As the dragon led them through the new vessel, Rieven instructed his armour to inject him with a small dose of stimulant. It was time. He wasn’t even marvelling at his new ship, he was just about to fall over. Ono was even hovering around him like a brooding bird. Rieven was entirely done with this day. Void Spectre training hadn’t had a single day that was this draining. But he had to pay rent on his place. The only easy day was yesterday, he thought to himself. Turns out it’s truer every day.

  Their wandering though the empty and deserted corridors came to an end when they reached the command room, or bridge as the Operatic Empire would have it. Two marines had led the way and cleared the path from the ramp to the command room. They positioned themselves to either side of the door and two more rushed through with lasguns shouldered.

  “Clear!”

  “Clear!”

  The dragon walked through without concern, but Rieven stood staring at the area just outside of the command room. Hanging from the ceiling was his standard. It had been updated and returned. The black dragon had been outlined in gold and the white field was now tasselled with gold on the bottom. The black dragon also shimmered slightly with the dust of some unknown gemstone, mimicking the shine of black scales. I suppose that’s not a dragon, officially, in my language it’s a drake – like me, Rieven thought. I’m going to need time on this. He turned and headed into the command room, putting his questions in the ‘get to it later’ box in his mind.

  He found a seat in the corner and sat down. The dragon was giving someone, Rieven wasn’t sure who, an explanation on the controls. It went quickly. Apparently it was easy to fly. The dragon bowed to Rieven and said, “My lord, unless there’s anything more, I’ll take my leave.”

  “No, nothing more. Dismissed.”

  The dragon bowed again and walked backwards out of the room. Once he passed the threshold he spun around and walked away. Ono ordered the two marines outside to escort him away. Rieven said, “Ono, please take us near the Hidden Dagger, and arrange a shuttle to take us from Death’s Silence to the Hidden Dagger, as well as the clearing of Death’s Silence by your marines, and Werner. I’m meditating until our shuttle arrives. I’m running on stims and high hopes.”

  “Sir!” Ono replied. Rieven closed his eyes, sat up as straight as he could, and sank into an axiomatic meditation to try to understand what the newly grafted eyes were doing to his system. He met with no success.

  -x-

  He felt himself being moved, but couldn’t open his eyes, or even command his faceplate to retract. His mind was a fog and the meditation did not provide any answers – one required available mental capacity for such things and he had none to spare today. After a time he felt the armour being removed from his body and he was laid on a warm table. There was a prick on his neck and the heavy burden of existing in a body began to lift. He could feel energy begin to shift through his system, along with a spike of alarm that was cut off like a lost signal. He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the med bay.

  He looked to his left and there was Major Jeffries, the good doctor, directing three nurses in the preparation and running of several examination scanners. He looked to his right and saw a table over against the far wall that had his armour laid out neatly on it, along with his clothes. The pearl was laid out gently atop the folded clothes, and the painting was leaning carefully against the wall next to the table and safely out of the way.

  He looked down at himself and saw that he was naked, and Ono was standing at the wall, silently looking over the work. Rieven’s mouth was incredibly dry. He worked his tongue, trying to scare up some saliva but gave up and just spoke. His voice sounded like a smaller Big Red. He rasped out, “Ono, sitrep.”

  At the sound of his voice, every head in the room turned to him. A nurse gave him an hydration pouch, already pierced with a bendy straw. He instantly started sucking down the mixture while Ono talked. Each time he finished one, another one was handed to him. Ono said, “You have been meditating more deeply than is advisable sir, it took a special concoction of stims to rouse you. Doc had to mix the vintage himself. It’s been four hours since we took off from the dragon’s ship and so far there is nothing to report. Death’s Silence is being scoured, every inch, by my boys and girls. Following in their wake is Werner and his peeplets. It’s adorable how they follow him around like a mother hen. Doc has been running various scans of your system and is ready to work on you.”

  At this, Major Jeffries opened his mouth and began to speak somewhat rapidly, as if he only had so much time to get the words out. “Commandant, master sergeant Ono has informed me of his observations since your departure almost twelve hours ago, and I have watched his broadcast – watched it live, along with the rest of the Fourth. Bravo sir!”

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  Rieven smiled at that. Jeffries continued, “However sir, you should be dead. The damage you dealt to your axiomatic pattern with your clumsy surgery, while not catastrophic, is a half-step away from detonation. When you ate that green dragon’s eye, which eye did you eat?”

  Rieven gave him a confused look. “I ate his left eye, Doc.”

  “Yes. And which eye did you attempt to graft the new axiomatic pattern you obtained to?”

  “I simply replaced my eyes with..” Rieven breathed in at the realisation. “I attempted to replace both of my eyes with that single pattern.”

  “Yes, sir. You took the axiomatic pattern of the dragon’s left eye and applied it, without correction, to both of yours. You should have duplicated the pattern and reversed the coaxial threads, as is seen in your own eyes. Pre-surgery that is.”

  “Can you fix them? I think scarring is going to begin soon, especially if I sleep, which my body is desperately attempting to convince me to do.”

  “Yes, sir, I can make the situation better, but there is no ‘fixing’. You are stuck with the bones of that new pattern. The fugue you created just for this surgery was brilliant. I just need to mirror it for the right eye, and reverse the coaxial threads, and your eyes should function without your brain being overloaded. Unfortunately we have passed the point where you could replace just one eye. That’s no longer possible. Likewise using the dragon eye as a metaphorical axial third-eye, which I think would have been useful. No, you are going to have dragon eyes for the rest of your life.” He grunted in feigned disdain, “you might as well walk around with your shirt off too, you’re going to be wildly popular. Questions?”

  “Chance of injury or death during the procedure?”

  “Yes. But low. Safer than replacing your heart.”

  Rieven looked once to Ono then back to Jeffries. “Do it.”

  “Very well. Please remain calm and keep your eyes open.”

  Rieven fought to keep his eyes open as the doctor put both hands around his face, fingers touching his ears and his thumbs almost, but not quite, touched his eyes. Major Jeffries spoke, “I am ready now, please visualise your axiomatic pattern and invite me in.” Rieven felt foreign axiom attempt to enter his system. He began open-eye meditation and brought his axiomatic pattern to the fore of his mind, while at the same time allowing the doctor’s axiom to enter. The world faded to black.

  When Rieven regained consciousness, he was hit with a massive wave of vertigo. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, groaning all the while. Someone gently forced an hydration pack into his hands and he drank, keeping his eyes closed. After draining it, he fortified himself and cracked his eyes open. The world was still brighter than it had been, and he could see the coloured stars swimming around and through the people and objects in the room, but it was no longer overwhelming.

  He looked around the room and saw the same people there as before. “How long was I out?” he asked.

  “Just a few minutes sir. It was an easier fix than I thought it would be. You are incredibly adaptable. There will be minimal scarring, I expect none at all, though you never can tell. How do things seem to you?”

  “Brighter, and I think I can see axiom now.”

  The doctor gasped. “See axiom? That’s fantastic! We must”

  “No.” Ono interrupted. Everyone turned to him. “Take a look at that first.” He pointed to the pearl resting on his folded clothes.

  “Actually,” Rieven said, “could I get dressed first? I’m tired of hanging in the breeze.”

  “Of course sir, why would you even ask?” Rieven just rolled his eyes, sat up, and hopped off of the table. He gently picked up the pearl, which emanated fear and concern. He sent back reassurance and strength, with a mixture of patience, then set the pearl on the examination table. While the doctor looked at it strangely, Rieven began to dress.

  “Why am I to look at this thing?”

  Ono responded, “Because it is communicating with our commandant, or something. He hasn’t said yet, but his body language while he interacted with it was consistent with his behaviour whilst communicating.”

  Rieven confirmed this with a grunt of affirmation. “Just feelings or ghosts of sensations, nothing fully formed, but all fuelled by axiom.”

  “How strange. Is it a being or a communication device?”

  “I’m not sure. It changed colours as I sent it positive things, so it’s something.”

  “Hmm, let’s start with this.” He pulled out a metal rod about four centimetres thick and as long as his hand. He ran the side of the wand over and around the pearl and the viewscreen on the wall showed the result. Major Jeffries gasped in shock. “Sir, that is an organism. This isn’t a pearl, it’s an egg!”

  Rieven blinked. “Um, no. Pretty sure Big Red said it was a pearl. Said the manifest confirmed it was a pearl, that the dragons had kept it as a pearl for years and years.”

  “They may have, commandant, but I am a xenozoologist as well as a doctor of humanic medical science, and I can, with assurance, say that this is an organism residing within an egg that merely appears to be a pearl, or at least a pearl all the way through. Without more tests I can’t say if the shell is, in fact, made of pearl.”

  Rieven turned his head to the ‘pearl’ or egg, or whatever it was now. Huh, he thought, why not? No stranger than eating a live dragon’s eye or a dead dragon’s heart. “What sort of organism?”

  The doctor pulled a screen down from the ceiling, adjusting the carrier arm to keep it steady against the pearl. The screen flicked on and in a blue tone they could see the inside of the egg. It was squiggly and writhing and very very alive. Rieven felt fear trickle down the back of his neck. That thing, whatever it was, had been in his mind. That’s not comforting. Except it had been. It had been comforting him the entire time he bore the pearl from the dragon’s collection. That made him pause. He asked, “What is it?”

  The doctor said, “It looks like a juvenile octopus evolved into a dream.” He paused a while to read more of the scans being produced on other screens before continuing. “If its anatomy is similar to an octopus, then I have to say that these scans and their accompanying readings are conclusive.

  “Congratulations sir, it’s a baby boy.”