Star Conqueror: Recompense: An Epic Space Harem Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Won’t work,” I growled. “Emitters will fly away before we could ever set them up, and I’m not sure the field would hold up in this.” Turning my head slightly to where the Orion must still be, I caught the whiff of their thrusters about to fire.

  Good, I had been about to yell at Turner for taking his sweet time. We’d figure this out, and they had their own mission to handle.

  As the ground shuddered and a fresh wash of hot air rushed over us, Alyra let out a hiss of pain, glancing at me as she spoke. “David, I can deflect the wind with a construct, but it will take all my concentration to keep the shape exactly right. If I don’t properly keep it flowing around us …”

  “It’ll blow us away anyway, just wrapped in a force field,” I finished for her. “That will be enough, Alyra. On three, I’m going to stand and dig in, ladies. I’ve got you, Alyra, so you can keep the shield up while I run. Tulip, I hate to ask, but can you play sled kitty?”

  If Alyra was true to her word, and I had every reason to expect her to be, we could go full speed. Now, I’m not exactly slow normally. I could pull a 5k run in under twenty minutes, but in my full draconic glory, I was easily twice as fast, maybe more, and Tulip was even faster than I was. We could make that tunnel before either Alyra or I ran out of juice, though I’d be at the very tail end of my dragon timer and at half power to boot.

  That was a million times better than being torn apart by whatever this crystalline particulate in the wind that was smoothing the surrounding rock before our eyes.

  “You’ve got it, David,” Tulip growled back. “As soon as the wind stops, we’re gone!”

  Alyra grunted and nodded. “On three.” She gripped her Wander tight, the tip starting to surge with light.

  I gathered my strength, pulling Alyra close with one hand, and shouted, “THREE!” With a mighty roar, I surged to my feet, curling my toes as I rose to find purchase in the stone. My glittering talons cut into the gray stone like a hot knife through butter. Keeping Alyra held close to my chest, I kept her arms free so that she could do her magic.

  Fortunately, she was on the ball, as the sled started to slide the moment I wasn’t fully blocking the wind from it. Before the thing was blown away with Tulip along for the ride, Alyra flicked her Wander up, eyes closed in intense concentration, as a strangely shaped cocoon of force enveloped the area around us. It only took a moment for me to realize what she was shaping, as it bore a striking resemblance to a teardrop or maybe the wing of a plane. An aerodynamic shape was what it was, letting the wind slice around us without catching and throwing us around like tenpins.

  The tempest silenced around us for the moment, Tulip flopped off of the sled, her black fur disheveled by the wind. Sweat was already starting to bead on Alyra’s brow, and this close, I could tell now that her shoulder really was dislocated, sitting funnily in my embrace. As the six-legged battle cat collected herself, snatching up the handle of the sled in her jaws, I nuzzled the side of Alyra’s head comfortingly with my snout.

  “You can do this,” I growled low, encouraging her to keep up her efforts, before giving Tulip the briefest of glances. “Let’s make record time!”

  The massive catoid let out a muffled roar and nodded her head, breaking into a sprint as I did the same. To avoid having to think of it, I mentally set Through the Fire and Flames to auto-renew, power dwindling out of my reserves as we ate up the distance. I followed Tulip’s lead, doing my level best to keep our line of movement and distance identical, anything to make Alyra’s job easier. I didn’t even want to try to understand how she could do the complex mental calculations to constantly shift the shape of her construct to cut through the wind, but I wasn’t going to question it.

  Dragon form time remaining is 197 seconds, and current suit power is at seventy percent, my suit sought to diligently remind me. We were going to cut this too close, but I didn’t want to even give the vaguest impression of that to the others.

  “Bet you can’t pick up the pace, Tulip!” I roared, smoke chimneying out my nose as I kept air pumping through my massive lungs. Hey, there was more than one way to get people to push themselves. I wasn’t going to use fear, but a challenge …?

  Never one to back down from something like that, Tulip answered me with a loud feline cry and poured on more speed. A grin splitting my snout, I dug down deep myself and made my legs pump harder, my immense strides and razor-sharp claws literally tearing up the ground underneath us.

  Another minute passed, and even with my enhanced senses, the pounding crystal storm and the glow of Alyra’s force construct made it almost impossible to really see beyond it. The only way I was sure we were moving forward was the fact that I was finding intact ground to run across instead of clawed up stone. My worry grew as another minute came and left, something my suit’s constant updates on time and power reinforced in my brain.

  Tulip’s roar of relief broke me out of that concern, making me squint ahead into the storm. There it was, at the edge of my vision, a wind-gouged but intact metal door, once white-and-gold painted but now stripped down to a mostly polished silver-grey. It was huge, split down the middle, and probably as thick as any airlock door or bulkhead.

  Of course, I realized at that moment that, despite our initial plan to have Tulip simply hack the door open for us, she couldn’t exactly do that in her shapeshifted form. Could we afford the time to stop, let her shift, and hack it? The force construct around us was starting to shimmer and fade, and I could hear Alyra talking to herself in a low growl, telling herself to push on. She was fading, so there was only one answer.

  “Get ready to get out of my way when we get to that door, Tulip, and get inside the second it’s open,” I commanded. There was more than one way to open a door, especially if you just so happen to be a half-ton dragon man with superhuman strength. “Alyra, honey, I’m going to put you on the cart in a second. Just keep it up. We’re almost there!”

  A look of determination filled the ex-Matriarch’s eyes, and I saw a flash of her perfect white teeth as she bit hard on her lip, a little trickle of blood starting in the process. She nodded fiercely, the field redoubling in strength, and I added a last spring into my step, pushing ahead to come abreast with the cart. We were seconds away now, so I tried to be as gentle as possible as I transferred Alyra to the top of the much-maligned thing.

  The moment we were within a few steps of the mine airlock, set in the right side of the valley, I dug in my heels, quite literally, digging up a gouge as I pulled up to a stop in front of it. My first instinct had been to just plow into and through it, while my second, the one my dragon spirit had been a fan of, was to slag it with my dragonfire. I overruled that in a heartbeat.

  After all, a ruined airlock door was about worthless at doing that whole ‘keep the breathable air’ inside thing. Leonis IV was about as inhospitable to human-like life as they came, and what air there was would kill a human stone dead in minutes. With how much power we had burned to get here, we needed a reprieve, a chance to power down and recharge, not be forced to keep burning reserves to fuel life support systems.

  So, instead, I plunged my clawed fingers in between the door panels. Prying them open was harder than either of the two first options, to be sure, and it would still damage the environmental seals some, but I was pretty sure if I closed them up again, I could use my flames to weld them shut. We wouldn’t be able to leave that way, but we’d be able to breathe. Small price to pay, in my eyes.

  There was a hiss of air as the seal gave way under my draconic might and I swore I could feel my claw tips break through to the other side. Beside me, Tulip was tensed and ready, panting even as she kept the cart handle in her jaws, while Alyra grimly held on, dislocated arm useless in her lap as she held her Wander out. Hydraulic pistons and mechanical locks pushed back against me as I roared and pried, the doors starting to part little by little, but it all felt too slow.

  For a moment, I thought it was possible that maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t be able to do thi
s, that some stupid-ass dust storm would actually bring us low. Maybe it was the sheer idiocy of that thought, or maybe it was the sight of Alyra and Tulip still ready to keep pushing. Whatever it was, it made my dragon roar inside of me, and new strength filled my arms and body.

  Burning oil dripping out of my mouth, smoke blowing like streamers out my snout, I pried with everything I had. There was a loud screech and a pop, as something inside the doors gave out, and then whatever had been pushing against me failed entirely. With a heave, I shoved the two door panels apart, dim light shining through from the mine tunnel beyond.

  Tulip didn’t waste a moment, rushing through the partly open airlock, ferrying our cargo and Alyra along with it to relative safety. Breathable air rushed past me, and Alyra’s cocoon collapsed, letting the full blast of the storm crash into me. If I hadn’t been in dragon form … well … I was, and that was all that was important. Managing to steady myself, I pulled myself with a roar through the airlock, breathing heavily as I spun. With one last mighty pull, I managed to slam the airlock doors shut once again despite the rush of air coming from both directions.

  I was almost dizzy from the exertion, which only struck me as remarkable considering the power of my draconic body, but I caught myself. I had one last thing to do before we were safe. Sucking in a deep breath, I let the burning flames of my dragon heart roil up through my throat, as sticky dragon oil filled my mouth. Pursing my lips as if I was blowing through a straw, I spit a narrow stream of fiery napalm along the broken seal of the door, filling the crack with molten metal and slag.

  Almost the second I was finished, the beeping alert ran through my skull, the all-too-familiar feeling of the dragon spirit starting to regress back into my body. The soft voice of my suit echoed in my ear, Dragon form time limit reached. Transformation reverting. Five minutes until available again. Suit power stabilizing at forty-seven percent.

  The world closed in on me as my senses shrank back to normal, everything seeming dull and colorless. My snout shrunk in, the scales melted back into normal human flesh, and my entire body shrunk, organs, muscles, and bones shifting back into my mere human form. Though I was used to the sudden feeling of weakness the change reverting always brought, the constant exertion we had just been through made the change hit me harder than usual. I swayed on my feet as my Cestari and boots sealed back up, turning to plant my back on the jury-rigged airlock for support.

  “Thank the gods,” I croaked as I sucked in a deep breath, “we’re safe now.”

  Except we weren’t. Not be a long shot, a fact made apparent by the four rather angry Quibs charging at us with sparking whips and gleaming axes, their beaten and whipped slave charges cowering behind them.

  14

  If this had been any other day, any other situation, I wouldn’t have been the least bit worried about four Matriarchy goons without a firearm between them. Not that I was discounting the double-bitted axes or the sparking whips, but I hold up Raiders of the Lost Ark as the reason why guns trump melee weapons in most cases. But then the glittering, cut crystals that made up the walls reminded me why they weren’t packing heat, and why we couldn’t just unload on them.

  Once you factored in the fact Alyra was injured, Tulip and I had just made Olympic gold in the sprint of our lives, and my suit’s power was hovering at half full, four Quibs without guns were looking like a real challenge. And of course, the cowards waited until I had run out of dragon power before making themselves known.

  So much for being welcoming hosts.

  Two of the Quibs were beelining for me, while the other two were making for Tulip and Alyra. Though they didn’t wear the distinctive heavy armor of Elites, they moved with surprising discipline for slavers, each pair consisting of an axeman moving in close as their whip-cracking partner stayed back to take advantage of their range. As I pushed off the wall to meet the charge, I snatched my Arclight off my back to use as a very expensive club.

  The mine shaft echoed as Tulip let out a roar, darting forward as she shifted from heavy-set cat beast to her more conventional panther shape, Alyra forcing herself up and off the sled, good hand going for her dragon-slaying knife. “I am sorry, my dragon, but I need a moment to recharge before I can crush these gnats,” she got out over the comms before the air was split by sparking snaps.

  In near-perfect precision, right before either Tulip or I could get within range of their ax-swinging friends, the whip-wielding Quibs lashed out. Their whips were some kind of articulated metal, lightning riding up the coils as the weapons’ forked tips shot out. One went straight for my head while the other decided that the bundle of claws and teeth racing for his buddy was not the biggest threat, lashing out instead at Alyra. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. In a straight-up brawl, I would have pegged her as the more dangerous target too.

  I just managed to slip by the cracking tip of the whip, but even so, sparks conducted off the streaking lash and rushed through my armor. While Breath of the Wilds and Scaled Victor worked together to make me almost immune to electricity, a natural force, it didn’t protect the suit’s systems quite so much, something I had learned from fighting Tur and his electrokinetic magic. My HUD was corrupted by static for a moment as I pushed past, managing to meet the other Quib’s driving ax with the length of my rifle, blocking the weapon below the blade.

  Shoving the weapon aside, I tried not to let myself get distracted by Alyra’s cry of pain, even as the weary dragon inside of me roared its displeasure. I trusted Tulip to protect Alyra, and I trusted Alyra could hold her own, just as much as they trusted me to save them when the chips were down. And to save them, I’d have to save myself first.

  The Quib seemed startled behind his faceless helmet that I could throw him back so easily, probably because I know I looked like ten kinds of tuckered out behind the glow of my force dome, and that gave me an opening to spin and slam the butt of my rifle deep into his midsection. While I wasn’t nearly as strong in my human form as my dragon, I was no slouch, and the impact made him double over and stagger back, even with his shields still up. Before I could capitalize, I heard another growing surge of electricity past my dance partner, even as the screams of a Quib threatened to drown out anything else.

  As I moved to shoulder past the stunned ax-man to get at Mr. Sparky, Tulip cut off the Quib’s screams, triumphantly growling atop the squirming grunt, her claws gouging deep into his breastplate and her jaws crunching around his throat. As for Alyra, she had not only taken the lash of the whip against the glowing armor of her bad shoulder, the thing had wrapped around her bicep and arm, sparks running up and down the limb and through her suit. Instead of shrieking in agony like any sane person, my Wing was digging in her heels against the pull of the last Quib, trying to turn the tables by pulling him in.

  I threw one Quib aside and into the wall of the mine and snapped my attention back to the Devo wannabe. I was ready to duck, expecting him to go for my head again, but he sent his lash spiraling out for my mid-section. Cursing myself inwardly, I made a snap decision and hastily interposed my rifle in the way of the winding steel coil. Better to sacrifice a gun I couldn’t exactly use at the moment for my body.

  As the whip curled snugly around the Arclight, I let it go before the lash’s electricity could conduct through the rifle, tearing the power lead to the weapon loose with a backward tug. Sparky seemed smug as he yanked back, sending the now-overloaded blaster rifle over his shoulder, towards the still-cowering slaves. As he prepared to let fly again, I caught the axeman recovering out of the corner of my eye, pulling himself off the wall to waylay me.

  “David,” Tulip’s concerned growl came over the comms, garbled a bit by static, “do you need …?”

  I squared my jaw, spun to intercept Choppy, grabbing the big ax by the haft as he tried to prep for another swing. “Help Alyra! I’ve got this,” I growled as I muscled the surprised Quib back out into the shaft.

  Tulip followed my orders, bouncing off the dying grunt towards the other whip
wielder, now realizing he was on the losing end of his tug of war with Alyra, despite her small height and the electricity still running through her suit. My own whipper was growing nervous as his helmet tilted towards the other scrum, not entirely focused on what I was doing as he spun his weapon over his head, building momentum for another crack at me. That was a major mistake on his part.

  The Quib in my grip let out a yelp of surprise as I spun us both around just as the whip snapped in, the crack of the tip booming in what was meant to cut through my chest plate. Instead, the split metal tip cut through Choppy’s thinner armor as the surge of lightning shorted out his shields. As he jerked and spasmed from the shocks, I wrested the ax from his hands and kicked him to the ground with a solid stomp in his chest.

  Mr. Sparky froze for a moment, his visor focused right on me as I let out a feral grin, gripping the wicked ax in my hands. My suit was throwing up the weapon status of the thing, a Thorax-class mono-wire ax, but I didn’t need to know the details right this moment. I knew more than enough to know that I could easily drive this thing right through the Quib’s chest.

  As I rushed for him, Alyra let out a primal cry as she spun and pulled on her lashed arm one last time, just as Tulip sprang the last foot to throw herself claws first at their last assailant. The Quib was pulled so hard that he lost his footing as he fell forward, his foot catching on the irregularly smoothed stones. As he faceplanted onto the ground, Tulip landed on his back with all four sets of claws, pinning him under her bulk.

  That was all it took to give Alyra an opening, thrusting forward with a beat of her massive wings and diving the sparkling crystal blade through the back of her tormentor’s skull.

  One of your squadmates has disabled an enemy power suit! Remote transfer split initiated!