocity promised by those fangs.

  “Brace yourselves!” Rava yelled.

  The Remora shot into a cargo bay, and skittered across the rusty deck as we tumbled through stacks of ancient crates. Sparks exploded from Rava’s console, and the lights went out as the ship tilted wildly.