*****AUDIO FILE***** "Chapter 45 - Dragon - Audio File" [The White Raven, Chapter 45, Dragon] [3rd Moon of Planet Demonia] “I think we’re headed towards Draekus, there it is, just on the horizon,” observed Vel. Ring ran his hand across the opaque metal of the view port. Opaque metals were commonly used on many of the more advanced warships in the Daraian fleet, but this metal was the most clear he had ever seen - none of the tell-tale murkiness that identified current opaque metals existed in this metal. The Aedi had obviously perfected their metallurgical technology. “Is the Dragon buried in the moon, or is the entire moon the Dragon?” asks Vel. “From the size of the ship I saw in the vision the Goddess gave me, I would say the entire moon is the Dragon,” says Ring. “The tenth planet in this system has an erratic orbit, it’s possible the Dragon took the moon, destabilizing that planet, and used the material to conceal itself.” “That’s an impressive feat of engineering,” says Vel. “We did the same thing to P891 when we mined it’s moon to build the Hawk Carrier,” says Ring. “This ship is very advanced, but still, much of it looks like we are developing along the same technological path as the Aedi.” Ring sat down in one of the two chairs and looked at the control panels. The ship was operating automatically, but it appeared to also have the ability to operate with a crew. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we find crew quarters aboard the Dragon,” notes Ring. “These chairs were designed for an avian species like us,” says Vel. “These grooves are for a full set of wings, I wonder if they had real wings or lost their wings through evolution and used prosthetic wings like us.” “We are descendants of the Aedi,” says Ring. “The chair is a bit small though, we’ve evolved larger than them. We didn’t need to stay small because we lost our wings, so I’m going to guess their wings were real.” Darkness fell across the ship as it moved into the shadow of the far side of the moon. The ship descended towards the surface and raced along the barren landscape. Ring watched the displays on the control panel as they changed. The symbols and language being displayed was something he had never seen before, but some deductive reasoning gave a little indication what each symbol might mean. “This one is either external temperature or altimeter,” says Ring pointing at one of the displays. “It started changing as soon as we entered the shadow of the moon, but we also started descending at the same time.” “I think the altimeter is on this side,” says Vel. “It was changing the entire time we were descending.” “We can assume most of these symbols are numbers,” says Ring. “And I think the symbols below the displays are letters.” “The Aedi language is going to be a challenge, I hope the Dragon speaks one of the current languages,” says Vel. “I imagine just getting around the ship is going to be a challenge, it must be incredibly advanced,” replies Ring. The ship descended into the darkness of a crater and then they were underground. The launch tunnel was dark and Ring couldn’t see the walls of the tunnel, but the sensation of falling was evident. The ship fell for what may have been several hundred miles before it began to slow. “This explains why nobody ever found the Dragon,” says Vel. “The mining stations haven’t drilled this deep before.” A slight jarring of the ship alerted Ring and Vel the ship had landed. They couldn’t see anything outside, it was too dark. The door opened and Ring looked out into the darkness, the faint light from the ships internal displays were the only light and cast a faint glow on the ground around the ship. Ring stepped out of the ship and knelt to examine the ground. The ground wasn’t metal decking as he thought it would be, but instead was dirt and grass. “This is common prairie grass,” observes Ring. Vel checks the sensors on her environment suit and pulls the hood off. “There’s atmosphere, and the gravity is fairly equivalent to Demonia.” Ring pulls his hood off and sniffs at the air. “It’s clean air, with a bit of a sweet grassy smell.” Vel pulled her environment suit off and tossed it back inside the ship. Ring followed her and threw his suit inside the ship and then walked out several feet. “I wasn’t expecting grass,” says Ring. The door on the ship shut and the ship accelerated back into the sky, leaving Ring and Vel staring up at their only way back to Demonia. “There goes our ride,” says Ring. Vel holds her hand up and continues watching the receding lights from the ship - she was counting… eight-one-thousand, nine-one-thousand, ten-one-thousand, eleven-one-thousand, twelve-one-thousand… I can’t see it anymore,” says Vel. “We were approximately 2,500 feet below the surface on Demonia, and it took 8 seconds to reach the surface. Assuming a launch velocity of 312 feet per second with the ship disappearing from view at 12 seconds, presumably into the launch tunnel… that makes the ceiling here somewhere around 3,750 feet.” “Impressive, now where is here?” asks Ring. “I think we’re about to find out. Vel cups her hand over her eyes and stares at the horizon. “The sun is coming up.” “Even more impressive,” says Ring. “Especially being that we’re underground.” The sky began to show the faintest sign of light on the horizon and illuminated the outlines of some terrain features. A low mountain range was visible in the distance, with nothing but rolling prairie the entire way. Ring took a step and something under his foot caused him to look down - two spears lie on the ground. Ring picked the spears up and inspected them, each were topped with a crude stone knapped to a sharp point. Ring shrugged and handed one to Vel. “They could be useful as walking sticks, lets head towards those mountains.” The sun continued to rise until the sky was streaked with magnificent ribbons of orange and gold tinted clouds. As the light grew, more of the prairie became visible, and with it more of the plant life. The prairie resembled less of the modern idea of a prairie and more a wet basin of mixed plant life. Ring stopped and inspected the leaves of a fern. “Polypodiales?” says Vel. “No, see the simple tubular structure of the stems.” Ring breaks the fern in half and looks closely at the inside. “It lacks the more complex structure of polypodiales. I would say this is polypodiales’ ancestor, perhaps cladophlebis,” replies Ring. Vel squints her eyes and looks out on the plains. “I’ll bet there are more extinct plants here, this place is a botanist’s dream.” Ring senses more than sees the beast and spins around, holding the spear out defensively. A large yellow beast with two fangs curving down from it’s open mouth is leaping towards them. Ring shoves the spear at the creature and jumps to the side just in time to miss being sliced in half by the beast’s swiping claws. Vel jumps back, rolls onto the ground and comes up with the rarely used Needle Gun slung inside her leather coat. Ring screams at the beast to distract it and Vel unleashes a hail of the lethal needle bullets into the beast. The beast crumples to the ground motionless. “Good Goddess, is that a Smilodon?” says Vel. “What the hell is this place?” Ring scans around for more of the creatures before answering. “I think it’s a test tube. We didn’t think the whole terraforming thing all the way through. You can’t just grow a couple plants and say ‘okay, all done.’ A living planet is a delicately balanced ecosystem. I’m guessing the Dragon uses this place to test the ecosystem before beginning the terraforming process.” “And she forgot to put it away when she was done?” says Vel angrily. “She wasn’t done,” says Ring. “I’m thinking it would be easier to watch this controlled environment for possible problems then watching the entire planet. Any problems she finds here, she can then make corrections on the planet.” “But that was billions of years ago,” argues Vel. “The Goddess told me the Dragon fell in love with Demonia,” explains Ring. “When the Dragon was satisfied the ecosystem would survive on it’s own, she should have sterilized this room and moved on to the next planet. But, she didn’t. And she didn’t have the heart to destroy the animals living here, she just let them continue their lives out here.” “She’s a machine,” says Vel. “What heart?” “She’s a sentient machine,” says Ring. “Somehow she developed a conscience, or a soul.” “Why bring us here instead of to her?” asks Vel. “Think, Hun,” says Ring. “Oh crap, we’re part of the experiment,” says Vel. “We are the experiment,” says Ring. “She’s testing to see how evolved we are. First she put the spears on the ground to see if we knew their significance. And then the Smilodon to determine our place in the food chain. I’d bet even our choice to walk towards the source of light was a test.” “If that’s true, I know what’s next,” says Vel. Ring and Vel walk towards the rising sun for another ten minutes before coming to what they expected. An open area strewn with rocks, twigs, and branches were in front of them. Vel rolled her eyes annoyed and began collecting the rocks and laid them in a circle. Ring picked up the twigs and branches and tossed them into the fire circle. “I’m not rubbing two sticks together,” says Vel lighting the fire with a lighter she pulled from her pocket. Vel looks up at the sky and shouts. “I have made fire!” “You’re hilarious, tools are going to be next,” says Ring turning to continue walking towards the mountains. “Nope, no we don’t,” says Vel. “I’m not playing ‘how evolved is the cave bird’. Vel picks up three rocks and lays them next to each other, then uses the spear to scratch a line, then lays one rock, and another slash in the dirt, then finishes with four rocks next to that. “That’s clever, but knowing pi doesn’t necessarily mean we’re advanced,” says Ring. Vel grumbles and draws a circle with the symbol for pi next to it, then draws several more basic equations and looks back up at the sky. “Ugh, grug, me know geometry,” says Vel sarcastically. “Still doesn’t mean we’re advanced,” says Ring drawing a small circle on the ground, then two circles under that, then three and four and five… all the way to nine circles. “If the Dragon doesn’t speak our language, she won’t know what the symbols for our numbers look like.” Ring scratches the corresponding numbers to each amount of circles next to them. Vel scratches 0 1 10 11 100 101 into the ground and grins. “Show off,” says Ring. “You need to keep it simple.” Ring scratches 0000,0001,0010,0011,0100, into the dirt. “Wait,” says Vel smacking her forehead. “I’m being dumb.” Vel draws her Talon Dagger and throws it, the dagger spins in the air for fifty feet then disappears and reappears in Vel’s hand. She holds the dagger up to the sky. “Is that good enough for you, we solved TDS a long time ago.” Ring looks around for something to happen, but other then a light breeze rolling across the wet lands prehistoric prairie, nothing happens. “Dammit,” says Ring. “I know the last test she’s waiting for.” “What?” asks Vel. “Culture, or maybe social structure,” says Ring sighing. “Don’t let this go to your head, I love you Vel, but I hate this part of our culture.” Ring walks over and kneels next to Vel, then takes her hand and puts it on the back of his collar. “I’m sorry if this hurts,” says Vel. “I hate it too.” Vel jerks on Rings collar and shoves him down to lay flat on the ground and holds him there. “We’ve developed along the same lines as the Aedi,” says Ring. “They might have been a matriarchal warrior society as well, at least during the same point in their development as we currently are.” “I’ll make up this indignity to you later,” says Vel. Ring strokes Vel’s foot and purrs, “I look forward to it, mama,” “Oh shut up, you goof,” says Vel. “Hey, I think we just proved we’re Aedi descendants, look.” Ring stands and looks across the prairie, a ship was coming towards them. “Either that or the Dragon is coming to free me and kill you,” says Ring. The ship was smaller than the ship that had brought them here, it was more of a simple shuttle. The ship landed in the little clearing and the door opened on the side. Ring led the way inside and the ship lifted off and raced across the prairie. Ring watched the ground intently but Vel was more interested in the tools that were scattered around the small shuttle. The tools didn’t look very complicated, perhaps simple testing equipment that any botanist would use, and it looked like they had just been thrown down. Someone had clearly intended to return to this shuttle. The ship reached the mountains and descended into what looked like a modern but simple city. The buildings were laid out in a spiral pattern with a round domed building made of glass at the center. “More surprises,” says Ring. “Again, I wasn’t expecting this.” A door opened to the round glass building and that seemed invitation enough. The building had a tall glass corridor wrapping around the outside of the building, and rooms off that full of control equipment. Ring followed the corridor around to another hall that led deeper into the building. They followed until they came to the center room of the building. Glass columns curved up to the top of the dome and were engraved with elaborate scenes of vegetation and animals that Ring had never seen before. “This is a control room,” says Ring. “Not too much different than any spacecraft.” “Looks a lot different to me,” says Vel. “Relatively speaking,” replies Ring. A large round platform was in the center of the room. Ring headed for the platform. “Wait,” says Vel. “I’m guessing that is the Captain’s station.” “After you, dear,” says Ring. Vel steps up on the platform and images appear on the walls of the room. Each image appeared to be a type of button. “They’re fields of study,” says Ring. “That one with the building I’ll bet is engineering, and that one with two people shaking hands might be diplomacy.” “Or Social Sciences,” says Vel. “That one over there is obviously medical, and that one has to be weapons.” “The one with an animal and a twig might be biology,” says Ring. Vel waves her arms around and the images scatter. “Gently,” says Ring. The images settled down and Vel carefully moved her arm in the direction of the biology button. The button flashed and the screen's changed to a new set of buttons. “Sub-disciplines,” says Ring. “That one looks like molecular biology, and that’s cellular biology… wait… that one over there, that might be ours, exotic plant life.” Vel waved her arm in the direction of the button and the room went dark, then an image of an elderly woman appeared. “Greetings children, I am Commander Dragon, Senior Biologist of the Draekus Seed Ship, and the last living Aedi that fled our home world when the Corax attacked. I am pleased that you have reached a sufficient level of technology to finally take command of your birthright. I am sorry I will not live to see this day, not even our technology will prolong a life span long enough to greet you. Soon, I will be gone. I have concealed the ship from the two Corax ruling this galaxy. They will have manipulated your culture and you have much to unlearn. I am envious of the years of training you have ahead of you.” A green light swept through the room. “You will live a very long life now, my children. The ship is equipped with our most advanced artificial intelligence, it will see to your every need and guide your training. Stay concealed if possible, the Corax will come if they discover the children of the Aedi have risen. Good luck, children.” The lights returned to normal and Vel looked at Ring. “There never was a Dragon,” says Vel. “Not the way we imagined.” “I suppose they were just legends of stories that got warped over the eons,” replies Ring. “But why didn’t the Goddess know any of this.” “Maybe she never knew any living Aedi were aboard,” replies Vel. “The whole thing might have been an Aedi trick to give us enough time to evolve and take command of this ship.” “Draekus,” says Ring. “I am here,” replies a female voice. “There’s a sentient being on the planet, we need him brought up here to us,” says Ring. “You are not yet fully in command of this ship, there are parameters that must be met first,” says Draekus. “The being on the planet has Corax DNA and will not be permitted to know of this ship, nor will you be permitted to leave until you have reached full understanding.” Vel stepped off the platform and walked over to Ring. “Oh crap, I get it.” “Yea, I see it too,” says Ring. “The Kitsune are super soldiers created by Carina to conquer and rule this galaxy with him behind the throne.” “The hatching mothers never knew or they wouldn’t have used Kitsune DNA to create Princes Mischief and Malice,” says Vel. “Did you notice that woman's mouth while she was talking,” says Ring. “The words were out of sync with her mouth movements.” “Draekus, did you translate that message for us?” asks Vel. “I did,” says Draekus. “How do you know our language?” asks Ring. “I have monitored your species since the beginning of your world,” replies Draekus. “And yet you did nothing when the Demonian's world was being wiped out.” accuses Vel. “I can only act upon the pre-existing orders of an Aedi Commander,” says Draekus. “The Demonian world will be repaired with the template you saw in the test ecosystem, the process began upon your arrival.” “No, you have to stop, there’s still someone down there,” shouts Ring. “A Corax creature of no importance,” replies Draekus. “Ring, the only way we’re going to get control of this ship is to do the training,” says Vel. “Draekus, how long is the training?” “Seven years,” replies Draekus.