Neutron Dragon Attack

by Aaron Crash

  The gunny slid onto the bare metal of the bike. All the nanotech was spiderwebbed out. He gunned the bike hard.

  Enclosed in the bones of the beast, Blaze and Trina were safe. The preternaturally strong osseous matter deflected the high-velocity meteoroids. Frothing zombies, eyes burning out of their skulls, tried to seize them but were knocked out of the way by the debris.

  A photon dragon leaking skin and internal organs darted forward. Blaze tossed Trina his shotgun. She jacked in a fresh shell and took off its head. The wings, the legs, and the tail flapped around in space until a dozen zombies latched onto them, mindlessly chewing on the bones to get to the marrow inside. Crazy pinche dead people.

  Between the debris and the dragons, they hadn’t made much progress trying to get to the Gorebacks. Blaze and Trina rocketed back around to where they had started.

  Ling was nowhere to be seen, but Elle rose in front of them. She was still fighting the alpha obsidian and she was kicking ass. The massive moon-sized beast was vomiting other undead obsidians on her, but she was using her shield spell to change their trajectory, either aiming them at other dragons or sending them into the ectoplasm, which seized them and liquified them.

  One of the vomited obsidians rammed into an acid dragon. Inside the guts of the green beast, the acid ate through the black rocky skin of the obsidian. Both exploded into ragged bits and shattered bones.

  More betas crawled inside the alpha to be spit out in a futile attempt to kill the Onyx witch.

  Elle was ready. She adjusted the angle of her Onyx shield spell and sent the gushing stream of dragons and awfulness back onto the alpha dragon’s mouth. The incoming storm of monsters rammed back down into the throat of the undead beast, choking it on its own vomit even as it tried to barf more up. It thrashed around. The beta beasts clawed out of the throat of the thing and broke the massive cartilaginous rings of its neck.

  Blaze glanced into his display. Elle’s mojo was nearly at a hundred percent until a second later, when she unleashed a storm of Onyx missiles into a photon dragon, blasting the remnants of its flesh off its bones until only a skeleton was left. It continued to come at her, merely white osseous material.

  Until it hit her shield and exploded into pieces.

  A meteoroid tumbled into her energy barrier and sent her wheeling into grasping zombies, but she triggered her katana, sliced through scalps and severed limbs. Then she scattered more teeth and drew Onyx from the leftover undead. The zombies, drained of their Onyx, melted in the vacuum of space or exploded.

  She soared up, TKing her way around, her Onyx energy going from nil to ninety-nine percent in seconds.

  By this time, the alpha obsidian had coughed out the dragon jam in its throat and puked up another mass of slimy creatures. But the thing had learned not to try and hit Elle directly. It vomited all around her, and the betas immediately went for Elle from every angle. While they weren’t the size of the moon, some of the beta obsidians were the size of starships while others were only dog-shaped, misshapen and mewling. All shapes, all sizes, some mutated and barely able to function, others streamlined and deadly, went for her.

  “Trina!” Blaze called.

  “I see those fuckers!” the vampire called back.

  Trina fired the fusion shotgun into one of the big dragons about to rip his sister apart. Direct hit! The beast supernova’d onto the others, sending out shards of bone like spears into the dragons around it. The spray of its guts blinded others.

  Ling, finally appearing, swerved his starcycle around and unleashed a barrage of plasma fire and then hit the collection of nasties with a fusion bolt that blasted a hole in their ranks big enough for Elle to escape.

  The Meelah hurled himself from the bike and into a collection of the smaller dog-shaped dragons. Both of his nunchakus became arcs of blinding light. Since there was no air or anything to slow them down, the fusion emitters swinging on the length of chain swung faster and faster.

  The slippery black dog dragons were cut into their component parts by the savage attacks of the Shaolin sloth.

  Elle caught the starcycle and threw a leg over it. She dodged incoming meteoroids and flew the bike close enough to Ling that he could grab hold. They streaked away. Granny was still attached to the back, bundled in her sheet.

  Blaze got in front of Elle to break through planet hunks with his rib cage exoskeleton attached to his bike with the nanotech.

  More detritus streaked toward them from the doomed planet. Already huge chunks of Hutchinson Prime were coming loose, sending more space shit spinning toward them. The core had become ectoplasm, and it rivered out to add to the expanding ocean of ectoplasm flooding the space of the doomed star system.

  The Lizzie Borden’s plasma cannons shot rocks and zombies out of the way and sped away from the deadly black breath of the photon dragons while avoiding pools of both acid dragons and lakes of ectoplasm. As for the zombies, it ran them right the fuck down. Undead corpses in ragged clothes exploded as they hit the shields of the starship. And if there was anything left of them when they passed through the shields, it dinged harmlessly off the hull.

  The Lizzie hurled itself in front of the four on their starcycles, and the cargo bay opened.

  Lizzie broke through comms in her wheezing new voice. “Hhhello, Gunny. I’m assuming you hhhave a date with my brother. It’s the only way to save Granny, right?”

  “How did you know about that?” Blaze asked, immediately suspicious.

  “Ohhh, I’ve been listening for a whhhile. Come on board and we can talk about your plan further.”

  Blaze checked his display. There weren’t hundreds of dragons, nope, there were thousands. And they hadn’t taken out the big obsidian alpha yet. The force of Hutchinson Prime’s disintegration was pushing the zombies and the oceans of ectoplasm out, increasing the area of the chaos and death.

  Cali’s icon appeared on his screen, racing toward them. Well, that would help. Maybe. Probably? Probably not.

  The freezer freighter, filled with Gorebacks and the archduke of death, was still on course to rendezvous with them. But why were they coming back to a star system that was totally and irrevocably fucked?

  A familiar voice filled comms. “Goddammit, Ramirez! I don’t know what you’ve done or what’s going on, but we’re coming for you and the Gorebacks. You’re working with them, aren’t you? This is restricted space. Come peaceably or die!”

  Blipping onto his screen at the very edge of his sensors were IPC ships, the armada that they’d escaped. Every single craft, coming in. Three Cavalier-class attack ships, two big Paladins, and a dozen Vespula, loaded with twelve hundred wasp drones.

  So, the Gorebacks weren’t coming back. They were running for their very lives!

  “Who is this?” Blaze asked, smiling.

  “You damn well know! This is Security Director Alvin Denning of the Interstellar Presidential Corporation!”

  “Oh, that guy. Hey, Alvin, do you like zombies?”

  “What?” Denning thundered. “There is no such thing!”

  “What about dragons?” Blaze asked. “Bet you don’t believe in them either.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Denning was hyperventilating.

  “So, zombie dragons in demon soup is probably out of the question.” Blaze sighed. “Well, Denning, your worldview is about to get a whole lot broader.”

  He watched as the freezer freighter, pursued by over a thousand blue IPC blips, came into range of the Lizzie Borden. The Vespula had emptied their decks, deploying every single one of the wasp drones. The dragons also numbered in the thousands and appeared as red dots coming in fast. Blue IPC blips. Red dragon dots. And there was Blaze, Elle, Ling, and Trina, behind the Lizzie Borden, smack-dab in the middle of the mess.

  How in the holy hell was he ever going to get to Chthonic inside the freezer freighter and get the archduke to resurrect Granny?

  The gunny didn’t know. But he figured in all the excitement, most everyone had forgotte
n one important piece of the puzzle.

  And according to his calculations, it would be arriving in about five minutes.

  TWENTY-FOUR_

  ╠═╦╬╧╪

  Blaze reconfigured the nanotech, and the microscopic robots let go of the rib cage that had protected them from the meteoroids. Once again, he and Trina were on seats, their legs covered. Trina used Ugly Betty to blow away the sternum of the dragon, and they burst out and flew into the cargo bay.

  But Elle wasn’t joining them.

  “Hermana!” Blaze yelled. “You need to get your ass in here now. We’re regrouping, and I have a plan.”

  The Onyx witch and the Shaolin sloth didn’t comply. Elle spoke through comms. “Sorry, Blaze, but I’m not giving up so easily.”

  “Elle, we’re not giving up. I have a plan,” Blaze said. He and Trina leapt off the starcycle, leaving it on the cargo bay floor. They ran through the interior door and down the hall, heading for the bridge.

  “So do I,” Elle replied. “Ling and I are going to hit those pinche Gorebacks, and then I’m going to exorcise the holy bejesus out of Chthonic until he begs for mercy. Goddamn archduke will gladly bring Granny back from the dead.”

  “Unlikely,” Lizzie broke in. “My brother hhhas very specific ideas on life and death. You will not hhhave the power to bend hhhis will to your own. It really is hhhopeless.”

  “Not helping, Lizzie,” Blaze growled. “We’re gonna think happy thoughts. But, Elle, trust me. Come back on board.”

  “Not gonna do it, brother.”

  “Ling!” Blaze roared. “You have got to convince my sister to listen to me.”

  “Sorry, Blaze,” Ling said. “Remember what I said? Listening to everything your family says is as problematic as ignoring everything they say. And while you did well fighting your sister during your ghost-touch insanity, I doubt I would last as long.”

  Blaze and Trina rushed through the door and hit the bridge. Fernando, in all his stick insect majesty, sat at a workstation that glowed with the golden holographic controls that merged with his implants. He managed the gun controls with his extra limbs.

  “Fernando!” Blaze said. “Good to see you, Clicker buddy. Can I have control? You can stay on weapons.”

  The Clicker nodded. His holographic controls turned red. Blaze sat and strapped himself into a chair and his own golden controls appeared. “Elle, last chance. Come on board.”

  “No, sorry,” she said. “Not sorry.”

  Blaze ground his teeth in rage. “Goddamn family won’t follow my orders. Which is why I should have a crew.”

  “Oh, you love us and you know it,” Elle quipped. “Oh no, damn my ass to hell.”

  Blaze switched his display and saw what his sister was seeing. The alpha obsidian had reached them but this time the disgusting dead dragon wasn’t puking up other dragons. Now, like the obsidian they’d fought on Hutchinson Prime, the big, bad alpha dragon had loaded his stomach up with the Human undead. It opened its jaws and vomited out tens of thousands of zombies at both the Lizzie Borden and Elle on her starcycle.

  Not many of the zombies made it out of the thing’s gullet intact, but those that did blew through the shields and held onto the various pipes and edges of the Lizzie. Elle cast a shield spell and then another consume spell. But she’d misjudged her Onyx levels.

  Blaze’s heart dropped into his belly. Crap. Her mojo readings flashed red. She was at a hundred and fifty percent. Her VHI spiked to superhuman levels.

  Her cackles hit comms. The last time she’d overdosed on Onyx she’d nearly lost her mind and let the evil power consume her. The last thing they needed was Elle going to the dark side.

  “Trina!” Blaze shouted. “I need you to scan for the Etrusca ruin.”

  Trina was back to being Human, redhaired, freckled, and cute. She blinked her green eyes in confusion. “We’re nowhere near an Etrusca ruin, Blaze. Have you lost it?”

  “No, remember? One was moving toward this system. It should be here any second, and I’m hoping to use it.”

  “Against all those IPC ships?” Trina asked. “Or the dragons?”

  “Neither,” Blaze said. “Hold on.”

  He jerked on the controls, and the alpha obsidian struck them with more zombie vomit.

  Fifty corpses splashed down the main window on the bridge, blood and viscera leaking out and filming up the glass like bloody milk. One body only had a single arm left, yet it still clung to the lip of the window, lapping up gore off the glass with a gray tongue.

  Then it was torn away by their speed. But the ship was sluggish and hard to maneuver with all the bodies clinging to it. More planetary debris peppered them. Blaze dodged the big stuff, but there was so much planet junk around. And the undead dragon armada was about to descend on them in all its fury.

  Elle continued to laugh in comms. Cali joined her, but the werewolf wasn’t laughing. She was snarling, sounding very pissed off.

  “Lizzie,” Blaze said, “can you mute Elle and Cali?”

  “Hhhappy to oblige, Gunny,” the ship said. Both were silenced.

  “Trina, can you give me coordinates of the incoming Etrusca ruin?” Blaze asked.

  The vampire sent them over, and they appeared on Blaze’s display.

  “Elle,” he said, “if you can still think, I need you to open a path to these coordinates. That will push the Gorebacks right where we want them.”

  Silence answered him.

  Blaze adjusted his display and saw that Elle had left the starcycle to the Meelah. She was using her telekinesis to rip zombies out of the guts of the alpha dragon, right out of its stomach through its skin, and then mash them back down its mouth. She managed that while casting another consume spell.

  Both her mojo and her VHI levels errored out. Damn, but his sister had picked the wrong time to go gonzo on him.

  “Ling,” Blaze said, “can you get to Elle?”

  Before the Shaolin monk could answer, the first of the IPC wasp drones swarmed into them, and the winged yellow-and-black ships fired blue energy bolts into Lizzie’s shields.

  Bill clicked on comms and Fernando translated. “My brother says he hates you. He is glad we recalibrated the shields but—”

  Lizzie laughed mechanically. “Yes, Gunny, Bill totally hhhates you!”

  “Cut the chatter!” Blaze yelled.

  He spun the Lizzie around as the wasps blasted their guns into his shields. Their shield integrity dropped exponentially.

  Fernando finished his thought. “But Bill says we can’t take this barrage for long.”

  “Only a second more,” Blaze said, staying still, knowing he was about to be saved by an unlikely source.

  The blood and guts on the bridge’s window cooked in the heat of the hundreds of wasps pouring their plasma energy into them. The ship shook, rattled, and rolled.

  Then the first of the undead dragons attacked. Photon dragons breathed torrents of black Onyx energy out of their rotting mouths. Wasps caught in the area of effect were stripped of their metal and exploded. Acid dragons puked up puddles of sizzling fluid. Wasps hit the pools and the acid ate through their wings, guns, and engines, until nothing but metal dust was left.

  Another wasp was overwhelmed by zombie children, the undead brood ripping off sensors, pulling off guns, biting at the wings, until the wasp exploded, destroying itself and the collection of the undead clinging to it.

  The freezer freighter streaked by them, moving fast. The Lizzie couldn’t pursue because they were surrounded by every kind of enemy.

  In his mind’s eye, Blaze could see Speeder Bob smiling. At least Calhoun Goreback would be on the floor, mimicking a welcome mat. The idea made Blaze feel better. But where was the freezer freighter headed? The gunny couldn’t be sure, but if they let the Gorebacks escape, their chances of resurrecting Granny were gone.

  Hoping for the best, Blaze whipped the Lizzie around and headed for the coordinates of the Etrusca ruin. It appeared as a white X on his display
.

  Alvin Denning shouted into comms. “Captain, you will desist this madness and come peaceably!”

  The three IPC Cavalier-class attack ships sailed into view, firing their theta-particle cannons at the Lizzie. Meteoroids spun in front of the beams before exploding.

  “You can see all this, right, Denning?” Blaze asked in wonder.

  “Yes, no, perhaps,” Denning sputtered. ““Yes, the anomalous conditions present near Hutchinson Prime are odd, but I’m sure there is a scientific explanation. Visually, it is rather odd. But our instruments aren’t registering the anomalies; hence we think they are illusions.”

  Blaze’s mouth dropped open. How could these IPC dickbrains be such…such…dickbrains. “Like we’ve said, Denning, you have to believe in Onyx to study it.”

  “That seems very convenient,” Denning sniped.

  “Uh, I’d pretty much call it an inconvenient truth at this stage,” Blaze said. And then smiled.

  Denning and his IPC armada were about to get a dose of reality.

  A beta obsidian dragon, a big one, chomped down on the weapons wing of one of the attack ships and chewed at the metal. A frayed dragon wing covered the ship’s viewing portals even as more beta obsidians flew down to cling to the IPC vessel, ripping out missiles and clawing out guns. The tri-sword bone tails from the dragons whipped into wasps and smashed the drones into worthless junk.

  The two big triangular Paladin command ships, control towers and big cannons dotting their surfaces, motored into range. The cannons opened fire, not on the dragons, but on the Lizzie Borden.

  The plasma charges from the cannons bashed out the Lizzie’s shields, and the lights flickered on the bridge.

  Bill clicked through comms.

  “We can’t take another hit from those cannons,” Fernando said.

  Trina piped up. “We won’t have to. Your sister, dammit, but your sister is kicking some serious ass.”

  While avoiding meteoroids, acid puddles, ectoplasm rivers and oceans, wasps, and dragons, Blaze managed a second to glance into his display.