Space Dragon Allepexxis

by C. K. Pershing

  “Heh, you and I, no matter how old we get, we’re still a couple of catty gossips,” Behlen said.

  “Always. Now c’mon, tell me.”

  “Okay, well, you know my assistant?”

  “The Dwarf whore. Yeah. Oh, are you kidding me? This whole damn thing is thanks to some basic black mail?”

  “Yep. You know how the Ghants always present themselves as the perfect family. High school sweethearts growing old together, eight grandchildren, all that bullshit. And you also know that while there are more than a few open marriages around here, theirs isn’t, and they make such a big production over how their love and marriage is somehow superior to everyone else.”

  “Yeah, Nance Ghant is practically a nun. She’d never go for that.”

  “Well,” Behlen said, “Reed Ghant is certainly not opposed. According to my assistant, he’s all in for the really crazy stuff. First, he paid a lot of money to watch five orks go at her at once.”

  “Five orks were able to fuck a dwarf at the same time? No way.”

  “Oh, Jil can take it. You know how tough dwarves are. She’s very resilient and took every kind of penetration the orks could think of without breaking a sweat.”

  Paress looked over and Casten’s expression of shock— wide eyes with eyebrows raised and mouth in the shape of an “O” in surprise— made him almost laugh and he had to look away.

  “Huh, I’d like to see that. I’m not sure I believe you,” Leah said with a shiver.

  “Are you actually getting turned on?” Behlen asked.

  “Yeah, kinda.” Leah giggled.

  “Whatever. You and Reed Ghant are two of a kind, I guess… Anyway, an old guy watching some orks gangbang a dwarven Painted Lady is kinda scandalous, but it isn’t the end of the world,” Behlen said. “What is the end of the world— or at least a very public crash of two high-profile, holier-than-thou types, is when that old guy gets the orks to jerk off on him after fucking said dwarf…and then figures maybe he’d like to have those orks take a go at gangbanging him.”

  Leah howled laughter. “Bullshit!”

  “I shit you not, love. And well, needless to say, while a young dwarf can take a few orks doing her at one time, a 110 year old human man is a whole other story no matter how good his nanotech is. It’s not like he’s Blessed with anything beyond what the rest of us have. So that got ugly real fast.”

  Leah gasped out through her laughter, “Oh my God, this is crazy. This can’t be real.”

  “Remember that accident with #56 a while back during one of the inspections?” Behlen asked.

  “You mean the one where Ghant ended up being paralyzed from the waist down for a while…” Leah began and then started laughing so hard she was practically squealing.

  Behlen laughed a bit too and said, “We told everyone he fell off one of the gantries by accident and his spine hit a pole on the way down. The reality of course was that he’d been impaled by two ork poles and ended up needing some discreet medical attention.”

  They both laughed long and hard and Paress found himself wanting to laugh so badly, tears were streaming down his cheeks from holding it in. He couldn’t even look at Casten. One shared look and they’d both start howling.

  After a while, Leah caught her breath and said, “The bad pun about ork poles notwithstanding, that’s a hell of a story. And well, I can’t dispute it. The results speak for themselves. You have Allepexxis and a team to pilot him, with no interference from the top.” Her voice got low and silky. “I want the footage, Jeddeg.”

  “Of Ghant getting rammed by the orks? Damn, Leah…”

  “You know what I want, you asshole. The footage of your little dwarf slut getting it from the Orks. The sheer debasement! The idea that a dwarf, Painted Lady or not, would let even one ork touch her, much less five enter her… That’s some very high-level debauchery there!”

  “Yeah, especially considering just how messy she was after the whole thing. Bodily fluids everywhere…”

  Leah laughed again. “You have to give me this recording. I’m so wet now, I’m gonna explode.”

  “Damn, get a grip,” Behlen said with a laugh. Sounds of rummaging and then, “Here.”

  “Perfect,” Leah said. “Okay, you’ve got your— armistice, we’ll say— as long as you keep to your promise, we’re good. A recording like this, we’re better than good.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I hope you paid your girl well.”

  “Actually, she’s the one who came up with the plan,” Behlen said with a laugh. “Apparently, Nance Ghant made some snide comment to Jil about her life choices. Meanwhile, Reed had been checking out Jil’s ass and making not-so-subtle statements when Nance wasn’t around.”

  He cleared his throat. “So, when Jil saw me trying to figure out a way to go through with my plan, she presented her idea to me as a way of getting her personal revenge on the Ghants. They made the wrong choice when they got on her bad side. Even so, as thanks for helping me out, I’ve given her a raise and put the wheels into motion to make her a large department head— which is what she really wants most of all. Not surprising, really. She’s basically a typical dwarf who wants to do her clan proud with her professional position, while at the same time doing her own thing. I can respect that.”

  “As for debasing herself with a bunch of orks,” he continued. “I think she saw it as a challenge that no grubby gang of orks would be able to break a dwarven chieftain’s daughter. And she was right— they didn’t. Her eyes roll back into her head for a bit and her tongue lolls around for a while as she drools on herself, making her look kinda stupid— I guess fucked silly, you could say. But when it’s over, she’s all there and standing tall over a bunch of exhausted orks. Now, Ghant on the other hand…he’s a whole other story…”

  Leah laughed. “Yeah, I’d imagine so.” After a moment, “Jeddeg, come home tonight. We’ll seal our new understanding with some fun, okay?”

  “Lemme guess, roleplaying the ork and the dwarf?”

  “Yeah, and I even might let you be the ork.”

  “Pssh. Oh alright. You know I can’t resist you when you get that feral elf-slut thing going…”

  “Half-elf-slut,” she corrected.

  “Whatever. Now get outta here, you horny idiot. I’ve got my two boys arriving soon and they don’t need to see some silly drooling half-elf panting like a dog in heat.” Behlen’s tone was jovial with a very slight edge of panic.

  “I’m going, I’m going. Don’t worry, they won’t meet the Big Bad Wife just yet.”

  “And keep a leash on your people,” Behlen called. “No more incidents like what happened with the Driinen.”

  “Of course,” Leah answered, her voice getting closer. “I’ll expect you home at seven. Don’t be late.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Paress was suddenly terrified. He didn’t know Leah Behlen was a half-elf. He should have researched her in the Academy archives last night instead of playing video games. If she inherited the twilight sight from her elf mother, no matter how much he and Casten hid in the darkness of the aisle, they’d stick out like flashlights.

  The two boys flattened themselves against some tall stacks of books and held their breath. Paress closed his eyes tight afraid that even looking at her would give them away. Elves usually knew when someone’s eyes were on them, so it wasn’t such a ridiculous worry.

  To his immense relief, she walked past without the slightest hesitation, expertly negotiating the path through her father’s— and now her husband’s— office and out the door. After a couple minutes, they silently crept back to the office door. Behlen was rummaging through some paperwork and opening various file cabinets so their job was made a little easier.

  When they got to the door, Paress checked the time. Thirty seconds early. He breathed a sigh of relief and loudly opened the door and closed it. “Dr. Behlen,” he called. “Hello!”

  “Back here, guys. Follow the trail like before,” Behlen
called back.

  When they emerged into the small clearing with his desk, he smiled warmly. “Wow, right on time. I love punctuality. I was never much for starting early…” he said, and Paress understood why, despite his own hopes of impressing Behlen. “…but I also hate lateness,” Behlen continued. “So you guys are perfect.”

  Paress willed himself not to sigh with relief and hoped Casten would do the same. Paress could safely say this was probably one of the most interesting mornings of his life so far— no mean feat considering everything that had happened to him in recent memory. He steeled himself waiting for the inevitable dressing down for fighting. He knew Behlen was on their side based on the argument with Leah, but also figured he’d punish them to make a point that any fighting on campus was forbidden.

  But that dressing-down never came. Instead, Behlen greeted them with a smile and shook their hands. “Alright, guys, today, we get that big dragon moving and maybe even fire one or two of its weapons. Sound exciting?”

  “Yes sir!” they chorused happily.

  “Excellent, let’s go.”

  Chapter Eleven

  When Behlen led Paress and Casten off the turbolift, it was in a different location than the day before. They emerged in a giant control room with about fifty staff sitting at various stations. Behlen led the boys through and out a door where Jil was waiting in a small utility vehicle.

  She smiled at Paress and Casten as they climbed in the back seats with Behlen using the front passenger seat. “You get to actually pilot #25 today. Are you excited?”

  Paress, who couldn’t get the image of the Dwarf having rough sex with a group of Orks, thanks to what he’d heard recently, could only stammer out, “Uh, y-yeah!”

  Jil gave him a quizzical look and said, “Well, glad to know it.” She steered the vehicle out onto a huge runway and sped along toward the looming presence of Allepexxis in the distance.

  Behlen turned to look over his shoulder at Paress and Casten. “We have the surrounding thirty miles of airspace locked down for us. That should be enough room to get your feet wet and not destroy anything in the process.” He winked.

  The airfield they drove on was surrounded on all sides by large, lush forests that gave way to soft, low lying mountains in the distance. The sky was clear and beautiful overhead with the occasional puffy white cloud drifting lazily by. It was all quite idyllic and Paress was happy that his first day of piloting was so wonderful.

  They soon arrived at Allepexxis and Jil stopped. They all hopped out and walked over to the huge dragon. “Okay, Paress, we’ve got everything ready for you, so go ahead and climb in and get ready. We’ll head back to the control room and be in touch soon.”

  “Isn’t Casten coming with me?” Paress asked. Casten looked up at Behlen too.

  “No,” Behlen said, “even though he has a backup cockpit, that’s really only a convenience item for quick synching and for doing quick space jumps without a carrier ship around. But for nearly all missions, the Companion stays away from the Hyper Battle Machine and communicates remotely. It’s a safety measure so that if something happens, we have a sort of off-site back up to see what went wrong.”

  “I understand,” Paress said.

  “Casten, your programming has finished rewriting itself to work more efficiently with #25, correct?” Behlen asked.

  “Yes sir, finished about an hour ago.”

  “Good. In that case, here you go.” Behlen fished a data pad out of a duffle in the vehicle and handed it over. It looked like a normal data pad, but with a couple added knobs. It had a black finish similar to Allepexxis and carried the same twin flaming swords insignia on the back. “This is #25’s Companion Data Pad,” Behlen said.

  “This is what you’ll use to stay in touch with Paress during missions and to record and tweak #25’s settings on the fly if need be. Now that your core programming has been rewritten, you’ll be able to use the pad to do everything from tweaking the trim angle on #25’ stabilizers to adjusting the response time of how long Paress has to double click the buttons on the main sticks to charge different weapons, to microphone sensitivity for his voice commands to activate other attacks.”

  Casten gently touched the screen and it sprung to life. Behlen said, “All that stuff I described… do you know how to do it?”

  Casten made a slight frown and then with a look of surprise said, “Actually, yes! I do!”

  “Perfect. That’s because your core programming is set and synched. The pad will only work for you since you’re #25’s Companion. For anyone else, it’ll be pretty much a doorstop. If it breaks, you know how to fix it…”

  Casten nodded again, his smile growing.

  “Then you’re all set,” Behlen said. He turned to Paress. “Okay, the Machine’s ready to go since we never put it into sleep mode yesterday— frankly, he’s been sleeping long enough. The Companion’s also ready. Now it’s up to the Space Knight, so make it happen.”

  “Yes sir!” Paress snapped a quick salute and shook Casten’s hand before clambering aboard Allepexxis, grinning the entire way.

  The Hyper Battle Machine’s internal gravity adjusted as he made his way farther inside toward the cockpit, assisting him in his climb. Now set to automatic, the blast doors that secured the cockpit against the outside closed behind Paress as he travelled along, the last set closing as he entered the cockpit itself.

  After strapping himself into the pilot’s seat, he flipped the monitor switches on and the cockpit’s backlights went off as the view screens surrounding him all came on to show him the outside world in ultra high resolution. Paress had learned that the screens were actually in a far higher resolution than his human eyes could detect to facilitate races such as Elves that could see in much finer detail. The aim was to present as perfect a picture as possible to the Space Knight and so the screens were more than enough for Paress, giving the impression that he was surrounded by open windows that faced outside. Smaller windows to the side showed settings for preferences and a tactical display that showed Allepexxis in front, side, and top views.

  The only clues that he wasn’t looking through real windows was that he couldn’t feel the wind that moved the grass and trees combined with the occasional readout or point of interest that Allepexxis’ computer had identified. The most visible of these were the receding utility vehicle with Jil, Behlen, and Casten inside; and the control center they were driving toward in the distance.

  He zoomed in on the vehicle, the small craft surrounded by a green reticule identifying it as friendly and with notes attached identifying the make and model, power source, and other facts. He watched as the passengers themselves were then highlighted, and then also presented with similar notes with their names, rank, age, race, and home planet. Jil and Behlen were outlined in green, but Paress smiled when he saw that Casten was glowing in gold in more than just an outline. Perhaps Allepexxis saw all Companions that way since they shared many of the same materials in construction.

  Then Paress remembered something Behlen had said about Elder Ahdoh. “It’s a legend from the Ancients. A man, or maybe a place, of gold.” Since then, he felt like it was probably a place. But seeing Casten like this now… was Elder Ahdoh a Companion? He shook his head. He couldn’t think of that kind of stuff just now. Behlen would expect Paress ready to go by the time he got to the control center.

  He flipped on a few more switches, securing the blast doors, removing the pre-flight safety lockdowns, and establishing that he was taking direct control. He sat and waited as the small vehicle parked outside the control center and the three passengers departed and went inside. Allepexxis was easily able to stay zoomed in on them the entire time, not surprising since it was a military machine built to deal with ranges of space combat that could stretch hundreds of miles. The couple miles to the control center were practically right in front of the dragon’s incredible sight.

  Moments later, the same small windows from the day before opened on one of his screens showing Behlen
and Casten respectively, the only difference showing their points of origin had changed— notably Casten who was not sitting inside of Allepexxis’ other cockpit this time.

  “Paress, how’re you feeling?” Behlen asked as Casten waved from his separate window.

  “Good!” Paress said. “I’m ready to go.”

  “Excellent. Okay, with a few exceptions set up for races with different limb structures, all Hyper Battle Machines use the Standardized Mecha Piloting Profile for basic controls. So, by learning #25’s controls, you’ll also be able to pilot any standardized mecha in the Imperial Arsenal. But remember, you won’t be able to pilot other Hyper Battle Machines because of the synching issue, even though you’ll know the basic control scheme.”

  Behlen paused a moment as he looked over some papers Jil handed to him from offscreen. Then, “Alright Paress, first we’re gonna have you move #25 forward in a walk. So take the two control sticks in hand and push them forward.”

  Paress placed his hands on the sticks tentatively, awaiting some kind of test or other weird thing, but this time nothing happened. He noticed the small red standby light on his console switched to the green to show Allepexxis was now in active mode. He briefly let go of the sticks and the light went red again— a safety feature that unless overridden, kept a Hyper Battle Machine from being able to move unless the pilot’s hands were directly on the controls.

  He grasped the sticks again and very gently pushed them both forward. The landscape started to slowly move around him as Allepexxis started to walk.

  “Good,” Belen said. “Now, pull the sticks back to go in reverse.”

  Paress did so and Allepexxis started to walk backwards.

  “Okay, now stop and if you push only the right stick forward, you’ll turn right while walking forward. The same goes for the left. How sharp the turn is depends on how far you push the stick. Try it.”

  Paress obeyed and Allepexxis followed his commands.

  “Now if you want to stay in one spot and do a pirouette to spin more quickly,” Behlen said, “push one stick forward and pull the other back.”