Space Dragon Allepexxis

by C. K. Pershing

  Paress descended, while watching the screen with the miniature representation of Allepexxis inside. When he got close to the ground, the dragon’s legs, that had been tucked in along the sides of its body, came down and its feet met the ground so that instead of flying forward through the air, it was now jogging along the ground.

  “Cool!” Paress said.

  “There are times when all three settings can come in handy,” Behlen said, “but ultimately, you’ll want to get to the state where you can turn all the safeties off and pilot your Machine at the full limits of its capability. Remember what I said before. Your abilities, if honed, will give you a level of control finesse in piloting that other people can only dream of. That’s where mastering all of the knobs in the cockpit comes in. Each one is a dial that adjusts or trims a control. Go back into flight mode and then turn the ‘Ground Avoidance’ to ‘Off’ again.”

  After Paress pushed the sticks in toward each other to re-activate Flight Mode, Allepexxis once again went into the air. Paress turned the ground avoidance off as instructed.

  “Okay, you’re going to lower the Machine down as far as possible without hitting the ground…” When Paress did so, Behlen said, “Okay, you’re about five feet off the ground. Pretty good for something a thousand feet long. But you can get a lot closer. Remember the eight knobs from yesterday? They’re not there just to make fancy patterns. They give you really fine control. The knob closest to you in the grouping of four on your right from yesterday… that one controls altitude. With your telekinesis only, I want you to turn that knob counterclockwise to lower #25 even closer to the ground. Remember to keep your hands on the sticks…”

  Paress reached out with his mind and found the knob Behlen was talking about and started to turn it to the left. With each full revolution of the knob, Allepexxis lowered an inch. Considering he was over sixty inches from the ground, he found himself gently pressing down on the sticks while turning the knob to expedite the process.

  When he got within twelve inches, he went back to using the knob only, rotating it with his mind until at half a rotation, he saw that the lowest point on his Machine’s body was a half-inch from the ground. He held his breath and turned the knob ever so slightly and stopped when he hit a quarter-inch. He released the knob.

  “Very good!” Behlen said. “Excellent! You’ve managed to put something the same size of a small building a quarter-inch off the ground. Amazing, huh?”

  “Whew, I’ll say!” Paress grinned.

  “So do you better understand what I was talking about with using your powers for fine control while piloting? You’ll notice that each set of knobs is held within its own color-coded area. The current set is in yellow. When you’ve mastered those eight, Allepexxis will open the next level in green, and so on up to the gold level, unlocking the last group. All 140 knobs in there give you mastery over everything from movement to weapons in ways that make all other Hyper Battle Machines look clunky in comparison. Imagine what you could do if during a fight you not only used your control sticks and pedals, but also all the knobs?

  “You could thread your way through enemy fire without your shields ever taking on hits, fly so close to the ground that any enemies that tried to follow would crash. You’d be able to surgically dismember enemy starships and mecha within seconds—maybe less— by focusing your firepower in degrees that would be too precise for a targeting computer. Do you see? I believe this is what makes #25 one of the seven special Hyper Battle Machines. Resonance would never be an issue for you because you’d have a level of control that would make you invincible and you’d never have to enter the Resonance state.”

  As Behlen spoke, Paress began to nod. “Yes, I understand, Doctor. And I will master all these controls. I’ll be the best Space Knight ever!”

  “Amen!” Behlen said. He turned to Casten. “Paress is gonna need your help. As his level of control grows, you’ll have to adjust his synchronization. To give you both an example, right now, the knob Paress used lowers #25 one inch per full rotation. Well, one day when Paress’ gets his level of control with the sticks down to where he can do things in inches, Casten will adjust the synch to make the knob so precise as to make one rotation equal one sixteenth of an inch!

  “I want there to be a time in which the Empire’s enemies are absolutely terrified of the massive black dragon that takes apart their forces with surgical precision all while being able to fly through a hail of laser fire and thread the shots so precisely the shields don’t get hit once. They’ll be paralyzed with fear.

  “It’s going to take a long time to get to that point, guys. I won’t lie. I might not live to see it. But do I have your word that you won’t stop trying to achieve perfection with #25?”

  “Yes sir!” Paress and Casten chorused happily.

  “Then I know now more than ever I made the right choice with you two. I firmly believe dark times are coming for the Empire. But if you can reach the ultimate level of control with this Hyper Battle Machine, you’ll be unbeatable and will save us all.”

  Paress had never seen Behlen so fervent. This was obviously something he believed in wholeheartedly. Was this one of the things that made his wife think he was crazy? If so, Paress wasn’t sure he agreed with her. Dr. Behlen was smart and also passionate about the things he believed in— things that Paress was sure had grounding in reality based on how solid Behlen was in all other things. After all, Behlen was correct about Paress himself, wasn’t he?

  There was no reason to doubt the man and Paress found himself saying, “Don’t worry sir, we will protect the Empire. Me and Casten promised each other to go the distance and we will.”

  “You guys have no idea how happy I am to hear that. This is something I’ve been working on for decades. It’s pretty much my life’s work. I’m overjoyed to see it coming together. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome sir,” Paress said and so did Casten. After a few moments of smiles, Paress said, “Sir, you were saying maybe I’d be able to fire some weapons?”

  Behlen laughed. “Yes, of course! Sorry, I got caught up in the moment— something I don’t often do, I can assure you.” He cleared his throat, “Go ahead and fly up to about a mile high.”

  “Yes sir,” Paress said and he lifted the sticks quickly sending Allepexxis straight up to the described height within seconds. He suddenly realized he’d likely been leaving sonic booms all around with his high speed maneuvers, but nobody had complained so apparently it was okay.

  “You’re going to use #25’s main weapon the Searing Flame,” Behlen said and Paress and Casten both grinned in anticipation. “Tap the button under your right forefinger to arm it.” As Paress did so, a small message flashed on with the words “Searing Flame Armed”. To his left the image of Allepexxis in the tactical screen glowed red at the mouth area for a quick pictorial reference.

  “Alright, ready? Press the top thumb trigger button on your right stick.”

  Paress did so and a white hot blast of flame shot out a half mile long and at a cone a quarter mile across. “Wow!” Paress said and fired the weapon again, flame searing across the sky.

  “How about that?” Behlen asked.

  “I like it!” Paress said.

  “On the face of the stick pointing toward you, you can see a slider control,” Behlen said. “By default it’s in the middle. That produces the standard flame shape and range— a good medium setting. As you slide it to the left, the flame gets a longer range with a tighter, more focused stream. The damage is also more focused. Slide it to the right and the flame gets a shorter range with a wider cone. The damage gets lower as the flame loses its focus, but it’s good for clearing large amounts of smaller lesser armored enemies such as tanks or fighters. It’s also good for intercepting incoming missiles and stuff like that.”

  When Behlen finished, Paress adjusted the flame as instructed going from a tight almost beam-like flame that reached a distance of two miles, to a wide cone that lit up the entire sky.

>   “There’s an alternative way to fire all your weapons using voice command. All you have to do is shout the command at a level of 100 decibels or more. The reason why it has to be shouted is so that you don’t end up firing the weapon in normal conversation.” Behlen laughed. “It could get ugly if you were talking to a fellow Space Knight in his Machine about your plan of action, mentioned the weapon you wanted to use and suddenly found your Machine burning your comrade to a cinder.”

  Paress laughed. “Yes sir, I can see how that would be a problem. Okay, then, here goes. Searing Flame!” Paress’ voice command was duly obeyed with another blast of flame.

  “You can even control the duration of how long you want the weapon to continue firing based on how long you shout the name.”

  “Searing Flaaaaaaaaame!” This time the flame held longer and didn’t stop until Paress finished his shout. He laughed. “That’s actually kinds fun!”

  “The practical reason for it is that with so many controls to pilot a Hyper Battle Machine effectively, the voice command frees up your fingers to work on other tasks,” Behlen explained. “But there’s also a level of tradition in announcing your attacks that goes back to the old holy knights that invoked God’s Wrath to endow their weapons with holy fire or lightning, or other such things for added power. You’ll meet plenty of Space Knights who relish the chance to continue the tradition.”

  “There’s also the point that the Machine’s computer will strengthen and modulate the weapon’s output to match the power of the vocal command. In other words, the louder you yell, the more powerful the effect. It has to do with the pilot and Machine synchronizing, or I guess in this case, harmonizing, to the greatest effect; and it once again leaves your hands free for other piloting tasks. But there’s no right or wrong way. It’s whatever you prefer.”

  “Now,” Behlen continued, “Here’s your opportunity to actually shoot at something…” He nodded to someone offscreen and said, “Five drones are on their way to you. You should see them momentarily.”

  Small reticules popped up on Paress’ screen surrounding distant objects. Next to each object, was a slightly zoomed tactical wireframe image with stats identifying it as a drone. Moments later, all the objects were highlighted in red triangles.

  “The red triangles show that #25 has locked on to the drones and can hit them with its long range weaponry,” Behlen said. “But you want to hit them with your Searing Flame. Each weapon has its own locking reticule. The flame’s reticule is a yellow circle. As always, #25 will do things automatically, so in this case, it’ll adjust the flame to the long-range version to meet the drones as far away as possible once it locks. Or, you can wait until they get closer. As they do, you’ll notice the yellow circles will get thicker and will eventually start to get grouped under one large circle. This means that #25 will adjust the flame to go wider at a shorter range and will be able to hit more targets in an area effect that the circle covers. Once again, I leave it up to you.”

  Paress considered for a moment and then pulled the trigger to destroy two of the drones at long range. He followed up by increasing speed and flying toward the remaining three. As he got closer, their yellow circles got thicker and he adjusted his course so that all three were inside one large circle. He flew around the drones, watching as the point of view changed. A glance at this tactical display showed Allepexxis’ head and neck turning to keep the drones in the targeting lock.

  Paress put Allepexxis into a sideways aerial strafe and yelled, “Searing Flame!” The dragon’s mouth spat out a large cone of flame that quickly engulfed the drones and incinerated them.

  “Congratulations,” Behlen said. “You’ve just destroyed your first targets. We’ll get you up to speed on #25’s other weapons— long range, medium range, and melee— over time.”

  Paress grinned. “This is really fun!”

  “Good!” Behlen said. “Ill be honest. It won’t always be fun. As a Space Knight, you’ll often have to face multiple enemies singlehandedly and they won’t always be pushovers. We currently hold an edge over our enemies, but it’s very thin and that balance can shift. Quality will only go so far against quantity and there’s a saying from the days of the Ancients that quantity has a value all its own.

  “But if you train hard, trust in your ability and skill, and your Companion and Machine, you’ll be fine.”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Good. Now, one final thing before we finish for the day. Your Machine is carrying a Main Engine that isn’t quite like other Hyper Battle Machine engines. #25’s creator, my mentor, created an experimental engine that he called the Quad Drive. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details, it’s an engine that has four quantum drive cores instead of one. To put that into perspective most heavy battleships have two. So think about the fact that you have two more drives in your Hyper Battle Machine than a starship measuring almost two miles long.”

  “Wow, really?” Paress asked. “How’d he get it to fit?”

  “Honestly, I’m still trying to figure that out,” Behlen said with an embarrassed smile. “We believe that he figured out a way of using pocket dimensions to store the overall core devices in with conduits leading into our dimension and into the drive intake. But we’re still not sure. This is one of those things we’re hoping to figure out as you unlock more of the Machine. That, and just how much power #25 can actually produce.”

  “Hmm, okay…” Paress said, worried about how yet another important thing had been placed on his shoulders.

  “But now here’s the really interesting part, though some smaller minds would say scary. Unlike how a battleship doubles its drive output, the four cores in #25 don’t just stack their output four times, they multiply it. So what I’m saying is that if each engine is rated at, let’s say 100, you would multiply 100 times 100 times 100 times 100. So, instead of an output of 400 like other engines would have, #25’s output is 100,000,000. Theoretically, that is, since we’ve barely been able to scratch the surface of what these cores can do.”

  “What? That’s… incredible!” Paress breathed. “But how?”

  “Like I said, we’re still figuring it out,” Behlen said. “Again, there’s the distinct possibility that we’ll never get anywhere near those numbers because if we use our earlier number of 100 as the maximum output, right now we’re only able to figure out how to achieve around… five. Don’t get me wrong, even five gives us a multiplied return of 625, which compared to the two battleships engines at 100 and doubled is still only 200. So even at #25’s current state, it’s putting out over three times the output of a heavy battleship.”

  Paress shook his head and laughed. He was about to say, “No wonder your wife seems to be afraid of Allepexxis,” but caught himself.

  “Until we can figure out how to increase the throughput from the theoretical pocket dimensions the cores use, we’re pretty much stuck. That said, you’re still sitting in a Machine that carries one of the most powerful drive systems in the Empire.

  “There are a couple other Machines with multiplied dual cores and one with a triple. They’re able to get more out of each core due to the engines not being so, well, mysterious. But yours is the only four and carries the highest potential. Those other Machines also generally have to hit Resonance to get their full output, which makes them rather pointless really, since the pilot is lost in the process.”

  “Resonance…” Paress said worriedly.

  “Try not to think about it,” Behlen said. “With what #25 is capable of, Resonance should never be an issue since it can output in normal mode what those other Machines can only do in Resonance.” Quickly moving on past an obvious sore spot, Behlen said, “So, with all this power output, #25 produces a lot of excess heat. The Searing Flame harnesses some of it. But if you push your Machine really hard, exhaust ports located all over the body will open up to vent the heat.

  “The ports are all located on the actual body frame, under the armor to protect them. #25’s armor is rated against
heat levels far higher than what gets exhaled, so there’s no worry of damage. That said, as you push the Machine harder, those ports will open under the armor and start to vent heat, and eventually flame. The effect will look like your Machine’s on fire under its armor with flame blasting out from the joints where the armor doesn’t cover.”

  Behlen smiled and winked. “I think it’s rather cool-looking from what little we’ve been able to examine and it should really put the terror into your enemies. But I don’t want you to worry. Unless you get heat warnings from #25’s system itself, you’re fine and can keep doing what you’re doing, flame and all.”

  “Okay…” Paress said. “So you’re saying that if I’m really going strong and a battle gets crazy, Allepexxis will look like he’s on fire. But he’ll be fine… I’ll be fine…”

  “Absolutely,” Behlen said earnestly.

  “Well, okay then,” Paress said. “That does sound pretty cool.”

  “It is. So, do you want to see it?”

  “Yes sir!”

  “Great. Go ahead and drop to a low altitude.” As Paress did so, Behlen continued, “Now, hit the limiters button on your left stick. By default, the power output is restricted from causing flame— we don’t want you flying through a city setting the place on fire. Now, angle #25 so that it’s pointing skyward and concentrate on going as fast as you possibly can. Act like you can will your Machine to travel faster than anything in the universe. You’re going to touch the edge of space and we want you to break all the records to do it.”

  Paress did as he was told, looking up into the sky at the clouds overhead. He held the sticks tight and as he did so, he relaxed his breathing, timing it with the almost imperceptible thrum coming from deep inside Allepexxis. The Machine’s engine. Its heart. His heart. He could see past the clouds, up, up, farther up, into space.