Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology (24 page)

A horn blows and we all turn to face Ade. He is with his own group and gestures to the others. My adrenaline spikes and I follow my group to pick up our supplies. There are buckets of water and some blankets for suppressing the fire, and we will be with Taneen, who will be dumping dirt on the flames from above. We also pick up shovels and axes, all the better to preserve the metaphorical line in the sand. Teams had been working hard to prevent the blaze from spreading, clearing dead branches and trees from the area between us and the blaze. What we were going to do was make sure the fire didn't cross the cleared area and try to beat it back.
 

The hike to the area where we will fight the fire is not far, but with all of the buckets people are carrying, it feels longer. We start out silent, each in their own thoughts, but soon a group in front of us begins to sing. I smile, recognizing the folksy song children sing in the orchard. The music flows around us as more voices join in and soon everyone is singing about oranges and orange trees, which turns into a melody of welcome, and we cycle through pieces that bring us hope and happiness and remind us of our strength as a people. Taneen roars his approval from high above us, shining like a second sun.
 

The smoke in the air is making it hard to breathe and my eyes are stinging by the time we come to an area that is less dense than the rest. This is where my people have been hard at work to make sure the fire is contained. Although I don't see the flames, I feel like I can hear them. The singing slowly dies as people break off to do their assigned tasks. Taneen lands in front of us and looks us each in the eye again. “Humans cannot fly,” he says matter-of-factly. “You will not be able to get above the smoke. Your leaders provided something to go over your mouths; you should put those on now.” We sift through the pile of blankets and find small wool rags. “Dip them in the water first,” Taneen instructs, and we do, tying them over our noses and mouths. The air feels cleaner the moment I do. “Remember,” Taneen begins, “you are looking for places where the fire is trying to jump the line. If it gets too dangerous, you are to follow the boundary until it is less so and let me know of that area. If it gets much too treacherous, head back to the village and let the others know. Am I clear?”
 

We each nod and pick up our buckets again. Water sloshes and sand slushes, and for the first time I wonder if I am brave enough to do this, but a look from Taneen silences those thoughts. It's like he's reading my thoughts and feeding me strength. Single file, we take off for the edge of the trees where the sounds of fire are no longer just in my imagination.

Crossing the open area that has taken days to create feels surreal. It is not entirely cleared of brush and trees, but a definite difference from the cover of trees I had just left. Above me, Taneen's shadow heads towards the desert edge to pick up sand to drop on the blazing fire. I see a small tendril of flames in front of me, coming to the edge of the line, searching hungrily for something to keep them going. A spark jumps to a low-hanging branch. I grab my ax and hack at it to keep the flame from taking the whole tree, pruning additional low branches once I dump some sand on the offending blaze. The fire is next to me, although the flames are low. I concentrate on trying to put those low flames out, dumping both water and sand on them, smothering them with thick blankets when I am able to. Whenever I see the fire try to leave the line, I chop or dig the area away from everything else and find ways to put the new flames out.

Time stops functioning. Someone comes by and replaces my water buckets with new ones and I realize one of the teams must be on supplies and pumping water. After I first notice it, I am just grateful that my buckets never seem to be empty. I am aware of Taneen flying over me again and again, and am brought water to drink and food to eat, but mostly I am aware of the fire. I become used to the smoke burning my eyes and I have to repeatedly dampen the cloth tied around my face. That isn't important, though; only stopping the flames matters.

I am covered in sweat and soot and ashes when Taneen lands next to me. I am in the process of slashing at some underbrush that is too close to where the fire is going, but it's hard to ignore the dragon when he is so close to you. “Come with me,” he says, crouching down. I am taken aback. Taneen doesn't allow people to fly with him often and I hesitate. He makes a rumbling noise deep in his chest and I realize he is laughing at me. “If I offer, it's allowed,” he says and I climb up with no further prompting.

Taking off on Taneen is like nothing I've ever experienced. It feels like I leave my stomach behind and I gasp and cling to his neck. My eyes are forced shut by the wind and the smoke. It isn't until he tells me to open them that I do.
 

“Take off your breathing protection.” Once again, I do as he asks. “I am trying to take everyone up, because too long in the smoke is bad for humans. It is why fire has always been a dragon's weapon, especially in the Sahara.” I am hardly listening, though, staring down at what is below me. The sun is setting and all the people look like bugs, hurrying back and forth. But that is not what holds my attention.

“We're doing it,” I say. “Taneen, the fire is so small now.” It is, too. Below me is a short line of flames, and none of it is moving past the line we put in front of it. My people fight to make sure it stays that way. “But … oh …” Behind that is destruction. Trees that had stood for years are ashes now, and the space between us and the desert feels smaller and weaker.

Taneen makes a noise in his throat that stops my questions and begins his descent, flying a slow loop over the people. Without encouragement, I wrap the rag around my face again, and we are on the ground. The flames are almost dead in front of me and I realize with a start that this is where I had been fighting the flames just minutes ago. Why had it seemed like the fire was never ending when it was hardly there?
 

“Look,” Taneen tells me as I climb down, nudging the ash with his nose. I bend down, moving ash aside as he snuffs it away and exposes a young tree. A smile lights my face and Taneen says, “It already begins regrowing. Keep working, little one, and soon this will all be over. I must help the rest of your people.” He moves a few steps into the cleared line and takes off again.

With renewed hope, I attack the flames until the fire is the only light around me. I do not stop, though, and around me I am aware that no one else is either.

As the night wears on, my eyes ache more and more from tiredness and smoke. I am given food and water, but quickly get back to the task, knowing I am almost done. Like before, I lose all track of time, until I become conscious of a warm glow around me.

I feel my heart in my throat as I fear I have somehow gotten trapped in the fire and look up, trying to take in my surroundings. It is not the fire creating the glow, though, but rather the rising sun. I have been here a full day and night, and my exhaustion catches up with me. Afraid I will get hurt or make a mistake, I stumble away from the line and sit on the ground, looking up at a sky tinged pink with morning sunshine and smoke. I am soon joined by Bukky and others I recognize from our group, until Taneen lands by us yet again. Even the dragon seems tired as he rests his head on the ground near us. We all look at him, waiting for word on what was going on.

“I have just left Ade,” he says, and pauses. “We have done it.”

A cheer goes up from our group and my tiredness vanishes instantly. Taneen does his laugh again and lifts his head, roaring with us. A couple of members of our group run off to tell the others, but I stay next to the great dragon, leaning on him. “You saved us. Again,” I say softly and feel Taneen shift under my weight.
 

“No,” he says. “I helped and provided guidance, but you can never say I saved you. You tenacious beings have saved yourselves. Again.”

“I wonder how the fire started,” I muse, less to Taneen and more to myself, but become aware of him stiffening next to me. “Taneen …?” I ask, turning to look up at his face. “You wouldn't …?”

“Of course I didn't,” he says, preening like a large cat. I say nothing, continuing to look at him expectantly, and he sighs. “I had the hiccups. It could happen to anyone.”

About Gemini Pond

Gem is a 27-year-old avid book lover who currently resides in North Carolina. She lives with her three crazy cats and one crazy boyfriend. When she is not attempting to write, she is attempting to make crafts or crying over fictional characters, other peoples' and her own.
 

Refuge

by Mindi Briar

Dragons had rules about their interactions with humanoids. That was one of the first things Prince DeSanto had learned in pilot training. They didn't portal anyone without consent; they didn't portal sick or injured people; and they didn't portal anyone in a life-endangering manner, or to an overly dangerous place.

The latter rule was the reason people still used starships: dragons would not transport humans offplanet without the protective casing of a ship around them. There was all sorts of scientific debate about why, but it boiled down to the fact that every time someone had tried it, they died.

That left Prince trapped inside this broken-down ship in middle-of-nowhere space, with a portal dragon that was just about to bail on him.

Please stay
, he begged the creature, watching its body shimmer in agitation. When he was able to see it, it was pastel-translucent and shaped vaguely like a snake with no discernable head. It was picking up on his negative emotions, and nothing made a dragon vanish faster than fear.
 

It wound around the empty copilot seat, communicating its displeasure at the situation. As if it was his fault! Dragons portaled by taking themselves and anything they touched out of the physical world and into the parallel aetherworld. This one hadn't been paying attention and they had still been a little corporeal when it
flew him through a star
.
 

He'd thought he was going to die. In fact, he still might, because it had fried the daylights out of his starship. All systems were overheated, and because Prince couldn't stop panicking, the idiot dragon wouldn't portal them to safety.

The dragon shimmered again, its whole body disappearing for a moment.

Calm. Stay calm
.

RADIATION WARNING, said the dash. ADVISE IMMEDIATE EVACUATION OF THIS VESSEL.

47ºC. TEMPERATURE REGULATION FAILURE, said another part of the dash.

OXYGEN LOW, said another part. RE-ENTER BREATHABLE ATMOSPHERE IMMEDIATELY.

Prince ran a hand through his sweat-soaked maroon-tinted hair.
Dragon. Friend. We have to go. We're way too close to that star
.

It communicated to him that he was injured and distressed, and that it did not like to transport anyone in that condition.

“You're the
reason
I'm injured and distressed,” he snapped.

The dragon vanished.

“No! No, I didn't mean it. Come back. C'mon, please come back?” Prince wiped his sweaty forehead on his sweaty arm and counted the seconds in his head. When he got to twenty-four, he realized the dragon had probably left him for good.

He indulged in a few good swear words, then began pressing buttons on the dash to see if he could contact anyone to come and rescue him.

Everything was overheated. The dragon was gone. He was stranded.

He frantically began to dial his friend's call code on his key bracelet, but then stopped. No, he couldn't call Joel X anymore.
 

Stars, he still couldn't believe Joel was a Greenjacket. He'd dormed with the guy for three years during pilot training. Carried him home every Dayseven after he patched crazy mind-alts at some dodgy public lounge. Joel had even stood up for him when Heather Jung was going through her hey-you-know-what-sounds-like-fun, let's-beat-up-the-short-guy phase.

And now their friendship was vortexed because Joel got the stupid idea to try to recruit him.

Not that Prince had any love for the Saijin Empire. They were terrible. But they also didn't actively destroy cities and lives the way the Greenjackets did.

Also, their idea of convincing him to join their rebel army had been to kidnap and threaten to kill him.
 

They'd at least given him a nice dinner while they talked about glory, freedom, et cetera. He'd had the sense to wait until dessert before he turned them down.

After that they'd thrown him in a holding cell to await execution, because he was an “Imperial loyalist” and was going to spill all their secrets to the authorities. (He wasn't, but it was pointless to try to argue.) As they were marching him to the med center, to put him down like a dog, he'd managed to swipe the stunner from his guard's belt.
 

Taking out his guards had been the easy part. Stealing a starship had been harder. He'd been so full of sheer terrified adrenaline that he could barely call a dragon to portal him away.

And his panicked state had rattled the poor dragon so much, it had flown him through a star.

Maybe it was just as well that he was going to die out here. He couldn't go back to the dorm he shared with his fellow graduates from pilot training. Joel X had probably been ordered to arrest him if he saw him again. And it wasn't like Heather and her crew would help him. They'd laugh if they heard Prince was dead.

A strange calm came over him, and suddenly the whole situation just seemed funny. This was only his second solo flight since graduating pilot training a fortnight ago. His first had been a disaster, too. He'd gone to the Monroe system, patched a few ecstasy mind-alts, and ended up getting a tattoo of a dragon on his left arm in fluorescent pink. Heather had mocked him for days.

He'd been resigned to the fact that he was going to have to settle down and do some taxi work to pay off his debts. Now, instead of being just another working pilot, he was going to be the Cautionary Tale. The one instructors pointed to when they said, “See what happens when you don't stay neutral during a flight?”