My senses merged.

  It’s the only way I can think to describe what happened in that moment. Reality was sucked into an infinitesimal point; my whole self, past and present, combined with everything around me. My vision blurred into the sound of the hull groaning under the pressure of the tractor beam. An electrostatic taste in the air laced through it all, intermingling with the faint smell of sweat (my own).

  The dragon’s eye was locked on mine for the trip that seemed to last both a lifetime yet only a fraction of a second, and an overriding sense of cold washed all my other senses away.

  Not a bad foreboding cold. It was a coolness; calm, almost serene. I knew the dragon was the oasis in the whirls of chaos that surrounded me.

  But that’s probably given you the completely wrong impression. All I can say is that travel through hyperspace was weird.

  We slid back into traditional spacetime, and my senses expanded back to normal. The silence surrounding me – only interrupted by the occasional groaning of the ship – was a stark contrast to the chaos of the last few moments.

  My eyes had not left the still dragon throughout. The only explanation of our continued agency was that we had just escaped through FTL (to who knows where), and the way that could have happened, however unlikely, was that the dragon did it. Maybe Faithon’s stories about dragons and hyperspace were real.

  The clomping beat of hooves powering down the corridor did not alter my gaze, which only broke as Baltrax grabbed me by the neck and shoved me against the docking bay window.

  The wind left my lungs as my back hit the solid surface, but none re-entered as my captain’s strong fingers slowly tightened.

  “What in the Light are you doing?” Baltrax shouted, droplets of spittle blowing into my face.

  “Eugghghuhgg,” I helpfully responded. I have to admit, I might have been a little scared. Veins were visible, bulging down the side of Baltrax’s face, which was a feat since her face was covered in a thick coat of short hair. Her eyes bored into me. I’ve seen close-ups of exploding neutron stars that were a placid lake by comparison.

  Then her eyes flickered away from mine, looking through the window into the docking bay. Her mouth opened, and her grip slackened, dropping me to the floor.

  “For the Panaply,” she whispered and put her hands up to the window. “What have you done?”

  Erm. What have I done? I’ve saved us all, obviously! I didn’t say. Instead, I rubbed my neck and got to my feet.

  Since her attention was on the dragon, it was a good time to back away slowly. Although my only plan was to hide in the toilet and hope everybody spontaneously forgot about my existence. But, being an idiot, I glanced back at the dragon and that made me stop in my tracks.

  The dragon was fully awake and looking around the docking bay. A single claw extended from its right front paw and slid through the netting holding it aloft. It fell to the floor, landing lightly on its feet, and moved to investigate its surroundings.

  Baltrax was shaking. Her nails were rattling on the window, and her whole body trembled. Her mane shook. The furious inferno from moments before had been replaced by abject fear.

  I pondered this. Sure, the dragon had some weird powers, but it was a dog-sized creature locked behind doors made of the same refractory alloys as the ship’s hull. It was designed to protect against the rigours of space travel; surely it could protect us from this excitable puppy.

  Yes, I know that was naive. There were no doubt ways it could kill us using hyperspace, but Baltrax’s fear was primal, visceral. It had completely taken her over. It was too much.

  The dragon had made a complete circuit of the docking bay and was now standing by the exit door. It looked up at us through the window and cocked its head to the side. As I said, it was an adorable puppy!

  On instinct, my hand moved towards the console to open the door. But I stopped short of flicking the switch, Baltrax’s reaction making me second-guess myself. Instead, I stood there watching.

  The dragon shook itself, as if it had just been for an impromptu bath, took a deep breath and… No, a ball of plasma did not exit its maw, incinerating half the ship. Instead of the roaring red-orange of fire, a stream of blue-white light crashed into the door separating us.

  A physically painful wave of cold radiated through the door designed to protect against space, and I stepped back, shielding my face.

  Moments later, the dragon bounded at and then through the door, sending frozen shards flying in all directions. I was lucky, but I did notice a chunk of metal sticking out of Baltrax’s leg, with ice crystals made from blood surrounding the wound.

  She did not react at all, her eyes locked on the creature that had just burst through a door made from phase-stabilised metal alloy as if it were paper.

  The dragon looked up at us, jaws parted, showing us its teeth. Oh, so many teeth. It had stopped in that position, one leg in the air, paw hanging down, its head was cocked to the side. If I ignored the teeth (and did I say how many teeth there were?), then it looked… friendly.

  Baltrax was still frozen, but now that the thought had entered my brain, I couldn’t shift it. The dragon wasn’t baring its teeth. It was smiling at us. It couldn’t help it if its biology gave it two rows of incredibly sharp teeth.

  I crouched down. “Good boy,” I said.

  The dragon bounced around in a tight circle. It dipped its head, tail wagging and then bounded at me.

  I instinctively tried to take a step back, but in my awkward crouch, I only succeeded in falling on my butt.

  The dragon bumped his head into my legs and nuzzled into me. A beast full of affection. I couldn’t help but reach out to pet it. Instead of the biting cold I expected, the scales behind the dragon’s ears were soft… and warm. I ran my hand down its back, just to the side of a ridge of spikes protruding from its spine. It quivered in delight and pushed its head further into my stomach.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  I laughed and petted the creature. Its body felt more like a soft cloth than the hard scales I had expected. Heat emanated from its body, and with it so close, the biting cold I’d felt as it blasted through the door was quickly gone. My hand trailed down towards its tail, and it suddenly whimpered. Yes, a real whimper. Totally unexpected. I withdrew my hand to find it bloody. Crashing through the door had not left it unscathed. It might have phenomenal power, but its body was just as vulnerable as my own, maybe more so.

  “It’s alright, boy!” I said, voice low and comforting. “We’ll get you patched up.”

  Girl.

  The voice sounded in my head. It was soft and childlike, with an almost imperceptible hiss. The dragon could understand me, and we could communicate. I know it was irrational, but my dreams of flying through space with her at my side flashed into my mind. The Dragon Nova Corps would fly for justice.

  “I’m sorry, girl. I’m going to take very good care of you. Do you have a name?”

  No, it said, voice low, but then it perked up. You give me name?

  A name. I got to name a dragon? This was the best day ever. The obvious name was Nova, but it didn’t feel right. I’d always associated dragons with fire, but my little friend here was clearly something else. She would need a name that fit, something like–

  “Move away from the beast.”

  Oh, I’d forgotten about Baltrax.

  She hadn’t moved from her spot by the window to the docking bay, but she had her sidearm out and was pointing it directly at me.

  “What? No!” I scrambled to put myself further between the weapon and my new friend. “Stay behind me.”

  “It’s an extinction event in waiting, Ryan.” Baltrax’s hand was wavering. “We need to put it down now, while we still can.”

  “Over my dead body.” Yes, it’s a cliché, but I wasn’t like I had planned for this, so it was what came to mind.

  “Everyone I ever loved… My whole world… ” Baltrax's voice cracked, and then her eyes hardened again. “You saw the damage it can do. Move.”

  The voice was commanding, and I’d spent the past few years jumping to the sound. It was instinct by now. But not today. I wasn’t going to let her kill the creature who had just saved us.

  “That was plasma. It wasn’t her,” I said, desperate. There was no way this dragon had caused any of the damage to the ancient fleet. A flicker of doubt crossed Baltrax’s face, and I pressed my advantage. “Why save her from Explendia, only to kill her now?”

  “It’s too risky. You don’t know, Ryan. You haven’t seen.” Her gun lowered slightly, but then raised again as more footsteps came down the corridor. “No, it’s too risky. If it had stayed in stasis…”

  No stasis! Her voice was adamant in my mind. Don’t let her hurt me.

  “No,” I said. I’m not sure who to.

  “Captain?” The feet belonged to Faithon. I don’t know what he expected to find, but he handled finding a free dragon and his superior pointing her weapon at a crewmember surprisingly well. His voice was calm as he continued. “I think you should put the gun down.”

  “Can’t you see?” Baltrax’s voice, by comparison, quivered. “We can’t… I must.”

  “She saved us.” I cried. “She’s our friend.”

  Friend! The voice echoed in my mind.

  “They were all our friends,” Baltrax said. “Until they weren’t.”

  Faithon took a step forward, hands out with his palms wide. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but Dribble… Ryan, come over to me. This is not worth dying over.”

  He used my first name. What a low-down, dirty trick that was. In two years, he had never once used my first name. And all it took was the threat of being shot in the face. Was I supposed to run to him now? Maybe he would become my new surrogate father figure. We’d sail off into the sunset as a newfound family unit. Happy endings all round. Just because he had finally learnt my first name.

  No. I swore at him instead.

  “Get out of the way!” Baltrax roared. Her patience had worn thin. “6,000 years ago, they decimated my planet. It will not happen again!”

  “Then why not kill her straight away?” I screamed back. That made no sense to me. “Why wait until she saved us. Do you even know where we are? How are we going to get home without her?”

  It was a gamble. I had no idea what had happened. Hyperspace seemed most likely based on what I had felt, but maybe the dragon had blown the Explendian ship up with plasma, and we were still drifting through the wreckage. I couldn’t see how that could have happened, but this was an insane situation.

  I moved ship.

  Well, that confirmed it. But was she reading my mind? I’m not sure how I felt about that. Oh, wait, I totally did.

  Cool!

  “He’s right, Captain,” Faithon said. “I came to tell you. We’re 73 parsecs from known space. It will take 2 years to get home. That’s over 200 years, Explendian time.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Baltrax said. “Nothing matters. I have to do this.”

  “You can’t.” Faithon surprised me by slowly walking forward. He didn’t try to pull me away; he just stood next to me, putting himself between the Baltrax and me. “I’m not letting you shoot Ryan.”

  Baltrax let out a grunt of annoyance. She tensed her arm. But then her shoulders slumped, and her gun lowered.

  And then she turned and walked off down the corridor without another word or even a glance back at us.

  Even when she was out of sight, I didn’t relax fully. Her abrupt change of demeanour was jarring. How long could we rely on it to last? Some of the coldness I had felt earlier returned, but for very different reasons. I tried to shrug the feeling off and turned to the dragon, giving her another stroke. “The big bad captain has gone. You’re safe now.”

  Ryan protect me, the dragon said as she nuzzled further into me.

  Faithon stood watching us. He looked like he wanted to say something, but no words came out. In the end, he shrugged. “We can get something for her leg from supplies, on our way back to the bridge.”

  “But Baltrax?” I said. I did not want to go anywhere near the captain. She may have cooled down for now, but who knew what she would do next time she saw us?”

  “If I know the captain, she’s gone to her quarters to cool off. I doubt we’ll be seeing her for a while.”

  “But what are we going to do?” I asked Faithon. What could we do? How would the universe react to a dragon? It’s not like we could return to Explendia and smuggle her aboard the space station. Or could we…?

  “I hate to say this, but I think we only have one option.” Faithon was quiet for a bit. “You’re not going to like it, but we need to go and see Baltrax’s prophetess.”

  “What? No–”

  “Whoa! Listen.” Faithon's hands were out again, as the dragon cocked her head from side to side as we talked. “The dragon will be fine. It was Baltrax who was scared. If this prophetess is who I think she is, then she will welcome your little friend with open arms.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what will come of it, but it’s the only course of action I can see. Baltrax gave Felix the coordinates. So, Dribble, are we good to go?”

  Back to Dribble again, was it? I looked down at the dragon. “What do you think?”

  I like prophecy, she said.

  Ok, that was it. “Fine,” I said to Faithon. “Let’s go.” As we walked down the corridor towards the bridge, I added, “Anyway, I should introduce you. Faithon, meet Niva.”

  Niva! Niva trilled in my mind. Her scales rippled, sending flashes through the dull-lit corridor. I am Niva!