Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

First Man

He woke eyes burning throwing his hand up against an unbelievably white light that seared his eyes and face. It was so painful he was doubled over hand clutched to his face as he scrabbled to sit up. His mechanical eye whirred as it adjusted to the light and then overloaded, shutting off and rebooting as he tried to stand, forgot he had only one leg and fell to the floor.

Somewhere there was a whimper.

His eye adjusted switching over to a different mode to handle the brightness, and he was finally able to see, keeping a hand over his human eye as he scrambled to strap on his prosthetic, which was sitting by the bed where he left it. It whirred as it clicked into place. Beside him sunny was on her feet though she held one forearm over her eyes, staggering backward into the opposite wall.

Waffles whimpered from under the bed.

"A large one way viewing window gave him access to a view across the lunar surface.

In the distance the historical landing site at Tranquility Base, was only just visible.

Up in the sky the white light continued to burn, bright enough to have overloaded the setting on the window to block out the sun as they slept. He cursed as he stumbled into the hallway, his eyes casting ghosts of light on his eyelids as his vision tried to recover itself. Sunny followed after him as he grabbed his weapons, a spear in one hand and a gun in the other, preparing for all eventualities.

Sunny had no time to put on her armor, but she grabbed her helmet.

Better something than nothing at all.

He threw open the door and the two of them ventured out onto the lunar surface bright light still searing their eyes. Sunny held onto his shoulder unable to see where she was going. Others filtered outside with similar ideas looking up into the sky and past their small atmospheric bubble as they held their hands against the blinding light.

His implant went off and he reached down to answer it.

"Admiral Vir." He ."aid, "Want to tell me what the hell that thing is."

"She's back, we have eyes on the second space dragon."

Relief washed over him, "Is that her, making the light."

"No sir, something else."

"have a shuttle ready for me, I will be there in five."

"Yes sir."

He hung up the call and raced down the roadway, occasionally kicking up moon dust to stain his sweatpants as he ran. Sunny ran after him, and together they made it to the Lunar Port, slipping in through security just as a young pilot stepped from the doorway of an idling shuttle. The white light still burned down on them. Adam thanked the young pilot and hurriedly stepped into the craft with Sunny behind him, it didn't take long before he had exited their atmospheric bubble and entered orbit, finding their way to his ship, and the nearby structure that contained the sleeping Smaug.

Looking out the window, his back to the blinding white light, he could see her, curled up around Smaug's neck like she had always been there.

Around them, the effort to help Smaug had drawn to a halt.

Closing his eyes briefly, he took a deep breath, and, using the trick Conn had taught him, reached out with his thoughts. He couldn't describe the feeling, and the probe was weak like any sort of telepathy attempted by humans, but the message was received.

His mind was filled, soothed with a deep but cool female voice, like warm water rushing over a waterfall, powerful but soothing, either that, or the waves on a warm sea, "Someone wishes to speak with you."