Dracon Rouge

By C.L. Hadyn

When her sailboat is chased by Chinese pirates into the Japanese equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle, American volcanologist, Gem Ishiwara, puts up a good fight. Good but hopeless, until she is rescued by what her eyes tell her are red dragons, and her brain tells her is an impossibility.

Her brain wins with an expedient Ctrl/Alt/Delete. She wakes to discover aliens really are on earth, they’ve been here for far longer than anyone ever imagined, and they are very, very interested in her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Decadent Publishing
• Release date: Feb 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781683614913

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Dracon Rouge

Copyright 2021 by C.L. Hadyn

ISBN: 978-1-68361-491-3

Cover art by Fantasia Frog Designs

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Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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When her sailboat is chased by Chinese pirates into the Japanese equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle, American volcanologist, Gem Ishiwara, puts up a good fight. Good but hopeless, until she is rescued by what her eyes tell her are red dragons, and her brain tells her is an impossibility.

Her brain wins with an expedient Ctrl/Alt/Delete. She wakes to discover aliens really are on earth, they’ve been here for far longer than anyone ever imagined, and they are very, very interested in her.

Also by C.L. Hadyn

Off Track

The Danegeld

Guarded Hearts

Bloodstock

Dracon Rouge

by

CL Hayden

Chapter One

Awakened by a sexy voice, and the side-to-side shaking and deep undulations of his bed, Caelum scrubbed his face until the intercom announcement made sense. He was needed in the throne room, immediately.

A bleary-eyed glance at the numerals on his ceiling told him it was an hour that, unless someone was pointing a pulse weapon at him, he would never have chosen to rise. Especially since he hadn’t climbed onto the mattress, which was presently simulating a level nine earthquake, a scant hour before.

Giving in to the summons, he let the damned bed loft him in the direction of his closet, and he threw on enough clothes to be presentable should anyone else but his father be in the throne room.

As he walked through the hallway, he was surprised to find people actually did rise before his usual ten o’clock, and they even seemed cheerful about it. His ruminations were interrupted when the viz-scry on his wrist chimed. He pushed the answer button, and his father’s impatient face appeared, and his voice demanded, I summoned you for today, Son, not tomorrow. The screen went dark before he could offer an excuse for his tardiness.

Finished with the transmission, he looked up to discover himself the center of attention of all the early risers on their way to do who knew what at this crazy hour.

A royal never sweats in public. At least that was what his deportment coach took great delight into drumming into him. But, on his way to the throne room, he reasoned a royal who’d been summoned at an unholy hour, by a king with a kink in his crown, could at least be forgiven for damp armpits. At least he’d taken a nanosecond to brush his teeth. Perhaps he’d get points for not assaulting the king with morning dragon breath. But sometimes, even as the heir apparent, commander-in-chief of the Draconite Guards, holder of several doctorates and patents in both applied and physical sciences, even he could still get the sensation of swallowing butterflies when summoned so summarily by the king.

His guilt radar for whatever he’d done to tick off his parent picked up when he entered and his father ordered, Room secure.

He winced as the intercom mimicked Marilyn Monroe’s breathy voice to answer, Your wish is my command.

Thank heavens he’d shown some maturity by keeping the word Daddy from being an automatic part of her response when he’d programmed it. But what was the point of having a doctorate in electrical engineering if you couldn’t have a little fun? However, one look at his father’s lowered eyebrows and pursed lips, and the realization he’d been having too much fun, lately, popped into his mind.

He didn’t need his advanced degrees to ascertain the tension in the royal audience chamber was thick enough to slice. Luckily, some of his brain cells were awake to caution him to stand at attention and refrain from speaking as his father, King Cetus Dracon, tapped the gilded arms of his throne in a rare display of frustration.

His royal sire trashed his effort to remain silent by delivering a totally out-of-left-field remark.

As much as it pains me to admit this, Son, I believe you might be right.

He resisted tugging on his ears to clear them because it sounded like his father had just paid him a compliment. Uh, could I get a little clarification on that, Father? Right about what?

He held his place and followed his father with his eyes as he stepped down from his throne to pace the throne room.

Caelum, being the son of a king means you are sometimes ignored in favor of more pressing business, but I’ve always tried to pay attention to what is important to you.

He gave himself a gold star for refraining from making a wise-ass comment as his father stretched with an audible cracking of joints.

As my heir, you are aware there are two factions among our people. One of the factions, the one you favor, wants to blend more openly with humans. In other words, to use a phrase you’ve muttered when you assumed I wasn’t listening, to come out of the closet. He leveled a gaze at his only son and let it settle in. The other faction wants to rule by using our advanced knowledge and abilities to keep the inferiors, to wit, humans, as slaves. This faction, my intelligence section tells me, is no longer satisfied with being a hidden organization. They don’t want to blend with the inhabitants of this planet; they want to rule it, and they are gearing up to make their move in the near future.

He would love to tell his father his opinion of the rebel faction but held his tongue when the king motioned for him to keep his yap shut.

Despite what you and your generation may think, I haven’t parked my royal ass on this throne and ignored what is important to our people and the continuity of our realm. No, I’ve steadily monitored the effect our selective introduction of advanced technology has had on this planet, and while it has been mostly favorable, there have been some cataclysmic failures. Fortunately, nothing that required our immediate intervention to prevent the humans from total annihilation.

He’d matched his father’s pacing but was brought up short when his father spun to face him.

"I’m not in favor of revealing our existence to humans by, as I’ve overheard your cohort in crime, Lynx, call it the big reveal because I don’t believe a sudden demonstration we’ve been living among them, since they ran about in feathered capes cutting each other’s hearts out to appease their gods, will be taken well by humans. However, the faction that wants to dominate the humans is gaining more converts in their drive to announce our existence with a massive display of power. I haven’t discovered the ringleader yet, but my intelligence network is actively seeking his or her identity."

He’d have to be stone deaf not to hear the dismay in his father’s voice.

"You would think after all we learned from the destruction of our own planet, none of us would want to cause this one to implode by bringing to light our existence among them before they are ready to accept us.

So, after considerable deliberation on what my advisors suggested as a means to proceed, I think we might begin by allowing our technicians to select a human spouse instead of just harvesting fertilized eggs. We will keep the program small and select to start with so we can judge the results.

To keep from staggering at his father’s unexpected capitulation, he widened his stance. He’d been trying, in various subtle ways, to sway the king to accept a change in the way they interacted with humans, and this sudden capitulation caught him flat-footed.

While he didn’t approve of conquering the planet to rule it as their own fiefdom, he agreed with the royal advisors that sending select Draconite scientists to human universities and think tanks to subtly introduce scientific advances was too slow a process. So slow, the humans often had too much time to take the sub rosa scientific, medical, and technological advances the Draconites introduced and twist them into weapons of mass destruction.

But he had to give his father grudging credit for maintaining their distance from humans thus far, because he, like his father, sometimes secretly despaired the earthlings couldn’t be cured of their natural bloodthirst. Perhaps if the Draconites gave the humans a small simulation of what happened when your planet snuffed it as a result of competing power-hungry factions, and they had to scour the solar system in search of a new home, it might make them put petty differences aside. Nah, his dad would never go for it.

He paid close attention as his father began to define the plan.

I will set up a panel of elders to begin selecting technicians for this experiment.

That’s wonderful, Father. Not that you need it, but you have my full support. I’ll help in any way I can, but I’m curious as to why you felt the need to discuss this at this precise hour.

His father’s sardonic grin told him he wasn’t going to like the answer.

"Consider it a new training mission. When you succeed me, sleeping until noon will not be an option. Your kingly day will start with the dawn and end when all pressing matters of state have been attended to.

"And speaking of matters of state, I’m not getting any younger, and since I can’t move against my opposition until I have a leader to target, I will do what any ruler would do in such a situation; I will secure my succession.

Son, I will put this in the plainest words possible. If you think I’ve been merely hinting before, let me say it in the form of a royal command. I want grandchildren. I want our dynasty to be as secure as I can make it through this experimental phase, and the only way that will happen is when you provide me with the heir of my heir.

His father effectively stifled his automatic protest by shaking a finger under his nose.

I’m deadly serious when I say this, Son, you better get a move on before your genes get too atrophied to produce one, and you need to do it before our enemies get strong enough to overthrow us.

Maybe it was lack of sleep, but he lost his hold on his temper and exploded. "For the love of Draco, Father, I hope you aren’t suggesting I marry the first woman I see when I leave your presence. I will marry and pass the crown to my offspring but only if I find someone who ignites a spark of interest in me. Of course… He wasn’t above wheedling to get the marriage monkey off his back. If you allow me to participate in your new experiment, I might be persuaded to choose a human wife."

Watching the king of the Draconites hang on to his throne so he didn’t fall down while laughing was not a pleasant experience.

Nice try, Son. You used a similar excuse of interacting with humans to get me to send you to Cal Tech, MIT, and even Disney World. Unlike some people, I learn from my mistakes, and that’s why, when you were finished playing intergalactic man-about-town, I sent you for a visit to the Bermuda colony before you returned here.

Caelum took a fortifying breath to begin some royal wheedling, but his father forestalled it by getting nose to nose with him.

Surely, after the way they feted you in Bermuda, you found at least one woman of our species to ignite your interest.

He dared a grin as he replied. "Well that’s the problem. There were many I could marry, but no one I wanted to. I think widening the selection to include humans might be the solution."

The royal reply, while expected, wasn’t what he wanted to hear this early in the morning.

It seems I need to reiterate some important facts you are bent on ignoring. After your mother was killed, it’s been no easy task to retain my kingship of this colony without a consort, but, fortunately, I had a son. A son whose duty it is to continue our rule by solidifying our dynasty. And you can’t do that by just harvesting a fertilized human egg or taking a human woman as a spouse. That is not the way of our people. You need a Dracon royal or peer with impeccable antecedents to produce a Dracon heir who will be recognized as your rightful successor by all Draconites.

He was very aware his father deliberately chose to seat himself on his throne to give more gravitas to whatever coup de grace he was about to deliver.

If you are disinclined to revisit the Bermuda colony, I will send an emissary to bring a selection here. And if you can’t decide between whomever they send, I’ll choose for you. I hear Ursa Major’s daughter is a very suitable candidate. She’d make a good consort for you, and like your mother and I did, you will come to love each other in time.

He gritted his teeth but prudently kept his tongue from flapping. Ursa Major’s daughter, Cassiopeia, was put together very nicely, but she seesawed from being too sweet, too obedient, too conventional one day, to being arrogant, and too aware of the homage due to her as daughter of a king, and worst of all, in his opinion, she didn’t like to color outside the lines. She was capable of producing a royal heir, but they had absolutely nothing in common. He wanted to play with fire, and Ursa’s daughter preferred to put it out.

He wasn’t so lost in his recollection of the woman’s more pleasing physical attributes he missed the look of determination on his father’s face. It plainly said the king’s patience with his heir playing the field had finally come to an end. However, along with his deportment classes, he’d learned a thing or two about how to buy time in a tight situation.

Putting just the right amount of agreeableness in his voice, he appeared to concede. I defer to your good judgment, Father. I will, henceforth, take my duty to produce an heir more seriously. The next time I go to the mainland for supplies…

His father’s frosty glare froze his vocal cords from continuing the dodge.

I’m not yet senile enough to believe you can actually find one of our race and status living among the humans in Japan. Nor am I so naïve as to assume you wouldn’t try to delay the inevitable, but I’m telling you from the benefit of my position as ruler of this colony, time is running out. I can almost feel the breath of my enemy on the nape of my neck, so you might as well resign yourself to doing your duty because I’ve already contacted the Bermuda Colony to send possible consort candidates to us by next month, and, according to the earthen calendar, that’s in two weeks.

As he withdrew from his father’s presence, he swore he felt the noose of matrimony tighten around his neck. Damn, he had barely turned thirty, and with his Dracon DNA he could easily sire children well into his sixties. He needed a diversion. Perhaps his friends Crow, Circus, and Lynx, were up for a trip to the mainland for a bit of sake and sashimi. They could party under the pretext of advancing contact between Dracons and humans…or maybe not. The parting laser glare he received from his father had yet to dissipate as he blindly returned to his quarters.

Chapter Two

Uh, Doctor, I think we’re being followed.

Gem Ishiwara, volcanologist employed by the United States Geological Survey Office, and presently on loan to the Japanese Geosciences Union (JpGu), closed the report she’d been reading on the increase of underwater seismic activity off the coast of Japan and gave her assistant, Ken Komatsu, her full attention.

Followed? We’re in the middle of the ocean. What makes you think we’re being followed?

Because this is a 30-foot, single-mast sailboat with only a 4-cylinder diesel inboard motor, and theirs is a large cabin cruiser of some sort. Every time I tack to the wind, they change course as well. They don’t need to use the wind to move forward. Could you grab the binoculars and see who’s out there?

She broke out the glasses, and it didn’t take her long to find the cabin cruiser.

Ken, get on the radio and notify the Lucky 7. Lucky 7 was her name for the JpGu’s research vessel, Kaiyo 7. She’d dubbed it Lucky because she hoped it would be. Kaiyos 1 through 5 met watery ends, with only the last one, Number 6, remaining intact long enough to be retired in 1964.

We’re being tailed by either Chinese or Japanese pirates. Their boat is moving too fast for me to get a name or country of origin. And while you’re at it, break out the Uzi.

She took over the helm so Ken could go below to radio for help. What had begun as a routine visit to their land base in Yokohama, Japan, had suddenly turned into a life-or-death situation. Her previous enjoyment of the sound of the sailboat’s keel slicing through the Pacific Ocean took a nosedive.

She’d been thrilled to discover the Kaiyo 7’s tender was sail and not motor because she was all in favor of not polluting the ocean with more oil slicks. However, at this particular moment, she’d give anything to be captaining a drug-runner’s super-fast cigarette boat with hugely powerful motors. After all, what was a little gasoline pollution compared to the cost of being raped, killed, or sold as a sex slave?

The analytical part of her brain calculated the profit the pirates would make if, in some world bazaar of pirates, they sold all of the oceanographic equipment and related electronics they’d picked up in Yokohama, and she concluded taking the sailboat would be worth the pirates’ effort. Before she could extrapolate the consequences of being boarded, she was interrupted by Ken.

Do you know how to use one of these, Doctor? Ken held out the automatic weapon.

As she accepted the weapon her visibly nervous assistant handed her, she looked over his shoulder and discovered the pirate speedboat was gaining on them. Ken, I’d be lying if I said I did, but what’s to know? You just aim and pull the trigger, right?

Her assistant failed to keep his manly displeasure at her lack of firearm training from his face.

Okay then, Doctor, I’ll handle the weapon. You just keep making zigzags. Maybe we can keep them away from us long enough for the Japanese Navy to send a ship or a helo to rescue us.

I hate to burst your bubble, Ken, but they’re really gaining on us.

Her research assistant didn’t waste time doubting her but went for a Hail Mary pass when the wind shifted, and ordered, Spin the wheel hard to starboard. We’ll cut the corner to the Lucky 7’s location and buy some more time."

Not one to quibble when pirates were within spitting distance, Gem swung the wheel hard, and almost put the railing of the ship in the water as the responsive sailboat followed the command. She jumped, and her hands briefly lost their grip on the wheel when Ken shouted.

Yes! The pirates have over-shot us. They’ll need to come about and we’ll still be ahead of them.

Her elation over their momentary reprieve died when the wind did. One moment the keel of the boat was cutting through the ocean like a knife, and the next they were, unbelievably, becalmed. Even the inboard motor was dead, as Ken discovered when he tried cranking it. Which was freaking surprising as it had worked quite well to get them out of their Yokohama anchorage that very morning.

She just shook her head and added a few more f-bombs to Ken’s litany of them. With no wind to fill their sails, they were sitting ducks for the pirates’ cabin cruiser.

Well fuck this, Dr. Ishiwara, I’m not going down without a fight. They’re going to kill us anyway. Might as well take a few of them with us.

She agreed, totally, and wished they had more Uzis or, maybe, a cruise missile aboard. It was a shame standoff weapons hadn’t been on their shopping list in Yokohama, but they did have a flare pistol and the galley’s lethally sharp meat cleaver. Before he could ask where she was going, she ran below and grabbed both weapons. She returned to the deck just in time to watch the pirates suffer the same becalming fate.

Damn, Doctor… Ken was at a loss to explain the power failure in both vessels.

Given our present circumstance, Ken, I think you should drop the honorifics. Call me by my first name.

Okay, Gem, do you think they’ve run out of gas? I fervently hope so because if the wind ever returns, we can sail away, and they won’t be able to do a thing, except wait to be apprehended by the Japanese Navy.

She picked up the binoculars and failed to stifle her, Uh-oh.

She wasn’t surprised when her assistant, who’d kept a pretty tight hold on his emotions, finally came unglued.

What do you see? What the fuck could possibly make our situation worse?

She hated to be the bearer of more bad news, but she owed him a heads-up. The pirates just lowered a Zodiac into the water. It has an outboard motor.

Like herself, Ken held his breath as their pursuers cranked the engine.

After a period of dire silence, Ken had a small note of hope in his voice as he asked, Do you suppose someone forgot to gas up the Zodiac’s motor? Maybe it needs new spark plugs.

She had a possible answer for the weird coincidence. While Ken had his eyes glued to what the pirates were doing, she’d taken a peek at the ship’s compass to note their location, in case they had time to make another Mayday call. It was evident the compass had joined the wind and the motors in exhibiting strange behavior. It swung from point to point, like they were in the middle of a typhoon.

Using scientific deduction, she reasoned their evasive maneuvers had put them squarely in the Dragon Triangle. That patch of ocean the Japanese called the Ma-no Umi, the Sea of the Devil. This area extended from western Japan north of Tokyo to a point in the Pacific at approximately latitude 145 degrees east, and then turned west-southwest past the Ogasawara Shinto or the Bonin Islands, and down to Guam and Yap, west to Taiwan, and then returning north-northeast to Japan near the measuring point of Nojima Zaki on the Bay of Tokyo.

The area was infamous for ship, airplane, and even submarine disappearances, compass and radio malfunctions, sea quakes, and mini-canes or localized hurricanes, whirlpools, sudden, dense fogs, and the sankaku-nami, the unique triangular wave that hit a ship from three separate directions at the same time. And like the Bermuda Triangle, the crews of ships, submarines, and marine research vessels like the Lucky 7, disappeared with no trace if they blundered into it.

If she had to guess, she’d say they’d entered the Ma-no Umi at a point closest to the top of the triangle. Another glance in the direction of their pursuers and she swore under her breath. Fucking hell, today was not going to be a good day for the scientists. Seemingly undaunted by unexplained mishaps, the pirates had come prepared to board in the old-fashioned way, with oars and grappling hooks. She mimicked Ken’s wide eyes as they waited in silence for their fate to grow nearer with each dip of the pirates’ oars.

The burst of an automatic weapon, and the splintering of the ship’s rail in what was going to be a very uneven fight, forced her to the deck, and she called a stupidly unnecessary warning to Ken to take cover. He hit the deck all right but not for shelter. She cried out in anguish at the sight of bullet holes bisecting her assistant’s body.

With no time to mourn, she looked frantically for the Uzi but couldn’t find it. Had Ken dropped it overboard when he fell? She didn’t know, and the answer didn’t matter, for her time was up as well. She could see hands on the deck as the pirates grabbed for purchase to swing themselves aboard.

In a blind panic, she ran to the mainmast and proceeded to climb to the small crow’s nest at the top. She was thankful she’d chosen to wear shorts this morning, as her bare legs gave her purchase on the slick wood. If the pirates wanted to rape or kill her, they’d have to work for it. The first one to reach the top would get hit by a flare, the second, and for how many after that she could attack, would be missing body parts as she played sushi chef with the cleaver.

Chapter Three

The prince smiled and nodded to people as he made his way to his quarters. While he might be fuming inside, no one need know he and the king disagreed on who or when he should marry. His life as the king’s son taught him his subjects believed no detail of their rulers’ personal lives was off-limits, especially if he gave them reason to wag their tongues. And, like all recipients of intrusive scrutiny, he was not going to allow anyone carte blanche to pry into what little he could call private about his life. No one, except his closest friends, who were waiting for him in his quarters.

He got one step across the threshold of his room before a warning klaxon sounded. Even though it signaled an intrusion into their territory, he smiled at the sound. It was the same as a submarine’s Dive, Dive, Dive, which was ironic, as they were presently skimming the ocean floor.

He’d first encountered the discordant notes in an old black-and-white WWII submarine film, and it had appealed to him. As commander of the guard, he’d been the inventor of the early detection and warning system, so he got to choose what sound the alarm made.

And as commander of the well-trained force, he didn’t need to order his friends, each an officer in the guard, to follow him to the egress chamber. The only thing he said as they crammed their broad shoulders into the narrow confines of the chamber was, Don armor.

After the egress pod reached close enough to the surface to scan for any planes in the airspace above them, and Corvus, aka Crow, verified there weren’t any enemies in the immediate surface area, Caelum launched himself skyward to seek the source of the intrusion.

Last out, Circinus, aka Circus for the major production he made of the smallest thing, sealed the egress pod and joined the formation and pointed. There, northernmost point of the triangle. Chinese pirates have boarded a sailboat.

As commander, he ordered, Crow, take your section and make sure no other pirates leave that cabin cruiser. Lynx, you and your section are with me on the sailboat. Before he could finish, Circus chimed in.

Hey, what about me? Where do you want my section?

Circus, you’re in over-watch. Circle our borders and keep an eye out for more intruders.

It only took one pass over the sailboat for him to sum up the situation. Whoever the woman was clinging to the miniscule crow’s nest at the top of the mainmast, she was in the middle of a craptastic day.

From his vantage high above, he saw three of the pirates surround the mast. One of them raised his AK-74, only to have it swatted aside by the leader, who gestured excitedly toward the woman pointing a flare pistol down at them.

The prince grinned at her audacity. She didn’t have a chance in hell of holding out for long against five pirates armed with automatic weapons, but she seemed determined to take a few of them with her.

Fortunately, the woman playing keep-away from the crow’s nest couldn’t hear the