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WHY THE RED DRAGON WILL ROAR FOREVER MORE
* 11 *
Pan tried to calm down, she really did. It was just … she didn’t like not knowing. She had to question, she had to allow her curiosity to fly. She kept moving around in her chair as if it were anti-ergonomic.
“I’m going.”
“No you’re not.”
“Enigma, I don’t understand you! How can you just sit there?”
“Pandora, your curiosity is going to get us all into trouble one of these days.”
“I don’t care. I have to check things out and you know it.”
“No, absolutely not.”
Pandora just smiles and leans forwards in her chair. Enigma knows what that smile means. It means Pandora has come up with a devious plan to win her over. Well, it is not going to work this time.
Pandora clears her throat and quietly starts to sing. “If you don’t know me by now.”
“Oh no, no. I said no!”
Pandora just smiles wider and gently grabs Enigma’s right hand and nestles it inside her two hands. “You’ll never ever know me, who-oh-oh-oh.”
“Baby, please, you know –“
Louder this time, putting her face closer to hers. “I said: ‘If you don’t know me by now.’”
“Puh-puh-hu-hu ... Pan, you know …, ” Enigma quivers.
Louder still, standing up now, she continues: “You will never ever never ever never ever ever ever ver ver ver ver know-ho-ho-ho me-he-he-he-heeeeeeeeeee.”
“Alright alright, I give up! You can go.”
“Yeah!!”
TripTrick cannot figure out what’s going on. Lamb is not this strong and they get along fine. The only thing he can figure is that it is some kind of mind trick. Of course, he remembers now that he was in his mind first, and he shivers.
This is all well and good, TripTrick, but right now you have more important matters at hand – like saving your life! He manages to get his hands under hers to break her grip on his throat, and coughs as his vision wavers in a gray puddle. Regretfully she renews her attack at once. This time she does it in a teasing manner. She raps her knuckle hard against his already bruised neck, as if relishing his torment. TripTrick’s tears stream from his eyes more out of anguish at what his hand has found unbeknownst to Lamb and what he is going to have to do with it than the pain she is pouring onto him like acid. He has the lye to counteract her acidic glee.
The Zero steps across the mess of cords on the ground and ducks his head under the low-lying rusty dripping sewage pipes as he enters the engineering room. Light bleeds from this room, because one mistake when working on the parts in here could mean anything from loss of power to loss of life. It is like entering another pipe. At the end of the hallway he can see the dark shadow of Dove blocking the sliver-bluish glow being emitted from the core. He realizes she has something in her hand. He also realizes why he had lost contact with her a few seconds ago, because she had managed to get right up next to the core.
“Clever girl.”
He approaches her slowly, forced to duck forward a bit because his height was not conducive to the low ceiling as Dove’s was. Because of this, his head sticks forward in front of his neck to make him look like a vulture. He certainly has the patience of a carrion bird.
“Arc, please.”
“Dove, sweetheart. I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry I scarred you. I never meant to hurt you.” He is met not with Dove’s words but the slight cooing of her conflicting emotions. So, he continues, moving in slow motion. “I want us to start over. I think I just needed some time apart to realize what we had was really, truly special.”
“Arc, you ha-ha.” Dove is shaking all over. The arm not holding the implement rises up and flaps meekly at him like a broken wing.
“It’s OK, darling. Everything is good now. Just … just come to me. We can escape this Hell and rediscover our Heaven.” Strangely enough, Arc felt these words seemed real when he didn’t mean them to be. Is he so good an actor that he even has himself convinced by his charade? He stops and tries to figure out this odd juxtaposition. Just as he is beginning to choose a side, Dove does it for him.
“Arc, you have to le-leave now. It’s too late for us.”
“No, of course not. It’s never too late.” What a stupid mistake he almost made, allowing weak feelings to overtake him. He really needs to end this quick.
“The Core is breached. It is enough to …”
He smiles at this. He regrets not taking her out himself, but events are already set into motion so this will be perfect! This should be close enough so he can destroy both of them and finally put the final nail in the coffin of this meddlesome ancient secret society. But wait, how much time does he have! He is about to ask her when a question he had never thought of asking was answered.
“But, I do-don’t want to loose both of you.”
“What?” Arc is close enough to see Dove turn to be profiled in the light. He can clearly see her extended belly just long enough before she collapses in a heap. He begins to lurch forward to try to help her (‘us’ she said -- THAT’S what she meant!) but his vision overcomes his enlarged heart pulsing in his chest like a hot water balloon. He can now clearly see the breach in the core. “Shit!”
Enigma is just starting to panic in regret when Pandora rushes back into the pod and secures the door behind her. She is sweating profusely and panting loudy. Enigma just stares at her, she was expecting to worry more, and this is like a punch in the stomach.
“Shit Enigma, hurry and help me get us out of here.”
“What? Why?”
“I passed a port window and motion recorded in my peripheral vision or I would have just walked on by. That other ship, the Nephilim, is coming right at us. I think it means to ram us!”
“What? That’s insane. Besides, I am sure Lamb and TripTrick are going to take evasive action.”
TripTrick brings the thing in his hand around and uses it on Lamb. The projectile-ejecting tool jerks in his hand and there is a flash of the tiny charge that lights up Lamb’s face. He can see light streaming through the nickel-sized hole just above where her heart should be, but soon it is covered in thick red.
“Oh God, Lamb. I am so sorry; I didn’t want to hurt you. I was aiming for your—“
But his words are stolen from him by Lamb’s blade. He had seen her hand rush to her lower back and saw a flash of metal; but only now that he feels the quick sharp pain cross his throat and tastes his own blood does he realize what has happened. Lamb collapses on him as he is choking again. He is choking to death again. Instead of Lamb’s hands being the cause, he now chokes on his own blood.
He wonders if his last set of instructions brought them to the safety of the cavern. He doesn’t cry over Lamb or himself, he cries for failing his greater purpose: shepherding the Red Dragon forever to the future. His final gurgle is like a pitiful roar from a baby dragon.
Arc moves around the obstacles easily because he knows this ship better than anyone. He still stumbles as he nears his goal from only the second time he felt over come by the sapping power of love. He realizes only now that it is too late that his is to be a life of loneliness and regret. The path of The Zero is to be dark painful and a relentless curse.
“So be it,” spoke Arc to the dark emptiness, finally accepting the full brunt of his destiny. It is really here that he becomes The Zero as the ships rocks from an inner explosion. He crawls the final feet to his escape pod and pulls himself in. He closes the door just as the ship experiences an after-shock. Blue gaseous lightning floods the ship and begins to pierce the outside.
Shit, Enigma, hurry! We have no time! Do you feel the ship moving side to side?”
When Enigma doesn’t feel the ship taking evasive action she knows she only has two choices before her. She could allow herself to be overcome by shock and helplessness and allow death to take them all. Instead, her training and strong mind is fed by her equally strong heart and she falls into training. She pushes button, flips switches and checks the computer screen for progress.
Working in a complex yet beautiful symphony of motion, they work together to free the pod from the Red Dragon. The Red Dragon and her pursuing craft have just entered the hidden doorway to the cavern, and so they both watch the screens to prevent themselves from slamming into any of the cave’s features.
Just as they are arcing their way to the back of the cavern for a safer haven, they are surrounded by blinding blue light and soon thereafter their ears hear the muffled sound of an explosion. The shock of the exploding Nephilim throws the Red Dragon towards them.
No time to question, Enigma releases the controls to allow the far better pilot to take over. As a gun arm of the Red Dragon rushes over them because of Pandora’s machine-like quickness, they must weave up and sharp to the right to avoid another titanic piece of their former ship. Pandora continues to push the pod, named the White Egg, further than it is built to withstand.
KABLABLOOOIEEE! Against the cavern wall smashes the broken parts of the two large ships. The White Egg cannot escape the onslaught of some of the ricocheting parts and goes careening towards the floor as well. They have lost all control and their shielding is not enough to prevent the massive electro-magnetic charge from adversely affecting their equipment.
Just before they hit the floor hard enough to knock them both unconscious, Enigma still tries to focus on the Holo-RADAR and tries in vain to steer the pod to safety. She cannot be sure, but she thought she saw a small piece of metal in the shape of a cigar go out the specially camouflaged entrance. It might have been purposefully piloted, but it could have easily been a piece of one of the two ships. She is about to run a computer check on it in the background when the pod smashes violently into the cavern’s floor breaks her concentration.
But, even as her world turns from white to gray to black, she knows that at least SHE is not dead. It is this knowledge that comforts her just before she releases her conscious briefly to the darkness. She did it. She has guaranteed, at least for a few more moments, that the Red Dragon will roar again. It is now her duty to insure that the Red Dragon will roar forever more, just as it has since Time Immoral. Neither the Flood nor the end of the three Ages before that had stopped them and so this little event won’t either. It always finds a way around, this sacred Gnostic knowledge of Light and Truth. It always finds a way through to continue giving humanity hope, even when it is not consciously aware of its presence. That is the way it has always been, that is the way it will always be.
END
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