Soldiers of Callisto (Void Dragon Hunters Book 3) Read online

  At this moment, Patrick’s horse sidesteps to avoid a moseying reindeer. He was in the middle of gesticulating, and falls off. The camera tracks him down to the ground. Laughter crackles on the soundtrack.

  “Ow fuck! Hey, turn the camera off, Paul. We’ll do another take.”

  “No way, this is comedy gold,” says Paul’s voice, much closer to the mic.

  “I’m gonna get you,” Patrick says, lumbering to his feet. The picture jolts wildly and then freezes on a shot of mountains piercing wintry blue sky. The camera has been dropped.

  Obviously they decided to leave that take in. Sound call. Francie is giggling, and Jeremy chortles. I smile wistfully. I’ve always wanted to be more like Patrick, but first I’d have to figure out how to roll with the punches, both literally and figuratively, instead of letting things snarl me up inside.

  The video picks up again outside a prefab structure, maybe a barn. Patrick stands at the door. “OK, start the camera.”

  “It’s on,” Paul says from behind the lens.

  “Ahem. Welcome to Rendburg Ranch. This is the old barn; they used to keep pigs in here, but reindeer are more profitable. They eat lichen, did you know that? They just kinda snuffle the snow away and nosh on the moss and stuff. Come in.”

  The camera follows Patrick into the high-ceilinged barn. Rows of stalls line it on either side.

  “So the reason we’re doing this ridealong with the ranchers,” Patrick says, walking backwards, “is because reindeer actually make great egg hunters. They clear the ground. Then we can move in with the autonomous scanning platform, better known as Scatter’s mecha. She’s way better than the scanner they originally gave us.”

  I grin, genuinely pleased. I wrote an egg-hunting program for my mecha, Aardie. That’s how we found Jeremy’s egg. I’m glad she is still helping out.

  “Watch out for that haybale,” Paul says, as Patrick almost backs into one.

  “Oops. So, this part of Schleswig-Holstein is a highest-probability zone on the Eggfall map.”

  The data people at ARES reconstructed the event we call Eggfall, when Tancred and Pinkie Pie’s mother laid her eggs across a swathe of Europe and North Africa after consuming our sun.

  “Highest-probability turns out to be an understatement.”

  “They found a few eggs,” Francie tells us, spoiling Patrick’s surprise. Of course, she’s seen this already. She presses her fingers to her mouth to control her grin.

  “We’ve found a few eggs,” Patrick says. He stops outside the last stall in the barn. “That’s the good news. The bad news is now we have a different problem.”

  He flings open the door of the stall.

  “Which ones are we gonna pick?”

  The stall is full of Void Dragon eggs. Not just full, overflowing. They’re piled up three feet deep along the back wall, their metallic colors glowing through a coating of soil, so numerous that when Patrick opened the door there was a minor egg-valanche, and three or four eggs rolled out past his feet.

  *

  “Holy shit,” I say.

  “Holy shit,” Jeremy says.

  “Can we see that again?”

  “Yeah, replay it.”

  Francie rewinds the video, and several more times we gaze in stupefaction at the mountain of eggs, and listen to the musical clinking they make as Patrick and Paul pick up the ones that rolled out of the stall and toss them back inside. I have never heard one Void Dragon egg touch another one before. We never before had two at a time.

  “Obviously,” Patrick says, “this is more than we ever expected to find. That raises the question, why has no one ever found them before? It turns out that Eggfall was noticed at the time. We went back through historical records and found that there was a big meteor shower in 2166. However, no one paid it much mind, because we were in the middle of moving Earth to Jupiter. Meteor showers were an everyday thing back then, especially when we were moving through the asteroid belt. People got blasé about them—if I’m still alive, I’m good, kind of thing. But what about since then? Well, our theory is that they sank really deep into the ground. And ever since then, they’ve been kinda working their way back up to the surface.”

  “Because they’re ready to hatch,” I whisper to the screen.

  And how many of them have we found, in Schleswig-Holstein alone? Hundreds?

  “At least two hundred,” Jeremy says.

  “More like two fifty,” I say.

  “What are they going to do with them all?”

  Part of me realizes this is an absolutely terrifying development. That barn now contains enough Void Dragon power to devour hundreds of stars. But mostly I’m carried away by wonder. And who knows, they might never hatch, anyway.

  Tancred sniffs at the screen. Who that? he asks curiously. He can recognize pictures on a screen: he knows what he’s looking at.

  “All your little brothers and sisters,” I say. God help us.

  Suddenly someone bangs on the door of my room.

  “Mr. Scattergood.”

  I freeze, then say urgently to Francie, “Wipe the video.”

  “Huh? This isn’t even all of it.”

  “What was the rest?”

  “Mr. Scattergood!”

  “It was private,” she says, “from Patrick to me.”

  “Just delete it. Please. In case they confiscate our computers.”

  Her finger grudgingly moves towards the delete key as I rise and go into my room. I pull on a t-shirt. Open the door.

  In the hall stand two MPs and the two men I saw getting off the seaplane.

  They are wearing civvies, which means either they are civilians or they’re four-star generals.

  Both of them, and the MPs, stare at Tancred, who stands by my side, staring right back. As so often in Tancred’s company, I feel invisible. “Um, hello,” I say.

  “Mr. Scattergood,” says Short & Fat, finally looking at me. “We need to have a chat with you about the project. I know it’s short notice, but—” he shrugs: we’re at waaaar. An all-purpose excuse for rudeness, meanness, indifference, and outright cruelty. I know these types.

  “We can do it downstairs,” interjects Tall & Skinny, who has been looking over my shoulder at the state of my room.

  I was actually wondering if they wanted to talk to Francie and Jeremy as well, but apparently not. Fair enough. It was my dragon that killed Pvt. Henriquez.

  We go downstairs and into the base commander’s office. She greets the visitors with a salute, then sits on the corner of her desk, while Short & Fat helps himself to an espresso from her private machine and Tall & Skinny sets up his computer on the coffee table in front of the window. Yup, they’re top brass.

  I perch on the edge of a chair with my hands laced together into one big fist to stop them from trembling. “I just want to say that Tancred was provoked. Private Henriquez shot at him for no reason at all. Tancred overreacted, and I couldn’t be sorrier, but it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been attacked.”

  Short & Fat blinks at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “Um … what happened this morning?”

  The base commander interjects a brief explanation.

  The visitors say, “Uh huh, uh huh,” only half-listening.

  “Well, that’s tragic,” Short & Fat says. “But we’re at war.” Sucks to be Pvt. Henriquez! Case closed.

  They are not here about that.

  What is this about, then?

  “Your Void Dragon,” Short & Fat says, motioning to Tancred, who’s lying beside my chair, head tucked under one wing, in sulk mode. I take in the words Void Dragon. They know what he is. The base commander doesn’t look surprised; she’s in on it, too.

  Oh, who am I kidding? Everyone on Lofn has probably guessed by now. That would be why Pvt. Henriquez shot at him.

  “His performance is not meeting expectations,” Short & Fat says.

  “Zero for eight,” Tall & Skinny says.

  “We’re not expecting per
fection—”

  “But a one hundred percent failure rate tells us there’s a problem.”

  They haven’t offered me coffee.

  They haven’t referred to Tancred by name.

  They haven’t even told me their names.

  I sit forward, jamming my hands between my knees again. “There is a problem,” I say. “Relative velocity. Tancred can fly very fast, but he can’t fly at forty klicks a second. He made two previous ship kills. The first time, the enemy was basically standing still. The second time, it was travelling fast, but Tancred was on board a courier ship that was also travelling fast, in the same direction. He didn’t have to accelerate much to catch up with it. Now look at the situation here. He’s launching from a standstill relative to these supply ships. They scream in from one direction, barely slow down, and scream off in another direction. There’s just no way he’s ever going to catch them, no matter how hard he tries.” I think about adding sir, but don’t.

  “Yup, that was my prediction,” says Tall & Skinny.

  “Oh, was it?” I say. I’m feeling uncommonly reckless. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  He glances up from his computer and cracks a smile. He’s not much older than me, actually. But he’s got threads of gray in his hair, and noticeable crow’s feet. It’s probably tough being a senior officer in your thirties. All that ass-kissing must be exhausting.

  I never was an ass-kisser. But I did tend to accept reprimands in silence, even if it was unfair. I’m gonna try not to be like that anymore.

  “Here’s what I propose,” I say. “Station us in space. Give us a pursuit ship of our own. One of those fast patrol boats. It’ll be like a running start.” I picture my dog chasing cars again, but this time she’s on a jet-powered skateboard. “I think you’ll see results.”

  Short & Fat says, “Nope.”

  That’s all? Just Nope?

  Tall & Skinny elaborates. “For the reasons you just mentioned, as well as other reasons, the project has been cancelled. Sorry, Jay.”

  Cancelled.

  Cancelled, before Tancred got a chance to redeem himself.

  My pulse beats in my ears. I’m getting the feeling we were set up to fail. Dr. Joy, Elsa’s right-hand man at ARES, told us there’s a conspiracy in the upper echelons of the Department of Defense. Traitors are secretly passing intelligences to the Offense. Trying to help them win.

  So why would they let Tancred undo all their good work? They wouldn’t. They let Elsa set up this trial for Tancred, is my guess, so no one could say it hadn’t been tried. But they made sure he wouldn’t have a chance to score a single ship kill. All along, their plan was to let the project run for just long enough to look plausible, and then shut us down.

  I’m breathing hard. I’m furious about the wasted time, all Tancred’s wasted journeys into space, the cruel manipulation of his instincts, and worst of all, this waste of an opportunity to actually win the war.

  “Basically,” Tall & Skinny says, “it was an unrealistic concept. One dragon versus the entire Offense fleet?” He chuckles as if it was ludicrous to ever have thought Tancred could make a difference.

  Maybe he could and maybe he couldn’t, but either way, we’re not talking about just one dragon anymore, are we? I remember the egg-valanche in Schleswig-Holstein. Suppose all those baby dragons hatched, and suppose all of them could be trained to eat Offense ships, like Tancred. We would win. We wouldn’t just win. We’d obliterate the jellies.

  I suddenly wonder if these guys know about that, too, and that is why they’re axing us now.

  I sink back sullenly into my chair. I unlock my hands and rest one of them on Tancred’s head.

  “I understand you’re upset,” Tall & Skinny says.

  When he puts on a fake-compassionate face like that, he looks elusively familiar, like I’ve seen him before somewhere.

  “Can I just ask what agency you’re with?” I say. “What’s your authority to shut us down?”

  Short & Fat looks up from his computer. “You don’t need to know that. But you might as well know that the project has been cancelled owing to developments right here on Callisto.”

  He nods to the base commander.

  She stands up, drawing my eyes to her and the window behind her, and the view of seaborne fields and blue horizon.

  “Be aware this is classified at the moment,” she says, “but things are about to get more exciting on Lofn. We’ve enjoyed peace and quiet here for quite a while, but that is about to change. I’ll have more details for you in an all-hands briefing later today. For now, what you need to know is that Lofn will soon be a very dangerous place.”

  My blood freezes. I remember—I’ve never forgotten—that girl at Asgard. Lofn is hell. Is her joke about to become reality?

  “It has been decided that we cannot risk your safety in a combat theater, so you’re being pulled out.”

  “Where to?”

  “TBD,” Tall & Skinny says curtly. He doesn’t even look at me. He’s typing.

  “What about Francie and Jeremy?”

  “Ms. Collins and Mr. Delacroix,” the base commander says, when both men look blank.

  “Ah,” says Tall & Skinny. “Why do you care?”

  Why do I care? What do they think I am, a robot?

  “They’ll be staying here,” Short & Fat announces, after consulting his screen.

  I stand up. “Then I’m staying, too.”

  All three of them stare at me. It’s almost funny. They’re completely wrongfooted by the fact that I have a mind of my own.

  “I’m afraid you can’t,” Tall & Skinny says.

  “I’m afraid,” I mimic him. “I am. I’m not asking for your permission.”

  “But I am denying it.”

  “Oh? You are?” My heart is thudding. I beckon to Tancred. He slinks to my side. “Let me remind you that this is a Void Dragon. Do I need to remind you what Void Dragons do? Do I need to remind you what Tancred could do and will do if he gets pissed?”

  On cue, picking up my anger, Tancred huffs a wisp of fire at the carpet. It starts to smoke.

  “Well?” I stare fiercely at them. “Still think you can get away with ordering me around?”

  When things were at their worst, I asked Tancred: Are you really going to destroy all humanity, just because you’re mad at me? I have now issued pretty much the exact same threat. The irony is not lost on me. But I don’t take it back.

  There’s a moment of shocked, tense silence.

  The carpet starts to smoulder.

  Tall & Skinny rises calmly from his chair, draws a gun, and shoots me.

  3

  Ow! OW!

  He shot me in the arm.

  He freaking SHOT me!

  I hop around, gripping my bicep, gasping through my teeth in agony.

  Tancred crouches low and snarls out dragon-fire. It singes the table and blackens Tall & Skinny’s computer. I smell burning plastic.

  My arm is killing me, but I retain just enough presence of mind to overcome the rage that’s in me, the instinct to hit back. No, little scaly-butt. No burn. Not … now!

  Later?

  Yes.

  The base commander picks up Short & Fat’s espresso and dumps it on the burning computer. She grabs the fire extinguisher from the corner and aims it at the smouldering carpet.

  A smoke alarm goes off.

  Through the din of the alarm, and the hiss of the foam spurting from the fire extinguisher, Tall & Skinny stares at me impassively. “You’re not hurt.”

  I look at my arm. I expect to see blood gushing through my fingers. Nothing.

  Cautiously, I peel my fingers away.

  No gunshot wound. Just a red bump above my elbow, below the sleeve of my t-shirt.

  It stings like hell. “What kind of gun is that?”

  “Non-lethal.”

  “Obviously.”

  Tancred doesn’t much like the fire extinguisher. He crawls on his belly around the base commander and direct
s a puff of fire at Tall & Skinny’s shoes. I laugh out loud as Tall & Skinny jumps back with a curse.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I tell him.

  He looks me up and down with sarcastic amusement. “All right,” he says. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Which is?” I challenge him.

  “You can do whatever the hell you like.”

  “All I want is to be treated fairly.”

  “Be more specific.”

  “Stop jerking us around.”

  The Lofn volunteer firefighters pile into the office. Leaving the base commander to deal with them, we retreat to the verandah. I rub my arm—it still stings.

  The two men exchange a glance, and then Short & Fat says, “You want a pursuit ship? You can have it.”

  I think about that. I reflect that I’ve now given them reason to distrust me, if they didn’t before. They daren’t hurt me, for fear of how Tancred would react, but they might try to shuffle me out of the way. I decide I am not getting on any ship owned by the DoD unless I really, really trust the pilot.

  “No thanks,” I say. “Changed my mind about that. I might end up on Mars or something.”

  Surprisingly, Short & Fat laughs. “He’s pretty smart, Hardy.”

  So Tall & Skinny’s name is Hardy, not that that tells me anything. It suits him. His gray eyes are hard now, like steel. “Not that smart,” he says, “if he wants to stay here.”

  Look, I’m terrified, of course. But I have had years and years of practice at hiding fear.

  I shrug. “I kinda like it here. This is where my parents honeymooned.”

  Hardy looks grim. “I know.”

  How much does he know about me? Probably everything. Shit. “So … mind if I get back to work?”

  I don’t go back to work, of course. I go back upstairs and tell Francie and Jeremy what just happened.

  *

  “You’re insane,” Francie says. “You could’ve had a ticket out of here and you said no?”

  “Email Patrick,” I say. “Right now. Tell him to hide those eggs somewhere the DoD can’t find them.”

  We are in Jeremy’s room, having decided to skip the all-hands briefing. Whatever may be happening with Lofn feels far less important than what is happening or may be about to happen to us. Anyway, none of us dare show our faces in the chow hall, as the Marines are still steamed up about Pvt. Henriquez. We’re drinking soda and eating pretzels from the vending machine down the hall.