“Beacon’s broadcasting, we’ll let you know if anything happens” the bridge told Paul

“Roger that” He replied

The dragons had told the section heads about what they knew and gave them tips on what to expect. The Endeavor had warped to known dragon space and had ejected a beacon from an airlock while positioning themselves to be between a nearby star and the beacon.

The security team was prepared to deal with any hostile boarding parties and all the weapons were armed and ready. Then the beacon started to send out bursts of different frequency waves.

Now, they waited.

Unfortunately, the burst transmissions could be picked up by everyone so anyone could come to investigate if they wanted to. Zephyr every theorized that the signal would eventually reach Earth.

Drake had given them a rundown of the most common things that they would encounter. He said that unarmed ships would avoid beacons because pirates would sometimes use them as bait, however, most ships that came in investigate would not have hostile intentions unless they engaged first.

They discussed tactics, boarding maneuvers, swarm tactics, one on one verses a larger ship, the different maneuvers that a ship could handle with little gravity and no friction, and fighting in the atmosphere of planets. It was a lot to take in, but Paul learned it all.

The waiting was boring, but waiting was better than dying.

It was a while before the first ship warped into the system. It looked like a long tube.

“Freighter, wolfen design but widely used by all races. Nothing to worry about” Drake informed him

It warped out without doing anything.

A few more ships did the same as the freighter, coming and going before the Endeavor could do anything.

“Mobile shipyard” Drake pointed out a ship as it warped in

It was the shape of a horseshoe.

“Ship, do you require assistance?” a transmission was picked up

“Negative… um… thank you for the offer” the communication officer replied

The ship warped out without another word

“They are an interesting group. An entire planet that chose to remain neutral for this conflict and instead offers assistance to any ship that needs it”

A massive ship warped in. It looked like two freighters that were connected at the rear, but it was massive.

“Planet cracker…”

“Holy shit… what the hell is that?” They stared at the gargantuan ship

“They strip a planet of all it’s resources to build a single ship… a single, massive, warship”

“Please tell me ‘they’ means the dragons”

“Only the pack wolves do that… There’s no way you can fight that”

“Ideas?”

The ship slowly approached them

“Run or stall, you haven’t formally declared an alliance so they won’t fire at you immediately… But if they start firing at you, avoid being directly in front of it”

“Human ship, declare your intentions” this broadcast through the ship wide system

“I hate that they can do that…” he tuned his comms to the bridge “tell them we are experimenting… ask the science team for something that sounds complicated”

The silence was terrifying as the bridge communicated with the wolf ship

“Very well, but be warned that using a mass broadcast beacon to simply ‘experiment’ will not be tolerated in the future”

The crew let out a their collective breath and they watched the huge ship slowly turn away from them.

“I can’t believe that worked!” Paul leaned against the window and watched the ship prepare to leave

As the crew began to regain their composure, another ship warped in. It was almost identical to the crystal-like ship where they met the blue dragon. This one was an emerald green.

“That’s ours” Drake said

The smaller green ship began to fire immediately, pounding the wolfen ship’s shields with various weapons. The planet cracker began to turn towards the enemy, trying to bring all its weapons to bear on the small menace.

Being smaller, the green ship easily out maneuvered the lumbering warship, staying out of the field of fire for most of the weapons. The shields flared and flickered as different types of weapons tried to punch through to attack the hull.

The wolf ship started to deploy smaller fighter-type ships, trying to put more pressure on the outmatched dragon vessel but the green ship eliminated them with ease.

One by one, the shields started to fail, allowing the dragonic weapons to tear into the hull, ripping holes and slicing chunks off.

The massive ship continued to fight as it slowly tore apart, the hostile vacuum of space helping the dragons as it sucked crew members out into the void.

It wasn’t before long that the wolf warship was completely crippled and coming apart piece by piece.

“It’s the Venator…” Drake let out a shocked gasp

“Care to explain?”

“Venator means ‘Hunter’ in Latin… that ship is a rumor… a ghost…”

“And what does that mean?”

“It was destroyed. There are occasional stories of it showing up, but the reports are never complete usually due to the lack of survivors” Drake was obviously extremely excited

“Human ship, we must leave, bring your ship close to mine for immediate warp” the voice was female

The crew, having been briefed on the situation, knew that contacting the dragons was the goal so the Endeavor slowly positioned itself next to the green ship.

For the second time during their journey, they warped away with a dragon ship, leaving behind a destroyed wolf ship.

“I think we picked a damn side” Paul muttered to himself

“We have to tell the others” Drake took off towards the hangers where the other dragon kin were

“They sent the Venator!” Drake shouted as he burst into the hanger, turning the heads of everyone in the room. They had seen the ship from the viewports in the hanger doors and heard the voice that came through the speakers.

“We saw… and from what we heard, she took on a planet cracker and won… typical of her to fight against something three times her size and win” Zephyr said, equally excited

“So why is she a legend? Anyone want to explain?” Paul was curious, they talked of her like she was a superhero

The brown dragon lowered his head to Paul’s level “Ask her yourself”

“Ok then” He watched the two large dragons, Zephyr, Thyra, and Drake talk about the green ship and its captain with awe

The Endeavor and the crystalline ship warped into deep space, surrounded by nothing in all directions.

The familiar procedure of boarding occurred, the Endeavor coupled against the massive ship. Since their two dragon guests couldn’t fit through the corridors, they went the same way they entered, carefully hopping into space through the hanger doors with their armor, the white one grasping the crate.

“Come on Paul, they’ll want to thank you for everything you’ve done” Zephyr led them through the docking tube, the transition from the interior of the Endeavor to the interior of the Venator was incredibly shocking. The corridors obviously built to accommodate multiple large dragons side by side.

They entered what Paul assumed was their version of a conference room or briefing room. A large green dragon was waiting for them, its scales matched the color of the ship. Several spots of slight discoloration cover the hide and scales, marking a lifetime of battle.

“Hello human! I never thought I’d live to meet you among the stars!” She was very cheerful for a dragon that looked like she went through a long war. She was in the process of greeting Zephyr, Thyra, and Drake when the two guest dragons showed up, stripped of their armor.

“Human, I believe we have you to thank” all the eyes in the room fell on Paul

“You can call me Paul”

“And you can call me Em” she got a strange look from the other two dragons “It’s not my real name of course, but I realized that life was easier with a name that others could call me by”

“Can I ask what was in that crate?”

“Knowledge is power, I believe that’s a human saying. It contains the largest intelligence effort conducted by the Splinter forces in the entire war, information on hundreds of Pack planets”

“That’s it?” Paul looked at Zephyr “The way you talked about it made it seem like a super weapon”

“When you invade a planet, you have to take into the account everything about it. Gravity, weather, nearby stars, moons, atmospheric composition, density, and the hundreds of other factors can mean the difference between being able to drop riders or having to depend on larger dropships”

“That would make sense… I guess I was expecting something… more”

“Human… Paul, how are the rest of your kind doing?” Em asked him

“Um… Good I guess, population is almost at eight billion…” He honestly didn’t know how to answer this question

“That is… much more than we remember. What about the factions?”

“Factions? You mean countries? We still have a lot of them”

“A shame. Your species shows incredible potential if only you unified”

The green dragon continued to question Paul about the human race. While the questions were pretty standard, when they were about the entire species of human, they became strange and difficult to answer. The three bipedal dragons excused themselves, Paul overheard something about gadgets. The other two dragons thanked Paul for his help and left to attend to other business. The green dragoness and Paul were the only two left in the room.

“I’ve always dreamed of returning to Earth… I guess returning to Earth is meant for my hatchlings…”

The disappointment in her voice made Paul feel terrible, even though he had nothing to do with their escape from humans. The longer he interacted with the dragons, the more he wanted to return to Earth and tell the world of their existence. The dragons did nothing to deserve expulsion and so far, they were far kinder than most humans he knew. It left him wondering why humans started to fight them in the first place.

“You never know, we have a tendency to be unpredictable” Paul paused for a moment “The others talk about you with such respect, what’s your story?”

“I’m dead!” Em said with an odd amount of happiness in her voice “My ship was used for important missions where discretion is required, it is common knowledge that this ship was destroyed in a spectacular manner, that way, any reports seem wrong”

“The ship’s name is ‘Hunter’ right?” Paul asked

Sadness flashed in her eyes for a fraction of a second “That is correct, named after my rider”

“Rider? Like… dragon rider?” The existence of dragons was exciting, but the fact that the dragons had riders… that was what Paul’s daydreams consisted of as a child after years of reading fictional books.

“Yes, I am the last living member of the Flaming Lance. My rider was Hunter, the ship is named in his memory, and for as long as I live I will continue to fight the Pack… He was one of the few riders able to completely control his dragon…”

Paul realized that this was a sensitive topic for the large dragoness and tried to change the subject.

“You said this ship was used for important missions right? What is it used for now?”

“As of this moment, this ship is tasked with something far more important!” her tone changed back to cheery “Since you helped us recover vital intelligence to fight against the Pack, were present at the destruction of a Pack warship, and then vanished with a dragon ship… If you weren’t labeled as an enemy of the pack before, you are now”

She let the information sink in

“The dragon command has you labeled as a research vessel, due to the conflict, all research vessels are paired with an escort. It is also because you are the first humans, the dragons are quite… nostalgic about Earth”

“Oh! Wow… Um… tell your command that we are grateful for the company”

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Science Log

Subject: Dragon vessel

From observations, the dragon ships appear to be a single, massive piece of a crystalline material. The surface is completely smooth and does not show any indication of the location for hangers, sensors, weapons, and other objects that would jut from a ship. When asked about the color of the ship, Zephyr informed us that the color of the crystal matches the scales of the dragon in command of the ship, since we do not know the extent of dragon coloration, we do not know the extent of ship coloration.

Based on the spectrometry data, the crystal appears to be made up of mostly carbon as well as some other unknown elements. The most interesting part is that the carbon is arranged in a form most commonly known as diamond which would make the ship incredibly heavy but also incredibly strong especially if the entire ship is a single piece. How the dragons manage to make a single piece of diamond this size then fit it with all the things that make a warship is all theory as of now.

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Science log

Subject: Exchange of information

Security head Paul Burns has announced that the green dragon ship will be our escort for all our scientific endeavors. Along with their protection, the dragon in charge as well as the wolves that man her ship have agreed to share their common knowledge with us! This would be equivalent to a caveman having all the knowledge of what a modern day person would learn in school, they would be considered genius! This will be revolutionary to all of humanity, our concepts of planets, stars, genetics, and just about every other topic will be changed to include what we learn. The science team is buzzing with excitement and a pot has been formed to bet on the extent of what we will learn. A foreseeable problem is how we will reveal all this knowledge without revealing the existence of extraterrestrials. Maybe it is time that humanity embraces the fact that we are not alone in this universe nor are we the most powerful.