I followed him down to the base of the skull where it was strapped to the hull. The dragon head was wider than the ring and its throat opening overhung the ship on both sides. We used our thrusters to come up under the head and into its pharynx.

  “There it is,” Flax said, pointing ahead. Dangling like a huge uvula was a thirty-meter-long stalactite encrusted in iridescent crystals. This was the ignitor. “That thing ignites the dragon’s plasma so the dragon can breathe fire. Our shields can usually handle dragon fire unless we’re too close or get hit too long or often.” He cut around the base and then gently set it adrift. A specialized drone appeared to wrap it and return it to the ship. “Now on to the brain. First, we have to get to the stem.” He turned towards the back of the throat and began tunneling into the gray blue flesh of the creature.

  This new tunnel dug much deeper than the ones behind the eyes. Flax had me take turns with him alternating the cutting. Eventually we came to an area full of white crystalline strands that resembled fiber optics. The fibers curled and blackened as the laser cut through them before gasifying and escaping the tunnel. After some time the white strands began transitioning into a dense network for gray fibers.

  “We’re in the base of the brain now. Cutting along the spinal cord and up through the brain is the easiest way to get into the base of the crest where the brain oil is. Technically it’s not part of the brain but is associated with the dragon’s ability to accelerate past light speed.”

  “I learned about it in school, but I don’t really understand how it works.”

  “Neither do I. Leave that to the engineers. I just know it does work.”

  As we cut further into the brain some tendrils that were orange in color began blending in with the few remaining white and the majority gray. The orange became more and more prevalent until Flax’s tunnel cut through a dense cord of orange. He stopped cutting at that point and drew my attention upwards where there was a circle on the ceiling of the tunnel with concentric circles of different shades of orange from an outer saffron to a reddish vermillion in the center.

  “See that? It connects to the brain oil chamber. No more laser cutters. It’s extremely volatile.” A drone that had been following us towed a boring machine to Flax. He detached it and directed the three pronged tip toward the center of the orange circle. Using thrusters gently, he began to drill upwards, creating a vertical shaft from the main tunnel that was about a meter and a half in diameter. The borer ejected dragon flesh downward towards where I was. The tunnel started to fill with floating debris until some more drones arrived and began collecting it and removing it out into space. Once Flax had extended the vertical shaft far enough, I followed him leaving about a meter between us. I just kicked off the side walls to move myself up instead of using thruster. Pieces of shredded dragon rained down on me, covering my suit. I tried not to think about it.

  After about sixty meters, Flax stopped. “Come look at this.” He retracted the blades of the borer and backed down the shaft, pulling it with himr and passing me by. “Go up to the top and tell me what you see, but don’t touch.”

  I used a small burst from my thrusters to float up to the end of the shaft. At the center of the orange circle was a glowing spot smaller than the palm of my hand. “This is brain oil?”

  “Almost. There’s a tiny amount of connector cord still plugging the chamber. Now I switch to a knife to cut the rest. I’ll give you access to my helmet camera so you can see what I’m doing.” He drew a large knife from a sheath at his side. “This is made of an alloy of nickel, gold, platinum, and palladium. Most metals will dissolve or even create and explosive reaction with the brain oil.” He began slicing into the orange cord below the glowing spot, which got brighter as more material was removed. He was making a circle about a half a meter in diameter. “Now I add an end piece.” A drone passed by with a thick white ring, some stakes, and a hammer. “This ring and the stakes are made of a high-density plastic.” He forced the end piece ring into the rough hole he had dug with the special knife, trimming a little here and there to make it fit. He then hammered sixteen barbed plastic stakes through holes around the rim of the ring to anchor it down. A drone next brought a flat hose into the shaft up past us, and Flax connected the hose to the piece he had just installed.

  “Notice this custom fitting. These two handles sticking out are attached to special alloy knives on the inside of the hose. I shove them down and then rotate deasil and the blades inside the hose will cut out a cylindrical opening to the brain oil the chamber.” He did so. “Now, I’m signaling the pump to pressurize the hose with helium.” The hose began to swell. “It’s maintaining pressure within the hose, so now we can begin suctioning the brain oil out. It is actually a dual flow hose. The inner part will extend to the far side of the chamber and pump helium into the cavity to displace the oil, which is suctioned out through the outer layer of the hose. Have a look.” I was given access to the camera on the inner helium outflow hose. At first I could only see glowing opalescent light, but as more and more brain oil was sucked up and displaced by helium a clear pocket formed, and the oil receded until the cobalt blue of the inside of the skull appeared.

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  “Once the cavity is nearly empty of oil we can use a camera in the inner hose and remotely move it around the chamber to dislodge any oil that wasn’t collected and blow it into the outer intake. Try now.”

  Via CCP I could access jet openings on the end of the inner tube. Opening different combinations allowed me to steer the end of the hose within the cavity to blow any opalescent mass still covering the blue skull into the suction hose. Before too long, the dragon brain oil had all been removed.

  “Now we just reclaim the helium and leave a vacuum.” The third mate and I exited the dragon head and backed off towards the tower. “Say goodbye to our little friend,” Flax said. He gave the order to the drone swarm to unstrap the head from the ship. The fullerene web fell away, and the drones pushed it towards the pulsing spots of light that surrounded us.

  We watched it drift until it hit the border of the Broglie bubble that surrounded the ship. It smeared into a glowing fiery streak as the parts that passed through the bubble were ripped asunder as the matter instantaneously decelerated to sub-light speed. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Good work, Herman.” We returned to the ship. It was well past the end of my duty shift. I was exhausted and hungry. The small sips of nutrients I had consumed via the tube in my suit had sustained me but not satisfied me. I was sure Koko was right about the appetite suppressants on Bedford. I would sometimes go a day or two hardly eating and never notice there; now I was ravenous. But most of all I felt dirty, not only from having used the suit’s sanitary functions as the work stretched on and on and on, but also from what I had done.

  Once we reached the issue room, I went into the spare parts compartment to change. I removed the spacesuit and slid off the sanitary accessory. Whatever it did, I seemed to be completely clean. I put my underwear and ship suit back on. When I went back out into the main compartment, Third Officer Flax was already dressed in his ship suit.

  “Next dragon, I’m going to have you take the lead and I’ll just supervise. Eventually we’ll let you process the head on your own.”

  “How many times have you done this?”

  “Maybe a hundred. Mostly before I was an officer. Normally there’s a rotation, but now that we have a greenhand it’s a good way to earn your keep.”

  “I see.”

  “Are you hungry? The officers’ wardroom is still off limits so I’d be happy to join you in the mess.”

  “I don’t think I’m quite ready to go there yet.”

  “Is everything okay? I would think you’d be famished after that.”

  “I just need time to process it, relax, and get cleaned up.”

  “Have you seen the crew lounge yet? We could go there.”

  “Maybe another time. I just want to go back to my quarters.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. He looked me in the eyes for a few seconds, then turned and left.

  I went back to my quarters and took a bath. It was still a strange feeling to be floating in water. I was deeply unsettled by what I had done today. Would I still be by the hundredth dragon? Flax was so cavalier about it as were the rest of the dragoners. Were they as conflicted about what we were doing as I when they went on their first voyage?

  After I dried off, I was too hungry to sleep, so I dressed in my ship suit and went to the mess hall. No one was there, not even Cookie; only self-serve snacks and meals were available. I loaded my tray with bread, sliced meat, a wedge of cheese, a bowl of vegetables, and some fruit I had never eaten before including a banana and an apple.

  Everything was delicious as usual. About twenty minutes after I started, Koko came into the mess. She got herself a tray and then sat across from me.

  “Jayden.”

  “Hi.”

  “Heard you did skull work.”

  “Yes.”

  “Third mate said you did good.”

  “You get reports on me?”

  “Took a risk to get you onboard. Spoke for you. They’re letting me know how it’s going.”

  “It’s not what I expected, not that I really gave the decision much consideration. I was mainly just running away.”

  “Main ship work’s not so exciting. Need to bring you on an interceptor. See what dragoning is really about.”

  “It may not be for me.”

  “Not staying?”

  “I don’t want to let you down or any special treatment. I’ll keep my head down and do the job, but I won’t renew once I collect my half share.”

  “Dragoning’s not for everyone.” She got up and went to the alcohol display, returned with a decanter of bourbon, then poured me a glass. “Drink.”

  I took a sip. It burned but felt nice. “Dawningsun told me you’re a princess.”

  “Prince,” Koko corrected.

  “Oh. Sorry. I just assumed you were a woman this whole time.”

  Koko laughed. “I’m all woman but no genders in my language. Words only differ by royalty or not.”

  “So royals use male and commoners use female?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that sexist?”

  “And the other way around?”

  “Yes, I guess that would be sexist too.”

  “Founder designed the language still must sometimes we have to communicate in galactica. Maybe they flipped a coin to decide. Doesn’t matter.”

  “I guess not. Classist though to have royalty.”

  “Someone has to be in charge. Not really any advantages to being royalty where I come from. Just a different kind of work.”

  “All she told me about your planet was that it shunned technology.”

  “Better. Simple.”

  “Then why are you here being a dragoner?”

  “Usually better but maybe too simple. Hard life on a bad planet. Dragoning’ll earn me some money for improvements at home. Make life easier. Maybe introduce some technology when I’m king.”

  “Won’t you start an uprising?”

  “People who disagree will just ignore me. Might choose a new king. Change is the right thing to do for the future of my people. If they agree, it will happen.”

  “You won’t force change?”

  “Can’t. Kings have no armies where I come from. Rule by consent alone. Too many bad decisions and you end up like the foolish King Yertle.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Was the king of all he could see until he was cast down for demanding too much.”

  “The people killed him?”

  “Stopped following him. If all the people ignore a bad ruler, he’s no longer a ruler.”

  “What does the current king think of your plans?”

  “Parents are co-kings. Haven’t mentioned it. Three princes ahead of me.”

  “So you may never become king?”

  “If that is the will of the universe.”