Planet Heist (The Dunham Archives Book 1) (30 page)

Another projection appeared out of nowhere, this time it was the Prime Minister.

“The task is simple: Kill the Beast. No one has ever done it, and I have reason to believe that nobody ever will.”

I waited a moment before opening the door, prepping myself to face the monster.

Ross looked at me nervously when another deafening growl shook the ground below our feet, “I’m more than a little terrified.” He whispered. I handed Rowan the collapsible sword, and he looked at it in awe. Ross got the gun from the shooting challenge I had just finished. I pulled out my trusty dagger, ready for anything.

“It’ll be fine. I’m sure it can’t be too-”

And then I saw it.

In front of us stood a golden dragon, standing on all fours, so huge I can barely describe it even now. It was so massive that it could use one of my mansions as a baseball bat. Its great scales, each the size of me or larger, glittered golden yellow in the dim lighting. At the moment I saw it, the Beast was looking away from us, so we all got a good look at it. It had a long, sharp tail with huge, thorn like spike the size of sails. The largest spike was on the end of its tail, and they went all the way up to its head.

Ross sucked in a nervous breath, and the dragon heard it.

Its massive head turned around slowly until it was staring straight at Ross.

It had the most frightening face I had ever had the displeasure of seeing. The whole head was pockmarked with jagged slashes and long scars all across the face. All around the eyes, the weakest point on the body, were horrid cuts. The worst part was its left eye. It was glazed over, and it didn’t follow the right one.

“It’s blind in its left eye. Good. Row, distract it on its right. Try getting under its front right leg. Ross, do whatever Rowan tells you.” I told them quietly, “Go now.”

Rowan ran at the dragon, and all of its attention went to my brother.

I ran around the back and jumped on its tail. It thrashed around, but I kept a tight hold. When I got up to the first of the spikes, I made to hold onto it. But, the moment I pressed my hand to it, I found out the hard way that the sail spike was razor sharp. My hands got sliced open, and the dragon threw me off. I flew threw the air and landed in a heap next to my clear bag. I reached in and carefully plucked out the blue gel. I used it like lotion and spread it on my hands. I shoved the gel into the pocket of my dress and pulled off my shoes.

Then, a real problem emerged.

The dragon reared back onto its hind legs, roaring with such ferocity they must have heard it hundreds of feet above us in the Institute. A column of azure blue and bright orange flame shot out of its nostrils, charring the rock in front of us. Ross, ten feet away, got his clothes singed so bad they were almost falling off. A wave of pure heat slammed me backwards.

“Ross!” I called out.

He had collapsed on the ground, and the dragon looked like it was ready to eat him.

I ran up to him and stabbed the dragon in the nose, burning my hand. When I pulled my sword back out, it was piping hot. I dropped it and grabbed Ross. I couldn’t bear to be distracted by his injuries as I dragged him to the back of the room. I left him there and ran back for my sword.

Running off towards the dragon again, I couldn’t help but be scared. I’ve never fought anything this large before. While I was running, a plan began forming in my head. I jumped onto the dragon’s left claw, and began climbing up. Its scales were like massive rocks, and I climbed them as such. It was an arduous climb up, and I was tired by the time I reached its back. I sat for a moment with my hands dug under a scale so I wouldn’t go flying off.

I watched my brother weave between its legs, doing an amazing distraction job. The dragon was completely enthralled in trying to get him away. It swatted at him and snapped huge teeth. Another plume of fire shot at my brother. But Rowan was way too fast, of course, to be caught. He slid onto his back under the dragon.

A shot rang out, and my adrenaline level skyrocketed when I found out that Ross accidentally loosed a shot into the right eye of the dragon. I knew that there were only moments until the dragon got a bullet in its only functional eye, and it would go for Ross.

I shouted as I trotted up, “Row! Stab it in the stomach, right between the front legs!”

I ran, fast as lighting, up the back of the dragon. My steps were light so that the dragon wouldn’t notice me. When I reached its head, I sat and slid down to its nose. I stood shakily, looking into its pitch black eyes. I saw the tiny bullet make contact with its eye.

It roared and thrashed its head around, exactly what I wanted it to do. I let it throw me off, propelling me up into the air. When I was at the height of the jump, the dragon’s head turned back and I landed safely right under its eye.

I stabbed down, directly at the center of the eye. It began falling forward.

Down below, Rowan knew this was his moment, and he run under its body. As he worked at shredding its guts open, I slid down the dragon’s back and jumped onto the ground. I darted to where Rowan was standing, under the dragon’s light yellow, rigged stomach. He was making long gashes in the dragon’s underbelly, and crimson blood was spilling out.

Rowan made a quick, gruesome job of ripping apart its gigantic heart. The Beast toppled to the ground in defeat.

“That wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought it would be.” Rowan said

“Are you kidding? Did you see Ross? And my feet?”

My feet were shredded open from running up the scales.

Rowan cursed, “And what exactly happened to Ross?”

“Go see for yourself. I’ll fix up myself.” I said, and plopped down.

Amazingly, the blue gel hadn’t fallen out of my pocket yet. I spread it into my feet tenderly, and they healed almost all the way. There were only a few small cuts around my ankles.

I grabbed my bag and ran to Ross.

His arm was completely burned, all the way from his fingertips to his shoulder. Ross’s eyes were closed.

But one might face their final hour.

“No.” I whispered. “Not Ross.”

Rowan looked at me confusedly.

I squeezed out the last of the blue gel, dreading its end. I made a mental note to call Hearth for more. I rubbed the last of the gel into Ross’s arm, healing it almost fully. That was the first sign to me that Ross was till alive. If he was dead, he wouldn’t have any natural cell reproduction in the first place, so the gel wouldn’t be able to speed it up, and the whole thing would be pointless.

Ross’s eyelids fluttered, “Hey beautiful.”

“He better be talking to you, Kai.” Rowan said, rolling his eyes.

I smiled at Ross, and play-slapped Rowan on the back of his head. Of course, my light slap was harder than the normal person’s regular slap, and Rowan shot me a look.

“So, where’s the door?” Rowan wondered.

I scanned the perimeter of the room. Just stone.

“My best bet is that the dragon was guarding it.” I told him logically.

“Awesome.” Heavy sarcasm, “How do we get to it?”

I stood up, thinking about it. Rowan helped Ross up and they looked at me expectantly.

My mind raced, “We can’t move the dragon.”

“Obviously.” Ross replied sardonically.

I shot him an agitated look.

He returned with a smile, “Why don’t we
find
the door first. We can go from there.”

He walked up to the dragon, and my brother and I followed.

“It’s probably under the stomach.” Rowan said in an attempt to be helpful.

“It would never be there. You would’ve seen it. Duh.” Ross countered with a snicker, obviously trying to aggravate my brother. I didn’t stop him simply because, hey, Rowan’s fun to irritate.

“Don’t insult my intelligence. Where do
you
think it is?” Rowan challenged.

“Back left foot.” Ross replied, as if it was obvious.

“Oh really?” Row retorted, “Why?”

“That’s the only part of the body the dragon wouldn’t move while you were trying to fight it. You two seriously didn’t notice?” Ross’s left eyebrow went up. His glasses were sitting crooked on his face, broken a bit on the side.

“Of course I didn’t.” I said, a snarky tone in my voice, “I was a little preoccupied
fighting a dragon
. And, not to mention, saving your life. Don’t try to belittle me.”

“Sorry.” Ross said quietly.

“Good. Ross – how much do you think that foot weighs?” I asked – rhetorically.

Of course, Ross didn’t notice that.

“Maybe…six hundred pounds? Give or take a few.” Ross told me.

“Oh!” I exclaimed happily, “Row and I can push that.”

“What?!” Ross gaped in disbelief, “But you guys are so…weak looking.”

“Don’t be naïve, Ross. You know that Saizians are naturally small, but have over twice the muscle mass of humans. The strongest humans have been known to lift anywhere from five hundred to a thousand pounds. I can lift about three-fifty, and Rowan can lift about…what – six-, seven-hundred pounds?” I shot Row a question, the answer, for some odd reason, eluding me.

“Kilos, Kai.” Rowan corrected.

“Wait…”Ross was stunned, “You can lift six- or seven-hundred
kilos
?”

“Yeah. What about you, small fry?” Rowan teased.

“I’ve never lifted anything I didn’t have to.” Ross laughed, and Rowan rolled his eyes.

“Then I suppose,” I cut in, “you can leave this to Rowan and I.”

Ross nodded, “I wouldn’t be any use to you, anyways.”

“You’re awfully good at being right,” Rowan teased.

“Stop fooling around, boys. Row, help me move the foot.” I commanded.

As it happens, the claw was heavier than originally anticipated. It was taller than Rowan and had to weigh at least a thousand pounds. We actually needed Ross, weak as he may be, to move it. Every muscle helps, even if it’s barely functional.

The door down was a classic, wooden trap style. There was a bronze latch holding down the wooden panels.

I looked down at it, and suddenly, it was like my heart was being crushed in fear. It pounded against my ribs and climbed up into my throat, where it stayed, preventing me from speaking for a few moments. It’s like the last month of my life was suddenly coming to life.

The biggest crime of my career,
I thought happily, anxiety cascading through my body.

But, I quickly regained my composure.

“Alright, boys. Stay here.” I said, my voice shaking.

“What?” Rowan gaped, “We
have
to come with you. You’ll die.”

“No.” I told him firmly, “I…I can handle this. I can handle anything”

“Sounds a bit like you’re trying to reassure
yourself
.” Ross said.

“Don’t try to be helpful.” Rowan suggested.

I smiled, “Don’t worry about me, either of you.”

With that, I opened the hatch and jumped down.

I landed safely after a fall of ten or so feet, nothing out of the ordinary.

The room I fell into, however, was anything but ordinary. The first obvious oddity was that I was now in a forest. A real forest, as if I was actually outside. An open, deep purple sky above me with no zenith spread out millions of miles above me, despite the floor I had just come from. In front of me sat hundreds of hulking pine and oak trees. Thick mist prevented me from seeing into the forest.

I whipped around, suddenly wondering what was on the other side of me and was almost shocked to find huge farmland in front of me.

“Well,” I mumbled to myself, “nothing over there.”

Then, I felt extremely stupid and turned back around. My feet crunched against dried leaves and pine needles that were suddenly on the ground as I walked into the edges of the forest. There was a full moon above me, but it gave off no light and I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me.

My hands scraped lightly on the rough trees next to me as I made my way forward, stumbling in the darkness. Sodden leaved squished around under my still bare feet, and I almost gagged at the texture.

But I pressed on, spiny leaves cutting my feet open and soggy plants making them burn.

After I few minutes, I saw a warm, glowing light filtering through the trees. It grew stronger as I went closer, soon illuminating everything around me.

Intrigued, I sped up. The trees grew thicker, but suddenly thinned out. It wasn’t long before I stood in a soggy, leafy clearing. At the center was the glowing orb of light.

The orb was mesmerizing. It was about the size of my fist, and pulsed with different colored lights that danced around the forest.

The Xeron.

I reached my hand out, tentatively to grab it, wary of any traps that could be around me. When my fingers touched the smooth, perfect light, it flickered and went out. I examined it carefully, wonder spread across my face.

I put a bit of pressure on it with my thumb. Immediately, a holographic screen popped up in front of me, showing hundreds of options.