Dragon's Isolation - Miranda Martin Page 0,28

have together. I cling to him as if by strength of arm alone I can keep him with me. Keep him from slipping away and losing his memories of us. Tighter and tighter until the shadow of the shipwreck falls over us and we’ve arrived.

Shidan comes to a halt and lowers me to the ground. I lean against him and we stare up at the wreckage of the lives that were. So many lives were lost in this wreck that they are innumerable. I don’t think any of us can comprehend the number. We don’t talk about it and I, for one, avoid thinking about it. Partly because I know, deep in my heart, it was my fault. I was a fighter pilot. My entire job was to protect the ship in case we ran into any unfriendly types.

We didn’t launch a single fighter. The entire attack was done by surprise, and that still doesn’t sit well with me. How did we not know an attack was coming? The ship was equipped with redundant systems to warn us—but nothing? It’s not possible.

Or it shouldn’t be, but here I am looking at the irrefutable evidence that it is.

“Are you okay?” Shidan asks.

“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head to clear it of unanswered questions. “We should get in there.”

He nods and wraps his arm around my waist. Together we close the last distance to the wreck. As we draw closer, the wear and tear of exposed metal in the desert becomes obvious. Holes are being worn through the steel of the ship exterior. The constant blasting sand doing its slow work of eroding the metal.

There are enough holes now that I wonder how many years it will be before the remains of the ship collapses on itself. That’s going to make it a challenge to explore the inside. I hope the interior structure isn’t too compromised.

“Do you think creatures have taken up a home in it?” I ask.

“It would make sense,” he says. “What is this?”

I look up, unsure what he’s asking about, but he’s staring up at the wreck itself. There’s a blankness to his expression.

“This is part of the generation ship that all of us humans were on. It crashed here?”

“Oh,” he says, and shakes his head slightly.

“You don’t know this?” I ask, pressing the point.

He purses his lips and furrows his brow, then at last he shakes his head. “No, I don’t.”

“Oh,” I say, the pit in my stomach roiling with acid. “What do you recall?”

I’m scared to ask, but I do it anyway.

“A sign,” he says, frowning. “A calling. I had to answer it. I knew… you were waiting for me.”

I smile, warmed by his words which ease the depths of my concern.

“Okay,” I say. “We should be able to climb in over here.”

I lead the way around base of the wreck until we come to the opening. The opening is where this section of the ship was torn off the rest of it by the forces of gravity as we crashed to Tajss. A cold tingle races down my limbs.

My memories of that night are vivid flashes. Frozen moments in time, but pieces of it are missing. Emerging from my bunk to a smoke-filled corridor with the alarms blaring and flashing red lights. Racing to get to the flight deck. Fighting what I now know to call Zzlo.

The rumbling. I’ll never forget that rumbling sound as something exploded deep in the ship. I knew, right then, that we were doomed. In that moment I kissed my ass goodbye and sent out my last prayers.

Little did I know, those prayers would be answered. I was never much of a believer, but in a moment like that, I think everyone becomes a believer in something. You have to. It’s the only way to deal with what’s happening to you. That sense of being absolutely out of control of your own fate.

The next thing I recall is seeing the tear in the deck. Then I blacked out. When I woke up, everything hurt. And we were here. On this godforsaken desert hellhole. Home. A world I wouldn’t change for all the universe, now. Back then I’d have traded it for anything.

The warm breeze rustles the sheets of plastic that we’d used to create a sense of safety, though now it’s mostly torn or rotted away. Remnants of it hang from the broken trusses high over our heads. A handful of crates, mostly buried in sand, dot the interior. I’m sure