Dragon Rift

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Legend had it that they were the first creatures to appear through the rift, storming through a ring of fire shortly after the event horizon had formed over the valley terrifying the world. Life as we knew it came to an end.

Our weapons were defenceless against them. Dragon hides were impenetrable, a conclusion formed by the powers that be after they threw everything they had at them. Chemical warfare against the dragon hordes was a joke. Probes into the rift showed a hostile atmospheric environment full of toxins that we here on Earth only imagined in the best post-apocalyptic stories. The dragons shouldn’t have been able to survive in our oxygen rich environment, and yet here we are. They mutated, evolved, and adapted like the giant fire-breathing viruses they were. War against the dragons was a moot point. We couldn’t defend ourselves against them and they quickly dominated the Earth. We lost the fight and now humans were indentured to the dragons.

Over the years we formed an uneasy alliance with the dragon hordes. They allowed humans to work for them and, in return, we lived. Is there a greater plan in place? I don’t know. I am just a grunt, which is how I ended up saddled to the back of Onychas, my bonded dragon, patrolling the rift. The rift had a formidable identity of its own. The large, round, shimmering, black abyss of the event horizon undulated every now and then to show that all was quiet on both sides of the rift. Standing as high as a twelve-story building hovering just above the ground, the air was always quiet around the rift as the lack of movement in the grass underneath the rift stood in testimony around it. This made the rift feel oppressive as any movement seen was caused by the event horizon itself.

“House of Aegeus, Patrol Group One at Border Rift. Patrol, at the ready”, reported Marcus into his comms, establishing that we had arrived at the rift to begin our patrol assignment as he gave Agnes and me our hand signals to take up our patrol positions. I swept my eyes across the valley. Today looked like it was going to be a quiet day. The valley’s conditions were always calm, sheltered by the high grassy mountains around it. At least, the valley was calm until the rift became active and caused the air around the event horizon to stir like the high winds before a storm. I couldn’t feel any of the external conditions while patrolling the rift and the valley, that was all thanks to my bonded. He kept all my emotions neutral, in the same way, he could regulate his emotions for himself. All our dragons did this for us and, admittedly, having one less distraction gave me that bit more of an edge while on patrol. Marcus and I took up our top and left positions, Agnes and her bonded lazily flew across the face of the event horizon. Agnes had her own little ritual when our patrol began.

“Knock, knock”, Agnes broke the silence over our comms.

“Who’s there?” came Marcus’ gruff voice over the comms. He was always the one to indulge Agnes’ patrol joke fest.

“Dragon.”

OK, so I couldn’t help myself, “Dragon who?”

“Dragon your feet again” replied Agnes. She had the sweetest giggle which I could now hear over my comms.

“I actually have one for you Agnes”, grumbled Marcus. Well, this was a first from him. “Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” Agnes’ excited voice came through loud and clear.

“Snow.”

“Snow who?”

“Snow use. The joke is over.” Marcus somehow managed to maintain his strait-laced voice over comms while I couldn’t help the snort that came out of me. Agnes could be heard giggling in the background. It sounded like she was loving the exchange today, and I just loved that Marcus could still surprise me.

“Marcus you have just made my day,’ announced Agnes, her smile could be heard in her voice. ‘You realise that I will now be expecting at least one knock, knock joke from you at the start of every patrol and if I don’t get one, first round is on you when patrol is over.” A very Marcus-like snuffle came over comms, and I knew he’d be pleased that he was the cause of Agnes’ giggle. We both enjoyed seeing her radiant smile, and we both enjoyed being the reason her smile beamed so blindingly from her face. She is the team member that always chose to drink from the half-full cup, and she was the team member that always seemed to lighten our days.

One hour, lots of laughter, and several knock-knock jokes later, I felt Onychas’ silent reprimand at my now wavering focus.

There was something wrong with my brain. I was always easily distracted.

Onychas had stopped trying to teach me to focus myself years ago. Instead, he would nudge me back into focus when he felt it wavering, which was often enough. I was either hyper-focused, Onychas’ favourite state, or scatty, which meant he worked overtime doing his job and taking care of me. He swayed his long tail behind me while releasing a puff of smoke, our well-established cue to focus. Everyone recognised it.

“In trouble again, brat,” I heard Marcus snigger over our comms.

“Just another patrol day, Captain,” sighing as I tried to refocus myself by counting Onychas’ tail sways. It’s something I taught myself to do long ago. When the cue to focus came, I either counted tail sways or puffs of smoke, or both. It’s the only focus tool I had that worked.

Onychas’ tail swayed again with a small nudge to the back of my brain through our bonded connection for good measure.

Oh right, focus.

I couldn’t help but smile. The fact that Onychas accepted my idiosyncrasies meant everything. I had known dragons that would drop their bonded while flying if the humans proved incompetent, plunging the humans to their deaths. The separation of a bond was said to be excruciating for the dragon, and yet preferred by the dragons rather than be bonded with incompetence. Right now, my focus was back with Onychas.

Agnes’ dragon made a high-pitched mewling noise alerting us to a raise in radiation levels at the event horizon. This was our first hint that the rift was becoming active. There was not a single cloud in the sky today and the openness of the space above gave me little comfort as I felt Onychas tense beneath me snapping his wings out rigidly in fight or flight readiness, proof that he had also detected the spike in radiation.

I looked over at Marcus as he circled his arm over his head ordering us back into formation while speaking into his comms alerting central control that the rift was activating. I took my place at the top-most point of our triangle patrol formation, Marcus at my lower left. Agnes and her bonded had now come to a stand-still at my lower right as our dragons waved their wings slowly back and forth keeping us stationary and at the ready.

I loved this moment. We knew something was coming and we were ready. My fight instinct was kicking in, humming in my solar plexus, sending a signal to my body to be ready. I could feel it coming through from Onychas as well, our humming synching, our senses equilibrating, our instincts on alert. I could feel every change of vibration oscillating across my skin as we rode through the air alerting me to any changes. I could hear the smallest of sounds as they echoed around us. I could see right into the heart of the rift with crystal-clear clarity. These were the dragon senses opening up to me. This was the moment we both became one creature, completely open to each other and ready to fight as one complete unit. It was this one singular moment when all our training and all we had been through made sense. We were ready.

The bomber beetles, as we had come to know them, were insectoid creatures that commonly came through the rift. Their hives were quite small. We only ever saw six creatures venture through the rift as a group. Six bombers we could all handle. Their carapaces were tough layered scales covering their elongated bodies from head to toe. Their six bulky, clawed legs equally placed along their bodies, were also covered in a tough scale-like outer casing. Their scales however were not impenetrable. We had become effective at eliminating them with our laser pulse rifles currently lodged in its harness across my chest.

Some of us were also a little more traditional. OK, I was a little more traditional. I also had daggers attached to my thighs, just in case, and two machetes built into Onychas’ harness sitting beside my calves which were now tucked behind me. You know, just in case. The saddle fitted snuggly to both Onychas and me. This made reaching for my weapons in battle easy. Using the machetes meant close contact, so maybe Oncyhas and I had a death wish. Did we both enjoy the thrill or were we feeding off each other? I stopped asking questions like this a long time ago

“Incoming”, Marcus bellowed sounding just a little too excited as we saw one giant undulation across the event horizon.

“Weapons ready.”

Rifle it was. For now.

The first bombers came through, three of them scampered and chirped as their rhinoceros-sized bodies made their way across the event horizon. I wonder if they knew danger waited for them on the other side. The poor buggers probably only stumbled across the rift. They never seemed aggressive when they first came through. That is until they detected danger and excreted a toxic vapour from their carapaces in defence of their lives. Breathe in the vapour and the average human was dead.

We fired on them as they came through the rift, eliminating them before they could poison our air. Their ear-piercing shrieks alerted us, they were about to excrete their gas. They had detected the threat as they came through the rift, and they were ready to protect themselves. Before they could release the gases, two rounds of three well-aimed laser pulses from three very experienced patrol bonds eliminated the threat.

Screams of “yeah” and “woo” were heard from my patrol mates having now turned this challenge into a shooter game. Meanwhile, Onychas huffed his smoke and swayed his tail taking my attention away from the victorious shouts and back to the rift. No verbal distractions or interactions to take me out of my hyper-focused mental state. This is how Onychas wanted me in skirmishes.

Six bombers down. Their long proboscis-like appendage had me thinking of alien-like elongated fingers searching and probing. It always gave me the shivers seeing them poke out through the rift. I always imagined a sensor detecting the environment in front of them, detecting the natural elements, and looking for any threats. This didn’t seem to deter them from crossing over the rift. Did they not consider us a threat?

We saw the next wave of bombers coming through, the long sensors at the front of their scale-encased heads leading the way as their heavy bodies lumbered through the rift. We eliminated them once again with our pulse rifles. On their tail were another six coming through the rift, And another. We had never seen this many insectoids coming through the rift at once.

Marcus frantically reported back to central, about to ask for backup when the rift quietened down. When anything moved through the rift, it emitted a low-frequency hum. I only heard this hum when I was on the back of Onychas and we were still open to each other. Onychas would push his senses to blend with mine enabling me to see what he was seeing, feel what he was feeling, hear what he was hearing, blending the information that our senses were feeding us. The hum had quietened down, no more Bombers could be seen coming through the rift, but Onychas still detected the raised radiation letting us know the rift was still active. Were there more coming through? Adrenaline was buzzing through my ears while circulating through my limbs. My trigger finger steady, while waiting. This was different. Something else was going on here.

“What is happening right now?” Agnes asked, her dragon once again flying back and forth across the face of the event horizon. The dragon had broken formation showing us all how agitated he was. I could feel the electricity of adrenaline pumping through Onychas’ limbs, his wings steadily treading air as he made ready for whatever his instincts felt coming.

“What is going on Onychas?” I pushed my thoughts and emotion through to him knowing he could feel the tension through my fists wrapped around the reins and my tight grip on the saddle. He returned my apprehension. He didn’t know what was happening either. I could feel it through that ‘hold fast’ tension in his muscled torso, that meant he was ready for anything.

Experience told us that no more bombers were coming through, our battle instinct begged to differ. We were all nervous, unused to feeling our instincts kick into high gear like this. Onychas flew behind the other two bonds at the top-most point of our formation. Agnes and her bonded, still agitated, continued to fly across the rift face flying closer to the event horizon. Marcus was talking to central command. I couldn’t quite hear him as static had started to interfere with our comms, his agitation telling me everything I needed to know. He was worried.

The next wave of six bomber sensors came through the rift.

“Number two, back to position now. Pull your bonded back into formation.” Marcus' shouted command breaking up through the static. Agnes and her bonded were still near the event horizon, seemingly deaf to any commands coming over our comms.

He threw his hand up in the air trying to communicate through hand signals. Agnes was not watching him, keeping her eyes directly on the event horizon. I could hear Marcus swearing through the static over my comms as he realised Agnes could not hear or see him.

“Number three,” Marcus’ broken-up voice came over my comms. He was looking over at me and pointing to Agnes. This was my cue to move in and deliver the command verbally. My bonded flew directly to Agnes getting me close enough to shout Marcus’ orders. She pointed to her comms shaking her head. I circled my arm delivering Marcus’ instructions. She seemed distracted and slowly pulled back on her bonded’s reigns moving them back into position.

I barely made it back to my position as the bodies of more bombers started to emerge through the rift. We all took aim with our rifles, our dragons halting their flight using the movement of their wings to hold our positions. We always waited until the bombers came through the rift.

“On my mark” Marcus called, clearly heard over the comms now. He appeared stoic while sounding a little weary. Seeing so many bombers coming through the rift had me worried. Hearing the weariness in Marcus’ voice and seeing Agnes' bonded agitated told me they were worried as well. It wasn’t something I was used to feeling, from me or from my team.

One.

Two.

Three tail swings.

My eyes were back on the rift.

Before Marcus had a chance to call ‘fire’, a scream came from my right. I looked over to see Agnes falling through the air, a look of heightened terror on her face. Her right hand and forearm missing and her bonded roaring flames over the rift as he tried to fly beneath Agnes to catch her before she hit the ground. Her screams followed her down and I felt the coldness of Onychas’ shock radiate through my body while he nudged at me to stay focused. He knew I wanted to follow Agnes, but I knew I had to trust her dragon to save her. Whatever that was, it shouldn’t have been possible, Agnes shouldn’t have been injured while in contact with her dragon.

All we needed was physical contact with our bonded and we took on their defensive traits, our skin was also impenetrable, we could breathe in any atmosphere our bonded could breathe. We never fell off, not unless it was intended by our dragons. We learned to ride our dragons from the time we could walk. We didn’t get injured, and we didn’t fall off.

Watching Agnes fall while injured was enough to jar my senses sending a violent shiver down my spine.

One.

Two.

Three.

Marcus was screaming over comms, but I couldn’t make out a word of what he said as a buzzing began to fill my ears. I heard Oncyhas roar as he let loose golden dragon fire from his mouth, burning the atmosphere around us. I started firing at the bombers coming through. Through the dragon fire and gunfire smoke haze hanging in the air, I could count over thirty insectoid bodies on the ground. That was way more than we had ever seen at one time.

“Do your thing number three. Find out why they keep coming through.” I barely made out the command from Marcus over the static; I heard enough though. It was time to release the machete.

Marcus and I glanced at each other before he flew to Agnes who was slumped over her dragon’s back. Her dragon was now flying away from the rift, presumably looking for a safe place to land to tend to Agnes.

I pulled on the reigns, three tugs to the right telling Onychas to swoop closer to the foot of the rift. Machete in hand, I leaned back as Onychas took a dive closer to the ground. I looked across at the rift and that’s when I saw what had brought Agnes down. Right there at the front of the rift, there was a person harnessed to the carapace of the bomber heavily armoured from head to toe. Metal-like scales covering the body, mimicking the carapace of the insectoid. Their eyes were covered by a reflective visor and their nose and mouth protected behind a clear-like film. The bomber hadn’t wholly made it through the rift yet. All I could focus on was the big smile on their face and a weapon that looked very much like our pulse rifles aimed straight at me.