The Intuitives(101)

“Eight minutes,” Sam called out.

“We need to get it into fighting mode,” Mackenzie said, realizing immediately that the dragon had no idea there was an enemy waiting for it several miles away. “Daniel, can you do it?”

“But what about what happened last time?” Daniel protested. “There’s like a ton of people on the deck just three floors down.”

“It was a mistake last time,” Mackenzie reassured him. “We got it all riled up when there wasn’t anything for it to fight. This time, I know where to send it, and Sketch knows how to protect the people below us, just like he protected Miller. Right, Sketch?”

“Yeah,” Sketch agreed. He was already imagining a golden dome extending over the deck below them, and he sent the image from his mind to the dragon, just as he had with the pterolycos. Sketch knew for a fact that some of the people milling about on the fourth-floor observation deck were less than innocent, but he would protect them all, nonetheless.

“We’re ready,” Mackenzie told Daniel. “Do it.”

“OK. Here goes nothing…”

Daniel reached out with his mind for the dragon’s summoning song and then imagined what it would feel like when it was energized. He heard the change in the melody immediately, heard the faster rhythm, heard the way the notes surged in power. He thought the music toward the dragon, and it screamed and rippled in the daylight, every one of its glittering scales igniting before their eyes into a brilliant, fiery gold, blazing like the sun.

Immediately, Mackenzie heard the dragon’s request in her mind, coming through almost as clearly as though it had spoken. Where? She sent back the image of the launch pad, including both distance and direction, and the dragon turned a graceful somersault in the air, forming a momentary ring of fire as its body circled around on itself and sped away.

They rushed to the telescopes along the deck to see what was happening. Precious moments ticked by as the blazing dragon sped across the miles and finally found its prey, trumpeting its challenge at the black. Moving slowly, almost casually, the black dragon shimmered, covering itself in brutal, black armor with wicked spikes running all along its great length, from its head to its tail.

The snake-like creature unraveled its front quarters from the Orion craft, leaving its legs and tail wrapped around the larger rocket, unfurling its tremendous, bat-like wings, and screaming at their champion—a sickening screech that trailed out into a hiss. In return, they all felt the fiery dragon’s intention to slice the dark monster in half right where it sat.

“The astronauts!” Rush gasped. “It’s going to rip the Orion apart! I can’t stop it! It’s too powerful!”

“You do not have to command it,” Ammu said, grabbing Rush’s shoulders and turning the young man to face him squarely. “The six of you must be in partnership with the dragon. Not to control, but to advise. Do you think you just heard that scream with your ears from all those miles away? You heard it with your unconscious mind. We can communicate with it instantly, across any distance—we need only connect to it. Reach out to it, Rush. Help it. Give it the guidance it seeks. It must be calling out to you.”

In fact, Rush had felt it seeking out his will, his knowledge, from the moment it had started coming through the portal. He had been resisting the link, remembering what controlling the pterolycos had cost him, but now, trusting Ammu, he let down his defenses and opened his mind.

There are innocents here, Rush thought to it. They need your protection. You must be careful, or you will cause the very destruction we are trying to stop. He felt the dragon trying to understand him, realizing that Rush was requesting caution but not yet comprehending why. Braking hard on fiery wings, it pulled back from its dive, holding its position.

“It knows I’m worried about what it’s doing, but it doesn’t understand my words,” Rush told Ammu.

“But you did it!” Ammu exclaimed. “Your conscious minds do not speak the same language, but the unconscious mind can communicate feelings, intentions, images. Do you see? You have stopped it, without having to control it!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t really help if we can’t tell it what it needs to know,” Rush protested. “It’s just sitting there while the clock ticks down!”

“Six and a half minutes,” Sam warned them.

“Wait,” Kaitlyn interjected. “You said we can communicate images, right?”

“Yeah,” Sketch answered her. “We can. Definitely.”

“Then let me try something.”

Closing her eyes, Kaitlyn saw in her mind an exploded-view drawing of the Orion craft, including the cockpit and its human occupants.

“Make the people gold,” Sketch advised her, guessing at her intention.

“Sorry?”

“The people in the rocket, that we’re warning it about. Make them gold. So it knows they’re on our team.”

“Oh!” Kaitlyn exclaimed. “Got it!”

She sent the image to the dragon, complete with golden astronauts, and the giant creature responded immediately, moving again, circling the Orion and its launch rocket warily, seeking a way to attack the beast without harming the craft.

“It understands!” Kaitlyn called out.

“Yeah, but it can’t find a way in,” Mackenzie said.