A little hand approaches. I remain immobile, breathless. She caresses my hair, a contented smile with a hint of sadness. Her body rests upon my chest, a warm and tender feeling overwhelming my emotions as she buries her head next to mine. Wet tears roll down my shoulder, gentle sobs echo within my breast. I hold her against me and stroke her head gently, my fingertips gliding within the curls of her impossibly long hair.

  “There, there. It’s all right, I’m here now.” I whisper, over and over. I’ve no idea what I’m doing but somehow it seems to be working. Her body relaxes against mine and I marvel at the tiny being in my arms. This is my daughter and I’m... papa?

  That can’t be. I know that. Little girls don’t just appear out of nowhere. This has to be an illusion or, or... Makes no difference whatsoever. She called me “papa” and the emotion overwhelms my senses. The old Zéphyr is gone. My life, my ambitions, my thirst for revenge... It all seems so petty, so meaningless, so insignificant...

  I’m papa! Her small body feels warm against mine, her breathing deep and regular. Strong, powerful beats echoing within my chest and meeting hers. She is sleeping and I take a closer look at her folded wings, caressing softly the ridges between her scales.

  Aldine hasn’t said a word yet and I raise my gaze to meet hers. Only... she isn’t there. The room isn’t there either. The battleship is gone. Everything I know is gone. It’s impossible, but at the same time so natural I hardly question it.

  I’m sitting on the ground, my back propped against a large tree, bathed in the soft morning light. The gurgling sounds of a small silver stream call my attention to the world around me. A verdant plain stretches out till a sky of pastel blue. A soft breeze caresses the blades of grass at my side. My hand plunges inside, my fingers digging into rich dark soil. It smells—I’ve never smelled anything like it. Not good or bad. Just real, this is exactly how earth is supposed to smell. I let the dirt fall back down through my fingers.

  Am I on a planet? It looks so much like the “nature” on old Earth they show on holovids. Dragons, and now Earth. It was all true after all? I was born and raised on the station. After Dad died, I was taken to the asteroid mines of Ferat, and that’s the closest I’ve come to planet-side. Even so, I know this place is wrong. The sky is too blue. There are no stars anywhere, mountains reach too high in the sky and the horizon is too close.

  This can't be a real planet, so what is it? Where am I? How did I get here?

  As I reach again for the child resting against my chest, I realize I’m not wearing my EVA suit anymore, just a plain shirt and a pair of cargo pants just like the ones I usually wear. A dream. No, an illusion. If it was a dream, I would surely have woken up already. I scan my environment, looking for... for something I can do.

  How do you stop illusions anyway?

  “You’re in here with me, silly!” she murmurs into my ear. “Where else would you be?”

  Her tiny voice captures my attention as readily as a shotgun blast.

  “You can hear my thoughts?”

  My little princess pulls herself back and clasps my cheeks in her tiny hands. I hold still as she inspects me with obvious curiosity.

  “Of course! Why wouldn’t—” She freezes mid-sentence, accusation in her voice, “You’re not my Papa!”

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  My heart sinks as her serious eyes dive into mine. I’d give anything to be ‘Papa’ again, but I’m not. I’m just—

  “But I can feel Papa in you. Who are you?”

  Find her, save her... Of course that’s her.

  My heart skips a beat as I realize the obvious: I’m hugging and caressing a dragon hatchling! All I see is a cute little girl. How was I supposed to know she would be related to the void dragon who attacked the station a few hours ago? I mean, aside from the dragon egg, and the wings, and... OK, so I’m an idiot. What now?

  “I am—I mean, my name is Zéphyr and—Your Papa told me to find you and to—to take care of you.”

  “Oh, I see! Nice to meet you. I’m Melissa!” she beams at me with a charming smile, “You’re taking Melissa to Papa, right?”

  Am I? I long to say “yes”, I can’t disappoint her—Is she manipulating me? Yes, she is. What of it?

  She chuckles and presses herself into me. I’ve no defense against that.

  “How am I supposed to get you to Papa, Melissa? I can’t very well search through the galaxies for dragons and ask around if one of them is missing a hatchling? Your papa left through the jump point. He could be anywhere by now!”

  I don’t mention that he was wounded and would probably be in hiding, nor that the fleet is probably hunting him down, which makes the task even more impossible. That doesn’t matter. It was already impossible to begin with.

  Find her. Save her. Finding her was easy enough. Saving her... perhaps I could do that. Me, raising a dragon’s daughter. Would that count as “saving”? I don’t want to argue semantics with an elder space Leviathan.

  “Don’t worry about that stuff. It’s going to be all right,” she says with a reassuring smile. “You found me. We are together now.”

  Before I have a chance to answer, she presses her finger across my mouth.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll help you, you’ll—” she frowns and pushes me away. “You have to go! Now! Run!”

  I'm thrown backward with incredible force. The world whirls out of existence before I have a chance to ask, and for the second time today, I wake up to Aldine dragging my unconscious body. I’m still clutching the egg. It’s kind of small now, for some reason. As she realizes I'm awake, she yanks me in front on her. In low grav, she can literally shove around, and from the little I’ve seen, that’s totally her thing.

  This is different, though. She’s in full panic mode:

  “Are you OK? Can you move? We have to go now!”

  The place is silent as a grave. I glance at the suit’s meters. Oxygen’s a bit lower than I thought it would be, but there’s still plenty. Both suits are in good condition, and the ship is as quiet as it was before. Nothing alarming.

  “Calm down. What’s the big hurry?”

  She doesn’t answer directly. Instead she spins me around like a puppet and points my head towards the giant viewport of the main bridge. A bright warning “Proximity alert, Incoming...” is rolling at the top of the screen, but I don’t need it: out there in the starfield, several Myriad class battleships are making their way toward us.

  I’m still clutching the dragon’s egg... Melissa. Save her. How am I supposed to do that? If there was any chance they’d let us go before, that chance is gone. They’d never let us live now that we've seen it. Not even Aldine.

  “Vince! Where’s the tug?” I snarl in the comm.

  “I’m waiting just outside of the hatch. Why?”

  “Great! Get Tuggie ready for a jump.”

  “For a WHAT? She is not rated for deep—”

  “Do it. We’re on our way.”

  I cast one last glance at the battleships to gauge the distance and race after Aldine. We’re running at full speed, stepping all over the corpses. It doesn’t matter anymore. If we don’t make it, we’ll join them.