Hello! Please enjoy the first chapter of Space Dragons: Cosmic Survivors.
If you’re new to Space Dragons, you can read the first chapter of Book 1 here.
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Chapter One
Maybe it’s fucked up, but I prefer literally running from things to figuratively running. I do both, of course, but only one is ever successful.
A shadow darkened the rushing pink light of the shining winds. ‘Shit,’ I said. I tapped the rig’s coms. ‘There’s something here. We’re dropping.’
‘Got it, boss,’ said Vala. She’d come to my crew as a security specialist but was learning the ropes of the other roles. I wished someone more experienced was piloting now, then discarded the thought. Rin was an excellent pilot but blind, which made high-speed piloting difficult given the delay in audio description. My only other crewmate, Boro, was highly experienced and wouldn’t let anything go wrong.
I banked my wings, beating them backwards, my feathers catching against the flow of the winds. The crackling electricity in my wings faded along with pink light.
I tread empty space, my feathers swirling around me as I looked around.
‘Did it follow?’ asked Rin.
‘I don’t see it.’ But then, void horrors were black against black. For several heartbeats, I floated in space, my wings brushing but not catching on the threads of wind perceptible only to dragons. The tethers connecting me to the rig drifted loosely behind me.
I released a ragged breath. ‘We lost it. Rin, where are we?’
‘Maps just finished calibrating,’ they said. ‘We’re in the Colefar system. No planets support complex life here.’
I looked around, taking in the planet that looked like a ball of ice and another that was just barren, meteor-scarred rock all the way around. ‘It certainly doesn’t look exciting. I know Colefar. Give me a moment to catch my breath, and prepare to soar.’
‘Take your time, boss.’ I could almost hear the smile in Vala’s voice.
It still felt like a miracle that I had this crew. I had always sort of hated people. Or hated being around them, anyway, even as I craved company. Except for my rider, Sar, who had abandoned me for her own mysterious reasons and was now partnered to some other, superior dragon.
But I liked this crew. We worked well together, and I was starting to learn all their funny ways. They supported me as an independent rig-dragon, rather than trying to force me to choose a rider, as so much of society seemed to want.
The trouble was, I didn’t know how much longer it would last. Boro would be going to a tribute fair within the month to seek a partner dragon. Rin, I knew, wanted to be a rider as well someday. Vala, at least, seemed likely to stay with me. And we’d already lost Finder-X239…
It had been very difficult for me to make friends. Honestly, I was thirty-five and these were the first I’d ever made other than Sar, who had in many ways been stuck with me. I didn’t want to go through that again.
Winds, could I even call them friends? They were crewmates and sort of employees. That was a depressing thought.
‘I’m ready to soar,’ I said. I shook out my wings, feathers finding purchase on the shining winds that permeated the void.
And then I saw it. Hovering in the void beyond the ice planet was a dark moon with shadowy rays. Except it wasn’t a moon. It was an enormous void horror with long, squirming tentacles. As if it felt me notice, it opened its singular eye, itself almost as large as its entire body. The iris flexed, revealing a spiral chain of grinding teeth within the pupil.
‘Shit!’ I hesitated, wasting precious time. Was it near enough that we could escape back into the shining winds, or would it wrap its tentacles around the rig and crush my crew? I could fight it if I had to; I had fought them before. But this one was much, much larger than any I had ever encountered.
‘Boss?’ Rin joined the com, their usually mellow voice tight with fear.
The void horror floated free of the orbit of the planet, wriggling tentacles questing forward.
Run or fight. Run or fight!
I reached up to disengage my harness. Too slow, still too slow.
Light streaked toward the horror like a spear. It shrieked, pus streaming from its wound, to face its attacker.
A white dragon, scaled and wearing plated armour, fought with teeth bared. Fae wore gauntlets that turned faer claws into blades which fae plunged into the horror before flipping back and out of range of the dozens of tentacles that squirmed in to crush them. A human in a void-suit clung to faer back. Both bore the insignia of the winged sword.
‘We need to go!’ Boro urged. His deep voice cracked with authority. ‘While the horror’s distracted!’
Right.
But as my wings crackled and caught the energy of the Shining Winds, a large, fish-shaped void rig marked with the winged sword shot past us. ‘Please remain within the system at a safe distance,’ said a cool, feminine voice. A human. ‘By order of the Cosmic Defenders.’
I sagged within space. ‘Perfect.’
Vala groaned. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’
I pulled my rig to shelter in the orbit of the rocky planet, where we could hopefully escape the horror by entering the atmosphere if we had to. From this distance, the horror was still vast but the dragon was a white flea darting around it while the dragon’s rig fired at the horror with burning blue bolts.
There was a moment of silence while we all took in the fight. Then, ‘They can’t take that thing down with just one rig crew, surely,’ said Boro. ‘I’ve never even heard of a horror that big.’ His voice trembled a little as he spoke; for all his experience, he was still a human. Void horrors had a particular, creeping effect on the human psyche. There was all sorts of flowery fiction about the unknowable terror of them. I didn’t know the particulars of it; perhaps it was just because humans were so small.
I was pretty small compared to this horror, and I was tense, but I wasn’t about to start gibbering incoherently or worshipping its fleshy tentacles.
Perhaps it was because I knew I could run if I needed to.
‘It’s as big as all that?’ asked Rin. The readings from the ship and Rin’s guide mech couldn’t convey things with perfect accuracy. I wasn’t surprised that a horror the size of a large moon had evaded proper description.
‘It’s big,’ said Boro.
‘Give it a minute,’ said Vala.
I watched the white wyrm take a fast, sharp cut along the horror’s vast, bulbous side. Black ichor sprayed in faer wake, blotting out the distant stars.
‘Should we run?’ asked Rin. ‘Cosmic Defenders can be over-zealous.’
‘It’s too late for that,’ said Vala.
‘Aren’t they just exterminators?’ said Boro.
I thought of my sisters, proudly strutting with their insignias visible wherever they went, expecting praise and deference. ‘Maybe.’
Three more rig crews appeared, dragons detaching and swooping in for the fight. One had a void-suited human settled at the base of her neck, glass blade raised defiantly. For show, or out of foolishness? A human couldn’t hope to fight in the void, surely, and proximity to a horror might scramble their brain.
On that note…‘Everyone holding up?’ I asked my crew.
‘Trying not to look at it,’ said Boro.
‘Trying not to think about it,’ said Rin.
I flared my wings. ‘I’ll take us around the back of the planet.’ With the Defenders here, it wasn’t like we needed to keep an eye on them. ‘Vala?’
‘I’m fine, boss.’
She didn’t sound fine.
I took us around the back of the planet, keeping us in comfortable orbit if not comfortable otherwise. The usual silence of the void was broken by the hissing, many-voiced shrieks of the horror, piercing the vacuum as only horrors and dragons could.
Then a scratch on the com as the defenders tapped us: ‘The threat has been neutralised,’ said the feminine voice, as calm and bored as a port admin. ‘Please identify yourself.’
On our private com, Rin asked, ‘Boss?’
‘Tell them,’ I said. Better to answer their questions than rile them up. Or at least, I hoped so.
Rin commed back, ‘This is Luxorian and crew.’
A pause.
‘Rider’s name?’
I felt a surge of annoyance.
‘No rider,’ said Rin. ‘Just Luxorian and crew.’
A pause. ‘In the absence of a rider, the most senior member of crew will suffice.’
‘Oh fuck off,’ Boro said privately.
Vala was uncharacteristically quiet.
‘I’m the most senior member of the crew,’ I said, and I didn’t doubt that they’d recognise my voice as draconic.
Another pause. ‘What is your business here?’ said the voice. ‘This system is uninhabited.’
My flame burned in my fire pouch. I swallowed it down; there was nowhere for it to go in the void, and it would be no help to me now if there was. ‘Our business is our own,’ I said, sharper than I intended. I didn’t like people at the best of times, and this one’s cool entitlement was getting right under my feathers.
Privately, Boro asked, ‘Shouldn’t we tell them we just dropped here to escape the horror?’
‘We don’t owe them an explanation,’ said Rin. ‘We’re not void horrors.’
I couldn’t have agreed more. I lashed my tail. It was a singularly unsatisfying motion in the empty void, and I had to drag at the shining winds to stop myself from spinning.
‘Thank you for your assistance,’ I said. ‘We’ll be on our way, now.’
I let my wings catch on the shining winds, energy crackling through my feathers as I readied to soar.
The white dragon shot out from behind the planet and corkscrewed toward me, faer human rider clinging to faer back. Fae tapped our comm, faer voice deep and crackling. ‘Hold on,’ fae rumbled, fanning faer wings to slow and orbit with me.
‘Careful,’ Vala said privately. Her voice was a near-whisper, and it made my feathers prickle and shiver.
I let the energy growing in my feathers dissipate.
Up close, the dragon was enormous. The slender build of a wyrm, but nearly half again my size and with defined, lean muscles. Faer eyes were lit with an orange glow, as if faer flame burned not in faer pouch but right behind faer gaze.
I took in faer armour; not the gleaming show armour of the defenders on Lema-dar, but plate armour that was dented, scratched, and splattered with horror ichor, and I didn’t think that was all from this one encounter.
‘Look at the scorch marks,’ Vala whispered in my ear.
My ears pinned back. Beneath the ichor, the armour was scorched, some as if by dragon flame, others in tight, thin lines or round circles as if by a bolt-gun.
‘My name is Strixachor,’ said the dragon. Faer voice was deep and scratchy. ‘With me is my rider, Jon Billias. I’d prefer that you take a moment to answer my crew’s questions.’
I swallowed, hard.
I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Space Dragons: Cosmic Survivors.
Like what you read? Please support the Kickstarter!