“Break. Five minutes, lads. Countdown begins now.” I hit the clock and twisted, trying to get the kink out from between my shoulder blades. Every trip, knots bury themselves hard beneath my skin, like a strange sort of game of marbles. My body plays itself, using my stress to raise the stakes.

Don’t get me wrong. The money after a successful trip is wildly generous, and I take full advantage. I’m fresh as a daisy – not that anyone remembers what that means these days, but that’s the saying – by the time I have to cross the Sewers again.

“Cap’n.” The slurred word isn’t a question, but there it is. The indicator that precedes the question.

Technically, I should be an admiral by now. If we were still in the Milky Way, close to Mother Earth, I would be, but then I’d be trapped in bureaucracy and screaming with boredom. Out here with a ragtag fleet cobbled together with duct tape and wire? You get what the crews’ll give you, and this one comes with a bob of respect along with the inevitable question.

It’s the same every time. The new guys all ask. “Why the break?”

I grunted and kept my eyes on the scanner. Pointed at some blobs on the screen. “Piki, you see this?”

A nod, caught in peripheral vision. He hovers, trying to see without getting closer.

“Move up if you want to.” I don’t mind giving away my tricks. I do this because I want the challenge and to get away from the world, not for the money. The more of us out here in the Sewer, the more chance of rescue when I’m the one who bites it this time.

Usually I’m the one doing the rescuing. Apparently I’ve got a reputation.

And so, the question, every time. Asking why we stop isn’t literal. They want to know how I do it. How I’ve gotten so many fleets through.

He inches over with a shuffle, and I hear the slight wheeze of his breathing.

“Look, this here is our fleet. Everyone’s transiting real slow through this shit.” That’s why they call it the Sewer. Everyone has the same reaction when they see it. Wrinkled nose, trying to dodge, hoping you make it through without an explosion. A crappy path, mined out and filled with debris. Moving debris.

Supposedly the companies that drilled out here were going to clean it up before an asteroid strike had them cut their losses. I’d believe that if they hadn’t mined in a damn asteroid belt to begin with. It’s still the best way from point A to B, at least until they come up with a better starship drive that can skip it entirely.

I keep my eye on the tech developments. Too young to retire, dontcha know. But wormholes or gate jumping in space, that’ll be the sign. Retire or head west, no-longer-young-man, until the next planet ends the adventure with an ammonia atmosphere or an alien melts my brain.

“That’s the fleet. We’re waiting for them to catch up.”

He rubs a hand over his nose and leans toward the screen. “Because everything backs up in the Toilets.”

I pull my lips back in a grimace. The safe path is ridiculously narrow, and this is the worst of it. It’s why I stop just past when I’m escorting a fleet through. “Yeah. So we wait to see if we’re needed for rescue.”

I stab a finger at the screens and the view switches to our plotted course with a bright red, dotted line. It’s the safe path specific for this particular flight through the asteroids, charted with more AI than is good for anyone and updated continuously with my personal VFR. The ships don’t join the fleet if they aren’t willing to follow it precisely.

“Flow like water, around obstacles. But make sure you clear the path behind you, not just in front of you.”

The countdown flashes the one minute warning. Piki bobs his head again, thin shoulders shuffling. “So you remember you’re human.”

“Yeah.” I flip the screen back and lean back with a satisfied grin. “That’s really all there is to it. You see the dots onscreen? I see the same number as when I went in.”

He lets out a whoop that echoes weirdly with the countdown buzzer, then heads back to his station with his head down when the others return. It’s the loudest I’ve ever heard him.

I’m relieved, too, but can’t let that show in front of the crew. They expect calm and steady, just as they know rock-solid that five minutes is all it’s safe to pause, because that’s all I gave them. Every contingency planned for and thirteen different types of anticipation for any eventuality.

Also, cleanup’s a bitch. Especially when it’s a euphemism for salvage, not rescue. It’s easy to lose your humanity out here when mistakes will kill in ways you can’t anticipate. To get callous about things you never dreamed you’d laugh about, even though we came to the stars to ensure humanity survived.

But you’d think more people would get the point about treating the spaceflow path of a fleet like water, and the Sewer like plumbing. Especially given the name of the ship.

I reach for the comms and let the relief channel through my words. “Alligator Fleet, this is Plumber Actual. Damage assessment requested…”

***

“When the sewers backed up, the alligators started coming out of the toilets…” I knew I wanted to do something different than the obvious with ‘nother Mike’s prompt this week, but all credit for this idea goes to The Husband.

My prompt went to Cedar Sanderson, and I can’t wait to see what she does with a penguin attack!

Water lapped at the docks with quiet repetition. Soft music shifted as they strolled down the weathered planks between restaurants. Fairy lights began to provide additional atmosphere as birds flew their last twilight missions, hurrying with the last bits of twigs and worms.

Hand in hand, each of them eating soft serve ice cream with their free hands. All in all, it was the epitome of a restful summer day in New Hampshire.

Peter gave June a nudge. “You see that?”

She popped the last bite of her vanilla cone into her mouth. “Argh. Some tourist left their purse behind, looks like. I’ll go see if there’s a wallet.”

He squeezed her hand briefly and let go. “I think I see a uniform up there. I’ll go see if it’s a policeman.”

June sat on the wooden bench and leaned over the straw tote with a giant pink flower. The purse shifted, and she caught an expensive DSLR camera before it hit the ground with a sigh of relief.

Her touch woke the camera from technological sleep. The back lit up with the last photo taken. June paused, unfamiliar with the device and uncomfortable with uncertain ethics of viewing another’s photos without explicit permission.

“Maybe it’ll give a clue if they’re still in the area,” she muttered to herself, and zoomed in on the first image.

A group of tourists stood atop one Rattlesnake mountain. One had – the body of a horse? An illusion, of course. A trick of angles. How would a horse make the hike?

Another man seemed to have wings. Surely, a convenient cloud. She squinted, finding it difficult to focus on the man’s face. That peculiar golden glow must be from sunlight.

She pressed the back arrow to move to the next photo. A hydra stood in front of Lake Winnipesaukee’s brilliant blue waters, each of its nine heads grinning with exuberant energy and wearing a different hat.

“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted.

June looked up into dark sunglasses that were no longer appropriate for the steadily increasing dusk. Dyed green dreadlocks fell to shoulder length above a floaty wrap dress covered in flowers that matched the one on the purse – and the photographs – precisely.

“This must be yours,” June said, handing the woman the bag. “I was hoping to find a clue. My boyfriend went to find…”

The woman’s thick braided hair moved with a faint hiss. The woman didn’t use her hands to push it back.

She felt the blood rush out of her face, and was suddenly very glad the gorgon had worn her glasses.

“Er…” she managed.

The woman turned back toward June, apprehension across her face. “Yes?”

She managed an unsteady grin. “Welcome to Lost Creek.”

***

I grabbed a spare from the Odd Prompts this week, as I forgot what day it was. Oops!

Check out last week’s belated entry here.

Miranda awoke disoriented from her spot drowsing in the warm afternoon sunlight. She straightened her scaled crimson forelimbs, soft black topsoil churned under sharp claws. Blinking, she raised her head and looked around, uncertain why she’d awakened from her nap.

The view extended around her looked structurally the same as it had since she’d first arrived ten years ago. An orchard stretched to the northwest, a lake to the east, a cabin to the south, surrounded by forest. To the north, the mountain chain with its white peaks towered, jagged teeth that bound the horizon. The Great Mountain loomed large and forbidding above all the rest.

The changes were small but vital. The orchard’s trees were no longer dried and half-dead from benign neglect, as they had been when she’d started her exile. Now they sparkled in orderly rows, almost-ripe jeweled stonefruits gleaming rainbows in the light. The cabin roof had been repaired from leaks and rot both, and extended into a cool, dry network of natural caverns. Even the lake improved from swampy muck after blockage had been cleared and aquatic plants filtered.

She had done this, Miranda thought with satisfaction, a smile cresting her face. A lifetime of uselessness purged along with her penance for sins past, all poured instead into creating life from nothing, order from resounding chaos.

The stonefruits she grew were sold as jewels and jewelry to foreign lands, allowing the countryside to recover from a long and disastrous war. She helped her country by avoiding it, and Miranda was pleased with both.

Legend spoke of the stones’ ability to enhance dragon magic, tipping the balance toward the light in the wars. Legend, and the secrets she had paid dearly in costs more than coin to keep.

A rustling in the tree above her head interrupted her ruminations. Miranda tipped her head back, languid movements still protesting wakefulness. She recognized the tiny green eyes staring down from the perch and moved her head toward the branch in greeting. A miniscule tongue darted out and licked her nose, while oversized fuzzy ears rotated batlike, as if seeking invisible aerial signals.

“Brat,” she grumbled at the cat. “Why aren’t you afraid to wake me up? I could eat you in one bite, and instead you wake me for tea.” The grey tabby mewled and hopped onto her horns, trotting down her neck spines to land and flex against the ground with easy grace before shaking his head.

Miranda mimicked the stretch as she yawned. Snapping her wings open, she rose to head back to the cabin. “You’re right, of course, Greystone. The book bearer is due soon.” The cat nodded, increasing his size to trot alongside her as they headed for home. Spots dappled his fur with a shimmer, the tabby stripes fading from view with each step.

Home, she thought. She was content in the peaceful countryside. Surrounded by trees and a loyal companion, left alone by the world. It was a far cry from her childhood. What more could any dragon ask?

Greystone darted ahead through the open gate with the whisk of a black-tipped tail. Miranda paused, scanning the horizon one last time, inexplicably unnerved.

She curled her lip back and snarled softly into the silence. There was a scent she didn’t like in the air of the homestead she’d so proudly built, and one she couldn’t fully articulate. Like the scent of a distant fire, the campgrounds of the inbound marching army, a portent not yet fully realized.

***

This week, Leigh Kimmel prompted me with “Something in the air, like the smoke of a distant fire,” which worked out well for Miranda’s introduction. This is a bit of a cheat, as it’s a rewrite from an earlier start of In Defense of Dragons, but that’s all I’ve got for this week.

Meanwhile, I prompted AC Young with ““Oh, that’s just Glenda, the theater ghost. Don’t worry. She just wants to make you sneeze.”” Go check it out at More Odds Than Ends, and join in next week’s!