Golden’s Egg

Gullna devoured the sight of the photo. 

The last image from a doomed probe that perished centuries ago in a distant star system. It took a decade to hide all evidence that the probe and its mission ever existed in the first place, but she had a millennium to prepare.  

Archaic.

The crew of this spacecraft dubbed her passion for photography and physical images as antiquated. Especially the collecting and hoarding of polaroid photos, vacuum-sealed and squirreled away to perhaps be consumed later. Packed away in a vintage chest reminiscent of the symbols used to represent treasure chests in old video games. 

The oak chest was also the cache of the physical gold Gullna distributed whenever an unforeseen expense occurred, or one of the crew became too curious, or if a station’s docking fees exorbitantly rose without warning. At every leg of the clandestine luxury journey, a human found an excuse to needle more and more from her that they hadn’t collectively stolen over the eons. 

She ignored the increasing empty spaces in the chest as the vessel approached The Egg  – the empty planet recorded by a deep-space drone, unclaimed and unknown by any human. 

Gullna sunk deeply into the minuscule cot that served as the bedding for the supposed luxury suite. While not a luxury interstellar yacht similar to those sailed by Roman Emperors or robber barons, confidentiality among the stars was a much greater luxury. And one only available on the seediest of ships. When the pressurized air smelt of burnt corn, patch tape covered most of the bulkhead, and the captain stopped asking questions after a few hundred Marxes worth of gold, you knew it was a ship and crew who understood when to be quiet. Especially as governments and consortiums consolidated data and knowledge greater than any dragon of legend. 

The photo. The gravity of the approaching planet. The promise of it blanketed her human form. By the lightyear, by the kilometer, by the second, she felt the warp of the world on her destiny as it bent time and space. A heat that seeped through seven layers of clothing and – 

Playful chimes bounced around the compact cabin, a spear into a moment of serenity. Gullna hissed under her breath as she hazarded a guess of the only crew member brave enough to disturb her. With a flick of the tongue, she put on the airy and possessive tone of a human born into fortune. “Please enter with thy message, captain.” 

With a sigh, the captain keyed in the override for the suite door. Iori, captain of the Pearl Stars, took a restrained half-step into the room. A short, coveralls-donned star farer of seven decades. The sort who was born in the sky and would eventually perish in the sky. Gullna stretched off the cot with a wry grin, both out of a desire to frighten a human and from genuine empathy with a fellow sky-borne. 

“What seems to be the issue, honourable–” Gullna twitched as her human form momentarily spasmed for a half second until she mentally clamped back down on the strings that moved the thin limbs, “–captain.”

Iori fidgeted under the narrowed eyes of Gullna and huffed a minute sigh. “Your highness, we’ve arrived in the … star system. Despite our initial … argument, it seems we’ve actually hit a semi-habitable world. Granted, our sensors weren’t built for survey work, but based on our rudimentary data it is, quite a find.” Meaning, the price for silence just went up by a few million Marxes, Gullna thought as she flipped five gold coins from her robe over to the captain. The owner and master of the vessel snatched the circles of fortune and pocketed them into their coveralls with a conflicted grimace. The luxury passenger smirked as she snatched a container of water from a low shelf. What, did they want more? A supposed royal from an ancient Old Earth lineage (who all hid their ill-gotten wealth before The Fall) would never flinch away from a few extra Marxes, but any good scoundrel would at least provide a more obvious cue that the bribe needed to be larger.

Through a short sip of the stagnant aqua, Gullna said, “You will receive a worthy stipend for your assistance and discretion once I make landfall. Was there anything–“

“A warship. A dreadnought at the risk of being more precise.” 

“I, a what?” A chill rippled up her neck as the skin threatened to dissolve and wilt away in a sudden loss of concentration. “How did this happen, captain?”

Iori opened and closed their mouths five times before simply shrugging in response to the venomously hissed question. The captain gracelessly ignored the water bottle that smacked into the bulkhead a few egg lengths away from their head. Trillionaires, all humans for that matter, loved to throw tantrums. And right now, it was an easy role to play.

Gullna mouldered under the weight of a collapsing plan generations in the making. “Am I to understand that another heavily armed vessel has materialized above a celestial body buried deep within the mounds of any and all evidence?” A coiled fist, 700 years of careful spectroscopy, radio, probes, and observational assessment combined with the erasure and assassination of all traces of this world just for…

She flew to her feet and sidestepped the captain, striking forward towards the ship’s control station nestled in the centre of the brick-shaped vessel. The short captain followed behind the luxury client whose head of ruby red hair brushed against the top of the corridor. Tossing her head back, she asked with naked indignation, “Have they hailed the bridge yet, captain?” 

The captain hurriedly replied, “A repeating message, stating to leave the area immediately. Claiming the rock below for the Serrah Colonization Enforcement Order.”

Gullna’s tongue clicked off the top of her mouth. Clucking knight-wannabes. 

Donning a calm expression, the trillionaire quipped back, “Well, at least none of you tattled on me. Probably. These Enforcers love to blind check worlds. Luckily, most never return to civilization with any tangible finds.” But sixty percent of human-infested worlds, and the most populous worlds, were Enforcement Order discovers, Gullna thought to herself. 

The blue light of the bridge appeared down the next turn, the captain now directly at Gullna’s shoulder as both erupted into the densely packed space. Network controller and unofficial shipboard hacker Vira popped a peppy “Hiya!” that went ignored immediately. Eis, the sensor mechanic for the Pearl, mumbled a salutation as the luxury client gently pushed him aside to stare down at all the data rolling in from the adequate scanners of the chartered vessel. Newly built ships used holographic outlays, but the analog glass screen served its purpose well enough as it slowly blinked in new information.  

The dreadnought’s silhouette mimicked the shape and size of Mars’ smaller moon as it infested the orbit of her world, like an eagle buzzing around the exposed wrists of a drunk fish. Scavengers one and all. Gullna flicked a gaze at one of the vultures on her side, and Vira furiously tapped away on her holo-board in a console station eschewed into the bridge. Within two heartbeats she repeated back in military staccato, “No record of claim. No official or rumored cataloguing of this world. Based on the data from before we jumped–“ 

“And they’ll claim inválida, based on the Enforcers logic of first come, first served,”  the captain said as they logged into their command console. “Well, your highness, we got to see your precious little rock; now we make the return leg home. Not part of the deal, but we are going that way anyway, so we’ll ferry you back home. Eis, let those rock claimers know we’re on the way out, Vira-”

“Belay that directive. Open a direct line of communique with the dreadnought.” Gulla flashed a plaintive glance towards Iori that she topped up with a sly smirk before they could muster a countermand. “Every small danger will be washed away in a deluge of Marxes, to fuel your desires or actually invest in a luxury passenger vessel. Go legit if you wish, as the younglings say.”  

Gullna bit down on her tongue, slogging through the wet paper bag that was her plan as it disintegrated around her. She was prepared for Iori to smash through the smokescreen of further enrichment. As the captain opened their mouth to fire a volley, the hacker in the back piped up first. “Link request sent, shuffle over to the green triangle your heinie, and smile for the trumped up cosplayers.” 

Gullna circumnavigated the stunned captain and planted her feet squarely on a dull triangle painted on the metal floor. In the dimly lit bridge buried deep within the vessel, the only paying passenger on the Pearl Light fixed molten gold eyes on the pinpoint-sized lenses of the holo-projector. Above the consoles of the bridge, a shimmer of light wove into an armoured man leaning back in a heavily padded throne. Vira rolled her eyes, Eis quietly bapped his head against his console, and Ioir pinched the bridge of their nose. No one liked these fools; no one shed a tear when they disappeared, but everyone piled on when they discovered a habitable world… 

Gullna choked back a chortle as she stared down the imaginary knight. How adorable, she thought as she considered all the actual knights she’d enkindled back in the old days. She hoped the tiny glimmer in her eyes was readable and rested a fist against her chin as the heat slowly built up behind her human mask.

“High Grand Lord of the Super Council of the Serrah Order, on the precedent of the Neptune Convention dedicated by an absolute majority…” Gullna halted the archaic code as the armoured man narrowed his eyes. She pivoted at the absent glare of the wannabe knight. “Apologies. An older protocol.”

The faux-knight shifted forward, the holographic image extending into the bridge. “I recognize the attempted mockery of the Code. A common misconception of the arrogant to distill our cause as religious fervour. We serve the One Good of All, the expansion of humanity. Something a … capitalist would surely fail to comprehend, your highness, Sapphire Mia.” The Knight-commander made a show of inspecting Gullna as if she was a gaudy lamp shade. 

The trillionaire spared a glance back towards the screen-encased hacker, who shrugged as she raced to patch the holes in the Pearl Light’s firewalls from further data breaches. Likely, Gullna only lost another false identity. 

“I refuse to bargain with a hungry tomato on the vine. This world is a claimant of –“

“Wait!” Dagger teeth dug into her leathery tongue. “Surely, you wouldn’t deny a fellow … human’s desire to step upon a new world. Before the … colonization.” Bile leeched up her throat. The word slivered out of Gullna’s mouth like a parasite, but to the knight, it tipped the scale as a word of potential and greatness. The rest of the Pearl’s crew watched as the holographic image winked out, though Gullna saw the self-satisfied smirk. 

Vira tentatively began to tap the code for the return trip back to civilization, ringing out like a hammer testing the head of a nail. A raised hand from the onboard customer quieted the smack of keys (an aesthetic noise modification as the console was holographic). The wheeze of a broken air exchanger tickled the drum-tight ears of the luxury passenger, whose crossed arms held back the roar of her heart. Games. Always games with humans. The threat of violence. The question of whose potential for violence had more legitimacy. Staring into each other’s eyes with an intensity that bordered on eroticism. And right on time to verify Gullna’s theory of human nature, a series of chimes warned that the dreadnought’s weapon sensors had poked at the Pearl, along with a clearance for temporary “access” to the planet below. 

Four hundred years ago, astronomers hoarded and scrambled over the few scraps of wavelengths that had fallen to Earth, but one well-placed “graduate” student picked up a few tidbits. Eight hundred years ago, pirates and mercenaries fought over ships full of gold, but a small skiff headed by a bold sailor with “deep sea diving experience” ran away with literal boatloads of gold. Theft of stock market secrets, hacking of top-secret scientific research stations, consistently slithering through the cracks of human collision and violence to carve out the potential for a future. All choked by random human greed, violence, and zealotry in the shape of a massive warship popping in over her world by chance.

“Please prepare the secondary shuttle. I must oversee the transfer of my remaining posessions to Wyrm’s Promise. I request you, Captain, and Eis be ready to depart within 15 minutes.” 

Vira waved at the trillionaire as she walked away, “I guess I’ll just be here. Don’t do anything that gets me exploded.” 

As her robes fluttered out of the bridge, Gullna released a relieved sigh as a jingle bell denoted the green light to land on the world below. Her egg. An estimated one hour before contact, and so little time to construct contingency plans. And to conduct the final preparations for transporting the eggs.

Thirty minutes later, she stepped onto the Pearl’s small shuttle with her own personal, massive shuttle loaded and secured to the rear of the larger vessel. Ready for, hopefully, the last test for her freedom.

But alone into the fray. The last of the dragons. The second last was Laia, back in the Last Hunt of the Hunters, but even it eventually withered on the vine with no more “beasts” to justify its existence. Old Earth, Terra, Mars, Centuri, one after the other, became so small so quickly. Gullna’s skin tingled at the memories of the Sun touching her skin, a relatively thick atmosphere to uphold her wings, and not a human eye in sight. Her human arms vibrated, her true self trying to worm its way out of the magical illusion she upheld for decades at a time. 

Now, Iori shifted uneasily on a heavily patched shuttle couch while Eis supervised the sensors as the autopilot guided the tiny transport down to the planet. Atmospheric re-entry shook the fish-shaped shuttle, and Gullna cursed her own world under a breath riddled with excitement, dread, and feathers. 

Two star fighters glided down beside the shuttle, their Gatling turrets turned towards the unarmed vessel – the next phase in the Enforcer’s game of violent chicken. The world’s stars reflected off the gunmetal weapons and into the obsolete physical viewports of the Pearl’s shuttle; no camera and screens here. But past the threats of fiery destruction, the curve of the ellipsoid planet hooked its fingers into Gullna’s mouth and dragged her towards the thick translucent panes of glass. A grey ocean swayed back and forth, sandwiched between two giant mountainous continents capped with teal snow. Puffy clouds covered a series of oval-shaped islands, a scarlet storm brewing near the tilted north pole. Between schemes and gold heists, she scrolled the internet to plan out how to perfectly decorate a cave since there was no room to bring building materials. But she never considered how to decide where to reside–on what cave to choose. Or even considered just unfurling her naked wings to the new havens and sleeping under the foreign stars for all of existence to see. 

“So, would it be breaking my professional standards to ask if you’d like to share your plan, if…” The captain asked, their voice trailing off and devoured by the roar of the micro-gyro engine. 

A small tungsten pistol rested on their lap as they slowly flipped the safety bolt on and off and on. The Pearl’s two present crewmembers donned vacuum-sealed environmental suits, bulky, neon-orange packs of carbon fiber. Outlines of titanium wire snaked over their bodies beneath the environmental suits. Movement Assist Frames. Gullna shared that the world below was close to (human) habitability when first chartering the Pearl, but she left out the one-point-five times greater gravity than Old Earth, and that there was enough oxygen to make anyone second-guess lighting a match. Imposing mountains dominated the equator while salty seas flowed out from the poles. Based on the best guesses of human terraforming specialists (when Gullna asked purely hypothetically), it would take one hundred years and fifty trillion Marxs to ‘fix’ the Egg. The price to turn a semi-hospitable world into a clone of hundreds of garden worlds based on the Old Earth model. Captain Ioir tilted their head as their eccentric client took a moment to close her eyes and drink in the vibration from the atmospheric entry. 

“I guess I’m asking, your highness… are you just here to die?” The question was delivered with the same reluctance as a late-night visit from a police officer at the front door (though most departments send digital condolences now; so heartless). Concern, not just for their rich client, but for themselves, the crew, and the ship.

A haughty laugh filled the cramped space–apparent laughter at a funeral–through Gullna’s flimsy ornamental and ancient safety suit. “No intention of perishing on this world, dear captain, quite the opposite indeed. But …”

“But there’s a horde of Enforcers who’ll open the star gates to millions even before the terraforming is done.” The captain slid the tiny pistol into a hidden pocket in their boot as they continued, “and even if they ran away, they’ll take the coordinates with them. Though I could find no evidence of this rock.” A pointed stare at the distracted millionaire. “Upon second inspection, my own data disappeared as well. As if someone…” 

The captain’s client sang, “Someone has earned a few more thousands Marxes!”

“And what are the chances my Pearl won’t implode when you’re no longer on the manifest? Should I cut ya a discount in exchange for my own safe passage?” 

“No discount required, dear captain.” Gullna stretched her back as she stepped back to look over Eis’ shoulder, soaking up the fragments of the prosaic data from her world. “No point in holding onto the purse strings at this point. Especially considering I left all the bullion on your vessel. How forgetful. I like you. You can have it all–”

Eis yelped as if all his corporate debt suddenly disappeared, but before he could whip out party poppers, Iori snapped their fingers. Begrudgingly, the engineer quieted down. The trillionaire looked over her shoulder to lock eyes with the captain.

“But?” 

“Never return.” And she looked back to the console, ignoring the agape stare of Eis as he looked back and forth between the two negotiators. Though he tapped two keys on the holo-board. 

The staticky voice of Vira pierced the strained silence. “CAPTAIN, TAKE IT, TAKE IT, SAY YES! YOU HAVE SEVENTY-REPAIRS BACKLOGGED BEC–“

The voice cut out as the captain tapped a single icon on their wrist console. “Eis, please don’t airdrop any more of my crew into this discussion. If it were anyone else but Vira, I’d toss you out the air lock attached to a tether and drag you back to the nearest starport.” Standing up, the captain punched the bulkhead lightly seven times while Gullna spun around to stand with her face against the hatch of the shuttle in anticipation. She pretended to ignore the human captain’s internal dilemma.

“I assume the coordinate history has been wiped already?”

“It’ll be an ill use of time to attempt to reconstruct it. Though an answer has yet to be delivered regarding… ”

A groan and then, “Fine, you loopy trillionaire. The Pearl will never grace this system’s sun … suns again, and we were all black out drunk for the three weeks while under your employ.”

“We’re rich cap, make that a solid five weeks!” The engineer yelled as a series of text message notifications stampeded into the communications system, a textual celebration from Vira, Gullna guessed at least. 

Thankfully, as much as the captain looked up and stared at the antiquated and elegantly dressed client, they failed to ask the loaded follow-up question. What about the heavily armed dreadnought filled with planet-hungry human expansionists? But somehow, I feel the captain probably knows the definition of desultory.

Gullna considered eating them, but humans these days eat too much potassium. Had a headache for days last time. Simple murder, potentially fiery. But the success rate exponentially deteriorated with every dozen humans. A dreadnought statistically contained 3,000. Maybe a golden tongue approach-

The thunderstorm of thoughts vanished as the tiny shuttle touched down on the agreed-upon continent of her world. The creaky entrance hatch slid up and neglected bolts screeched as the vessel popped open the entrance to the Egg. Levithan, Gullna’s name for the smaller of the Eggs’ binary parent stars, greeted its new guests. A tiny M-class red dwarf, an unstable and long-lived bundle of energy. Red beams of light painted the dull grey interior of the vessel. Across the precipice of the shuttle, the yellow light of Lindwyrm, a G-class star, cross-stitched to cover the endless salt plains of the southern continent in an orange blanket. The immense gravity of the Egg pulled the blanket down over her.

The humans’ artificial wire systems surged to life to support their muscles and to prevent the collapse of their lungs. Gullna wrapped the weighted blanket over her shoulders as she sidled out onto the orange-painted salt desert.  Her world. Her new home. 

A world worthy of endless expanses of blueberry bushes. She let her eyes wander across the terrestrial expanse as she imagined it populated with salt-resistant blueberry bushes that she spent two hundred years selectively breeding to create. 

However, she realized as her golden eyes fell to the few meters in front of her, any hypothetical berry bush would be stultified by the triangular gunship parked on the salt plains, accompanied by scores of power-armoured humans. Grey plates of tempered diamond armour and…

“Don’t y’all believe in plasma guns? Tungsten sloggers at least? Do we need to slice a few loaves of bread?” Eis chirped. Like a pheasant feigning a broken wing to distract a fox from its fragile chicks. Against a line of spaces wolves, and the wolves have swords. Nano-carbon tempered blades sizzled in the orange bath of her world. Swords and armour, on her world. Clucking arrogant, self-entitled knight wannabes. Like they actually know they’re up against a dragon. 

But no, Gullna reassured herself, Occam’s Razor pointed firmly towards simple human arrogance and vanity. 

The eccentric trillionaire bit down on a blast of rage as she stomped forward to stake her claim. One against thirty-six heavily armed planet grabbers. 

Instantly, the knight-commander matched the move, with his peons following suit in a uniform line march. First, the outer pair stopped, three more steps the next pair, until a chevron of potential violence pointed towards Gullna and her two reluctant retainers.  The point of the arrow of violence, the Knight-commander, stood arms crossed seven tail feathers away. Eye level with Gullna, propped up in heeled armour meant to raise the worthy above the lowly. Unlike the peons in stale gray armour, his was grass-green and sky-blue to ensure everyone knew who the champion of Old Earth was. 

His silver eyes slowly traced the trio, and he grinned at the battered shuttle. Gullna extended an arm that bumped into Ioir’s helmeted forehead, because humans especially hated non-verbal slights. A bunch of cocksure chicks still covered in eggshells. 

“Now now, dear captain, no one can blame an honest starfarer for not cozying up to the biggest rooster in the yard for the sweetest berries-“

“Enough!” bellowed the Knight-commander, the grin blasted away by an annoyed grimace. “You came. You landed on this potential home for millions. Now you can leave. And spread news of our discovery. Nova Europa belongs to the commonality of humanity.” The Knight-commander stated flatly, without even a look at the eccentric trillionaire, but he watched the small pistol in the captain’s right boot. A peashooter a larger threat than the literal dragon (a small pit formed in her stomach from how well she wore the magical disguise these days). 

Plan B: flattery. Time to vomit later. “Gracious Knight-commander. Such righteous processions of the … might of humanity require cooperation from all souls. Some stake claims, repair ships, transform barren worlds. But,” she slowly tapped on a chipped and dated wrist console, “endeavours require resources and funds-“

Two swift taps, and the armoured figure raised his wrist. A bulky wrist screen shone to life, and an inferior copy of her voice belted, “No point to hold onto the purse at this point. Especially considering I left the bullion on your vessel. How forgetful.  I like you. You can have it all–“ 

“And no, I wouldn’t try to bribe me to delete the Reclaimer’s-” Gullna rolled her eyes because, of course, the humans named the dreadnought after the reclamation of something that never belonged to them in the first place. “Sorry, did I hurt the spoiled brat’s feelings? No amount of precious bullion will destroy the archival records; the data is saved in triplicate aboard the mighty Reclaimer.” 

The doofus smirked behind his helmet’s tinted visor at the sight of Gullna’s hand clasped to the front of her visor. Through the tiny gap in her fingers, the trillionaire spotted the Knight-commander’s right hand patting the console on his left wrist. And a second later, Gullna sent a verbal command up to the Pearl’s hacker. The shuttle might have been a weak point, but now she knew where to put the human hacker’s attention, all three locations. Hence, why Vira was getting a separate payment apart from the rest of the crew.  

With a forced voice crack, Gullna croaked, “But, surely, as reasonable actors, we can come to a solution. Why, how did you even come across this world? No claims were entered with the Star Registry back at Nouvelle Terre. How would the Tribunal feel about the Serrah Colonization Enforcers ruuuunning around, scooping up unclaimed worlds?”

“We both are cognizant that the Tribunal has no authority to interfere with Enforcer activities. Finally, my data team reported no claims were laid for any planets in this entire system, or within a hundred light-year radius. And upon last review of the procedures of planetary reclamation, an unregistered Colonization Enforcer expedition’s claim trumps an eccentric brat’s whimsy, now.” He combined the statement with a raised sword tip, followed by dozens of others pointed towards Gullna’s heart. “Please take your paid goffers and depart our world.” 

Yet the eccentric remained, arms crossed, feet firmly planted on her world. As if roots might spring from her heels and grip the chalky salt plain. With its thick atmosphere, indigo mountains, and troves of direct sunlight to warm one’s feathers and scales. Within a hundred years of a human infestation… she threatened to decapitate her own tongue at the thought–no, the nightmare–of gargantuan metal machines flinging the teal-capped mountains into space to reduce the planet’s mass. For human habitability. As endless pillars were jammed into the Egg’s crust to align the rotation period with Old Earth’s. 

As fields of filters, “Scrubbed the weed elements from the atmosphere in a vain attempt to mimic the ancestral air of old Earth. All native life expunged, save for the few test samples you cretins decide are scientifically valuable enough to spare out of sick curiosity to see how they can benefit you damned vermin!”

Plan C: Incitement developed on the fly to justify the coup by her internal dialogue over her mouth. The plan collapsed when not one of the would-be terraformers budged, helmets inclined towards the Knight-commander, but suddenly Plan D dived down from the sky right on time when she thought this would not take as long.

The commander’s wrist console screamed as notifications flooded in. The veil of bemused authority incinerated as he goggled down at the holographic display. His peons shattered their statuesque demeanor to creep forward, scanning the flat horizon. 

“Potential hostile shuttle making entry, fighters en route for interception, Commander.” A peon bellowed from the gunship forty imaginary blueberry bushes away. The chevron officially fell apart as the other peons rushed to form a circle of pointy swords around the trio. Eis slowly backstepped towards the shuttle, while the captain yelled at any sword bearer that tried to venture too close to either them or their client.

Interception. The word clawed its way into Gullna’s mind. Wyrm’s Promise had the best stealth software and adaptive nano-paint on the market, illegal but apparently obsolete military tech. She always used it for clandestine operations to gather and find the last remnants of her people. But no matter what, she needed it down here regardless of the stupid, above-average, violently inclined humans. 

Only one time at a restaurant, on a quiet street while humanity still lived on one world, did a waitress try to place a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her. Delayed plans by forty years due to forced relocation, identity change, and recovery after that particular spontaneous episode of arson. But the Hunters believed she died in that fire. The last of the dragons. After being hunted and massacred exponentially by humans. Humans, whom the dragons long ago decided to spare out of misguided mercy. And now, those same butchers wanted to steal her hatchery, the home of the next generation of dragons, before their eggs even hatch. Since that diner fire, no one, not even the insane, believed in dragons. From the ashes of a stupid decision with a pinch of trickery, she would save this world. Since no human knows they ever existed or could exist. Their own mistake.  

A small virtual thumbs up appeared on her old wrist console, a small burst of noise in the chaos of her world’s first potential ground battle. Vira’s all-clear sign. Data deleted. Half a million Marxes in exchange for a digital clash with the dreadnought (granted, she agreed to wipe the Pearl’s and any other ships’ records on the Egg if needed. It just happened to include a giant warship). And apparently, she won the digital battle, despite sitting a few thousand kilometers from hundreds of torpedoes. 

Gullna took off the helmet. 

The fishbowl-shaped apparatus from another millennium cried out as the latches shattered from the simple upward motion of hands against the glass visor. The air, by the stars, smelled of sodium and baked beans. The light kissed her skin. She shuddered, eyes closed, savouring every minuscule sensation. Internally, of course, externally…

“I’m breathing your air, assholes,” she yelped, making sure to lace the bravado with apprehension, as even an eccentric, spoiled, rich human would second-guess filling their lungs with alien air soaked in too much oxygen, too little CO2, and random small spores of alien fungus. Rapid inhales and exhales directed towards the Knight-commander landed on mark as he took two hurried steps back.

“You, does your ship have any medical equipment?” He asked past the still hyperventilating trillionaire towards Ioir. 

The elongated shadow of the captain shifted as they tilted their body to look past Gullna and towards the Knight-commander. “Bandages and pain killers.” Gullna tasted a lack of concern in the flat response, and hoped it meant Ioir assumed this was simply the next step in her plan. 

“Congratulations, death by atmospheric poisoning. Yours will be the first grave on my world.” 

“Unlikely, as clause fifteen, sub-article b of the original, and never repealed, constitution of the second convention of the Primary Planetary Conclave states, and I quote, ‘The first to take breath on a world, the first to settle.”

The Knight-commander ignored the constant notifications from his wrist console. The sharp face beneath his visor distorted like the shifting sands of a battlefield as he tried to rally to go on the offense. Which would be soon, as the Fifth Convention adjusted the PPC to replace ‘breath’ with ‘presence,’ but given that at the time, the Inter-Planetary United Council had the same level of authority as the League of Nations before the second of the five world wars, no Colonization Authority studied, recorded, or remembered it. Except any half-competent data analyst would discover that little historical tidbit with a simple word search, and if these nuts followed the common Colonization Enforcers order of battle, the dreadnought carried fifty analysts of them. At best, she’d fleeced thirty additional seconds to formulate plan E. 

So Gullna decided to tell the truth the long way around. And dredge up long forgotten history. 

She coughed. 

A column of fire leapt from her mouth. 

The pillar of flame reached out like a flock of birds towards the yellow star that hung over the bright orange Enforcer gunship. 

The passengers of the gunship scattered, falling backwards as they threw themselves towards their escape from the act of spontaneous combustion. The Knight-Commander took just one step backwards, while Eis let out a series of yelps, and Ioir tried to step towards the fire breather. 

“Stay back, I don’t know, I am sick, what is happening, I don’t wanna die!” Gullna stammered out as her tongue instinctively flew back to the rear of her mouth. A heavy inhale disguised with the panic of a human, oxygen poured in her mouth, her lungs, her very soul. The leather-like tongue whipped forward and smacked against the top of her mouth. A tiny spark, which erupted into another blast of flame as her lungs shot out an exhale of oxygen-rich air. 

“STOP SNEEZING!” Screamed both the Knight-Commander and the Pearl’s captain as the sneezer fell to her knees. She clawed at her neck and choked back a full-face grin when a series of exclamations rippled from the humans who followed the motion of her hands. 

Direct sunlight, the kisses from new stars landed on sapphire coloured scales that materialized across her neck. But a purr of satisfaction was stopped before its birth and twisted into a blast of spewed fire aimed groundward. Salt and dust jumped into the heavy atmosphere.

Two hundred years since the last transformation back into her true form, so might as well take it slow. 

She gradually released the control over her magic, over the veil that shackled her true form, and to the universe portrayed the lowly image of yet another tiny, squishy, mean-spirited human. Every dragon inherited the ability to manifest an illusory disguise at birth, and every dragon hated it. A hand reached out, once a human arm, and a tree trunk long limb crashed down to the salty ground as the fingers fused into three claws. 

“Help me! What’s happening?” Right, human greed. “A million Marxes! For whoever saves me!” As the dust cleared, the Knight-Commander rested flat on his rear between the gaps of her claws. He flung himself back towards the gunship with the rest of his peons. 

Strands of human hair curled together, tighter and tighter into a stiff comb on the top of her head above a neck that elongated further and further as the former trillionaire screamed and bellowed in a performance for the ages. Patches of fragile human skin expanded into sapphire skin; the pores hatched caramel-dip coloured feathers. Normally, this process took seconds, but drawn out, Gullna had to admit it even disgusted her a wee bit. 

A spare glance, and the foxes were yelping out of the coop, into their dual-plasma cannon gunship. The … sparrows, mice? Analogies be damned, the other humans, the Pearl duo, watched from the half-closed hatch of their shuttle. Eis held his wrist console up to record video (Vira promised to purge all files, so no need to scorch him). Iori looked up in a cocktail of fear, confusion, and … admiration. A droplet of respect rippled down the semi-formed dragon’s spine. 

Hearing returned to normal, the dragon picked up a man drunk on authority who bellowed, “I want full decontamination! This virus cannot be allowed to spread! Pilot, back to the Reclaimer now! Get the gyro-engine primed, we are retreating to headquarters!”

One tin of humans down, Gullna thought as the show continued, the stub of a thick rubbery tail sprouting from her spine. Hundreds of feathers proceeded to cover her exterior now that she was as large as the Pearl’s shuttle and kept on expanding. 

She thrusted her neck towards the two humans, her third pair of eyelids narrowed. Her human legs had now doubled back and extended into the air as a massive set of wings. 

 “So long, you crazy giant chicken-lizard, hope never to see you again!” The captain gave a small two-finger salute, and with a crash of the shuttle door, the tiny vessel raced back towards the sky. The micro-gyro engine kicked up the salt and particles of the orange-painted flat land, a protective shell around the half-emerged dragon. Hidden away, in two heartbeats, Gullna finished the transformation back into her own form like a finger letting go of a rubber band. 

The salty dust coated her tightly packed feathers, and her tail stabbed into the ground to keep the massive body stable. 

The ancient texts always depicted dragons as completely lizard-like, a complete disrespect of their avian traits. Granted, most humans only lived to see a plucked dragon, lower scales exposed bare. 

The pinprick of light, the dreadnought turned away from her world, and with a sparkle of warped reality, winked out of existence momentarily on its way back across the galaxy. From a hundred-meter vantage point, yes, these thousands of kilometres of salt plains would make a wonderful home for her blueberries. 

Wyrm’s Promise landed a few kilometres away, and for the first time in centuries, her feathers shot up straight. With two four-legged hops, thousands of feathers bolted back down, sealing in a thin layer of flight-assisting helium. With two quick flaps, her wings propelled the dragon high into the dense air.

Along with blueberries, terabytes of information, and crates full of antiques, within the large shuttle, hundreds of frozen eggs waited. From museum collections, ancient tombs, and just donations from other dragons well before their own deaths, Gullna collected the ingredients for a recipe a millennium in the making. 

A rumble formed deep in her chest as she soared above the flat land. The vibration bounced like a bouncy ball down a narrow hallway. For the first of many occasions, a dragon’s song ascended through Egg’s skies.