The Prime Princess

Hermione gasped for air as Calimea soared over her. Distant stars blinked in the background as the Mothership turned to lock on Calimea. Hermione grind her teeth together and clench her jaw as she shook off the premonition.

“I’m not gonna loose any of you,” she hissed and reached for her combo Dialing Arrival Dimension and Home device attached to her upper arm. Her only hope was a natural wormhole somewhere nearby to lead her into Void. Calculating arrival coordinates, she refused to watch Calimea getting hit by strong fire. She didn’t want to see her end like that – by the hands of Ancients.

“This gotta work,” mumbled Hermione and pushed the execute button. For a second she felt the Void all around her reaching into infinity and on the next second she was on board of Calimea.

“Draconis!” yelled Hermione as she hopped up from the floor and started to run for the bridge. “Draconis! This ship is gonna blow!” Hermione turned left from one end of the long corridor and sprinted on. She was almost sure she was in a right corridor. The intercom didn’t seem to work anymore and Calimea was deaf for her.

Gritting her teeth, she added speed and hoped she’d make it. Hermione tried to calculate the time she had when the Mothership blasted Calimea into oblivion. Her heavy footsteps on the metal grid thumped loudly as she rushed to save one of whom she cared about.

“Draconis! For crying out loud, I’m not kidding!”

No answer. Finally she reached for a corridor she was familiar with. And then a sealed up doors leading to bridge. Hermione crashed against the steel, not able to slow down. Doors didn’t open.

“Draconis!” Hermione screamed and banged her fist against the doors. “Open up!”

On the other side of doors Major Draconis thought he’d gone mad. He figured he was already hearing things. Draconis had heard stories how Ancients had driven people crazy by making them see and hear things that weren’t there.

He checked the shield that was holding up only 38% and was collapsing any minute. Chances to survive the battle were thin but he wasn’t going to give up or surrender. Too proud to do that. Calimea found the Fighter that belonged to Hermione but there were no life signs in it.

“Dead,” whispered Draconis and his vision fogged a bit as bitter tears scraped his throat. “Then death will unite us!”

“Draconis, open the bloody doors!” shouted Hermione, as she looked the insides of the control box of the doors. Taking her knife, she cut one wire and yanked out another. Looking them for a second to be sure she wasn’t going to fry the whole system, she connected the two and sighed as doors slide open.

Hermione ran inside and started to select the coordinates as she rushed to Draconis. Final warning signals started to howl and Calimea announced the incoming missiles. Then there was blinding light and deafening silence.
***
Draco stood under the shower in the changing-room shower stall and let the heat of the water revive him. He had won the game and he was bloody proud. But he had no one to share his victory. Hermione was mysteriously missing and his Head of the House acted a bit suspiciously.

The Yule Ball was on the next day and he even hadn’t had a chance to ask Hermione for his date. He knew she was still wary around him and Draco still hadn’t a slightest idea why. Blaise had started talking with him again but even he preferred to stay away from him. World wasn’t what it used to be for Draco any more.

Stepping out of the shower, he saw Vincent and Gregory both being congratulated by Millicent and he felt jealousy. All his teammates had someone who’d come and jump on them and rain kisses all over. Even the bitchy and snobbish Nemesis Viggo had a rich guy to worship the land she walked on. To lick her feet… suck… Argh! These thoughts only drove him mad and he tried to stop them from coming to him.

Getting dressed, he cast a warming spell around himself as he marched back to castle through the snow. The filthy friends of Granger didn’t crowd the Heads Dorm because there was nothing for them to celebrate. Slytherin had won and that meant that he was the one to go down to dungeons to celebrate the victory. Shrugging, he went up to his bedroom to get changed.

Opening the door, he sensed perfume in the air. The very first thing that came to mind was…

“He…” he started as candles lighted up one by one, illuminating his bedroom with a young witch standing in emerald green underwear. Pansy smiled and giggled.

“Hello?” asked Draco in confusion as he stepped into the room and stared at Pansy wiggling her fingers at him. She was not the one he’d hoped to find.

“Hi, Drakie! I wanted to give you a present for winning of the game.”
***
Draconis landed on something soft. Then he felt the freezing ice around him, sucking the warmth out of everything. In the dim blue light he looked at Hermione who still clutched to him. She opened her beautiful coffee brown eyes and glanced at him and then over his shoulder.

“Oh Merlin, we made it,” she gasped and hugged him closer, then shoved him off of her. “We have to get to the control room and jumpstart this stubborn idiot!”

“What just happened?” asked Draconis and jogged after Hermione who was taking one corridor. She had talent on finding correct way to wherever she wanted to reach. And also the device on her wrist helped a lot. The holographic blueprint of Oberon glowed in mere emergency lights as they rushed through the Hiveship.

“Intruder alert! Intruder alert!” howled Oberon.

“If this is any more farther, then I’m gonna take a Portal Platform,” hissed Draconis.

“Just around this…” and Hermione skidded to stop. In front of them stood one armed tactical android ready to fire. It looked huge with all four firearms pointing at them as another android stomped next to it. Chrome shined in dim light as their red eyes fixed themselves on intruders.

“Oberon, stand down your androids!” demanded Hermione but she was on board without an authorization and that caused a problem.

“Intruder alert! Intruder alert!”

Draconis turned around and saw three more tactical androids cutting off their way. He reached for Hermione to point out for her that they were trapped but Hermione was a step ahead of him. She reached over her shoulder and pulled from the sheath her staff that instantly reacted to her touch. The power-crystal in one end burst into bright red glow and the other end formed into a battle-axe. Grabbing the other half of the divided staff, she already shot from the first the closest android she saw. Her attack launched androids into fighting mode.

“Get out of the way!” yelled Hermione and shoved Draconis into narrow service corridor that also led to control room. Draconis pushed himself up the cold wall and had almost a heart attack as one glass pod next to him opened and one activated android crawled out of it. The android stretched itself to actual size and locked on Draconis.

“Crap,” muttered Draconis.
***
Draco tangled himself free of Pansy’s grip and clumsily crawled off the bed. Pansy looked disappointed as Draco excused himself and asked her to leave.

“I’ll see you later,” she said and danced out of the room without bothering to cover up her naked body. Draco sighed heavily and sat down on the corner of the bed and hung his head between his hands. He cursed himself for being weak and going after the first willing pussy he saw. How low could he sink? Yeah, it was all her fault! She made him do that!

“Who am I kidding?”

He got himself up from the bed and looked around for some clothes to go down into dungeons. He planned to get really drunk that night and maybe even go and terrorize some griffindors or hufflepuffs.

Carmen Granger arrived to Heads Dorm and ran into Draco as he made his way to portrait hole. She looked up at him and huffed.

“What?” demanded Draco. He turned around and glared at the bushy-haired witch going up the stairs to her room. “What?” He just didn’t get what was wrong with everyone or was it just him. Angry and frustrated, he stormed out of the Dorm to sulk in the corridor. He had no desire to go to the party where everyone would pat on his shoulder and say he’s the best Seeker in the House ever. He knew that wasn’t the truth. And knowing that, he didn’t go to Slytherin Dorm but went to find Professor Snape’s quarters. He really wanted to talk to his Godfather.

Reaching the door that led to Snape’s personal quarters, he found that it was ajar and he was able to hear somebody talking inside. He listened and recognized his father and Snape discussing something.

“Do you think it’s too early?” asked Lucius as he paced around the room. Snape was sitting on the couch and followed his friend with a gaze.

“Well, on Yule Ball…” started Snape.

“Yes-yes, but that would give like several months of preparation time. You know all these invitations, flowers, food and the list goes on. And the gown! It’ll take like forever to finish the most magnificent gown wizarding world has ever seen,” Lucius went on and didn’t notice that someone was eavesdropping or that Snape rolled his eyes.

“Lucius, my dear friend, you talk like she has already said ‘yes’,” told Snape.

“But why wouldn’t she? She loves me,” said Lucius and stopped pacing.

“Yes, there’s that,” consented Snape and wanted to add something but he sensed someone’s presence and with one flick of his wand, the door swung open, revealing Draco.

“Son?” asked surprised Lucius and welcomed Draco in.

“How long have you been standing there?” questioned Potion Master with somewhat harsh look.

“Not long,” said Draco and stared at his father. He wanted to ask what the hell was going on but then again he really didn’t want to know. Lucius seemed to explode if he didn’t say it out loud.

“I’m going to ask Hermione to marry me!”
***
Green blast shredded the android in front of Draconis and the next one took out another one. He peered around the corner and watched Hermione in complete combat mode. She was a deadly thing swinging her staffs around, using battle-axes and power-crystals to chop her way through machines.

“Oberon, stand down your androids!” roared Hermione and smashed another robot as she dodged from bullets. Oberon just didn’t want to listen to her and ignored her. Draconis backed away and came across with blast doors. There was a writing and he grinned as he read: Control Room. And then the grin faded as he tried to open it. A shot boomed past his head and went through the eleven inch metal. Turning around, he saw a running Hermione shooting at the blast doors and machines simultaneously.

“Oberon, stand down your androids or I’ll fry your brains!” yelled Hermione and with each blast the hole in the doors became bigger to slip through.

“Androids standing down!” said Oberon suddenly with his bellowing voice. Hermione didn’t bothered to look behind if machines had stopped or not, she ran for the doors and blasted her way through. Inside was the positronic brain of Oberon hanging high under the ceiling. Hermione rushed to panels of glowing crystals and yanked the covers off to take a look under the hood.

“What do you want?” asked Oberon who had all his eyes on them.

“I’m gonna rewire you,” said Hermione and pulled few long crystals out of the console.

“Why?” asked Oberon, seemingly upset.

“Your program is stupid. I need you to fight, not flee,” said Hermione and stepped to opposite panel to jam the crystals into needed ports. Then she pulled out some cables and started to reroute the whole system to bypass that stupid command that activated in the sign of threat. Major Draconis just watched her work and wondered who had taught her that. Probably some Rage Walker before her time.

“Changing my program in not allowed without authorization…”

“Yeah, well, I sorta skipped that part,” told Hermione and stood up. She walked to a huge dashboard and looked up at the positronic processor, “Time to reboot.” With a smirk, her hands flew over the keys and then she pushed the final button. Lights went out and everything stopped with a low hum that ceased eventually.

“Are you sure it was the right thing to do?” asked Draconis from the dark and tried to remember where she had been standing.

“Yes but I’m afraid that everything goes back as it was. So that means that…” started Hermione to think out loud and when lights came back, she was already holding up her twin staffs and pointed them at the exit.

“That security mechanisms are working again,” finished Hermione as she spotted glowing red dots in the darkness that belonged to tactical androids.

“Intruder alert!”