“HOLY SHIT! THEY’RE COMING!”

Hot wind flutters the plastic sheeting covering the opening in the generation ship. Everyone working inside the open area looks up. A cold chill runs down my spine from more than sweat. Dozens of us exchange glances, some shaking their heads, a few going back to sorting through supplies, pretending they didn’t hear a thing.

Someone runs in, bursting through the plastic, arms waving wildly in the air. My eyes don’t adjust fast enough to make out who it is. All I see is a shadowy figure who looks like he’s bouncing up and down.

“They’re coming,” he screams. “Get the weapons! We have to hide, we have to run!”

Blinking rapidly, trying to force my eyes to adjust, I run over to the shadow shape.

“Who’s coming?” I ask.

A few others come with me including three armed men. Gershom only trusts a few people with weapons, even in his own group. He doesn’t say that, of course, bad PR if he did, but I see what he’s doing more than anyone else here is willing to.

“The Zmaj! There’s an army of them, running right for us! This is it!”

The three armed men push past the one screaming and step around the plastic. Andrew, the one who’s screaming, glances at them as they go, then turns back to the crowd gathering around him.

“Calm down,” I say.

“It’s just like he said,” Andrew says. “Gershom told us this would happen. They only wanted to get us out of sight so no one would know what they do to us!”

The crowd murmurs in agreement. Fear races between them in palpable waves. This is ridiculous and I know it. It’s also dangerous. I don’t know what is happening, but I know damn well it’s not some genocidal slaughter ordered by Rosalind or any of the Zmaj. A woman next to me bursts into tears, shuddering as her body is wracked by sobs. All of them are pale, scared, and becoming a mob.

“That’s ridiculous,” I say, raising my voice to be heard by everyone. “The Zmaj aren’t going to come kill us all.”

“They’re going to kill us!” someone cries out.

“That’s not what I said!” I yell.

“She said it, Gershom is right, they’re coming to kill us. We have to fight,” someone says.

“I’m not going out without a fight!” a man shouts.

Cold chills form bumps on my arms. This is getting out of hand fast. I’m jostled by the growing crowd, stumbling into the crate in front of me.

“Wait!” I shout, but so is everyone else, and my voice is drowned in the cacophony of fear. As the noise grows, so do their emotions, hitting against me in waves, making my heart race. I climb up onto the crate I was shoved into, and then I turn and face them, cupping my hands around my mouth. “LISTEN!”

I scream at the top of my lungs to be heard. Silence falls like a heavy blanket. Dozens of people stare at me, wide-eyed, shaking in place. Looking for answers.

“Don’t be scared,” I say.

“What in the hell does that mean?” a man shouts.

“Look, they’re not going to kill us. Go and hide, and I’ll go out and deal with whatever is happening.”

“Who made you leader?” a woman asks.

“Where’s Gershom?” someone else asks.

“Do we really have time for this? They’re right out there,” I point behind me. “You want to sit here debating or get to safety?”

They look at each other, muttering, then the people in the back head off into the ship. After the first ones go, the rest follow. Taking a deep breath, I hold it until the last of the crowd disperses. I let it out and jump down, then head out to see what is what. The double red suns blind me again as I step onto the soft sand. Shielding my eyes, I look out across the desert expecting to see an army of people heading for us. Ahead of me, kneeling with weapons ready, are the three armed men crouching behind the artificial wall made of crates. Following the line of their gaze I spot it.

One person.

Seriously? A person is coming, and we almost have a riot?

Still, one person is approaching. Which is weird enough, but it’s also obviously a Zmaj. When I walk up behind the armed men, one of them jumps and swings his gun towards me.

“Whoa!” I shout, ducking to avoid being in the gun’s line of fire.

“Shit, sorry,” he says, turning back and setting his sights on the approaching figure.

Anxiety pulses along my nerves, the hair on my arms standing on end as sweat rolls. The mild headache beats too but I’m so used to it now that I barely notice it.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“No clue, but we’re going to take it out,” one of the men says, making a snickting sound as he sucks on his teeth.

“How about talking first?” I ask.

“Talking, schmocking,” another answers. “I’m going to shoot the hell out of that monster.”

Bile rises in my throat. The casual violence leaves me cold despite the heat. I don’t know how anyone can be so… what? Mean? Angry?

Evil.

It’s just evil. No better than the space pirates that caused our ship to wreck here in the first place. Though, despite all the bad things, I don’t regret being here. If I wasn’t here I’d never have met Drosdan, after all. I stare out across the sand. The distant figure with spread wings crests a dune and comes back in sight. Shielding my eyes again, I try to see who it is. It has to be someone I know. After all, there are only so many Zmaj. One of the men shifts his position, leaning in, his gun clicking.

“Don’t shoot him!” I shout.

“Bang,” he says, laughing.

I kick his leg as hard as I can, and he grunts, in surprise or pain, I’m not sure.

“I said, don’t!” I yell.

“You aren’t our boss,” he growls. “Our job is to defend this outpost, for humans. That ain’t no human out there.”

“Let me talk to him,” I say, hands on hips, staring down into his cold, hard eyes.

“No,” he says.

“You’re not a monster, and he hasn’t done anything wrong,” I counter.

Something moves in his eyes, he darts them to the side, then back to me.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “We’ve got to do this.”

“No, you don’t. Don’t be an idiot. He’s coming alone, what could possibly go wrong? I’ll go out and talk to him. If he tries anything violent, then you can shoot him.”

“You’ll be in the way,” one of the men observes.

“Then shoot me too,” I say, exasperated.

The three of them look at each other, obviously unsure what to do with that. I don’t wait for them to figure it out before walking past them and heading across the desert myself.

“Hey, you can’t… we can’t… Stay back here!” one of them shouts after me.

I give him a universal message with one hand and a finger over my shoulder without looking back. I hear them gasp then mutter to each other, but I don’t care. I’m tired of their bull. They’re part of Gershom’s “special” team, the handpicked ones he lets have weapons and the best of what little we have. All of which means they are blind idiots who buy into his nonsense whole cloth.

An itch forms between my shoulder blades, and I wonder, for a moment, if they won’t shoot me too. These guys are jerks of the first degree. Arrogant and filled with self-importance as they lord it over the rest of us who followed Gershom into the desert like some kind of perverse messiah. I, at least, only pay lip service to his rhetoric. The longer we’re out here, the more the regular folk are realizing that this isn’t a good idea. I’m not sure if that’s what Rosalind expects but it’s absolutely happening. I think, given enough time, that the majority will decide to go back to the City and make nice with the Zmaj.

In time, though, is the problem. Right now someone is coming, and I don’t know why. This wasn’t part of any plan I was made aware of, so what is going on? Can I keep them from being shot?

The men behind me are still muttering and talking to each other. Each shift they make is accompanied by the sound of metal on metal. Their guns moving, shifting, a reminder that at any moment I could be electrocuted by thousands of painful bolts. I guess I can be thankful they don’t have projectile weapons. Being electrocuted is better than being pierced by a bullet, I suppose. My preference would be neither happens though.

The sand pulls me in more as I start climbing the closest dune. It’s always looser on the inclines, making it twice as hard to go forward. Leaning in, I push my body past the pain and discomfort. The grains of sand sparkle brightly, casting tiny rainbows from the suns’ glare. No matter how much it hurts, I have to push through.

Cresting the dune, finally, I shield my eyes. The distant shadowy figure is much closer now. Blocking the sun away and blinking several times, I finally see who it is.

“Oh shit,” I gasp. “No, no, no.”

It can’t be. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I count to five before opening them again and staring. It is. Something has happened. Nerves tingling as if a mild shock is running through me I burst into a run. He’s coming. I don’t know what’s wrong, but there’s no way he’d be here, running straight for the camp, if it wasn’t bad. Has something happened to Rosalind? One of the babies? My stomach turns, the hair on my arms standing on end, the pain and aches fade away as adrenaline dumps into my body. Every sense is on fire, stretching out and alert to danger with no clear source to watch for it from.

Drosdan shifts his direction, bearing straight down on me. He leaps forward in bounds, wings catching the slight wind current and gliding him across the sand, closing the distance between us fast. My heart pounds in my chest watching, making me light-headed. He’s coming, for me.

“Get ready!” I hear one of the men behind me.

“No!” I yell, turning. “I’ll handle this.”

They’re taking aim with their guns. This is going to get ugly.

“Get out of the way!”

“No!” I yell, turning my back on them. Drosdan is really close now. “Drosdan, stop!”

He’s close enough for me to see him frown and shake his head, pumping his arms and legs faster, if anything. Another leap, high into the sky, and his shadow falls across me from impossibly high up. His wings spread, flapping, pushing him further ahead. He descends from the heavens, a god coming for me.

He lands a few feet ahead, sand spraying up from the impact, running the moment his feet hit the ground. Bending down, arms wide, he sweeps me off my feet, cradling me against his chest. Turning away from the armed men, he runs.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

My heart leaps into my throat, making it impossible to respond. Electricity burns through the air as the men fire. Shouting follows behind it, but I can’t make out their words. Swallowing hard to clear the lump in my throat, I’m struggling to control my raging emotions.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Saving you,” he says, staring ahead as he zigs and zags from one side to another.

Electrical bolts zing around us as he dodges.

“You can’t… we can’t.…”

Glancing down, he smiles. The light in his eyes melts my heart, unshed tears well in my eyes.

“I can, we can,” he says, chuckling.

“But, Rosalind… Visidion…”

“No,” he shakes his head in the negative.

An electrical burst slams into the sand just ahead of us, sending specks of it into my eyes. Blinking hard, trying to free my eyes of the invader, the tears have nothing to do with my out-of-control emotions. No, seriously, it’s totally the sand.

“Drosdan, we can’t. I have to stay here—Rosalind needs me,” I say, bouncing in his arms as he continues bounding across the sand.

The shouts and the electricity hitting around us fade away. There is only Drosdan and Sarah. He stares into my eyes and becomes my entire world.

“She doesn’t need you as much as I do,” he says.

Everything stops. My heart, the sound, motions all comes to a halt. His eyes keep boring into me, driving in his words.

“Okay,” I say. Unable and unwilling to argue further, I wrap my arms around his neck and let him carry me away.