Star Conqueror: Recompense: An Epic Space Harem Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  The dragon roared in my ear as I wondered how many slave lives had been wasted for this seeming perfection.

  At least we were back on the maps, my HUD suddenly connecting our coordinates with a maze of tightly packed tunnels. As Ferria had said, no more than a hundred meters from our position, the tunnels were no more, replaced by a massive cavern that dwarfed everything else I had seen under Leonis IV. That was our destination, and hopefully, we would catch Ms. Tall and Green with her pants down, especially with the six cells that Ferria had managed to contact distracting the Matriarchy with attacks all across the planet.

  Making sure that I was at the vanguard of the little army once Plazzio opened the way, I leaped out and spun to assess the situation. To my right, two Quibs that had been chatting as they strolled down the hall stopped to gape at me like I couldn’t possibly be real. Before they could say a word through their shock or I could split them in half with my ax as a glowing hard light vice and a sparking whip rocketed past me on both sides. One Quib had his throat crushed by Alyra’s unflinching force construct while the other had Tulip’s Scourge wrap around his skull, his flesh smoldering as he did the taser two-step before dropping.

  “Nicely done, ladies,” I said with a grin. Alyra and Tulip stepped up beside me, the rest of the freedom fighters charging out to fill the tunnel. “Okay, Ferria, keep your people back a bit from us. We’re the vanguard, we can take the hits, and we can’t afford to lose troops early.”

  The Synatan grunted her agreement, tapping her helmet in a salute, so I glanced over at Plazzio, still standing in the tunnel he had created, still refusing to don his helmet. “Plazzio, man, thank you for everything. A lot of fighting is going to happen from here on out, and that’s not your problem.”

  The giant regarded me with his tiny eyes and nodded slowly. “Yes, Plazzio wishes to hurt no one else, but …” He paused a moment, frowning as he looked over the ragtag group of revolutionaries. “Plazzio will listen to the stones and pray that dragon-man, young Fertish, and angel-woman remain safe.”

  “Hold up,” I said, hands raised for attention. The giant Quib paused, his mace held high as he stared down at me intently. “You know I respect your pacifism, I do, but … You said you’d be listening, and we’re about to go into what will probably the hardest fight we’ve had to face. You know how deadly these people are, and how little mercy they have. If I call for you, ask for your help, and you can do that without hurting anybody, can I count on you?”

  “Plazzio owes dragon-man his life, his freedom,” Plazzio said with a slow nod. “Plazzio will listen and if dragon-man calls, Plazzio will try to help.”

  With that, his mace pulsed with emerald light and the rock swirled closed between us. I stared after the giant for a moment, confident that when the time was right, Plazzio would do his part, when Tulip tapped me on the shoulder, catching my attention as I ran my hand down the now-bare wall.

  “Come on, David, let’s go while my Stutter Virus is still in the system,” she said softly. “We’ve got a planet to save, right?”

  Nodding, I turned back to the task at hand. “On me, people! Let’s start a revolution!”

  With that, I led the charge. Time was ticking, and the element of surprise wouldn’t hold, but if we could just get inside Xara’s facility, I knew we’d be fine. Boots hammering onto the stone floor, we surged down the hallways as one living, breathing entity.

  As we hit a crossroads, I noticed the small bulges in the ceiling to mark security sensor nodes, and steel frames for doors, thick ones, that were open. I didn’t need my map to know that it was the way to go, the first line of defense from a slave revolt would be to slam the doors shut and prepare for a siege. The fact that Xara hadn’t hunkered down yet was a testament to the unshakeable faith the Matriarchs had in their power and in the High Priestess. That faith had led her to a mistake she’d regret making.

  We took the turn and kept moving. Piling through another archway, ignoring the scattered doors set in the wall and cross junctions, I could see a golden railing crossing the open doorway at the end of the tunnel and beyond that, the glinting white walls of what had to be Xara’s research laboratory. Though the exact boundaries and shape of the thing weren’t on our maps, Kritik, the most talkative of our Quib defectors, had told us that while the lab took up most of the cavern ahead, there was still a large mustering area that circled the place. All we’d have to do is hit the walkway, find a way down, and then storm the doors.

  We were almost there … and that’s why I was on high alert. This was too damn easy.

  “Stay sharp,” I growled, a little of my dragon coming out, and kept moving. There was nothing else to do for it but be alert and be ready. Instead of the flat-out run, I shifted to a low, loping trot. We’d be visible the moment we stepped out onto into the main cavern, so the smaller target I could present, the better.

  I wasn’t the only one that suspected trouble. As we went down that last hallway, Tulip whispered over the comms. “By Felinus’ whiskers, this isn’t right. I’m going to go all Predator, as Turner would say.”

  Tulip had mentioned near the start of this that she finally had enough credits to buy something she had her eye on, and this had to be it. Tapping her wrist screen, she did indeed go all Predator, a sparkling energy field first distorting her form before bending light around her entirely, the Refraction Field giving her effective visual invisibility.

  As for Alyra, she only focused her piercing blue eyes ahead and flashed her Wander in the air ahead of her, the translucent plates of her power suit flaring with intense light as another layer of force shields played over her suit’s inherent protection. The best way to survive a trap in her case was just to tank it like a boss, and considering how tough of a nut Alyra had been to crack when we had fought her ourselves, well … it really was her best strategy.

  And with that, the three of us, well, at least Alyra and I, stepped out onto the immaculately painted white walkway that looked out over a cavern of such size that the map truly did not do it justice. It was a safe bet that a small city could neatly fit under the vaulted ceiling, the full extent of the meticulously smoothed and painted walls barely visible even in the bright, multicolored light that reflected off every shiny surface. That light shone through dozens of circular, stained-glass windows, similar to the ones we had seen in the vault of Balarian, and many depicting the same scenes from the Matriarchy’s faith. Some I even knew by the parables I had read myself in my research.

  As impressive as all that was, it didn’t come close to matching the research center itself. The term truly didn’t do it justice, because it reminded me more of an elven tower straight out of Lord of the Rings than any laboratory I’d ever seen, well, if you plus-sized that tower by tenfold. Though it kept the usual aversions to sharp angles and lines, the tower was distinctly different from anything else I’d seen made by the Matriarchs. Grooved like a unicorn’s horn, the entire structure seemed to unravel as it rose, each ‘peel’ turning into its own branch of the tower, tipped with immense shards of crystal that pulsed with raw energy.

  The heady rush of magic filled the air, even as the constant hum of electrical generators played counterpoint to it, as a second look made it clear that as fantastical as the structure was, it was as much a product of science as anything. Dotted with hundreds of lit windows through its brilliant, white metal skin, I could pick out a dozen or more security drones buzzing through the air around it like oversized gnats.

  And then I looked down.

  The realist in me expected to see a full-sized army filling the entire mustering zone like a living moat, thousands of weapons pointed in all directions ready to annihilate anyone foolish enough to step inside this cave without authorization, namely us. What I saw was both more and less worrying at the same time.

  There was no massive legion of Quibs and Megadreds, the mainline combat robot of the Matriarchy, waiting for us. Instead, there were only a baker’s dozen troops. Twelve were arrayed in a si
ngle-file line a good twenty meters below us with one standing at their center, a few meters ahead of the others, their iridescent armor making them look like walking oil slicks in the rainbow light. Unlike the bulky, top-heavy suits of the normal and Elite Quibs, the armor of these soldiers was built in perfectly streamlined forms, making them appear tall, thin, and mantis-like compared to their brethren, an effect enhanced by their bulbous helmets, topped in fiery orange plumes. They all stood at perfect attention, silver poles fitted with some kind of energy emitters held at their sides, save the one standing ahead.

  I knew exactly what we were faced with, and a part of me was in awe to actually see these in real life. When Xara had said the High Priestess had sent her gifts, I didn’t expect to see them, not at all.

  These were a contingent of the Royal Guards, or more formally, the Invested Guardians of the Most Holy Sisterhood. Eunuched at an early age, if I trusted the lore of Star Conqueror (and I did, after all I had experienced), the Guard was an elite fighting force meant to personally guard the luminaries of the Matriarchy, the most important of the theological council and other key assets. The poles in their hands were better known as Executors, multi-purpose weapons capable of striking targets with incredible force using the gravitic enhancers in each tip, slicing through targets with plasma blades like a poleaxe, or firing devastating bolts of that same plasma from the ends like a rocket launcher on steroids.

  Alyra had access to only four of them as the Left Hand of the High Priestess, I knew from her memories, she had only left them behind because she’d wanted to prove herself by taking down the legendary dragon single-handedly.

  And now we had thirteen to deal with.

  That was assuming we even survived to get down there, for in the brief moment I took all this in, the lead Guard had already shouldered his Executor like a rifle, clearly already ready for our arrival in some way, and pressed a trigger that I knew was there only from my in-game experience.

  “Cover!” I shouted, knowing exactly what was to come, but it was already too late.

  Though Alyra flared her wings while Ferria and the first few miners tried to dive back into the tunnel, the Guard had already fired, the tip of his Executor launching a tremendous bolt of pure, fiery plasma up at where we stood. It was almost impossible to dodge a bullet, which made it absolutely impossible to dodge a streaking blast of energy from near-surprise.

  The bolt struck the bottom of the walkway and exploded, flooding my vision and everyone around me in deadly plasma.

  24

  That blast wasn’t intended for me. If anyone knew of my known capabilities, the fact that my draconic powers made me nigh-immune to heat, fire, and plasma, it would be the Royal Guards. No, it was meant to incinerate everyone around me, while giving me a ringside seat to see all my friends and troops turned into greasy smears on the pristine white walls.

  And it would have, at least the lightly armored miners, Ferria included, had I not been there. While there was no time to dodge the blast, there was time to think, and a thought was all I needed to mentally activate Through the Fire and Flames. Magic rushed through my body, surging out from my Cestari in a spiral of spiritual flames a microsecond before the plasma bolt exploded beneath us. My dragon seemed to take the concept of ‘designated squadmate’ liberally, my protective aura clinging not just to Alyra and the unseen Tulip, but everyone behind me as well. The roar of plasma washed over us, scorching the walls but leaving everyone entirely unharmed.

  There was one casualty though, the walkway beneath me. The metal grating evaporated beneath my feet, sending me falling down towards the unforgiving stone floor. Ten meters is a long way to drop for a human, power suit or not, and instincts took over, the dragon roaring out of the back of my mind. Muscles swelled as my form expanded, scales hardened over my vulnerable flesh, fire swelling in my chest as I landed like a cannonball, cratering the stone beneath my claws.

  “That was your one shot,” I roared defiantly, smoke billowing out of my shout as I tensed to charge. The Guard that had sniped us was hard to read through the faceless helmet and disciplined motions, but the way his focus swept with disbelief across the completely unscathed freedom fighters above him and the faintest of shudders in his stance made me smile. “Now, it’s my turn.”

  Any concerns about the power of the Invested Guardians blew out the back of my mind. These assholes had just tried to blow my people into ash, and that pushed every one of my ‘kill it with fire’ buttons. The Guards shook off their momentary surprise, starting to rush forward in a blanket formation to surround me. They wisely didn’t bother shifting their Executors to bladed mode or firing off any more plasma blasts, and they moved in eerie, utter silence save for the whine of the gravitic fields in their staves.

  I charged forward to meet them head-on, battle-ax and claws ready to rip into them, and I wasn’t the only one with bloody murder in mind. Even before the immovable object of the Royal Guard met the irresistible force of one pissed-off dragon, the ragtag force of rebels was pelting the field with a barrage of lasers, bullets, and blaster bolts from the scorched doorway, while some of them managed to make the leap to the intact portions of the walkway. It was an undisciplined, unfocused onslaught, and even the shots that hit a Guard head-on seemed to have little effect, washing off their superior shielding. As for my ladies, I still had no idea where Tulip was other than she was close, something I knew only by my heightened sense of smell, but Alyra was diving down like a Valkyrie of legend, Wander surging with light.

  And then we clashed. I hit the lead Guard head-on with a broad swing of the Thorax before he could bring his Executor around to a defensive position. His shielding cracked under the tremendous shot before physics took over, sending him bowling into another two of his friends. In a display of sheer ruthless practicality, they didn’t dodge him, or even brace to catch him … they both swung their poles at him in tandem, gravitic pulses sending the poor bastard arcing over their heads.

  The next ones in line, wrapping around my left flank, were ready for me, using their superior reach to thrust their poles out with deadly accuracy. Of the three, one I managed to slap out of the way with a swing of my claws, the golden talons literally slicing the deadly tip off in one blow, but the others I could only brace for, my toes curling to let my foot claws dig in deep. One Guard’s strike crashed into my shoulder, the other snaking past my guard to stick right in my ribs, the air rippling between the clash of pure crushing gravity and my shields.

  Kinetic overload! Shields holding at seventy-two percent. Inertial stabilizers failing, my suit was kind enough to inform me as the impact carried through the shields, all that kinetic energy throwing my entire upper body sideways. Despite my tremendous mass and entrenched claws, I was driven sideways a good meter, tearing deep gouges in the stone as I slid.

  I would have slid further, maybe been thrown off my feet entirely, if I hadn’t hit up against a wall of familiar, glowing white force. Alyra’s wings were thrown wide above me, her Wander thrust down to not only catch me with her force wall but cut off some of my attackers temporarily.

  “I have your back, my dragon,” she called over the comms, flicking her pistol’s tip, the wall shoving against the Royal Guard she had caught up in it.

  “We both do, David,” a familiar feline voice concurred as behind those preoccupied Guardians, a blur of distorted light resolved itself into Tulip in mid-leap. Before her target even knew that she existed, the catwoman flipped in mid-air, landing square on his shoulders. As the Guard reared back in surprise, she clenched her thighs around his throat, jamming the barrels of both Fangs against either side of the shielding around his helmet, and held down the triggers.

  As her target fell under a constant barrage of enchanted, elementally charged bullets, I let out a roar of thanks and shoved myself back towards the group that had thrown me back. I couldn’t play this game of tag for long, but I didn’t intend to. Getting in their midst might have seemed crazy, but I had done it on purpos
e. As burning tendrils of Recompense energy flowed through me, I swiveled my snout towards them, letting the burning heat from my draconic hurt surge through my lungs, activating the Flames of Freedom as I did so. The insane damage boost of Recompense mingled with the increased dragonfire power of the Flames of Freedom buff to turn the resultant cascade of flames into a blue-white cone of death.

  Where the impossibly hot napalm cascaded over their shields, instead of instantly being burnt away along with the armor and flesh below, the air sundered with the sounds of cracking ice as their shields burst with blue-white energy. That light was matched by the stones in thin metal bands around their wrists, almost unnoticeable against their armor. While the surge of elemental cold didn’t completely ward off the cascade of dragonfire, the sticky flames still burning and starting to crack the protective energy fields, it still saved the Guards from instant annihilation.

  Well, it was only a matter of time someone would try something like that, and as they had been sent here specifically to stop yours truly, I wasn’t as surprised as I normally would have been.

  “Focus all your fire on the burning ones,” Ferria shouted from above. “Break down their shields before they recharge!” With that command, she did something I didn’t quite expect, charging down one side of the catwalk, eating distance in long, exoframe-enhanced bounds.

  The tactic to focus fire was a smart one, and I’d have to trust the rest of her idea was smart too. As the Resistance fighters turned their weapons towards the three goons drenched in dragonfire, I spun to my left to face down a pair that had rushed in to take advantage of the distraction. Knowing that Alyra and Tulip would keep my one flank clear, I feinted another defensive sweep of my claws at their weapons. Though they were highly trained fighters, even the best of the best made mistakes, and these two did, falling for my feigned attack, turning their combined thrusts into sweeping strikes, one aimed high and one low.