A Short Story by A.B. Timothy

Matthew bounced up and down in a rhythm that had taken more than some time to get used to. Aloft and behind him, he carried across the black plain of space a white banner, flowing and fluttering to the full length of his newest friend, Su’onna, a glorious, great gold dragon whose body and tail stretched across many fields. Matthew was careful not to even refer to the dragon as beautiful in his mind, even though the great Su’onna was that. The great beast, he didn’t like the term, so Matthew did not use it.

It had been many months since his ‘death’ at the hands of the swarming wyrms back above their homeworld. Now he was one of them… lost among the people of their world and becoming entrenched in the traditions and customs of a dragonrider. Now… Well… Now, he wanted nothing more than to go home to his people and pursue peace. He wanted to hold Sarah in his arms again; he wanted to wrestle Jonathan and Fred, teach them, after such a long educational lapse, who was still in charge; the pair had more than likely grown arrogant in his absence.

If they had grown arrogant, he must have grown ten times as such. Of course, as a boy, he’d read stories, watched movies, “boy suffers tragedy, boy learns new ways and new culture, boy returns to his own, his own received him with hesitant optimism, everyone lives happily ever after,” or something. The play-by-play is different in every story, but Matthew had faith that his might be different. He wanted it to be different because he’d done it twice, first when initially joining up with the hunters as a member of the Joyriders, but also now becoming a part of the dragonriders. These people were his friends, but who would he give his loyalty to, the Joyriders? Or the Dragonriders? All of these contemplations whipped through his mind as the banner whipped through nothingness, mimicking the dragon’s curling and whipping bodily motions as it warped space to fly therethrough.

“It, Matthew? I thought we’d been done with this ages ago.” Su’onna said.

“Right, forgive me, Su’onna, it was a slip,” Matthew replied.

“I’m sure,” The great beast said, rolling his eyes.

“The proximity field says we are close, Su,” Matthew said. “Is there anything I can do to increase the likelihood that they see the white flag?”

“You tell me,” Su’onna replied, “The flag of peace for our people, as we told you, is the red banner, which, given what you’ve now taught us, explains why our suings for peace were always met with drums of war, not carpets of peace.”

“Right.” With that, Matthew lifted the banner a little higher and, after squeezing the dragon’s saddle with his knees, took his other hand off the saddle and onto his compression suit, adjusting and tweaking this connection, or that joint. He was a little short for these tall suits, but they hadn’t had time to fit one for him. Not before the sources in Earth’s forces warned of a fleet moving into the gap, pierced by the Joyriders, preparing for a full-scale invasion of Gaia, the Dragon’s homeworld. Now, Matthew and Su’onna were approaching their enemy’s staging ground.

Matthew was extremely nervous, but felt confident that his people would respect a white banner. They did just that! Matthew breathed a sigh of relief as two pilots fell into the stream with Su’onna and waved him onto the main station. As Su’onna came to a rest on the massive landing site the asteroid had, a dome was enclosed around them, and the place became pressurized. He took his helmet off and slid off Su’onna’s back, carrying the motionless white banner behind him.

A few fighters had slipped in before the dome was shut and had landed nearby. Off in the distance, Matthew saw all kinds of weapon emplacements locked on Su’onna. Matthew felt a great deal of anxiety coming from the beast and placed a hand on his scales, “Don’t worry, Su, they’re gonna have to get through me first. He turned to begin walking toward the now landed jets and, just after he had cleared Su’s giant tail, he felt someone grab him from behind, pinning his arms to his chest, Matthew acted on instinct, dropping his weight and breaking the assailant’s grip with a sharp thrust of his arms before he grabbed his assassin’s neck and flipped him over, slamming him to the deck of the station, with an arm reared back and fist aimed at Sarah’s throat, Sarah? “Sarah?” The word came out with a thick wyrm-ish accent.