The dragons of Draxos are an ancient and noble race, our bloodlines reaching back through the vast sea of time. We have ruled our solar systems with wisdom and clarity for ages beyond memory. Until five hundred cycles ago, when the cyborgs of the Archon Empire cursed us with a violent plague.

The insidious virus gripped the entire Draxos population throughout our multiple solar systems. Genetically engineered by the cyborgs to destroy us, the plague killed half of the female population and fifteen percent of the male.

To add insult to injury, the cyborgs destroyed our historic databases, leaving our race in a state of amnesia. We retained our technology but lost our past. Only fragments of our history remain.

Even after our people recovered, the female birth rate continued to decline. Until today, when less than one percent resulted in a female birth. Unmated females of breeding age are exceptionally rare.

I should know. I'm one of them.

* * *

I drop beads of liquid from my pipette into the petri dish, holding my breath behind my protective mask. This is the sixteenth variation of this experiment that I've conducted, each one bringing me closer to a cure for the virus.

I use a sterilized glass wand to stir the strata and then cover it with a lid before flipping the switch on my particle acceleration computer. Energy beams shine through the petri dish from below. I wait, watching the readout on the screen of my computer.

Coded numbers stream up the screen, and for a moment, my heart leaps with excitement. Maybe this time I've succeeded. Maybe this time I've combined the correct measurements of genetic materials. But as the codes slip by on my screen I know I am wrong.

I step back with a gasp and duck behind a bank of computers. Just as I drop behind the computers, the entire petri dish explodes, sending shards of glass and radiated strata throughout my lab.

"Gods dammit," I scream, standing in the chaos of the lab.

Lab assistants rush in, spraying down the still hot strata with fire extinguishers. I open my mouth and spray a stream of icy steam at the still burning drops of experimental liquid. It all freezes instantly and the lab assistants look up at me with wide eyes.

I storm from the lab, feeling idiotic. I failed again. I have been working on combining and transmuting Draxos female reproductive genetic material with the genetic material of the Zoha race for months. The Zoha females are extremely fertile. Though not compatible with the Draxos, computer simulations have confirmed the transmutation is possible, and could prove to be an inoculation for the virus. But in sixteen attempts, I’ve failed to transmute them every time. None quite as gloriously as this one, however.

It’s times like these when I begin to doubt myself and believe that maybe I should focus my mind on more important things, like the mating tournament tomorrow and what will come after. Perhaps, as one of the few women left of my race, it is not my place to search for a cure for the virus.

But I can't think that way. No matter what my duty as a female may be, I have a greater duty as a scientist. My parents were medical scientists like me, and they both searched for a cure all their lives.

Generations of scientists have been working on this problem, and I am not alone in my failure. But somehow, I can't help but feel as if my failure is greater than others. While I want to be a wife and mother and to bring new hatchlings into the world, my deeper passions are for my work. If I cannot succeed at my work, it means I am not worthy of it.

I’ve tried to tell myself that these are ridiculous fears, that I am perfectly capable and within my rights to have both a family and my scientific pursuits.

But in these times, when the Draxos have changed so much from how they used to be, it is hard to say what a female's place is anymore. I would like to believe that the old ways, our ancient nobility and rationality, are still intact, but the barbarism that marks our mating tournament seems to have leaked out into the greater society. Ever since I was a girl, I have watched the Draxos become more brutish and less reasoned with each passing year. Perhaps the male who is fated to be my mate will consider it a danger to our unborn young for me to continue my work in the lab.

I tear my protective mask from my face and gasp for air, squeezing my eyes closed at the thought of my future. I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn to find my mentor standing behind me. At one hundred and sixty cycles old, Taylon Forror is a contemporary of my parents and has continued my training ever since my parents retired.

My parents chose to spend their golden cycles traveling to the forgotten libraries of the Draxos systems, compiling lost information. After five hundred cycles, the collection of our scattered history is still incomplete. Most of our resources go into fighting the cyborgs and searching for a cure.

"I failed again, Taylon," I say, pulling my rubber gloves from my hands.

Taylon and I are both ice dragons. Though ice dragons can breathe freezing cold water, our touch is warm and our blood is as hot as any other dragon’s.

"Your attempts are not failures Joon D'fray. They are only steps toward revealing the truth."

"You and I are scientists, Taylon. Science is black and white. There is no gray. Today's experiment was a failure."

"You're just grumpy because tomorrow is the tournament."

"Why would I be grumpy about that?"

"I know your fears, Joon. I'm sure whoever thralls tomorrow at the tournament will allow you to continue your work. The old ways are not so lost, my dear young one."

"Things have changed, Taylon. Certainly since my mother was my age, and definitely since I was young. Males have become over protective of females, barely allowing them to leave their homes. I know I can’t live like that. No matter what the reward."

"You must have faith. The Bones of the Gods still hold strong for all of us."

"The Bones of the Gods…" I mutter, thinking of the ancient graveyard of megalithic dragon bones on our original planet, Draxos Prime. "The Bones of the Gods couldn't prevent the plague."

"Bones are bones, my child. But we are living creatures. It is for us to act. And for us to solve the riddles. Riddles of science and riddles of the heart. I believe in you. Believe in yourself," Taylon says, taking my hands in his and patting them gently.

I can see the age in his face and it reminds me that my parents are just as wizened. The Draxos live for approximately two hundred cycles. And my parents are in their one hundred and sixties, like Taylon. I don't know what I'll do when they’re gone. I don't know what any of us will do when we lose the older generations. They are the ones who keep us linked to the world before the plague.

"I appreciate your counsel, Taylon, I will do my best to heed it," I say. "Now, I must go. I have a big day tomorrow."

"I'll be there, cheering you on."

"I don't think it's me who will need the cheering as much as the poor bastards in the arena," I say with a smirk.

I pull off my lab coat and throw it in a wash bin. Grabbing my sapphire blue leather jacket from the back of my chair in my office, I let down my long white hair. I slip into my coat and my hair flows down to the small of my back.

Outside, in the landing bay for our laboratory, I climb onto my one-person speeder. As I place my hand on the ignition reader, my engine purrs to life and I rise from the pavement. Gripping the handles of my speeder, I glide into the airways of Arcadia.

Arcadia is my home, the place I was born. It is a large moon of the water planet of Umbria and is filled with laboratories, libraries, and institutions of learning. I live in the city of Borai on the coast of the yellow Sea of Light.

Tomorrow on my twenty-first birthday, when I will be presented in the arena to find my fated one. At the tournament, males fight until one of them enters a thrall state. The thrall makes his dragon larger and increases whatever dragon power he has. It is only then that both male and female know they are fated.

I drive along the airways on my speeder, weaving through traffic, my hair blowing out behind me and my vehicle rumbling between my thighs. I love my moon and my city. I don't want to leave my work or my home. The promise of a mate is enticing, but I am only twenty-one and just getting started in life. Generations past, in my grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ time, females could wait to go to the arena until they were ready.

Weaving my speeder along the airways between flying dragons and speeders large and small, I make my way to my apartment and land on the airstrip. My building hovers above the city, on an antigravity floating rock. I walk through the sliding glass doors and down the hall to my apartment.

Inside, my pet puffkin rolls to my feet, squeaking as it bounces up and down. The little round ball of fur opens its mouth and its tongue rolls out as its round eyes sparkle with excitement.

"Hello Gigi," I say, leaning down to pet her soft fluffy head. "Did you miss me?"

Gigi barks and pants, licking my face. I smile and stand, making my way into the eating chamber where I grab Gigi a puffkin treat from the bowl on the counter.

"If my new mate wants to take me away tomorrow, what will become of you?" I say, looking down at my pet.

Gigi squeaks, begging for another treat. I throw her a treat and she bounces a measure off the ground, catching it in her little mouth. I love it when she does that trick.

Thinking about tomorrow, I turn to the counter and pour myself a glass of merrow wine. Kicking off my protective laboratory shoes, I walk into my living space and feel the warm shaggy living grass carpet below my feet. I sit in the grass and cross my legs as I sip my wine.

Gazing at my house shrine, full of the gems and jewels I have placed around figures of the ancient Bones of the Dragon Gods, I contemplate my life. My mother would be disappointed in me right now. She wanted a daughter more than anything and waited her entire life to have me. My brothers were born when she was one hundred and five, a clutch of three sons to add to the Draxos race. My parents had been overjoyed. There were two ice dragons like my father and one space dragon like my mother.

My space dragon brother Sysko, the commander of the Draxos space armada, is fighting the Archon Empire today. Sysko has always been a hero to me. His dedication to the cause is unparalleled. He followed the males of my mother's family into military service as a space dragon and has traveled the galaxy fighting the cyborgs of the Archon Empire most of his life.

When my mother was a hundred and forty-five she gave birth to a single egg. That hatchling was a baby girl, a triumph of a generation. I was named Joon after my great-grandmother who had survived the plague and given birth to my grandmother. To keep me close, my parents introduced me to the life of science.

My childhood couldn't have been happier. I lived in the laboratory and the library. I followed my parents on research missions. They were both brilliant and instilled their love of learning and research in me.

And now, I don't know what any of it was for. I don't understand my place in the world. I don't know how to manage my passions and my desires. On one hand, I want to support the Draxos and give birth to many hatchlings. But on the other hand, I know I will serve my people better as a scientist, fighting the Archon, like my brother Sysko, but in the lab. What is more important? Which is my mission?

I wish I could reconcile it, but I know it isn’t something I can understand today. Perhaps tomorrow, on my birthday, when a man will enthrall himself for me and become my mate.