Chapter 42 #2
There was what I could only assume to be a draconic yes as an answer, as she swept in behind the ship, her maw opened wide as the massive black dragon took an actual bite out of their rear thrusters.
Her teeth scraped along the hull, tearing out a large chunk and setting off secondary explosions in the back of the ship, causing it to lose thrust immediately.
Everything but some steering thrusters on the side seemed to be out of commission as they drifted through space, having lost their main engines.
Then the massive black dragon swept through the darkness. I could only really track it by the stars winking out as it flew past and over the battleship.
I didn't fully understand how a dragon could fly in space, but then again, my mind was already going crazy with square-cubed law implications for something that large.
I mean, there was just no way something that large could even exist. Just the sheer energy required to pump blood through a body that size boggled the mind.
But regardless, this was happening. The massive dragon kept going, making another pass at the battleship, this time bringing her claws to bear as she raked them along the side of the ship, hooking them through multiple gun emplacements and sending them hurtling off to space as she rent massive gouges in the side of the spaceship.
Even with the knowledge that humans struggled to understand certain concepts at scale, I was still struggling myself to put together what was before me.
Another booming draconic answer ripped through the speakers on the bridge.
"What is she saying?" I turned to Melgara.
"Beats me." The doctor shrugged. "She's not so much speaking as conveying her feelings very loudly."
The little leviton cheered, and suddenly, the massive dragon shifted on the sensors and began heading in our direction.
"What do we do, Captain?" Brick's voice shouted over the intercom. "The-there's a very large dragon coming towards us."
"Thank you for the obvious, Brick!" I shouted on the ship-wide comms. "She's Melgara's friend, I think.
We're going to let her in." There was a weird, strangled noise that came from the other end of our communications; however, I didn't have time to examine it, much less worry about Brick's reactions.
"So, real quick, anything we need to know?" I asked.
"Minnie's harmless. She's a little weird"—Melgara pinched her fingers together—"but harmless, I promise."
My eyes shifted to the ruined battleships. Harmless was not the word I would use.
"Okay, well, if you vouch for her. Then I guess we'll just open one of the airlocks, or would the cargo bay be better?" I asked Melgara as I watched the battleship have several secondary explosions go off.
Whatever was happening over there, it was dead in the water as I saw its power readings dip to the bare minimum. Whatever power they had was likely only backup generators keeping life support on.
On our end, shields were coming back up as we pumped power into them.
"Status report?" I held down a key to talk to engineering.
“Brick is… offline,” Tiri reported.
"Yeah, I don't blame him," I muttered and then held the key down.
"I need a full status report on the state of the ship when he's able.
I'm going to say hello to our new friend.
" I pushed myself up out of the captain's chair.
It felt like I had been glued to it. I tried to ignore the sudden fatigue that rushed through my body, nearly pulling me down to my knees.
Lily swept over to me and grabbed me by my shoulders. "You will be heading to the medical bay to rest immediately," she demanded.
I pacified her with a quick kiss to the cheek. "I'm going to make sure our lovely savior understands just how thankful I am. And then, yes, I will go to the medical bay, and I will even allow our wonderful doctor"—I smiled at Melgara—"to put me under, if that would make anything easier."
I was not going to be rude to our visitor. She just ripped up a battleship for us. The least I could do was roll out the red carpet, or I was going to have fitful dreams of a similar fate for our ship.
My words caused Melgara to stare at me angrily before she gave up with a shrug. "Sure. Why the fuck not?"
"Dragon inbound on starboard side," Violet said.
I glanced at a map of the ship. "Cycle Airlock Five, and let's get down there to say hello to our new friend."
I hobbled, and Lily took most of my weight to carry me down.
Lily watched me as she continued to help me down the hall. "Promise me, Captain, that as soon as this is done, you will surrender yourself to the doctor and be sedated."
I bobbed my head. "Of course." I beamed. "I swear on my honor."
Lily seemed suspicious of that oath but instead turned to the doctor. "Will he make this trip without issue?"
"Not going to answer that, because I don't want to be responsible if it doesn't go the way you want it to.
What I can tell you is he's chipped away heavily at his remaining time by all the stunts he's pulled and how much I've had to give him to keep him awake.
Anything but sleep is dangerous for him. Even sleeping's not going to fix this."
She left unsaid what would fix me. And I knew the answer to that was undergoing experiments that were likely just as dangerous to my health as anything else I could be doing. It was just that, without them, I was almost certainly not long for this world.
So I let myself rest briefly on Lily as she supported me. "If something happens to me, Lily, don't be too mad at everyone."
She glared at me with those words. "An unnecessary statement. Nothing will happen to you," Lily said through gritted teeth.
Yet I met her eyes. "You will promise me," I said sternly.
Lily bit the inside of her cheek. "I will not take what might happen out on our crew members," she said. "However, there is nothing you can do that will make me promise not to take it out on those divine kikai."
I grunted. I supposed that was the best we were going to get from her. Even that was lucky enough. "Fine, I'm holding you to that."
"You must be here to hold me to anything, Captain," Lily reminded me.
I chuckled. "Then I suppose we both have reasons to stick around. I certainly know I have plenty." I couldn't help but stare as we got close to the airlock. The viewing screen on it showed our new friend in her full glory, still out in space but headed towards us.
I swallowed.
The human brain was terrified of giant reptiles. Probably something baked into our DNA. I couldn't help the immediate fear response that kicked in. My blood pressure spiked, my heart sped up, and that did not help my current internal bleeding as I felt faint and wobbled on my feet.
Melgara banged on the airlock. "Shrink down!"
The dragon roared back, but it wasn't carried very well across the void of space. Instead, I could simply watch as it drifted closer and closer to our ship before, strangely, it began to shrink.
At first, the dragon was larger than life and terrifying enough to make the little primordial part of my brain squeal with sheer terror.
And then it became smaller and smaller, the distance between it and our ship never really changing, even though it was continuing to drift forward while shrinking.
I turned to look at Lily, and the helivore looked completely and utterly starstruck as she stared out the airlock. She turned to me, seeing my expression, and smiled. "That"—Lily pointed—"is an apex predator."
I don't know why, but perhaps it was the release of stress after everything we had done. But I found myself bursting into laughter at her words and holding my stomach at how badly it hurt. "Yes. Yes, it is."
"She can hunt battleships," Lily agreed, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
I turned back to see the dragon finish her transformation as her toes touched down in the airlock.
Several thoughts went through my head at that moment.
One, the precision with which she had just operated was insane.
To land that exactly spoke of doing this hundreds, no, thousands of times.
That, in turn, made me wonder just how old she was.
I turned to Melgara. "Dragons never stop growing, right? Which means…” I glanced at the airlock that was currently hissing, condensation making it hard to see inside while it cycled.
"Yes, she is very old," Melgara confirmed.
The speakers above me crackled to life with Brick's panicking voice. "Captain, that's an ancient dragon. The dragon of the void, I think."
I tabbed a button next to the airlock. "Later, Brick, I'm entertaining company," I said, as the airlock finished its cycle and deposited the dragon of the void before me.