The flight to the Clocktower felt much longer than it did previously. The soldiers sat in total silence for nearly an hour before Mick finally spoke up.

  “Why did you go back on your word, Captain?” He asked. “You made a promise to a holy machine and you would just…break it?”

  “It wasn’t my choice, Private,” the Captain replied, unable to look at his own soldier. “I tried to fight for you, believe me. I just…it was this or someone with no tact gets sent on this mission. Someone who would cause things to spiral out of control.”

  “And this won’t?”

  “This is a very, very precarious situation, Private. We have two sides who want opposite things, both have good points, and I’m the only thing mediating them.”

  “Good points?” Mick said incredulously. “McCray got his cog, right? We made a deal with something beyond our understanding for that thing. What reason does he have for going back?”

  “You need more than one cog to fully understand a place like the Clocktower, Mick,” Private North said.

  “So what, Linda? We can’t rip the whole place down.” He sighed before continuing. “Let’s say all my religious teachings are wrong, and the Clocktower is all rooted in science somehow-”

  “Which isn’t something I would ever say,” Private North added.

  “-We know there’s sentient beings living in there. Doesn’t matter if they’re robots or whatever, the machine we talked to was alive. Shouldn’t we at least be respectful of what they want?”

  A few nods and murmurs resonated from the other soldiers as they began to agree with Mick. Others shook their heads.

  “I’m sure we can work something out with them,” Private North muttered under her breath.

  “Look, Mick,” the Captain said, his tone less harsh than it was before, “I fully understand where you’re coming from. I had my own reservations that I brought up to McCray. If it was up to me, I would never set foot in that place again, McCray would have his cog, and we’d all be happy. I…I don’t want this, but it would be so much worse if someone who did want it was here. I never wanted to betray the trust of all the people here who believed in the Worldwyrm. I’m sorry, Mick.”

  “Captain,” Private Green spoke up, “we know. We trust you. You’re…you’re not perfect by any stretch-”

  “Insane thing to say to your commanding officer,” Private North interrupted, which elicited a few chuckles.

  “-but we know you’re bound by the chains of command. You’re making the best of a bad situation. I get that. Even if you messed up on this one, I’ll still follow you to the end.”

  The other soldiers spoke up in cheers and shouts of agreement. The Captain laughed a little for the first time since his meeting with McCray.

  “Thanks, soldiers,” he said. “Let’s get this sorted as fast as we can.”

  “Coming out of lightspeed!” The pilot shouted. “Brace for landing!”

  /////

  Once the soldiers had finished setting up the spotlights and preparing their weapons, the Captain finally turned on McCray’s orb. It floated into the air, ascending to head height. Even through a camera lens the Captain could feel the Professor’s glare.

  “Captain,” McCray said. “You’re five minutes late in setting up the feed. Did you not trust me to oversee you setting up your equipment?”

  “Don’t worry, Professor,” the Captain said. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before.”

  The Captain turned to face the massive double doors of the Clocktower, then cocked his head to the side in confusion. “Is it me, or is the mural on the door different?”

  “Looks the same to me, Captain,” Private North said. “Dragons and knights and shit.”

  “No, l see it too, Captain,” Private Green added. “It’s similar, but it’s not the same.”

  “I have the previous footage to confirm,” McCray interjected.

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  “I hope it doesn’t matter,” the Captain said. “Open the doors up. Let’s get moving.”

  Two of the soldiers opened the doors up, not with excitement and trepidation like they did before, but with fear. When they opened the door, they were immediately greeted by a massive domed room. Like with the ballroom, a fine painting covered the ceiling, this one being of a dragon flying away into the sky as it was belittled with arrows. It was disturbingly empty, and there wasn’t an exit.

  “This isn’t where we entered before,” the Captain said.

  “I can confirm it is the exact same coordinates,” McCray replied. “The Clocktower has changed, not us.”

  “You talk like you knew this was going to happen.”

  “I’m just stating the obvious, Captain.”

  The soldiers all drew their weapons and fanned out across the room, laser sights bouncing across the room thanks to the polished marble. No one said a word as they began to tap the walls, hoping to find a secret exit, but they found nothing. Then the doors slammed behind them, leaving them in absolute darkness other than McCray’s orb.

  “Shit,” the Captain muttered. “Swap to thermal.”

  “Sir!” The soldiers all shouted as they switched their visor settings to heat vision.

  “Should we set charges on the door, sir?” Private North asked.

  “Negative. If there’s a way to talk our way out of whatever we got ourselves into, I’d like to do it.” The Captain then decided to shout to the Clocktower. “We have broken our promise with the Clocktower’s inhabitants. We are sorry. This was not our choice to make.”

  “Captain,” McCray growled.

  “We would like to meet with the people of the tower to negotiate further terms.”

  The silent reply lasted for what felt like forever. Then, there was a rumbling above them. The ceiling broke apart, ceramic hitting the ground with a crash as a massive creature landed on the ground in front of them, surprisingly graceful for its size. As everything blurred in thermal vision it was hard to tell what it was until it’s limbs fully unfurled, but once it did, they all knew what they were looking at. A scaly, reptilian creature that based on their thermal visor was still somehow warm blooded. One they had only read about before.

  It was a dragon.

  “Stay calm!” The Captain shouted. Most of his unit, especially those who believed in the Worldwyrm, were not obeying his order. They trained their guns on the monster, a split second away from shooting it dead, or dying trying. The creature spun its head around, but when it was made up of block reds and purples, it was hard to tell what its expression was.

  “Now this is something we could do real research on,” McCray said enthusiastically. “I will order animal holding pens right away. Until we have the material to bring one in alive…you have my permission to kill it.”

  “Do not fire!” The Captain shouted.

  “You will not override my orders, Captain,” McCray snarled. “As far as we know, this thing existed here in deep space with no food or water. We need to study this dragon for the good of humanity.”

  “Do not fire!” The Captain repeated.

  The dragon whipped its head around at the shouting man, letting out a low growl as it examined the Captain and his annoying floating orb. The Captain kept his gun raised, but did not flinch.

  “What a beast,” McCray muttered.

  “And you would kill it senselessly!” The Captain replied.

  “As long as we don’t cull the population, we’ll be fine to kill one.”

  The dragon changed its attention, its head moving around to another private. He was not as defiant as the Captain was, flinching back in horror as the dragon’s head moved towards him. That flinch was all that was needed for him to fire his gun.

  A thick jet of plasma shot into the creature’s eye and it screamed in pain, reeling back.

  “I’m sorry,” the soldier muttered in shock. Then, the dragon's jaws extended and bit into his chest, killing him instantly.

  “Bastard!” Private North shouted. She fired her gun, followed by most of the squad pumping plasma bolts into the creature’s reptilian hide. Despite how much damage the shot did to its eye, the rest of it was extremely tough, the plasma lighting up in purple on their visors before cooling away with minimal damage done.

  The Captain shouted over the din of plasma fire. “Green, Mick, help me set charges. We’re getting the hell out of here!”

  “Sir!” They both shouted back. They were the only soldiers who hadn’t fired at all, along with the Captain himself. The trio ran over to the door and began to place explosive charges. Suddenly, their thermal readouts were blinded as a massive jet of fire flew out of the dragon’s mouth, roasting several soldiers immediately.

  “Fascinating,” McCray muttered, distant from the slaughter.

  The explosives were placed swiftly and effectively. The three leapt back from the door and the Captain pressed a button on his wrist that blew open the door immediately, blasting right through, revealing their ship and the endless stars on the other side. He then double tapped his helmet to open a communication channel with the pilot.

  “Get us in the air, now!” The captain shouted. He ran through the door, swiftly followed by Green and Mick. The rest of the soldiers joined soon after, the dragon mercifully distracted by another soldier it had pinned down and was ripping to pieces with its jaws.

  The gunship spun around to face them as they ran along the platform, guns trained on the dragon. The door opened up to allow the dragon out, the monster taking to the air and breathing fire on the gunship. It then looked on in horror as the ship was only lightly scorched from the flame. The pilot fired a single bolt of plasma down the creature’s throat. It screamed in horror, flapping its wings and trying to cough up the smoldering liquid, but to no avail. It collapsed onto the platform with a thud, crushing one of the spotlights.

  The soldiers looked around at the dead dragon, dumbfounded. McCray could not have been more enthusiastic.

  “Excellent work!” He said. “I will send a collection squad right away!”

  The group looked between each other, guns down, with only Mick being able to speak up.

  “What have we done?”