Space Dragon Allepexxis

by C. K. Pershing

  “Huh. I thought Denxeiter was more of a firepower-based Machine,” Paress said.

  “He is,” Johnny answered. “And ya can’t change a Machine’s true nature. That’s why I said the sword appears fer a time. After a while, it’s gotta be recharged so it disappears. I don’t use it much cuz that ain’t my thing. But it has a hell of an energy wave attack built in. Can kill some pretty big stuff with that one. But like I say, it ain’t my thing. I prefer my guns.”

  “Makes sense,” Paress said. After a pause, he just had to ask. “So, uh speaking of killing things,” he began, not quite believing he was going to ask this, “but do the pirates here ever surrender?”

  Johnny looked like Paress had just spoken gibberish. “Surrender? Whaddya mean?”

  “Uh, well. I mean, do they ever surrender?”

  “Does it matter? They’re pirates.”

  Paress wasn’t sure what to say to that, but then Cassie spoke up.

  “Oh Johnny, stop being so obnoxious.” She looked at Paress from her window. “No, the Midnight Group has never surrendered. We tried to give them the chance the first couple times we met them and each time Johnny nearly got killed. So now we go in guns blazing.”

  Johnny smiled. “Yeah, I ain’t always a killer. There’s plenty o’bastards out there just itchin’ t’ die. I’m more ’n happy to give ‘em their wish. Ain’t no sense in killin’ the ones who wanna lay down their guns. If anythin’ else, it causes too many questions from the folks back home. So I bide my time and soon enough somebody’s gonna screw up. Like these assholes.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t see this in my report,” Cassie said. “As we got to know more about them, we found out the Midnight Group is one of those ‘death before dishonor’ types. They never surrender and consider it an insult if you try to ask them. We discovered that the hard way…”

  “Hmm, I’m sorry to say that report must’ve been lost,” Paress said. “The report I read just said they’re slavers and that they use Space Monsters. Speaking of which, these guys all used starships. Where were the Space Monsters?”

  “Y’sound disappointed,” Johnny said with a laugh.

  “Honestly, I kinda am disappointed,” Paress said. “You’ve seen one group of pirates flying around in refurbished old ships and/or stuff they bought on the black market, you’ve seen ‘em all. But Space Monster riders. That’s different! Just saying it makes me smile at the craziness of it all.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll see ‘em soon enough.” Johnny said with a wink.

  “It’s gonna get kinda weird,” Cassie agreed.

  Paress thought that they were going to have to leave the system to find more enemies, but suddenly the space began to distort again.

  “The Monsters usually show up after the ships,” Johnny explained just as the two Hyper Battle Machines found themselves surrounded by a group of red and brown Space Monsters emerging from jump.

  There were ten of them, all of them at least eight times bigger than Allepexxis. They each had a central body that reminded Paress of a pumpkin. On the “base” of the pumpkin body was a giant gnashing beak surrounded by twenty long tentacles tipped with blades— the shortest at least the length of Allepexxis— and countless tiny ones. Ringing around the body were twenty arms, longer than the tentacles, tipped with claws. Strapped to each arm was a large beam gun.

  But strangest of all was the small pagoda-shaped building on top of each Space Monster’s body. Each structure was built a little differently using slightly different materials and with varying accoutrements, but they were all a dark red with copper highlights. Guns ringed each level of the pagodas.

  Paress was at a loss for words and could only manage to say, “Whoah…” before all the monsters shrieked a high-pitched scream and started flailing their arms around, the large guns firing and filling the area with deadly beams. Paress spun Allepexxis around and managed to dodge most of the beams, but a few actually managed to hit the dragon, causing its shields to spark and hiss in protest. Paress couldn’t remember when the last time was an enemy actually scored a hit on him, and yet here, in quick succession, his Hyper Battle Machine was receiving fire.

  “Damn…” Thinking fast, he barreled straight toward one of the Monsters’ mouth areas, and put Allepexxis into a barrel roll. As he did so, he activated his Wing Blades, the huge sharp blades extending from the leading edge of the dragon’s wings. The blades combined with the barrel roll caused a rotary gouging effect and Paress was satisfied to see the tentacles surrounding him getting sliced off as he got nearer to the Monster’s beak.

  That beak was now wide open in a scream of pain and Paress shouted, “Searing Flame!” back at the thing defiantly. He had learned to modulate his voice to get the effect he wanted from the flame— in this case it was a high intensity beam with most of its power projected in the medium range. The flame shot into the open mouth, charring and then shattering the beak around it, as it blasted into the body of the Space Monster and then up through the floor of the pagoda and out the top. The creature’s body went limp as the pagoda exploded.

  Paress figured the other Space Monsters would hold their fire as long as he was at such close range to one of their own and he was right. But as soon as it was obvious their companion was dead, they angrily opened fire again. Paress couldn’t see what Johnny was doing through all of the beam fire but once again he had to trust that the veteran Space Knight could take care of himself. After all, he’d handled these Space Monsters singlehandedly before Paress showed up.

  Paress darted out from under the dead thing’s body and then behind it to use as a shield against the incoming fire. He built up the power in Allepexxis’ engines and then suddenly shot out from behind his cover, firing the Rail Blasters at the nearest enemy’s pagoda. He figured the Monsters would fight anyway, but perhaps at a lower level of efficiency if he destroyed their command centers. The long metal spears launched by his rail guns at ultra high velocity punched through a pagoda, warping it inward with the impacts before it exploded. The broken structure was still burning as Paress got nearer and used his flame to burn what remained away.

  Through the fire and flame, he could see where the top of the Space Monster’s head had been cut away to reveal its brain underneath. Various machinery and wires ran into the thing’s brain, confirming what he suspected as to how the pirates controlled their mounts. The creature was flailing its arms around and tried to grab Allepexxis off its head. Paress activated the Burning Claws on all of Allepexxis’ hands and feet, each extending into long beam sabres for a total of twenty. He plunged straight down and slammed the beams into the enemy’s brain. With a final lurch, it went dead, the flailing arms and tentacles motionless.

  Ever since he’d first learned to pilot Allepexxis, Paress had Casten slowly lessen the effect of the cockpit dampers so he could better experience the feel of piloting his Machine. The dampers were currently operating at 88%— a decision he regretted when Allepexxis was suddenly grabbed by four claws from above and violently pulled upwards off of the dead Space Monster. Paress was jerked forward in his seat by the sudden motion and the reusable airbag in his console deployed to keep his head from slamming into hard metal.

  Before he could even move his hands, his mind moved his controls to turn Allepexxis in his captor’s grasp, the Burning Claws still active, and splayed the dragon’s toes, causing the claws and their beam blades to fan out. The 100-foot beams flashed and seared through the arms of the monster just as a hail of spiked tentacles came raining down. Allepexxis’ shields and armor just barely held against the assault as Paress shot down and away, freed by the sliced-off claws.

  With Allepexxis’ chest still aimed upward toward his attacker and seeing another multiple tentacle strike about to happen, Paress held down both main thumb buttons on his sticks while at the same time, pressing down on the first two finger buttons on each stick. This button combination fired Allepexxis’ most powerful weapon, the Ingelspadt, a gun similar in destructive
power to the ultra-high-output beam cannons carried on super heavy battleships. The resulting beam slammed into the approaching tentacles and in a flash, vaporized them and the Space Monster they were attached to.

  Paress noticed with some satisfaction that the Space Monster that had been lurking behind his immediate attacker had also nearly ceased to exist under the assault of the powerful beam cannon. Over half of the thing had been destroyed, leaving a charred, quivering mess of flesh behind. He let go of the triggers, giving the Ingelspadt the chance to start recharging for the next shot.

  He thought back to Dr. Behlen once telling him a few years ago that the weapon’s output both in power and duration was relative to how much power they could get the quad drive to put out. Some estimates claimed that if Allepexxis were ever able to produce its full power potential, the Ingelspadt would be able to fire a beam capable of slicing a solid object the size of a small sun in two within seconds, and could do so for over one thousand years before having to stop to recharge— which would only take 3.4 seconds at full power output— and then it would be ready to fire again for another thousand years.

  Paress had to settle for the idea that he’d likely never see that day, but it didn’t matter, he’d gotten the measure of his enemies now and he wanted to end the fight. Tightening his grip on the control sticks and putting his full concentration into his synchronized link to Allepexxis, he could feel the Machine’s power levels starting to rise. He careened across the battlefield, and flame began to blast out from under the armor. Absently, Paress hoped Johnny was seeing this after the talk they had about it earlier.

  Flames trailed out behind the giant black dragon as it grew hotter and Paress engaged Destroyer Mode and all of Allepexxis’ bladed weapons, including his teeth, grew to much longer lengths in the process. Paress crashed down on top of a pagoda and Allepexxis roared just before he bit the top of the structure off, sending people from the crew tumbling helplessly into space. The dragon’s head darted farther into the pagoda, ripping out more of its interior and sending more hapless pirates into space.

  When the bottom of the pagoda was reached, Paress could feel Allepexxis’ hunger at biting through the floor and into the soft brain of the Space Monster. Before he could consciously think of what to do, the thing in the back of his mind gave into the dragon’s hunger and Allepexxis dove in, teeth gnashing and claws digging and slicing apart. Some of the pirates had been in the vicinity, “engineers” who kept the machinery to control the Space Monster functioning. Paress felt a certain satisfaction as their bodies were ripped apart by the rows of seven-foot-long daggers that now made up Allepexxis’ teeth.

  The dragon dug farther into the Space Monster, tunneling his way into the thing through its brain. It screamed and quivered in pain and then death throes before the intense heat from the burning dragon made the creature burst into flame— a cleansing flame that charred and cooked the Monster from the inside out, while burning its blood and flesh away from Allexpexxis, leaving soot and ash behind.

  Paress shot out Allepexxis’ wings to their full span, splitting the Space Monster apart from the inside and sending charred chunks flying in all directions. Two nearby Space Monsters actually backed away some as they screamed in anger and defiance, but their voices were drowned out by the roar of the black dragon. Although smaller than the smallest Space Monster, Allepexxis literally burned with a fury that was otherworldly and terrifying.

  Paress flew to the closest enemy and as it tried to swat him away with its clawed arms, he activated the Searing Wings. The hundreds of laser emitters under each wing erupted in fire. The weapon was usually used to overload shields on enemy ships or to destroy many small targets, but in Allepexxis’ heightened power output, the effect was more like two colossal beams erupting out from every square inch of the wings’ undersides to give the effect of a two-thousand foot wide storm of flame that erased all in its path.

  As Paress watched, it was a like a giant eraser was being moved across the Space Monster as the flame swept down its arms and through its body, leaving nothing but dust particles in its wake. He turned and was about to sweep the flames across the other nearby Space Monster when it was suddenly sliced in two by a giant arc of concentrated blue light that came from above. The shockwave that followed the arc shattered the thing into thousands of chunks of bloody pulp. Paress looked up to see Denxeiter silently looking down at him, a giant sword in its right hand.

  “That’s the last one,” Johnny’s voice said.

  Paress didn’t answer. He could feel Allepexxis’ anger that the battle was over. And that Denxeiter had gotten the final kill. His eyes glazed slightly as he willed himself— and the dragon— back from the burning fury that threatened to engulf them both.

  Johnny and Cassie appeared on Paress’ screen, along with Casten. “Hey kid, you alright?” Johnny asked.

  “Yeah,” Casten said. “You just gotta give him a minute. When he synchs like that, he needs time to come out of it.” Paress’s eyes drifted down to Casten as the Companion concentrated on his pad. “I’m lowering the synch output…” Casten said, seeing Paress looking at him.

  “Yeah, I know,” Paress said thickly. “He was really enjoying himself…” He got the distinct impression that Allepexxis was just getting warmed up, so to speak, just as the battle abruptly ended. The other’s thoughts in his mind calmed down from anger, to resignation, to disappointment, to acceptance, and then suddenly he was aware of everything like a person about to drift off to sleep and then catching himself.

  He exhaled, “Whew, okay, I’m fine.” He glanced down at Casten, “Thanks. That time got a little intense.”

  “Yeah, really,” Casten said. “The whole time I had to keep adjusting the throughput of your synch. You’ve never gotten so deep and you damn sure kept my happy ass busy.”

  “Sorry, man,” Paress said. “Apparently, Allepexxis really likes hunting living things.”

  “Apparently,” Casten agreed.

  Paress suddenly remembered Johnny and Cassie and looked a their faces on his screen. “Oh! Sorry about that. These high level synchs to activate Destroy Mode… They can get kinda crazy, but never anything like that before.”

  “Hey no problem,” Johnny said. “Whatever works for ya. I ain’t complainin’. I was startin’ to worry you were gonna git ‘em all and then think I’s some kind o’ lazy bastard.”

  “No worries there,” Paress said. He looked at the giant sword in Denxeiter’s hand. “I guess having a sword ended up coming in handy for you,” he quipped.

  “Heh heh, yeah, I s’pose so. God Bless Lilah Aliss and her sword, Durandal. It’s a pretty damn good monster cleaver.” As Johnny spoke, the sword suddenly dematerialized. “And there she goes til I need ‘er again,” he said.

  “What a really weird enemy too,” Paress said. “The idea of building structures on top of them with control centers at the base jacked into the Monsters’ brains… Crazy. I don’t know what I thought it was gonna be— guys in spacesuits on saddles?” He laughed.

  “It’s a big universe, so it’s possible you’ll see that some day,” Cassie said.

  The Wespe, receiving the all clear signal from Johnny had moved back into the area, and started to perform high density scans on any wreckage for materials of value for physical use or intelligence gathering.

  “That yer first time fightin’ Space Monsters?” Johnny asked. The two Space Knights stood guard while the Wespe did her work.

  “I’ve fought a couple here and there. Usually things that have wandered into our territory and started to attack, looking for food. The ones I’ve fought have always looked like giant worms. Nothing like these things.”

  “They seem to be indigenous to this part of space,” Cassie noted. “I’ve scoured the records and it seems nobody’s ever seen them elsewhere. I’m just about positive the Midnight Group breeds and raises them somewhere, but we haven’t gotten any leads.”

  “I’m just really impressed that you’ve handled these
things by yourself all this time,” said Paress. “They sure can cause a lot of damage when they pile on.”

  Johnny’s expression changed. “Well, the thing is, there’s never been so many of ‘em at one time before. It’s always been one or two. Not ten.”

  Paress felt his stomach turn. “Really? Well damn, it’s nice to know I showed up just in time to coincide with their numbers increasing.”

  Johnny laughed, “Seems yer dragon’s more’n up to the task o’ killin’ ‘em.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Paress said with a slight smile.

  The fact was, he didn’t like it when he and Allepexxis synched up in such a way. The feeling of losing his true self in the combined murderous spirit of his darkest cravings and Allepexxis’ hunger for destruction was a constant concern. On the other hand, he could see how someone like Johnny would likely thrive in such a situation. Even though he hadn’t outright told Johnny the extent of his experience, he had a feeling that Johnny already had a pretty good idea what was going on.

  Captain Weber’s face appeared in a window on Paress’ screen. “We’ve finished our scans. Once again, we’ve turned up nothing.” He smiled wryly. “I’m sure you’re surprised.”

  Cassie shared the smile. “Shocked.” Seeing Paress’ expression of incomprehension, she said, “These pirates all use a type of weird biocomputer that seems to die when one of their ships is destroyed. When it dies, all its information is lost.”

  “That’s weird,” Paress said. “Not to mention, it seems to open up a lot of logistical issues.”

  “Oh, trust me, I know,” Cassie said. “I’ve been wracking my brain over it, but haven’t been able to figure it out yet. Until we can capture a ship alive…”

  “And they’d sooner die than surrender.” Paress said. “Right.”

  “But their first batch of ships were normal designs. Old stuff they’d rebuilt and other stuff from the black market,” Casten said. “Hell, a couple of them are even repurposed old Francescan designs.”