Being a good person wasn’t something Nagia was good at. She remembered a story her mother told her once, when Nagia was small and still could run. She’d been playing with the neighbourhood kids and led them down an embankment to the unfenced parking lot, where the town’s new communal transportation drones were stationed. Thinking it would be fun, she started rolling underneath the giant magnets that held up the machines, which prompted everyone else to do the same.

  One of those girls had earrings on. It left a bloody mark on their neighbourhood, one that Nagia could barely recall now. That was the really tragic thing, because what she was doing now was kind of like that, in the sense that she was probably ruining someone else’s life, again.

  The rainbows on Brianna’s scales could be seen from a great distance. She was like one of the twinkling stars, only she glowed with an even wider range of colors than anything else in Nagia’s view. Nagia could not imagine causing the death of this brilliance, but she had to. This was the only way for her to live. If Brianna or her sphere got loose, that was the end of Nagia’s world. She did not have a choice.

  The location Brianna decided was in the outer orbits of a ringed planet. Its name was Barrock, and it was one of those rare worlds that rejected the Legion’s terraforming attempts. Because of its enormous size, the gravitational pull exerted on all machinery on its surface proved to be too great, and the interlocking dust and asteroid belts that made up its 16 rings meant that any station or satellites orbiting the giant were at constant danger of being destroyed. It simply wasn’t worth colonizing.

  As they got closer, Nagia risked a look behind her. The warship that had been following her was now nowhere in sight. She did not remember any Terrans having the technology to cloak, but she also did not expect them to have the technology to mimic a dragon’s wings. She only needed to reach out across the heavy space to know that the legionnaire commander was still there, their minds still connected.

  There wasn’t enough time to feel regret. Nagia reached Brianna now, who turned and waved at her. Nagia waved back. The two dragons came to a stop within arm’s reach of one another. Brianna remarked on the wings on Nagia’s back. Nagia played it off as nothing of interest. She couldn’t see where the white orb was, and feared that it was not with Brianna, but she did not think she should ask it’s wereabouts so soon. She tried to stall and asked if Brianna had been a celestial for long.

  ‘No,’ said the rainbow dragon. She was not so easily swayed from the purpose of their meeting. ‘Where is your friend?’

  ‘She’s coming,’ Nagia said.

  Brianna nodded. She looked around, her breath escaping into the space around her.

  ‘Do you… uh, come here often?’ Nagia asked.

  ‘No,’ said Brianna. She frowned. ‘You’re being really weird right now. Stop acting like we’re in the middle of a drug deal.’

  ‘You’re making it weird by comparing it to a drug deal,’ said Nagia.

  The rainbow dragon’s nostrils flared. Nagia swallowed. If dragons could sweat, she’d be in trouble.

  Something moved from within the asteroid belts. It was a small shift, but it happened. Brianna’s face changed. She tensed, her scales shimmering. She turned to Nagia. ‘Listen. This is a mistake. I don’t think we should do this right now.’ She made a move like she was about to leave, and that scared Nagia. Swooping in front of Brianna, she grabbed her arm.

  Brianna snapped, ‘Hey, let go.’

  ‘Where is the white hold?’ Nagia asked.

  ‘I said, let go,’ Brianna repeated. Her eyes darted to the emptiness around them. She sensed it, too, now, Nagia was sure of it. But before she could say anything, Brianna’s tail lashed into the side of her face. She reached for the rainbow dragon, but another strike knocked loose the drone stuck on her cheek. She lost control and wobbled, missing Brianna by inches. The rainbow dragon yelled back, ‘Get out of here,’ but it was no use.

  The first shots were already being fired.

  But it wasn’t from Selien.

  A different part of space opened up in the shower of light. It wasn’t from behind Nagia, but to her side. An unfamiliar ship struck through a cluster of rocks and barreled down towards her. It was escorted by a dozen other ships. Their beams pushed Nagia back. Pain stretched across her scales. Her skull rang with the psychic-laced words coming from the other ship, words that overrode all other presences.

  ‘This is Commander Basil69 of the Rebel Alliance. Seize your aggression immediately and allow us to escort you to our headquarters for questioning, or we will turn you into dust, Celestial.’

  ‘What the hell?’ Nagia turned to Brianna, hovering just behind the spaceship fleet. ‘You’re siding with Terran?’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ said Brianna, before turning to her allies. ‘Basil, I told you the deal was off. I made a mistake. She would never be a good fit for leading Saffron’s incursion-’

  For a moment, the space around Nagia was so bright that she couldn’t see anything. A heartbeat later, when she could open her eyes again, she was watching Brianna tumble through the neon-lit space as a barrage of plasma rained down on everything.

  ‘Hippocrit!’ Brianna’s screams were lost to the quaking explosions blossoming around her. ‘You're a narc! You narc’ed me, asshole!’ She shielded her face behind her wings, but the fire tore into her, through her.

  No. Not like this!

  From just above Nagia’s head, Selien’s warship tore itself into existence. Shedding its cloak, the massive vessel glided past the blue-scaled dragon to give chase to the rainbow one. Its cannons erupted into bolts of bright green, while Selien’s voice burst forth on the venous barrage that scattered the rebel fighter vessels. ‘Die, Celestial scum!’

  It was clear why Brianna chose this spot to meet. When she dove into the rings of Barrock, there was plenty of space debris to shield her from the attack. The force of the explosions reverberated across the planet's atmosphere, shaking plumes of dust straight into space.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The resistance ships tried to put themselves between the two forces, but the differences in size and destructive capabilities made it look like a child standing between bickering adults. The fleet of smaller ships that accompanied Basil69 went down one by one, their remnants scattered to the cosmic winds. In no time, Selien’s mighty worship was tearing through the energy shields of Commander Basil69’s flagship vessel. It was an older model, one made for carrying troops and equipment too far away worlds compared to the city-sized Galleon bearing down on it, but it had been remodeled with scrap parts and extra cannons that tried their best to retaliate.

  Within the bridge, Selien gave the command for evisceration. Her Galleon opened up with a shuddering groan, revealing a cannon within that was larger than Basil’s ship was long. The rebellion scrambled for cover among the asteroids. The cannon drew in everything from around it and fired a concentrated beam of molten steel, tearing through a row of the planet’s rings and turning entire sections of the planet’s atmosphere into fire.

  Selien’s voice ran clearly across the psychic landscape. ‘Surrender to the Legion and die, lizard scum.’

  Brianna screamed back from her hiding place among the rocks, ‘It’s surrender Or die, you T-hard cringe lord A-hole.’

  Far away from the planet's pull, Nagia felt her chest clench. The vibrations falling off the Galleon’s cannon pierced right through her, like hearing the screams of a thousand creatures in agony. Each time it fired and disintegrated one of Barrock’s planetary rings, it was like everything bad she’d ever done was being shovelled back into her mind. This wasn’t what she wanted.

  It was too late to stop. Selien’s warship locked in on Brianna. It fired all of its external cannons at once. An explosion followed the rainbow dragon as she darted between clusters of rock and fire. As she got close, Brianna roared and let out a beam of prismatic color that washed over the warship's shields. It did not pierce the hull, but the technicolor flames clung to the ionic barrier like sludge. Then, the rainbow dragon zipped underneath the ship and slammed against the ship’s barrier, shoving it towards the planet. The Galleon groaned as it tilted. Brianna slammed into it again. The scales on her shoulders shattered. She did it again. Finally, the little distance was enough to bring the mighty vessel into Barrock’s gravitational influence.

  The warship’s thrusters flared against the invisible force dragging the vessel into the planet's embrace. Brianna went in for the kill. She wrapped her massive body around the ship and squeezed. Scales cracked. Energy swelled. The dragon’s jaws cracked through the ship's vortex shields and crunched straight into its hull. Explosions shattered her fangs as the cannons underneath blew up. Brianna wasn’t done. Her tail gorged into the ship’s thrusters. With a beat of her wings, she dragged the worship further into the planet's orbit, deep into the zone of no return.

  Selien struke back. Her ship let out a series of rapid shots, each molten slug ripping through space and dragon scales to glance off the planet’s atmosphere, striking the rebel flagship’s sides.

  Smoke bellowing from his ship, the rebels could do little but fall towards the planet, followed by Brianna and Selien. The rainbow dragon clung stubbornly to the great warship, ensuring the legionnaire leader could not escape their destructive spiral.

  As they burned towards Barrock’s surface, an array of hangar doors opened along the Galleon. A swarm of Terran soldiers leapt out. While a human body was the size of a tick compared to a celestial, the soldiers piloted multi-legged brutes wielding skyscraper swords. They clustered all over Brianna, grasping onto her scales with their spider-like limbs. Hacking away at whatever they could, these monstrous mechs stripped the dragon's natural armor like it was made of plastic.

  Brianna reared back and roared. Her fire washed across her body and the ship's surface, turning everything to dust. One brave soldier clung to her face and plunged his sword into her eye.

  The dragon’s cries, at least, shook Nagia to her. She started flying towards the planet, towards the burning cluster of dragon and ship. The space grew thick and colorful. As she flew, a tiny shock on her wrist made her flinch. It was her watch, telling her that time was running out. She ignored it and dove past Barrock’s remaining rings. She felt her stomach rise into her throat as the planet’s core wrapped her in its powerful gravity. Escape would be difficult, but she wasn’t thinking about that. She made herself thin and powerful, piercing the atmosphere, fire enveloping her. She pushed through heat and blinding light until she was through the thickest layer of the planet’s illusory surface.

  Just below, Brianna continued to fall in a tangle of broken steel and shattered scales. Countless escape pods were breaking out from the ship’s belly. Some of them burned up in the air. Some crashed into the trail of debris behind them. Nagia flew past all of them and grabbed onto the tail end of the warship.

  Brianna looked up at her from the nose of the ship, where she was tangled. Her left eye trailed with blood. There was air now, leftover from the terraforming attempt, so there was substance to carry sound. And the howl of pain that came from Brianna almost made Nagia let go of the ship in shock.

  The rainbow dragon screamed, ‘You’re going to kill me.’

  Nagia dug her talons into the Galleon and pulled back with all her might. Her metallic wings stretched to their limits, straining against the wind. A few of the drones that made up the skeletal structure broke away. Nagia’s claws bled as the ship’s broken hull cut through her scales. She kept pulling. The mountain ranges came into view. Vast, jagged peaks of pure obsidian shone against a desolate landscape of cracked earth. She pushed against the momentum. There was no more time. At the very last moment, the ship slipped out of Nagia’s grasp. It collided into the planet’s surface, with Brianna at the point of impact, and flattened the planet in a repelling eruption of energy.

  Waves of earth and stone shot into space as the impact stretched across Barrock’s surface. Rivers of magma stretched deeply from the crust that held it back. Nagia was thrown back into the sky, into the upper limits of the atmosphere, before she came down again. Knocked out by the force of the explosion, she had no hope of stabilizing herself before her own massive body smashed into the unyielding, molten ground.

  Ding Dong. Your purchased time is up. Thank you for choosing Nekoyama Cafe. We hope you have enjoyed your time at our facility and hope for your return. Please remember to take your belongings with you.

  Nagia lurched out of her chair, screaming. If her own wheelchair hadn’t been close by, she would have fallen to the floor. Her heart ached. She was shaking. She ran her hands along her body, pressing at places and expecting broken bones. She wouldn’t have any. Her head swam but she wouldn’t have had a concussion. In this world, she was fine. Yes, people have died from this, but those were fringe cases. Still, the impact of that jaw-shaking explosion was too real. And Brianna…‘Oh, god, Brianna.’

  There was a crash somewhere outside the door. A light went on inside Nagia’s pod. There was no time to think about any of that. She had to get out of this place, make this right somehow. Home. She had to get home and use her own setup. Was that too late? Maybe she’d go to the front desk and ask for a loan. She needs more time, at the very least.

  But time to do what? Could she salvage this? Would there even be anyone alive on Barrock she could help?

  Nagia raced out into the hallway. Her hands were so sweaty she kept losing grip on her wheels. She tried to see any sign of where the exit was, but it was disorienting. All the colors on the walls, reflected by the mirrors at every corner, became a dizzying maze. She tried to go one way, then the other, and then that’s when she heard it. Someone was crying. Nagia followed it, her own siren's call. It led her around a bend to a door that was ajar. She nudged it all the way open.

  The lights in this room were also on. There was a pod and a VR setup like all the others, but its occupant wasn’t in it. She was on her knees in front of it, arms wrapped around a shivering form. Wavy gold hair fell in front of her eyes, curtaining tear-stained cheeks.

  Nagia must’ve said something, or made a sound, because the girl looked up, and it was her, the technician. Brianna. The rainbow dragon. Had to be. And Nagia could see, from the steel in Brianan’s eyes, that she knew who Nagia was as well.