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“Take us off-world, Mandy.” Captain Russell Fisk sat in the co-pilot’s seat of his interplanetary tramp freighter, the Inquisitive Tamandua. He rested his elbows on the console and his bearded chin in his hands as his twenty-two-year-old daughter began her takeoff sequence.
“We’ve got work? Neat.” She pushed her long brown hair out of her face, then noticed his expression. “Why so grumpy? A job’s good, right?”
He blew out a heavy sigh. “Remember how I said no more live cargo?”
She perked up. “We’re hauling dogs again?”
“Oh, God, no!” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But I’m not sure this job’ll be easier than that one.”
“Yeah?” The ship shuddered a little when they broke atmo, and Mandy bit her lip as she watched the dials. One needle flicked into the red momentarily before moving back into the safe area, causing her to wince. “What’re we doing?”
Russ closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Transporting dragon eggs.”
“Dra—” She stared. “You’re joking.”
“I wish I was. Not only that, but mama and daddy dragon are in the middle of an ugly divorce, a nasty custody battle, and a fiery clan war. And when I say ‘fiery,’ I mean that literally.” The dragons native to Reydhogh could fly, stood about ten feet tall at the shoulders, and their main defense—or offense, depending on one’s perspective—was either breathing fire or spitting acid. Russ didn’t know what the actual mechanism entailed or how they did it without hurting themselves, but it was an indisputable and somewhat scary fact.
“O-kay.” Mandy’s brow furrowed. “Sounds less than safe. We took this job because...?”
He tapped the dial that had gone into the red. “We need it. Bad. Charlie’s been begging for parts for weeks now, and Ss!kct says our medical supplies are way too low for comfort. Thus—”
He shrugged. “Dragon eggs.”
* * *
Their client, Morrigan, hovered anxiously as they loaded her clutch of nine mottled green foot-long eggs aboard in a ceramic open-topped nest box. The cargo bay lights dimmed slightly when Charlie Crane, the big blond mechanic, plugged the box into an outlet, and they took a moment to come back up. The dragon’s scales gleamed purple and gold in the glow.
Morrigan expanded her neck frill and watched the temperature gauge on the nest. The green zone, Russ noted, only encompassed five degrees. “Anything special we need to do?” he asked.
“Do not move them,” Morrigan answered. “The temperature must stay between ninety-eight and one hundred and three degrees. Too high for too long, and they will die. Too low, and they will hatch.” Her green, vertically-slitted eyes glittered. “This would be bad. Humans are not equipped to care for dragon young.” She turned her gaze to Ss!kct, the ship’s doctor, who stood off to one side taking notes. “Nor are Pyralis.” Ss!kct didn’t comment, but twitched her antennae and pedipalps in irritation.
Russ didn’t even want to contemplate the dragonets dying, and hatching didn’t bear thinking about—but nothing was certain in this business. “What happens if they hatch?”
She bared her teeth. “See to it that they do not. I will board a faster transport and prepare a nursery for them.”
She grasped his wrist, and he stared at the two-inch claws that she carefully wasn’t pricking him with. She could disembowel me with one swipe...
“Do not fail me in this,” she continued. “My husband will stop at nothing to steal our offspring for himself. His clan is ruthless. I have stayed one wingbeat ahead of them, and I do not believe they have followed me this far, but they have resources and contacts in unusual places.” She reached into a pouch attached to an elaborately decorated collar around her neck and withdrew several jewels, giving them to Russ. “However, I am not without my own resources.”
Russ felt his eyes bug out a little at the small fortune she had just put in his hand. He swallowed. “And you want us to meet you on Medoc in four standard days, right?”
“Can you get there that quickly?” She eyed the shabby interior of the Tamandua and flexed her wings. “I would normally use a more... luxurious craft for my eggs, but Ainmire, my husband, would expect me to do such. By choosing you, I hope to throw him off the trail.”
Russ bristled a bit at the insult to his ship. “She’ll get ‘em there, no problem.”
“A bonus awaits the safe completion of your task.”
“Well.” Russ took a deep breath. “We’ll do our best.”
* * *
The day after they headed toward Medoc, Ss!kct poked her head into the cockpit and waved her pedipalps. “Captain?”
Russ cringed. That tone in her voice never, ever boded well. “What?”
“The nest box is malfunctioning.”
He came up out of his chair. “What?”
[End of Preview.]