Episode 2 | The Rescue
Dragons in Space: a YA Science Fantasy Serial
This is a serialized story. Check out Episode 1 if you missed it.
Jaris
<ALERT! TARGET LOCK>
<ALERT!—
Electricity tingles along my suit and then nothing.
My pulse pounds adrenaline through my veins as the cold of space seeps in.
I can’t move.
Whatever that idiot shot me with has forced my suit into a reboot and frozen me in space—literally. Thankfully, I’ve got a backup that will maintain life-support not dependent on my suits primary power, but I didn’t put much work into fixing up that part of the program. I had limited time and even more limited funds so I focused on the things I thought I needed to find and ally with a dragon. Not some stupid electromagnetic pulse weapon.
I have no thrust available. Can’t access my weapons. Can’t even send a comm.
I’m dead in the Void.
That’s when the girl slams into me with like a force-wave.
The suit-on-suit contact creates a bridge link between her comm and my dead one—all reliant on her suit—and I hear her suits alert loud and clear.
<WARNING! INCOMING FIRE!>
One second she’s wrapping herself around me like a vex and the next we’re…gone.
I experience a sense of folding. A shifting. Then we blink into existence in complete darkness.
“What in the Black?” My voice comes out shaky.
The sensors in my helmet fire rapidly as the reboot initiates and I blink several times to clear the foggy sensation from my mind. Soon, I sense warmth wrapping around me. Thank the Verse for that, I was turning into Galenna ice. My HUD flashes and then starts to show status readouts. I’m lucky. There’re no negative effects from the EMP.
I turn my head left and right but it’s still just black, everywhere. When I ask for a location, the lights flash more furiously. I’m in uncharted territory and I’ve got zero information to go on. My brain’s reactions are slow from whatever I just went through and maybe some lack of oxygen. I really should have put more effort into the backups systems.
Slowly, like coming out of a haze, I shift my whole body. I move my fingers then arms and legs. I push to my feet. I’m standing on…rock? It must have some metallic quality to the material since my mag-locks work to keep me anchored.
“Hey.” The girl smacks my helmet and I flinch, but her voice comes through my comm. “Take a deep breath. You’re fine.”
I follow instructions because I do feel light headed. After a few deep breaths, I can see the stars again, though massive dark shapes block them out at irregular intervals.
We’re in the asteroid field on an asteroid.
I’m grinning like an idiot and really glad I haven’t changed the opacity of my face mask. Right, back to reality. I need some answers.
“How in the Black did you do that?” I round on her, noting the difference in our height. We’re both in armor, but she’s still just over half a meter shorter than me. “What was that?”
“It was a local-jump.”
“A…what?” I try to place the name but I’ve never heard it before.
“A local-jump. A site to site jump. Like a hyper-jump, but shorter.”
My mind tries to wrap itself around the kind of tech it would take for her suit to be enabled for that—let alone the price—but she breaks into my calculations.
“A simple your welcome would be nice. You made me waste one of three jumps I have available.”
She’s frustrated, that’s clear, but it puts me on the defensive. “I didn’t ask you to rescue me.”
“So I should have let you be blown to bits by that wacko?”
She has a point. “I—no. Thanks.”
“He disabled your suit, right?” She takes in my antique tech.
“It’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Just cuz something’s old doesn’t mean it not still good.” I roll my neck, the armor making a creaking sound that doesn’t help my case.
“You sound like my grandfather.” She laughs. “What’s that guys problem with you, anyway?”
“Too many issues to list.” She fumbles with something on her suit, and it gives me a second to better assess her.
As I saw in the Chute, her amor is top-notch. Certainly nicer than anything I’ve seen in mid-sector where I work, and the type of thing that would be cannibalized for parts in seconds if left unattended in low-sector where I live.
I can’t even begin to guess what kind of price she paid for the helmet alone, but it’s the intricate detailing on the forearm weapons that has my fingers tingling to poke around in the mechanics.
Get your head out of the Black, Jaris.
Right, I’m here to find a dragon, not make friends.
“Well…thanks.” I’ve started running scans and results are slowly populating, triangulating my new location with where the Chute was and where my location ping was last active. We’re a few hundred kilometers from where Nolis attacked, but well hidden by several asteroids. Not deep in, but it’s better than nothing.
“Dragons breath,” she mutters.
“What’s wrong?”
“The jump count still shows three and I can’t figure out what’s wrong.” She hits her arm and I cringe.
“Hey, that’s not how you—”
She hits it again, a low growl coming over our comm line. “It should work.”
“You tested it before, right?” Everyone knows you don’t go into the Void without first testing any equipment you have.
“Let’s just say I ran out of time.”
“Gutsy.” I cringe, thinking of all the things that could go wrong despite the high price her suit comes with.
“More like stupid, but I trust the gear-head who installed it with my life.”
“You’d have to.” I step forward, the mags in my boots releasing and re-latching to the rocky surface as I go. “Let me take a look.”
She pauses and looks up at me, her helmet tilting as if she’s observing me. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“What are you going to do? Disable me?”
I exhale. “You just rescued me from certain obliteration and you think I’d turn around and repay you by betraying you?”
“I don’t know you. Maybe you would.”
“Then why help me?”
She hesitates. “I couldn’t just watch…that.”
The moment breathes between us.
“I’ll deal with it. But…thanks.” She breaks the silence.
“Fine.” I hold up my hands and move back.
Turning away from her, I start calculating my next move. The area surrounding the Chute is known to be the most dangerous and where most participants are either incapacitated or perish. Now that I’m to the belt though, I’ve got to enact the next part of my—
“Stars above.” My voice is a whisper but our comm channel is still live. I cringe.
“What?”
My gut clenches.
The Determining is every man—or woman—for themselves. It’s an all-out war between the participants meant to ensure only the best to get a chance to ally. It’s a culling. Or, perhaps, a better way to put it: a refining. Only the best win.
But I’m torn.
Neither of us have treated our time in the Determining like that so far, though maybe we should be. I’m not sure what to do now.
“Is it your suit?”
I grumble. “It may look like space trash but it’s not,” I mutter. Then I bite my lip.
Do I tell her I just saw what I think is a dragon? Or do I keep that to myself?
I’m an honorable guy. In fact, Vern says I’m too honorable, if there can be such a thing, but maybe I get what he’s been trying to tell me. In this moment, I know what feels right and it’s not what common sense says I should do. Not by a long shot.
Common sense is overrated.
“I just saw a dragon.”
Her gasp proceeds swift movements to my side at the edge of the asteroid. Her boots thunk as they connect to the rock and I see her tension.
“Where?”
“That way.” I can’t see it now so I feel justified in keeping things vague with a quick wave of my hand.
I should already be heading to where I marked the flash of movement, but it feels rude to leave. I turn toward her, determined to thank her again, but a sudden jolt shocks me.
“Sorry, but it’s the Determining. I can only be so nice.”
She’s just forced my suit into another shut down.
And that’s what I get for being honorable.
Athyn
Shame colors my cheeks and an automatic cooling fan whirrs to life in my helmet. I only allow the emotion for a fleeting moment before I refocus on the objective.
I’m not here to make alliances that can’t last. I’m here to ally with a dragon and nothing’s getting in the way of that.
I toggle to my backward camera and see Jaris floating away from the asteroid.
“Dragon’s breath.” I forgot that his boot locks would stop working when I EMP’d his system—for the second time in less than half an hour. Oops. His suit looks ancient and I hope that it can withstand another reboot so close together.
I did run a covert diagnostic before I shocked him just to ensure his backup system was working, but—
“Stop it. He’s not the objective. The dragon is.”
<MOVEMENT DETECTED>
I’ve set my scanners to detect dragon-sized shapes, different than proximity sensors for combatants, but I don’t know if they’re calibrated well enough. It could just be sensing another asteroid, but when I look I think I see the movement it detected.
“Yes!”
I toggle my camera back once more and have to zoom in, but this time I see lights flashing on his suit. Good.
I’ve got superior tech on all accounts, but I shouldn’t discount him just because his suit is old. He’s clearly modified it and that means he’s my closest competition.
I run a wider sensor sweep, but nothing registers. How is no one else in this sector?
Then again, it’s possible the magnetic field generated by the material that makes up the asteroids is interfering with a clean scan. That means I need to be on my guard that much more.
I toggle to the backward view again. He’s gone.
Heart pounding, I reason that it’s possible—likely, even—that he’s gone off in another direction, but a weight settles in the pit of my stomach. I just made an enemy where I could have had a friend.
No, that was the old Athyn talking. The one that did everything she was told without question. The one that sat back while—
I push those immobilizing memories away. I’m here now and that’s what matters.
“ETA?” I ask my suit.
<THREE MINUTES TO CONTACT>
I don’t see the shape anymore, but there’s no question it was a dragon. The asteroids move, but it’s in an easily recognizable—and slow—pattern. This movement was weaving in and out. My heart pounds and my mouth goes dry.
“Water.”
A tube appears and I greedily suck down the refreshingly cool liquid. I need to stay focused.
There are hundreds of books written about the dragons. In all my study, the maddening thing I’ve found is that everyone’s experience is difference. One participant said they merely had to touch a scale and they were allied. Others said they fought before alliance. And other’s still said they were sought out by the dragon.
Dwin and I tend to think it’s due to the variance in dragons. Their breed, shape, defensive capabilities, and even unique abilities, but we haven’t yet come to a consensus. She tends to think ability trumps all, but I lean more toward affinity. Those who have spoken most highly about their connection have said it was kinship that made their connection so special.
All I know is that I am willing to do whatever it takes to ally.
I imagine Jaris frozen in his suit and regret floods through me again.
A shape blurs in front of me and I pull up short, thrusters initiating to hold me in place.
The swipe of a tail. The curve of a wing. A shimmer of iridescence flashes before swooping down behind another asteroid.
All thoughts of betrayal fly out of my head as I home in on one thing.
I’ve found my dragon.
Dragons in Space (working title) is being released episodically as I write it. Read about why I chose to serialize it HERE. Forgive any errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation as this is not professionally edited upon release. You can expect new episodes weekly unless otherwise noted in the chat.
If you enjoy this blend of science fiction and fantasy you may enjoy my Xerus Galaxy Saga. It’s a fast-paced and swoony, no spice YA Science Fantasy space adventure with harrowing stakes, high action, and humor. It’s perfect for fans of Skyward, The Lunar Chronicles, and Star Wars.
👏👏🔥☄️👨🚀🌌👏👏 loving it!
Love this!!!