Thrax

Meline looked down and hissed, frustrated but resigned.  “You’re right.  It would be reckless for both of us to go.  But I envy you possibly being the first one to see who it is we’re battling.”

“Or who we’re going to punish,” said Thrax.  “Their craven hostilities have earned them the wrath of dragons.”

Agena watched Thrax take two volunteers—the Knight who’d stationed himself atop the other aerovan and one of those who had been on the cliff and spotted the crash—and fly off over the trees.  Her eyes fixed on Thrax’s retreating form, she thought aloud to Meline, “I have the most ridiculous feeling about this right now.”

“What feeling?” Meline asked.

“I feel like a wife, hundreds of years ago on Earth, watching her husband go off to war.  Like in some old story, where the girlfriend or the wife kisses the soldier goodbye and he marches off with his rifle or climbs on board the train, and she waves to him with her white handkerchief and promises him she’ll wait.  How foolish is that?”

“It isn’t foolish,” Meline simply said.  “You’re not his mate, but you can’t be expected to feel nothing at a time like this.”

Agena folded her arms and sighed.  “No, I don’t suppose I can.”  In the back of her mind, she realized there was more that Meline could have said just then about why she was not foolish.  She and Thrax were not formally mates, but they might as well have been. 

She knew every centimeter of his body, and one area of it in particular.  Now, watching him fly off into the unknown without her, she was keenly aware of the bond that had formed between them—and how deeply the bond would be missed if he did not come back.

*****

The spot in the forest was filled with snapped and splintered tree limbs, large clumps of downed foliage, and smoke.  The sunlight coming down through the surrounding trees that were not broken made the area look haunted, or like a surreal setting from a dream.

In the middle of the part of the forest canopy that it had torn down when it fell, a large shape lay on the ground.  It was like a huge, monstrous crab, torn open with its insides exposed.  In the darkened interior were flickering, dimming lights and hints of unknown shapes that had once moved inside the craft.  It lay in a silent calm and stillness, its fall and crash having stirred the forest into a frenzy and then left a hush all around. 

Thrax and his companions descended through the break in the trees and circled around in the air, taking a first look, training their sensors on the alien wreck for any sign of life, working technology, or activity, and assessing the possible danger.  They flew with power blades active, the glow of the weapons in the smoke making the place look that much more eerie.  Once they had assured themselves of the relative safety, they landed at the edge of the fallen tree limbs, in a spot facing the large hole blasted in the hull of the vessel.

“All right, then,” said Thrax to the two male weredragons accompanying him, “I’ll take point.  Sensors show no signs of life, but we don’t know for certain what technology is still operating in there or what devices we may trigger by going inside.  Be on guard.”

With that, he led the other two into the shambles of leaves and broken boughs between them and the wreck.  They met any debris in their path with a slash of blade or tail, vaporizing the obstruction or sending it spinning away, until they came to the place torn open in the battle in space.  “Our forces did a fine job on it,” said one of the Knights.

“Let’s hope we can find something in here to do ‘a fine job’ on the rest of them.  And their makers,” said Thrax.  And, holding his glowing blade in front of him as a light source and a defense at once, he stepped through the jagged hole in the ship’s hull.  His comrades stepped behind him, tails twitching, ready for anything.

The three Knights pressed the edges of their badges, and the badges glowed to match their blades, becoming torches to illuminate their way.  What they found inside the alien ship was not unlike what they would have expected to find in one of their own.  The lights on the controls and instruments pulsed and flickered with fading power, and the indicators were marked in an unfamiliar language.  But the language was the least familiar part of it.  They saw what were clearly viewports, monitors, and tactical stations where targets were tracked and offensive and defensive weapons were operated.

And, slumped and sprawled in the seats and across the instrument panels, were those who had operated them.

Thrax went to one figure lying against the panel in front of its position and pulled it back against the back of its chair.  It was man-shaped, but metallic.  Thrax guessed at first that this was a being in armor—until he looked into what he expected to be a visor or the open part of a helmet and saw broken, sparking circuitry staring back at him.

He took off his shining badge and held it in front of him, playing both the light and his sensors across the unmoving figure.  Holographic icons of a contrasting color danced in the light.  Thrax read them while the other two Knights looked on.  He called out what they saw:  “Carbon and silicon compounds, partly organic, cybernetic, and synthetic.  This isn’t a living being.  It’s an android.  Check the others.”

His companions moved off, each of them training his badge on one of the other pilots of the vessel and doing the same procedure as Thrax had done on the first.  Each of them returned the same finding.  One Knight said, “This is some kind of drone ship.  Are they all like this?”

Thrax guessed, “All of the smaller attack ships are of the same design and were deployed for the same function.  They’re probably all drones.  It looks as if the aliens sent their automatons out to do at least the first fighting for them.  Our real enemies must be occupying the larger vessels.”