Phoenix Rising (Dragon Legacy) (6 page)

Strange. There was a gaping hole in the wall, revealing the snowy landscape outside. Her face was cold. There was no sign of the spiders that had been there earlier. Then she looked behind her, and where the large pillar of pulsing red crystal had been, was now a smooth crater in the polished stone floor. Crouching within the fresh formation, a golden-haired youth wore an iridescent red garment that held to him much like the skin of a serpent. His head was uncovered, as were his hands. He was looking at the floor, mouth open and eyes closed.

The boy took a deep gasp of air, rocking forward onto his knees, and Mtumba noticed him for the first time with a start. “What just happened? What-Where- Where did he come from?”

Stella was already moving over to check on the strange new addition to their circle. Mtumba followed close behind her, and Stella took out a nutrient bar. The shiny wrapper crackled as she opened it to break off a bit for the boy to eat.

He was sitting up, clear blue eyes staring at his hands as he flexed them in amazement. Breathing was clearly a novel experience for him. He looked over at Stella and Mtumba with a bright smile. “Who are you?” he asked in wonderment, looking around as if seeing the world for the first time. Maybe he was, Stella realized. He blinked. “What is this place?”

Stella sighed. So much for getting any answers from him. Hadn't there been a boy in her dream that looked like this? Hadn't he said something to her? Stella let out a frustrated sigh as she tried to hold onto the memories that were already slipping away from her. She really wished she was better at remembering her dreams.

Mtumba crossed his arms as Stella handed the food to the new boy. Mtumba coughed conspicuously from behind her, but she ignored him. Quite well, too, she noted to herself with no small amount of pride.

“Who,” Mtumba asked through gritted teeth, “the heck...is this?”

Stella finally looked back at him and shrugged before turning again to look at the boy. “Whoever he is, I think he's just as lost as we are.” A part of her wished that he wasn't. She wanted answers, and knew on some level that locked behind those clear blue eyes was the key. That only made it harder to stay calm, but she managed in spite of her burning curiosity.

“And why would you think that?” Mtumba asked skeptically, finally getting under her skin.

“Well, why wouldn't you? Just look at him!” She glared at Mtumba and sat down beside the boy. “C'mon,” she said as he knelt on the cavern floor, looking curiously at the uneaten food in his hands. “Where are you from?”

He looked around the chamber. “Here, I guess” he said. She sighed. “Sorry,” the boy said. “I don't know.” He looked away. Okay, maybe a different question, Stella decided.

“Can you tell us anything about this place?” she asked hopefully, smiling as best she could. She caught a cold draft of air from outside and shivered, glancing at the hole in the wall again. Why had that happened, anyway? More questions.

The boy shrugged and looked at her. He pointed up, and they followed his finger. “For some reason...I think that maybe I used to be bigger?” he almost said it like a question. Stella shook her head, and Mtumba sat down beside them as fussily as he could manage. He squinted at the new boy, sizing him up.

“What's your name?” Mtumba asked. Stella hadn't ever seen him like this, and it was making her feel uncomfortable. She tried to laugh it off, but Mtumba shot her a quick look of annoyance.

“My name?” the boy asked uncomfortably, looking up at the ceiling or...who knew? Maybe through it. He looked at Stella. “I don't know...what do you think my name should be?”

Stella looked at him, her mouth open in surprise. “What, you think I'm gonna name you? Who do you think I am, your mother?” she asked, mortified. Mtumba rolled back on his haunches and started guffawing loudly, then got up and walked over a few paces, holding his sides, clearly in stitches.

What would her father tell her to do right now? Well...he'd tell her to honor the moment with her attention, and do her best to find him a good name. She wished he was here, but shook her head and focused on where she was. Stella looked at the way the boy moved, and listened to the sounds of the cavern around them. The wind coming through the hole in the wall. Next to the crystals on the ground. Next to the rocks...deep in the mountain...no, he'd looked up. Then it came to her, from out of the blue, so to speak.

Her father had once told her a story about a great bird called a Roc. It had flown Andromeda to and from her parents' palace. It seemed to fit, somehow. She couldn't quite say why, but it felt right. There was also the bizarre nature of his birth...he was born in a crystal. Or a rock. She'd never heard of anything like it before, and Stella had an idea!

“I name you...Rok. With a k, not a c.” She gave him a sharp nod, and stood, offering her hand to help him up. Rok took it, and stood beside her, flexing his legs for what seemed like the first time. So strange. Stella just shook her head, marveling at how odd this voyage was!

Now they just needed, somehow, to find their way home. Stella was grateful that at least they could see outside, now. She was relieved they wouldn't have to go back through the caves. Those creatures...she shuddered, and from more than just the chill wind. Mtumba gasped, and Stella saw why. Her mouth fell open in surprise.

For there stood the oldest man she'd ever seen.

It had been an ambush. Quinn had expected it a bit closer to his ship, of course, but he'd been as prepared as anyone could ever be for this kind of thing. Sloppy. He hated sloppy. He shook his head with disappointment as he felt another cold pulse-blast zip past his cover position. He'd already taken out half their team, and expected he could deal with the other four in quick fashion.

Although it had been somewhat interesting during the initial attack, since they obviously had at least some level of training. If he hadn't been expecting them, they might have actually nailed him with that first shot. It'd been good, he admitted, touching the torn left sleeve on his leather flight jacket. Ex-military, he wondered? Maybe special forces. Fresh to the field, if that was the case. He'd find out soon enough, one way or the other.

He poked his gun around the corner of the support beam he was using to block their fire, and tagged two more of them. They fell, hard. He was honestly disappointed they were going down so fast. It made him genuinely concerned that they just weren't paying enough attention to detail in the training camps these days.

Quinn checked that his gun had enough charge, and engaged the wide-dispersal stun setting. He stepped out from behind his cover and whistled. The last two men reflexively peeked over the barrels they were hiding behind, and Quinn was ready with a quick pulse that sent them both crumpling to the ground. “Lemmings,” he muttered to himself, and walked over to one who was wearing nicer boots than the others. You could always tell who was in charge by their shoes, he noted.

He leaned down and fished through the man's pockets until he found what he was looking for; the metachip ring that would hold the information for their mission. Maybe now he'd find out some clues about who was setting him up.

He put the ring on, and downloaded the information to his earbud. That's when everything went sideways. It started as a small itching in the back of his mind, and developed into a full-blown massive headache. He felt a painful shock in his mechanical limbs, and his whole body went rigid, toppling him to the ground like a felled oak tree. As he lay there twitching and fighting for consciousness, he saw a pair of boots walk around from behind him, a slight hitch in the stride received in a battle he remembered from years ago. Not him, Quinn thought. That's not possible.

“Hey there, Quinn,” Roth said, flashing that greasy smile as he squatted down. He reached over and pried the meta-chip ring off Quinn's finger. “Been a while. You and me got a lot to talk about.”

Quinn gritted his teeth, trying to say something, but all that made it past his induced paralysis was a feeble grunt. He was humiliated, and glared at Roth. He'd get him back for this, and not long from now, either. He wasn't going to take this from a punk like him.

Roth looked over Quinn's convulsing form and gestured to someone Quinn couldn't see. He heard footsteps coming up from behind. How many people had they brought in for this operation? What was going on here? Moreover, how was Roth alive? He'd seen the explosion. No one could have made it out of that, but somehow he had. No scars either, from what he could see.

Consciousness was fading fast, and the painful shocks coursing through his body were causing him to twitch like he was having a seizure. What had they programmed onto that meta-chip? His mech limbs had triple-encrypted redundancy functions, but he hadn't even had any warnings pop up! Nothing should have been able to penetrate his firewall, but it had, and it had happened like a shock-blade carving through wet tissue. He grunted, furious.

Roth looked back at him, the fake smile gone from his face now. “We'll catch up later, Quinn. I've got other things to do.” He snapped, and Quinn felt himself lifted onto a stretcher. The last fading sounds he heard before blacking out were Roth warning his transporters, “Careful, you know what he was. Don't take your eyes off him, or you'll regret it.”

Quinn was determined to make sure they did.

Fox returned to her ship, another successful mission completed. That one had been strange. She already felt her system flushing out the DNA. She returned to her more delicate feminine proportions, the hitch in her gait giving way to a smooth sashay. Flexing into a man was uncomfortable; she always felt unclean afterwards; and then there was the bitter taste in her mouth. Especially with someone as slimy as Lieutenant Roth.

You had to stay flexible in this market, and when money wasn't an object for your employer, things could happen fast. Fox was on the spot to make sure they did. Like with that Quinn character. She'd read his dossier...quite possibly the deadliest man she'd ever helped capture. She was surprised it'd taken as long as it did for that program her tech-man had sold her to worm into his circuitry, but she'd been warned about that. That's why it had been a two-step special.

When Fox had initially run into him at the bar, she wasn't sure if he'd take the bait, but he was an old warhorse, and didn't ask too many questions. Just as well for her. Helped her stay in business when her marks couldn't keep up. It was all about the speed and flexibility to move on intel in her business, and Fox had it. Benefits of having a flexible bio-matrix. Although chem-maintenance kept her busy enough, she snorted, injecting the stabilizer serum kept on hand for her transition pain. For some reason, teeth were always the worst. Fox felt her jaw shift, teeth grinding. Ugh. She rubbed it out.

Sinking into the cushioned flight chair, she reviewed her accounts over her earbud while her ship lifted into orbit on autopilot. The credit had been transferred. Job well done, then. Good. She liked making her employers happy. Meant more work, and more credit. She smiled and thought about where she'd spend it. Maybe the Garden Citadel? Or maybe she'd go laze about on the Faya Beaches. That had been...nice, last time. She grinned, remembering those cabana waiters. She'd never been so hungry. Hmm.

Fox initiated the warp trajectory sequence to Huron Station. She could check in there with some of her more discreet chem suppliers. Wouldn't mind investing in some smoother DNA shift-serums. Expensive though. Just a downside of being the niche market. Not everyone could handle the danger. Then again, she wasn't them. At least not right now, she smirked mischievously.

A call came in over her earbud. It was Turk. “Talk to me, Turk. What we got?” Good. Her voice had shifted. She sounded like herself.

“You're gonna love this, honey-pie,” his resonant bass voice massaged her ears through the link. He continued. “That last job opened some doors. An event-chain just came in. Top-tier activity, and pay to match. You interested?”

“How can I say no to such a sweet old man?” she bantered back playfully. Turk laughed, and it made her shiver. Something about his voice just always seemed to put her in a good mood. Didn't hurt that he was probably one of the only people she knew who seemed to genuinely like her and get her sense of humor.

“Well, I'm uploading to you now. Let me know what you think, sweetie.”

“Got it,” she said, reviewing the files. This one was big! “You really think we can handle this?”

“Yeah, girl, you got this one,” she could hear him smile over the line. “Your talent, my tech, and we're in an out 'fore they know what happened.”

Probably true, she conceded, but this was serious business. One slip and they might not work again for years. Or ever, because they could be dead...but you have to risk it to win it, she decided. “Okay, mark it. I'm in.”

“That's my girl. Here's the coordinates.” They came in, and she reset her warp trajectory. It looked like the Faya beaches had to wait, at least for now.

“Check. Fox out.” She cut the line and hit the light-wheel.

Her ship snapped into warp.

The old man paused before entering the open chamber. He wore an eye-patch over his left eye, and when he spoke, it sounded like steel wrapped in hot iron. Strong. Commanding. Like he was used to being listened to with respect. The air around him almost seemed to crackle with energy despite the advanced age evidenced by his double-braided white beard and flowing hair.

“Welcome,” was all he said.

Stella surprised herself by speaking. “Who're you?”

He laughed, and it was a warm sound that quickly set her at ease. Mtumba, too. Even with the eye-patch. He didn't look like a pirate. Or...what were they called? Brigands? He was far too old, she figured.