You call us heroes, but that is not how we saw ourselves. It is true we were gifted with long life by the gods for our feat, but at the time all we knew was that someone had to do something. We were the ones who had the opportunity, and the ones who took it. If that makes us heroes, then the galaxy is full of heroes.

  – Parth, the Fourth Hero

  The rumbling and motion had stopped some time ago, leaving Naven staring at the underside of the bunk above his. The room had been refit in a hurry, he could tell. The bunks were set into the wall, but the actual frames were open, so he could see the metal lattice and the springs beneath the mattress. It relaxed him to zone out and trace the network the struts made, as if constructing and solving his own mazes in his head.

  There wasn’t much else he could do, really.

  He knew the battle was over now. It hadn’t lasted long before the inertial compensators had fully taken over, reducing the apparent motion to nothing at all. A few minutes, that’s how long it had taken Apex to dispatch whatever resistance he’d been faced with. No doubt the opposition hadn’t thought an obsolete ship with patchwork armor could be a real threat.

  Naven’s mind flashed back to his own battle with Apex, and again the seed of doubt entered his mind. He’d been presuming the voice was a deluded fool hooked into the ship, or worse that Sallus had bound someone’s soul to the ship. Now, once again, he wondered if Apex weren’t telling the truth. Seeing how the ship moved with a smooth, lifelike fluidity instead of the clumsy operation of such mechanimal constructs he’d seen before had been shocking at the time, but he’d never come up with a way that it could be done.

  Unless Apex were really a dragon.

  But that was impossible, wasn’t it?

  He shook his head. This had entered his thoughts several times this past week, but ultimately it didn’t matter. The ship, ancient or not, was deadly if it came close enough to grapple. That wasn’t a tactic used by the modern navy, and Naven wasn’t sure how much it would work in the future, but if they kept upgrading the Draconis ship it might not need to get in close any more.

  Naven was also worried about the fact that neither Apex nor Sallus had directly stated their goals, only that they were ‘in alignment’ with one another. Neither was obtuse enough to leave off that goal if they thought it would help convince him to help them, which led him to only one conclusion.

  What they both wanted must be something he wouldn’t want.

  Unless he just hadn’t asked the right way?

  The Lieutenant rolled out of his bed and stretched, then considered his options. There wasn’t a call button, but maybe Apex would just respond to his name? He wasn’t sure how often the so-called dragon was listening. If he was secretly just a human, elf, or other humanoid mind hooked into the system, he was doing a very good job of pretending not to care.

  “Apex? Are you there?” Naven’s voice quavered at the end, and he chided himself. Showing weakness in front of this sociopath would be unlikely to end well.

  It was but a moment before the throaty voice returned over the intercom. “For the moment.”

  Sigh. Naven closed his eyes and tried to keep his cool about this. Sometimes, the dragon could be so irritating.

  “Right. Are you always listening, or did you just pick up on me saying your name?” Before he went into everything he’d been thinking, the human might as well clear this up.

  “Yes.” The unhelpful comment was followed by a small clarification. “I can always hear you, and my attention was brought by my name. You rarely have anything to say I’d want to listen to.”

  He should have expected that. Naven sighed again, but dismissed the thought and went to his real topic.

  “Right… so I’ve been thinking, and I have a few questions.” He slid into one of the chairs at the table. “I’ve never directly asked you, but I will now. What goal do you have in mind that you share with Sallus? What could be so important that she’d bring a dragon back from the dead?”

  He’d humor the voice for now… especially since he was starting to wonder if it was true, more and more.

  The pause was longer this time before Apex answered.

  “I will not tell you that.”

  As Naven expected. He crossed his arms and frowned. “Because you know I wouldn’t like it?”

  “That is correct. Sallus believes that you will eventually want the same thing, so I have decided to follow her advice.”

  That part surprised Naven more than anything else. Apex following advice didn’t seem very natural to him, so the advice must have been very convincing. “You think I’ll change my mind?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “About the reason?” Apex asked that with a note of curiosity in the rumbling voice. “No, I do not see any way that will happen, but I am unfamiliar with this time.”

  At least the dragon-ship was bluntly honest about this sort of thing. It made Naven even more confused about it, but if Apex wasn’t talking, there wasn’t much more he could do about that. He nodded his head.

  “I take it you captured your freighter. Did it give you what you wanted?” Naven wasn’t sure if they were after more supplies or some kind of information, but either way it was good to keep the dragon talking.

  “We are loading the cargo right now. Sallus has obtained our next target, but I suspect she already knew where it was and this was merely confirmation.”

  A raised eyebrow met the dragon’s camera as it looked upon Naven. “You think she already knows the source of the kaleidoscope? Then why go through all of this trouble, you think?”

  “Who knows?” The rumbling, deep digitized voice of the dragon sounded incongruous with the almost casual, conversational words, fighting the threatening tone. “I am no expert in the thoughts of Lesser Folk, and Sallus is more of a mystery than most.”

  Naven snorted quietly. “You can say that again. I’m wondering where she gets all her information. She doesn’t carry herself like a common cult leader, and she clearly had a lot of resources to fix you up.” He didn’t linger on that thought, though. He’d already brought it up with Apex before, and he had other things to wonder about. “What about the freighter? Are you bringing on board the crew and scuttling it, or letting them go?”

  “We will be destroying part of the remaining cargo and leaving the ship. The crew has already been executed.”

  Those words brought Naven’s thoughts to a halt. Casualties in battle he could understand, even if he objected to this vigilante justice on a basic level. The casual way Apex said executed was something else entirely, and made his stomach flip.

  “Were they a danger? It… I don’t know that I can sit here while the helpless are being killed. Isn’t that why you rescued me?” He was very sure that was the exact reason Apex had given for pulling him from the wreckage.

  “It was not my decision. I likely would have left them alive, that is true.” Naven could hear the unspoken reason in the tone of voice. Apex wouldn’t have spared them out of mercy, but because he didn’t care one way or the other. It was less effort to leave them alive. “Sallus did not wish for anyone to learn of my attack strategy. This makes sense, I suppose.”

  It did make sense, but Naven didn’t have to like that. He felt a little queasy as he realized what the elf had done. She could be cold, or she could be personable, but he needed to remind himself that she was ruthless to a fault. The human took a breath to steady himself.

  “It probably wasn’t necessary.” Naven leaned back, his arms still crossed and his face grimacing in distaste. “We shouldn’t be flying into a sovereign state to murder merchants anyway. Even if they are criminals. You could likely have stuck them in quarters and turned them over to the Enforcers, or even crossed over to the next Principality if you really think the Enforcers here are corrupt.”

  “Sounds inconvenient.”

  “In the short term, maybe,” Naven admitted. “In the long term it is a good idea. Trust me on this.” He wasn’t really sure about that. If Sallus really intended to act as a terrorist, then the ‘no survivors’ strategy might serve her well. But… “It sounds like she just wants to keep your presence a secret as long as possible. I think indiscriminate murder isn’t the right way to do that.”

  “You were given the opportunity to change her mind. You waited instead.” Apex’s voice didn’t even sound accusatory, just… bored and now slightly distracted. As if this entire conversation were beneath his notice.

  That’s when Naven realized it probably was beneath his notice.

  Whether Apex was truly a dragon or not, he’d clearly taken on a very inhuman attitude. A tiny part of Naven wondered where the idea came from, because if it was wrong it was a strange thing to make up whole cloth, and if he was really the legendary Emperor Dragon… it didn’t make sense either. Callous and flippant though he might be, Naven had to admit that Apex didn’t seem like the sort to want to rule anything.

  The accusation had hit home, though. Naven felt it like a stab in the gut. He had been told that would be something he could stop. Had Sallus specifically done this knowing that he’d hear about it, to show him the cost of noncompliance? Or was she really that ruthless and would have done it regardless of if he’d been here or not?

  “I think Sallus is trying to force me to join you two.” The grumble came out amidst his thoughts. “Dangling that in front of me and then doing this…”

  “That is possible.” The dragon mused aloud to him, and sounded less distracted now. “I am sure she could find a use for you, but if she had this planned out beforehand, it did not include you.”

  “Great, an adaptable fanatical terrorist.” Naven sighed. “I shouldn’t let her threaten me with compliance, though. Holding the future lives of others hostage is just…”

  The man shut up, realizing he was about to launch into moralization with a being that really didn’t care about it one way or the other. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what the dragon-ship’s thoughts on it were.

  “Would you like my advice, Naven Moongale?”

  The growled question startled Naven, causing him to sit up sharply. He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you offering advice to me? I thought you didn’t care?”

  “To some degree I do not.” Apex answered immediately. “Your decisions are your own. However, you are here as a result of my decision. I have some small amount of responsibility for your comfort.”

  “Go on?”

  “Whether she is doing so to force your hand or not, does it matter? You are responsible for these deaths, and for whatever reason it bothers you. I also believe that Sallus is not entirely honest with me, and your presence as a voice in our meetings would be welcome. If nothing else, you could do worse than having a Great Dragon as an ally.”

  Naven flinched at that. Apex hadn’t said feel responsible, he’d bluntly stated that Naven was responsible. In a way he could see that. He’d had the opportunity to prevent some of the bloodshed, and had refused out of loyalty. But was his loyalty to the Coalition as a whole? Or was it to the Commonwealth?

  Or was it to the people who lived there?

  The human scratched at his beard.

  “You make a good point,” he allowed.

  “Call in Sallus and we’ll discuss terms.”

  Diversions