A year ago Lana had yet to leave earth's orbit, now she sat on the bridge of a space ship searching for dead dragons in the endless void of the universe. She rubbed her temples, it took all her concentration to block out the blare of the ships countdown. She checked her belt for a third time to make sure it was secure; the researchers warned that the males, in their rage, may not bother to check for the ship's insignia.
The countdown reached ten. She closed her eyes. Soon they’d exit lightspeed.
The bridge was always kept cold but she couldn’t help but notice the sweat in her palms.
Five more seconds passed. Lana’s fingers tightened around the straps across her chest.
The ship's cheerful AI chirped again.
“Three.” Its annoying voice clashed with the agony of her anticipation.
“Two.” Lana tasted blood and let the pressure ease off her bottom lip.
“One.” There was a jolt followed by silence. Her eyes peeled open but her grip didn’t loosen. In fact, it turned her knuckles white.
Nearly three dozen males turned toward the ship at once. Their necks were perked up in an aggressive posture and their eyes, covered in thin layers of membrane, were huge and unforgiving. Every one of them glowed with the golden brilliance of a dragon’s youth. Their luminescent bodies lit the cold void of space, illuminating the shattered, pale red chunks of the slaughtered Dracaena.
The nearest dragon, easily twice the length of the ship, coiled its body and raised its chin. Its massive maw spread wide in what she assumed was a roar, one that despite its inability to conquer the vacuum of space, turned her blood to ice.
The monstrous serpent relaxed, tilted its head, and uncoiled its body before turning to the rest of its roost. It twisted and undulated in a dance that could only be performed in the weightless environment they called home. The rest of the males began the long and slow process of devouring the frozen chunks of their mates and their young. They would take the pent up energy and they would use it to destroy whoever did this to them. It didn’t matter if that took a year or ten thousand. Dragons had long memories and even longer lives, and this was a crime of the utmost severity.
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Lana didn't realize her hands were shaking. The ship remained for hours as the beasts drifted through space with rhythmic movements that could only be described as beautiful yet predatory. They gorged themselves on the frozen fragments of the dead.
Hours later Lana hadn’t moved. She saw crew members occasionally pass by her field of view but she couldn’t bring herself to look away. Eventually, the creatures faded into black and their glow along with them, not a single piece of the deceased left behind.
She found herself holding her stomach. Lana lurked forward and covered her mouth. The bile burned as she forced it back down.
An alarm started blaring but her mind remained distant, the sound seemed far away. The noise wasn’t like the countdown; it was more frequent, louder and higher pitched. She came to her senses.
“Captain.” Someone shouted. “Something just entered our long range scanners.”
“How big?”
“I-” The man paused. He studied his screen for a time. “I don’t know sir.”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“It’s too large for the scanner.” Captain Harlow pailed. Lana froze. “And we don’t have its species in our databas-” The man reading the scans stopped mid sentence. “It’s moving at near light speed.”
“How long do we-?” Someone interrupted him.
“It’s already here.” It was a woman, the navigator. She was staring out of the starscreen, her mouth agape, eyes wide.
“What the hell is that?” Captain Harlow was nearing sixty years, thirty five of which he spent on this ship. His tone stole the warmth from her body. He’d barely finished his sentence before the unfathomable figure filled the entirety of the star screen's field of view.
Like the other dragons, the beast moved gracefully through the endless darkness. Its eyes radiated a deep purple glow similar to its scales that were even darker, nearly black. Someone screamed. Lana didn’t get the chance.
The monster barely grazed the ship and ripped a hole that stole the words from her mouth and the air from her lungs, tearing her from her chair and hurling her into the frigid grasp of space.
It was odd what she remembered in the few moments before she died. She remembered learning that a human could survive an agonizing ninety seconds in the vacuum of space, only fifteen of which she would be conscious for. Each and every one was filled with unimaginable pain that her mind couldn’t comprehend, let alone describe. It was complete and utter terror.
The monster was so massive that its body consumed the entirety of her vision in the seconds before the surface bits of her tongue and eyes began to boil.
A year ago Lana hadn’t left the earth's orbit and now she was going to die.