Chapter 11:
Fiona
We’d spent days moving from one camp to the other. Space-military clearing 202. A secret base off the coast near Feruvia, an island the space military had worked to keep a secret up until now.
Feruvia was where we kept our secret weapon. Being so close to it, just a boat ride… or dragon flight away. I wondered if they’d found it yet.
Base 202 was thickly shrouded in forests and lead into a spacious clearing where we had built an impressive base. I had been here once, after they first put up the walls. Now here I was, years later, back as a refugee.
The move took a day.
Gandadirth had told me they had ten bases in all with shifters perched around different areas of Earth. If he had his way, they would all convene together at 202 within just a few weeks.
I looked around the base, morose as I thought of all the people I had known who worked here. I pictured their bodies where the stains of blood were on the ground outside. Pools of deep red scattered about like finger-paint.
They set me in the prison. From cell to cell to cell I went.
Gandadirth rarely left my side, mostly to make sure I wasn’t attacked by another shifter.
I tried to reason that I couldn’t do much harm if they let me walk around, what with the fifty-foot walls, but it wasn’t a conversation that was taken seriously.
I could hear a flurry of gunshots and laser fire: dragon cries littering the outside. I could only catch a glimpse of it through a barred window in my cell: just the ping of the lasers and screams.
For all I knew, they were having a practice session of all the ways they could kill me. And what a grand Weredragon celebration my death would be. Kill the bitch, I imagined them chanting.
Gandadirth had sat with me that night, after Jadirel’s collar came off. His eyes shook something in me that made me listen to him, even though I was fully expecting to die. To be some martyr. All I wanted to do was cause the yellow shifter pain, and I didn’t care if he took my life for it.
Until Gandadirth looked at me. That look.
He said he liked me. He slept with me.
But I felt nothing for him. Sleeping with him was a matter of convenience: a way to grab the key and free my friends. Maybe get some special treatment if we had to stay prisoners. It was everything we were taught about hostile kidnappings during foreign relation missions: work with what you’ve got.
But then he gave me that look.
I fumed. Why did he have to look at me like that?
Gandadirth walked into my cell after what felt like hours of my being awake, and my heart skipped; my face exploded into a radiant smile.
“Good morning, husband,” I said in our familiar tease.
The blue-and-yellow shifter handed me a bottle of water and a plate of bread, which I began picking at immediately.
He gave a distant nod, and I looked up at him, stuffing my face with soggy bread and swallowing it down.
“What’s wrong?”
The shifter sighed and looked up at the ceiling, where I could hear footsteps scrambling above. I tried to place the layout of the space station in my head and could only conclude that they were in the medic bay. Medic bay was above the prison.
“Wait,” I said, and my brows narrowed until I knew wrinkles would have formed. I dropped my plate onto my bed and rushed toward the bars, looking at the shifter grimly.
“What’s happening?” I demanded.
With a grave sigh, Gandadirth opened the cell and grabbed my arm, rushing my up the stairs uncomfortably.
I walked into the medic bay and saw two dead shifters: both collared and then shot through. My eyes went wide, and I tried not to look excited as I made eye-contact with Gandadirth. The final shifter, a pink female with white wings, was laid out across two gurneys.
“What happened?” I repeated.
“She was shot,” he said slowly and then narrowed his eyes at me. “By one of you.”
“Did she kill them?” I asked, frantic.
He needled his brows and stuck out his bottom lip; a lecture forthcoming. “She is my family,” he said slowly: carefully.
“And they are like mine,” I repeated just as careful.
We stared at each other then, the pink shifter gurgling in pain as she clutched her side.
“No,” he finally said with a glare.
“No, she didn’t kill them?” I said, waiting for confirmation. “Didn’t you do anything?”
“Anything?” he scoffed. “Like what? Write a strongly worded letter? Have a grumpy sit? No! Usually when one has a gaping, burning hole in their side they usually don’t have the gusto left to do a sprint after their attackers.”
I swallowed. I went to argue with him but thought better of it, walking up to the shifter and watching the horror cross her weak face as she saw me coming. This was the first time I’d ever seen any shifter aside from Gandadirth look vulnerable. She actually looked afraid.
“Then I’m sorry,” I said to Gandadirth and then looked at the girl with some sympathy. “Do you know what you were shot with?”
“A laser rifle,” Gandadirth said, speaking for her.
“Blue or green?” I asked and then clarified, “The laser.”
“Blue,” the girl said, her voice shivering and light.
I looked back to the blue-and-yellow shifter and confirmed, “Then it was just a stun gun.”
He glanced down at the vast hole in her side, the skin peeling back and burning under the laser fire. There was no blood, but you could nearly hear the sizzle of her pink-scaled flesh. It thumped and oozed pus, pulsing with adrenaline.
“That’s some stunner,” Gandadirth said with a disbelieving brow.
“It’s going to keep burning her until it seers even deeper. She needs to put something on it.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, you think?”
“Get me that,” I instructed, pointing toward a med pack that was bolted to the wall.
Gandadirth ran to it and tried to grab it, realizing it was stuck to the wall. With a strong force, he ripped it from the wall and handed it to me triumphantly.
“You know the front just comes unlatched,” I explained with a laugh and tore the kit open, reaching for the burn lotion. It was designed for these weapons specifically.
I opened the salve, and its aroma immediately filled the room, earthy and sweet like chamomile. I spread the mixture across my finger and started swirling it around the burn.
“It won't close the hole, but it should stop the burning,” I said, and Gandadirth nodded.
“There’s not enough,” he said, looking down at the wound. He sighed inwardly and began rummaging through drawers and boxes in the med bay. “No bandages? Nothing to patch it with?”
I blinked. “I can go get some,” I said and handed him what was left of the salve.
His eyes flitted around the room, and he blinked unsurely.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said, pointing to the woman groaning on the table. “Finish putting it on her, and I’ll grab the rest. It’s just down the hall,” I instructed as reassuringly as I could. Still, I knew he felt trepidation letting me roam around the halls.
“Where am I going to go, Gandadirth?” I scoffed with a wry smile.
“Something tells me you’d find a way out,” he flirted. “Here,” he said, against his better judgment, tossing me a security clearance card. “You’re seen by anyone, you’re–”
“–Dragon meat,” I nodded. “Got it.”
I raced down the hall, my heart thumping with adrenaline as I heard my boots slamming down against the cement floors. I raced into the storage room just left of the hall outside the med bay. My hands shook wildly as I grabbed the mixture of ingredients that would make up a new burn salve, tossing them into a canvas bag and tossing them over my shoulder.
A thick spit formed in the back of my throat and I swallowed it down hard, nervously making my way back to the med bed.
And then I stopped in the middle of the hall.
I could run, I thought. This could be my only chance to get out.
I felt a nervous energy surge through me, suddenly shifting on the balls of my feet and twiddling my fingers against the bag I was carrying. I felt my whole body begin to shake. Then I spun on my heel and ran up the staircase to my right, my breath coming out so loud I knew that if there were any shifters around, they would have heard me right away.
The hall at the top of the stairs was humming with life; shifters were moving about from room to room. They were dragging bodies and moving weapons from one armory to another.
I waited until the hall cleared out and ran down to the end. If I could just reach the end of the hall, I would be in the clear.
Then I felt a hand grip my leg as I ran past. I jumped at the contact and turned to see a gray-haired man in a colonel’s uniform draped against the wall, gushing blood.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked me.
“No,” I said and knelt down, grabbing both his hands and feeling the intensity of the moment rise. All I wanted to do was get away from him.
“But you’re with 202?” he asked, looking at my uniform.
“I’m…” My heart beat so loud I could hear it; feel it reverberating through my whole body. Without warning, my eyes filled with tears that spilled furiously as I warmed his hands with mine. “I am a communications officer for the Zendra branch. Making contact with the Weredragons of Udora.”
“My God…” the man said with a slow recognition, looking me over like he was trying to piece me together. “Fiona Hall,” he finally said.
A tear spilled down my cheek, and I nodded: smiled. “Yes.”
He pointed to the communications room at the end of the hall, my destination. “It’s 406012,” he said breathily. “The code.”
I squeezed his hand. “I know. Thank you.” I breathed slowly, and my eyes darted toward the two open doors from the hall that led to the outside. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
“Decus pro,” he said with a salute.
“For glory,” I repeated and let his hand fall, rushing forward to the communications room.
I slipped in, cracking the door open just enough to get my body through and then turned the knob as I shut it to avoid making any noise. I crawled over to one of the computers, grabbing the phone that connected to it and inputting the security code given to me in haste.
My fingers tapped wildly against the side of the phone as I waited for it to connect. I knew I’d already been gone too long to just be grabbing a salve.
“Transponder 202; what is your standing?” said the solider on the other line.
“Transfer me to Marina Livingstone, immediately,” I demanded and waited even longer for the call to go through.
Marina was the first to make contact with the Weredragons and had become the expert in their culture. She used to be a research assistant back in the day but had since been transferred to a higher position in the space military program, advising on how to better help the race.
“Fiona, what the hell’s going on?” she asked as my face came into view. She looked around the room I was in and then lowered her voice, catching the look of fright that consumed my expression.
“Shifters stole our ship,” I said with a quick swallow. “Ship Vetorphia has been compromised. I repeat, Vetorphia has been compromised by the Weredragons. Current position is at base 202; please send reinforcements.”
Her eyes went wide, and she looked as though she wanted to reach through the phone.
“Why are you at 202?” she asked in a whisper, which I was thankful for.
“I was brought here by one of the shifters. They’ve been on Earth almost a year, setting up bases. They want to take over, and they’ve started with 202.”
“We got a distress call from there over a week ago. I thought they were all dead. We sent reinforcements already,” she quickened. “What happened?”
I turned to look out the hall before grabbing the communication equipment and crawling to the corner of the room behind a large desk. “Base is compromised,” I said. “I’ve only run into one of the soldiers, and he was…” I paused, and suddenly it seemed unreal to be finishing that sentence. “Deceased. Dying,” I corrected irritably. “Please advise.”
She took a breath: a quiet moment to collect herself. Her blue eyes darted downward and then she looked up at me, tossing her blonde curls out of her face.
“How comfortable are you staying put?” she asked suddenly.
I widened my eyes. “Not entirely?”
She swallowed. “How many bases?”
“Ten,” I warned. “I’ve got intel saying they’ll be here within…” I paused; I heard a crack of footsteps coming up the staircase outside the door. “Within a few weeks,” I whispered in a panic. “Please advise.”
“Do you have a contact?”
I nodded.
“Can you lure them to Feruvia?” she asked quickly. “DET?”
“Yes. Alright. When?”
She looked off screen, consulting something or someone else. Focusing back on me she said, “As soon as possible. I’ll have everything set up when they get there. We’ll be waiting.”
I gave another nod and relished the contact I was having with my people, if only for a minute.
“Stay safe,” she said, and then the screen went black.