Star Conqueror: An Epic Space Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  As I stared down at Clara’s face, the world around us seemed to change, the colors fading out even as the air cleared. Before I could take it all in, there was nothing left but the fiery orange of my aura stretching out endlessly in every direction. Even she seemed to change. While still covered in my orange flames, her wings, the mark of the Matriarchy, burned away and she looked younger now. No longer wrapped in body-hugging power armor, Clara gazed up at me in what had to be some kind of native dress somewhere in the galaxy. It reminded me of what a Romani gypsy woman would wear, skirts and scarfs of a dozen colors wrapped around her, with a silver comm bracer around her wrist.

  With her wings, the anger and fear that made her face almost ugly burned away, leaving only that strange anxiousness and maybe, just maybe, a strange spark of hope. We stared into each other eyes, alien gold and reptilian green, for a long moment before she finally spoke. “You … you are here to help me, aren’t you?”

  I looked around, draconic senses drinking in the entire blankness around us. Noises filled my ears beyond our two heart beats, clattering chains and straining metal mixing with distant echoes. Alien words, strange music, and screams drifted through the nothingness, but I could see nothing past the two of us.

  Instincts, whispers not from my power suit but from the dragon, steadied me though, guided me. “I am.” I focused on Clara. “I’m … we’re in your mind, aren’t we? But not really. Like, I’m seeing into it …”

  She pulled on my taloned hands. “Yes, and time is short. I … I don’t know how you’re doing this, but I know the chains are closing in. If they bind me again, I don’t know if even you can break me free, dragon.”

  Dragon Will spoke of breaking mental controls and bonds, and the lore of the game told me that the Matriarchs had been normal women once, before the High Priestess and the techno-mages of the Matriarchy worked their will. And chains, Clara had yelled about the Mother of Chains when she attacked directly.

  “Lead on,” I rumbled, feeling a surge of sympathy for the alien woman as I gave into her urgent pulls. “I won’t let you be chained again.”

  She looked back at me, that bit of hope flourishing in her eyes. “I … I trust you. Now, run!” That distant clatter of chains turned into a rush, a rasping rustle of metal that seemed to come from all sides. With that sound, a dozen barbed, hooked chains shot out from the roaring, fiery wisps of my magic, shooting for us.

  Clara ran and so did I. I didn’t fear the chains, but I feared what they could do to Clara if they caught her. Those barbs wouldn’t shred her flesh, but they might shred this, well, psychic representation of the woman, one that definitely wasn’t the sneering Matriarch Tulip and I had just fought.

  Though the glowing space seemed infinite, the ground was solid under our feet, and we must have been moving, because we managed to outpace the chains, at least the first batch.

  More shot out of the glow, taking the place of the ones we had ditched, but we still kept a step ahead of them. To make sure we did, I swept Clara into my arms and put my massive draconic strength and speed to use.

  As we pulled away from the us-seeking bindings, I glanced down at the woman in my arms. “How much further? This is your mind, not mine.”

  Clara’s eyes searched all around, before finally pointing straight ahead. “There!”

  There hadn’t been anything but more orange light ahead, so my surprise was understandable that, between eye blinks, an enormous metal door now stood, wrapped in more of those barbed chains. A massive padlock of rusted black iron hung from the center of the web of chains, but instead of a keyhole, the flat center of it was dominated by a stamped letter M.

  “The rest of me, the real me, is trapped within,” she cried as I picked up the pace towards the door. It wasn’t far, but our snake-like pursuers weren’t as far back as I would have liked. “I can’t break free, not any more than this fragment of me has, but you, dragon, you can. I can feel the magic in you. The flame of freedom burns in your heart.”

  I growled and nodded as I skidded to a halt, foot claws digging into the invisible ground. “Poetic way to put it, Clara, but I fought for freedom and liberty back home.” Setting her to the ground in one sweeping motion, I reared back one mighty clawed hand. “Guess it only makes sense that’s what I’m doing here.”

  With that, I swiped with all my strength at the chains. Sparks flew as steel and claw met, and for a moment, I thought I might have cleaved right through. Instead, as I followed through, I realized that I had only scratched the surface of the things. Like, literally scratched the surface, thin glowing lines being all that remained to show any damage at all.

  “Please, you have to keep going,” Clara enthused. “I know you can —”

  She cut herself off with a shriek of pain. Though the chains slithering after us were still a few paces behind, new ones, ones neither of us could have seen coming, seemed to materialize straight out of the unseen ground. They spiraled up, one from either side of Clara’s feet, looping around her waist. The barbs cut deep, and that same, too-red blood leaked from the wounds they tore in her flesh.

  She must have seen me about to spin back to help her, but she shook her head wildly, white-blonde hair going crazy as she cried out through the pain. “No! Break the lock! If you do that, you’ll win. You’ll set me free!”

  I admired the courage I saw, and the razor-sharp focus Clara showed for the true goal at hand. Ignoring the pain on her face, something hard for me to do, I turned back to the door. She said to break the lock, which made sense. It was the center of the binding chains … and then it struck me. What I had to do was obvious.

  Clara asked for the flame of freedom, and I was going to bring it.

  I took a deep breath as steam began to curl out of my nostrils, the oily feel of dragon fuel building in my throat. That burning in my gut, my heart, blazed hotter than ever, and I wondered for a split-second if my lungs would burst into flames from the inside out. Then, spurred on by another tortured cry from Clara as more chains shot out to tear at her arms, I exhaled with every ounce of strength in my mental representation of a body.

  Dragon fire leaped from my open jaws, a steady gout that slammed dead-on into the center of the M-marked lock. As dragon fire is wont to do, the sticky, burning solution melted straight through the black iron like it was butter. Molten slag fell to the ground alongside the heavy chains with a dull clatter. A tortured shriek filled the mindscape all around me, but it wasn’t from Clara.

  It was the sound of a thousand iron chains being pulled apart by an incredible force, twisting metal and popping links echoing out from every corner. Just when I thought I was going to reach sensory overload, the door before me exploded into a million scintillating shards, blinding me for a moment before the weight of what I’d unleashed slammed into my brain.

  As my draconic eyes adjusted to the flare of light, I realized what was contained on the shards. Each was a mirror into a memory, and all those memories together formed the tapestry of Clara’s life, twenty years of it sealed up and bound in chains. Deep down, I knew what this meant, that this was how the Matriarchy twisted these women into being the boot heel the High Priestess pressed to the throat of freedom-loving people across the galaxy.

  I glanced sidelong, where the peasant Clara had been bound against her will, and she was gone. Before I could fully make sense of it, the shards of Clara’s mind blew through me, as those locked away images and emotions swept over me as scenes from her life flooded my senses.

  In that instant, I saw everything that had happened to her. From the moment Quibs stormed into the Tel’ra caravan ship her parents captained and kidnapped her because of her magical talents, to the seemingly endless hours of torture in the Matriarchy in a girl’s camp, I saw it all. Everything that had happened to her over these long decades. Having a lifetime of memory shotgunned into my brain was almost overwhelming, but I held on. More than anything, a surge of joy and fulfillment rushed through me, the dragon spirit roaring triumphantly
in my head.

  I had saved this woman from a lifetime of slavery, and that was something I could be proud of.

  Then it was over, and I realized the void around us was no long a void. Instead, it was a rich tapestry of memory, showcasing the life Clara had before they’d come for her. There was joy, sorrow, love, and loss, but it was intact now, not a blank parchment for the Matriarchy to work their will upon. Clara was whole now, and I felt a smile creep across my draconic snout.

  “Thank you,” Clara’s voice, now soft and wistful, echoed through my heart and mind from all sides.

  I felt myself pull away, the tapestry of life around me starting to blur with motion. “You’re welcome, Clara,” I murmured as the scene shattered, fracturing right down the center before breaking into shards that vanished into the ether. “It was my pleasure.”

  And then I was back in my own head, staring at the Matriarchy alley with dead Quib Elites scattered around me. Not even a moment seemed to have passed because Tulip was still finishing the blink she had begun when I had summoned the Dragon Will inside me.

  “By Felinus, what happened?” she murmured as Clara threw her arms around my massive waist, burying her head into my armored chest. Her power suit was back, as were her glorious wings, but whisper-thin breastplate aside, I could feel her body press against mine and I’d be lying if I didn’t say it felt good.

  Putting my arms around her, I let the Matriarch cry, free, honest tears of joy at her freedom, as I looked at Tulip. “It was like the tales you told me. I turned an enemy into a friend.” Outrage brought a fierce rumble to my voice. “God, the horrors they committed to Clara! The girls’ camps, the torture …”

  The catwoman let her pistols drop to her side as her eyes softened. “I know, I know all too well, David. The same thing was done to me but … I escaped and —”

  Clara took a shuddering breath and cut Tulip off as she pulled away from me. “I knew, deep down, there was a reason I always tracked your movements, even though it wasn’t my job, Null-K.” She wiped madly at her tear-stained cheeks. “I don’t know how, but I knew we shared a kinship … but enough of that.” Trying to regain her composure, she turned and took up her Wander-Z before looking from Tulip to me. “You, David Briggs, dragon of old made new, I pledge myself to you. I want to pay back every last one of those bitches responsible for every pain they visited on me, my family, and all those like me.”

  I was taken aback not by Clara’s declaration, I had seen the torture the Matriarchy had inflicted on her first hand, but by the fact she knew my full name. “How did you …?”

  “Darling, please,” she cooed, settling behind some semblance of the almost-arrogant mask she had worn when she first dropped down before us. She tapped the side of her head as she continued. “Our souls, our essences are intertwined now. You saw what you freed, and I saw what was inside your mind in return.”

  Tulip stepped up to one side of Clara and me, putting a soft hand on my shoulder and a more tentative one on Clara’s. “I won’t imagine I know what happened here, other than what I know from the tales of the dragons of old, but if I’m figuring this properly … David broke whatever brainwashing the Matriarchy did to you?”

  “That’s putting it lightly,” I rumbled, smoke curling out of my snout. “But I can try to explain it later. We need to move before your hacks cut out and we’re detected again.”

  Clara laughed, more honestly than before, the malice gone out of it as she tapped at her own wrist computer. “Oh, dear hearts, no need to fear for that. I just cut the alarm for this channel, rerouted Ar’abi traffic around this area, canceled the call for maintenance, and shut off the spider clusters here.” As we both looked at her in surprise, she shrugged her lithe shoulders. “I may only be a junior Anchorite, but I am … was still a Matriarch. Still, the Left Hand will notice this irregularity in the system, and the drones will certainly get footage of the dead Elites soon. Even if they don’t think I’ve turned —”

  “They’ll assume you’re dead or kidnapped,” Tulip finished for her, nodding with growing certainty, the hand on Clara’s shoulder going from a hesitant grip to a firm, warm one. “Your clearances and codes will be revoked as standard security protocol.”

  “But that still gives us a moment to gather our wits and more importantly, gather loot,” I said with a nod, even as I felt the dragon start to recede back inside of me. I still had a minute or so, but I was glad we didn’t have another bunch of troops to deal with.

  I gestured to the three dead Elites laid out before us. “Well, ladies first.”

  18

  “Loot?” Clara asked, her nose wrinkling slightly as she surveyed the carnage. “What exactly do you mean by loot?”

  Tulip laughed a little as she started to systematically search the Elite she had shot down. “Spoils of war, Clara. Useful weapons, gear, anything that will help us on our mission.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed, starting with the one I’d slashed with my talons. The one I’d spewed with dragon fire, well, there might not be that much left to loot as the corpse was melting under the gout of napalm that I sprayed on him.

  “How strange,” Clara murmured as she observed us. “Isn’t that inefficient? Can’t you simply requisition specialized equipment from your Resistance? It is how the Matriarchy does it and —”

  “Look, Anchorite,” Tulip interrupted, her cat ears flattening with annoyance. “We don’t have that luxury. We don’t have control of the shipyards of Alpha Centauri, or the Vel’arbi weapons factories or … well, I could go on. We get what we can get, or is that too crude for you?”

  Clara’s eyes widened as I looked up from my haul, a Mandible Elite and a couple of Banger grenades. “Tulip, don’t press her like that. She’s —” I began to say, but Clara cut me off.

  “No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “It’s quite all right, David. I deserve that. While I have all the … parts of me … so much has happened in the years since the Mother of Chains came to me that …” She focused on Tulip, bowing her head as she crossed her arms in front of her. “You have my apologies.”

  Tulip was the one who looked chastised now, her ears drooping. “Apology accepted. “And … I apologize too. This is a bit, uh, weird. I know you’re a victim like I was, but when I see you, I still see a Matriarch and …”

  I stood up as a soft beeping in my ear told me that my time as a dragon was up. The world closed in on me again, my senses pulling in and dulling, even as I shrunk back into my own flesh. My claws were sheathed and the fire in my body was snuffed down to a hot coal, waiting to be reignited. Tulip and Clara alike were transfixed by the change until it ended.

  There was no pain at all to the change now, but there was a faint sense of loss. I’d definitely have to figure out a build to not only make the power last longer, but so I could use it more often.

  Rubbing my chin, I cleared my throat. “Ugh. What I was about to say is that we can finish our talk when we are under some cover.” I flashed a bit of a smile. “But, well, I might not be the right one to say this, but I’m proud of both of you.”

  I attached a Banger to one of my magnetic mounts, the Mandible to a back mount. I’d give it a proper examination when we were in a safer position. The other grenade I tossed to Clara, who almost fumbled it, still staring at me.

  She attached the grenade to her shapely hip. “I, well,” she stammered a moment before she regained her mask of composure. “I appreciate that. I’m simply grateful to you … and to you too, Tulip.”

  Tulip had recovered a Mandible Elite herself and a stubby pistol with three big barrels, something I recognized immediately as a Swarmer, a sidearm-sized shotgun. “Thank you, David,” Tulip said with a smile. “And you’re welcome, Clara. Just feel free to slap me if I start treating you like, well, the rest of the Matriarchs again.” She tossed the Swarmer my way. “This looks up your alley. A bit too big and loud for my tastes.”

  I caught the bulky gun in one hand and smiled appreciatively as I
clamped it to my thigh. “You know what I like.” Clara was still looking uncomfortably at the melted corpse at her feet, the last one unlooted, and that was when it really clicked. “You cared about them, Clara, at least a little, didn’t you?”

  “I suppose I did,” she murmured, then shook her head. “And yet, I also know they were jack-booted thugs, more than willing to shoot a defenseless Ar’abi for not bowing before me fast enough.” Clara looked up, jaw tightening and eyes filling with the resolve I had seen in her mindscape. “Fear not, darlings, I won’t waver in the fight ahead.”

  As if to assuage our fears with action, she sucked up a deep breath and knelt down, carefully picking over the corpse as Tulip and I stepped to the side of the channel. Clara’s nose was wrinkled up and every gesture and hesitant motion reinforced the idea that, hard-edged Matriarch image aside, Clara herself was grossed out by messing with a corpse.

  It made me smile a little. It was a, well, human quality and another reminder that when I broke the chains, I didn’t earn myself a servant, I had set an innocent woman free.

  “So, uh, well, this rifle is no longer a rifle,” Clara muttered. “You spilled a little dragonfire on it, David, but his Bangers are still intact.” She plucked the spheres off the back of the dead Quib’s armor where they had been shielded from my flames by his body. Holding one in each hand, she rose elegantly, eager to turn away from the carnage, and offered them to Tulip and me. “Here.”

  “Thanks,” I said as I took one of the grenades and added it to my collection.

  Tulip smiled brightly at the gift of a lethal explosive. “Thank you! If you keep this up, I’m sure you’ll make a great impression on Turner when you meet him.”

  The ex-Matriarch’s brow wrinkled as she ‘holstered’ her Wander. “Turner. I know this name, I can almost see him in your memories, David, but there’s so much to take in between that and my own …” Her voice trailed off in thought.