The Silver Reckoning

Chapter 1: A New Home

"Welcome to Diego Garcia," continued the human, "The largest and most influential A.O.D.H base in our history. Housing over five thousand dragons of all different species. It is also where we conduct our experiments and create new machines that further our goal. We hold every known species of dragon here, every single one, now that we have you."

"Except for time, and void," she muttered to herself, thinking back to her real home.

"We have void," he replied, causing her to glance at him with a frown, "They hatched two weeks ago, two of them. One male, one female. They are only hatchlings at this point in time however. Not much use to us. But it is true we don't have time."

His words caused her to sigh softly. So Retrix had sired other void dragons after all. She remembered him telling her about it. It seemed so long ago now. Though it hardly mattered now. Thinking about the drake caused other memories to surface. Iraliene, Zepos, Celestia and her hatchlings. All of the dragons that seemed to have the largest impact on her life. But especially her brother, Raize. The last she had seen of him he had been falling from the sky.

With a small snarl she tried to turn back, and the human above her felt the small shift, but she was quickly turned back on course by the device in her head. It was absolute. There was no use resisting the control, no matter how hard she tried.

The island grew closer and closer until eventually the dragoness found herself pulling into a descent, gliding down toward what looked like a airstrip for planes and other such vehicles. Near the airstrip was numerous buildings, warehouses, with many humans rushing around on the outside. They could see the dragons coming and seemed to be preparing for them.

Silver landed lightly on the ground, her wings drooping by her side in exhaustion. The other dragons did the same, landing behind her with soft thuds. The human atop her back got off easily, sliding down her flank. He walked over to the waiting humans, who were standing at attention, eyes forward. The Admiral scanned them for a moment, before turning back to the dragons.

"At ease men," he said.

The humans instantly relaxed, their stiff posture slightly less regal. There were ten of them in all, one for each dragon. They were well fitted in a black uniform with 'A.O.D.H' imprinted on the left breast pocket. A handgun was attached to a belt on their waist along with an assortment of other gadgets.

"You are not to speak English, or any other human language, unless told otherwise. Is that understood?" The Admiral whispered, nearly harshly, to Silver.

She let out a small rumble of annoyance at the command but nodded her head. It wasn't like she could disobey even if she wanted to. If it wasn't for the device in her head every human in front of her would be dead, and she would be flying as fast as she could toward the nearest, safe, piece of land.

At a gesture from The Admiral, the ten humans paced forward toward their assigned dragons. Much to Silver's surprise a few of them were greeted with a purr of appreciation, and some dragons even allowed themselves to enjoy a scratch under the jaw or behind the neck. It seemed as though many of these dragons had been there for a long time, and had even forged bonds with a number of the humans working there.

A middle-aged woman walked toward Silver. It took the dragoness a couple of moments to notice and when she did her eyes narrowed. Was this the human assigned to her? The woman was tough looking, for a human, with hard eyes and straight dirty blond hair with hints of grey. Her face was slightly wrinkled and the stoic frown made it even more so. She stopped barely a metre away from Silver, within striking distance, and leaned back on her left foot looking at the dragon unimpressed.

"This is her?" she asked, her voice harsh and almost angry, and thick with what Silver recognised as an Australian accent.

"The one and only," The Admiral grinned.