Lev is an Alpinoan draconian, H. sapiens draconis with dark red ridges along his cheekbones and forehead. Sharp wings twice the size of his body fold tightly between his ample shoulderblades. The ridges make him look more masculine–at least, that’s what his mother used to say when he was little, and she was a little more alive.

He went to a Homo sapiens sapiens school back then–just a rickety shanty on the prairie under the shadow of the volcano, right at the border where every season the Sapiens and Draconian shepherds would exchange control of the dragon herds. It was convenient, then, for his single mother not to migrate with the herds, and instead to stay in the small community that formed at the border–mostly women similarly disadvantaged, and injured older men. There this unfit gaggle of frontiers-folk foraged and sold supplies for the herders; farm insurance brokers and homesteaders tended to settle in these communities, too, bringing with them heavy truckloads of vegetables and the occasional scam.

It was quiet, then, before the Growen annexed the region. The bullying about Lev’s face ridges is a fond memory now–there’s not a touch of rancor in his recollection. The children then just didn’t understand “different”–it was almost frightening to them, a bat-winged classmate, until the day he took one of them up into the sky with him. The teacher punished him severely–Lev still grins now, remembering the shrieking–

“You are going to drop her! Get down here right this moment young man–how dare you–”

He remembers his companion clutching him around the waist, slipping even as she clawed at his burlap tunic, and he remembers his fingers burning, weak fistfuls of the back of her shirt starting to tear loose–they landed fine, though. And the hours of sanding old paint off the schoolhouse beams, and hand-copying boring lessons from the elementary codex? Totally worth it.

She was his first friend, back then, and an unlikely one–the most normal-looking human Alpinoan you can imagine, complete with the common frizzy blond hair, blue paint across her cheeks, and ever-present woven thread bracelets and anklets.

Naijeli Seria. Lieutenant Seria, now–still ever-adventurous, ever grasping for the next ride into the sky.

And unfortunately, she seems to have decided Lev’s not her ticket up anymore.

Lev’s lying on his belly now, almost shoulder deep in cool jungle mud, watching the “girl next door” traipse atop a tank as she jokes at–not with–the grim special forces Sapiens leaning against the treads. The Sapiens is clearly focused on his fruit bar and whatever green message just lit up his wristband, and he gives Seria an annoyed grunt when she asks about “holding” his “laserstaff”. It’s not an innocent question, but she’s always been good about plausible deniability.

Lev sighs, dropping his chin into the mud now. This siege has already lasted–how long–weeks? At least the jungle’s noisy and alive. Lev’s sharp eyes always spot the peacock guinea pigs dashing under long, purple ferns, and he’s gotten to know each individual singing day-lizard around his post. Without these natural diversions, the droning on of the hours and the days would drive anyone crazy.

But Lev’s crazy feels different. Painful–an aching in his chest. He’s known her forever. He wants her to be happy, but–

He pinches his eyes closed, trying not to hear her smooth laugh. It’s not a giggle–she’s never giggled. Even when they were kids she laughed like an adventurer, a smooth, low-but-feminine throaty puff of mirth. She’s not fazed by her target’s apparent disinterest. And with good reason. Lev can’t imagine the man’s not actually into her, deep down–she’s one of the top soldiers in their unit. Clever, toned, a delight to watch on the combatives mat. Disciplined on duty, but off-duty able to out-drink and out-dance anyone else in the cav.

And Lieutenant Jei Bereens is a perfect match. He’s Alpinoan, like she is, and just as disciplined, but he’d make a good opposite for Seria with how somber and stable he is. She’s definitely reaching up: he’s not just special forces, he’s an electromagnetic mutant. “Who knows what the power of levitation could do in the sack, eh?” Seria’s jabbing elbow yesterday at mess didn’t hurt, but the words and mental image sure did. The star soldier’s younger than she is by just a couple years, just turned eighteen or nineteen, but with the hardened face and body of a proficient killer. “Dangerous.” Her supple tongue actually flicks across her lips when she watches Bereens.

It’s a lovely, soft-looking, muscular tongue.

Lev’s head turns now quite without his permission to watch as the pair’s voices lower. He can’t hear them now, but both faces carry urgency, honesty. Shyness flashes across Bereens’ face for just a moment; he looks down, and then back up at Seria still posing on the tank. Yeah–there’s no way he hasn’t just been playing hard-to-get to draw her in. Bereens is Contaminated, and a Paradox Warrior, so his monk-like lifestyle means he can’t play the field, but he can still have a mate as long as he aims for permanence.

Seria crosses her arms now but nods, clever blue eyes intense, challenging, but listening.

Playing it cool really works. It’s a well-known trick Lev’s never been good at. He’s always been a bit of a romantic–he often has to remind himself military women and refugees tend to be suspicious people for a reason. He always backs off, gives space, tries to restrain the poetry. But it’s hard not to want to marry a girl on your first outing when you know there might not be another, not because of her, but because tomorrow you die.

Alone.

It’s so hot here. Is it always so hot? There’s sweat swamping Lev’s pants, underarms, dripping into his eyelids. Lev loves the colors of the jungle, its vibrant carnivorous crimson blossoms, its full palette of every shade of green from lemon-lime to emerald to deepest jade to near-brown, but he could do without the humidity.

It’s a relief and an agony when his wristband lights up with orders to take him off-planet. Relief, because he doesn’t have to watch her anymore. Agony, because he’s going home–away from the jungle planet, back to Alpino, where the memories live.

Will he even see her again?

It’s a blur–a half an hour blur of military efficiency. Back to his tiny white barracks room for his go-bag, then onto the crowded, boxy transport with thirty other refugee soldiers–that’s five squads, including his own–and before he can really think they’re out amongst the stars, the ridges of his face reflecting back to him in the window under the shadow of his helmet. The transport rattles and vibrates like it wants to fall apart.

They’ve taken everything, again and again, the Growen invaders. Don’t be melodramatic, Lev tells himself, swallowing and smiling. Get over yourself. He’s alive. Seria’s alive. That’s more than most of their town back on Alpino can say. And on top of that they’re both free, and fighting back.

He closes his eyes, and repeats his thanks to Njandejara. The energy being’s “everywhere,” in some ways, pervading their universe, and in some ways not anywhere at all, completely outside their dimension and their reality–maybe that’s why it feels easier to talk to him here in space. It’s been Lev’s friend since the Growen killed his mother. And whether the entity can hear or not, the exercise of gratefulness is healthy for mental resilience, say the docs.

“Ghost ship!” someone yells.

“Lev, Nefesh, get on the turrets,” the Sergeant orders.

Lev’s unstrapping his seatbelts even with the transport floors suddenly sloping. His instinct to unfurl his wings to steady himself is long gone–trained out of him for crowded spaces like this. His hands spread out for balance instead, thin echoes of that instinct. He dashes to the back starboard corner. There’s a moment’s space for a nod at the other soldier–Nefesh, a blue-ridged draconian with dark azure, near purple eyes–who darts port for the other cannon. That eye contact matters–establishes the communication they’ll need to stay alive.

Lev slides into the gun seat and grips both joysticks. His eyes dart across the almost 180 degrees of window–no enemy–then down to the compuwall viewscreen below the window–no enemy–then the compuwall above. There. The maggot-shaped Growen fighter’s already splitting open its segments: weapons pop out between ringed plates like porcupine quills.

“It’s not flying like a ghost,” Nefesh calls from behind him. Her voice is clear–authoritative. “I think we’ve got a corporeal pilot.”

“I’m not getting an answer on comms and it’s moving in armed,” the Sergeant shouts. “Fire at will!”

Cannon ammo’s expensive–time more so. Lev’s leathery palms are cool on the hot trigger sticks. He’s got the Maggot in his sights. He’s close enough now to see the Maggot’s short-range machine guns whir, magazines clicking into the place, aiming for the transparent corner where Lev sits–

It’s a game of quick draw, and if Lev misses, he dies. But that’s not his burning thought. The intense, quiet fact in his chest that actually matters to him: if the Maggot hits his corner and he’s lucky he’ll die, alone, his corner sealed off from the rest of the ship. If he’s unlucky, in this rickety old ship with its systems barely hanging on, the seal fails. And all these heroes, all these refugees struggling for a better life–every brave face behind him–they die, too.

The Luna-Guetalan family squad–two Sapiens parents and their three older teens, two biological and one adopted Biouk space-lemur–who’ve literally battled through fire and ice to stay together after the Growen stormed their school one day to take the kids to kill-camps for colluding with energy beings.

The rare all-female squad of older veterans–the Insectoid missing an antennae, the Biouk missing an ear, the Wonderfrog down an eye, both humanoids missing fingers here and there–all wrinkled and weathered women who’ve lost what families and friends they had and now live for revenge.

The three younger squads like Lev’s, gaggles of youths each led by two “elder” mentors no “older” than thirty, found families of soldiers placed together by algorithms guessing at personalities but held together by mission, hope, and the desperate possibility of a free future.

These calculations are in milliseconds.

Lev twitches and squeezes the triggers.

And this is where you come in.

In Lev’s story, you’re the force of that sweet spot between luck and skill–the sentient observer collapsing the wave form of his possible endings.

He’ll need a combined three Fortune points to make the shot.

Does he make it?

Yes

or

No 

Find out soon,
Jen