Star Conqueror: An Epic Space Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  Unlike Tulip, all I had to do was turn and wipe away some of the condensation and dirt from a porthole to see through, while Clara flapped her wings a few times to sort of hover-hop up to another one. The clean white lighting that dominated Matriarchy buildings shone through, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust well enough to make out what I was seeing.

  The stark difference between the workers’ tunnel and this new area was like peeking from one world to another. Gone were the rust colors and the oily grime on everything. Instead, there was a gleaming marble floor with curved white walls that formed an arched ceiling over the massive room. From the curve and how these portholes were set, we got a good glimpse down across the place.

  Far below was a tram system with a dozen different rail lines leading into dark tunnels on both sides of the dome-shaped station. The way the bus-sized tram cars seemed to hover above the rails, this had to be some kind of mag-lev setup. This had to be some central hub, as there were multiple turntables, each spinning cars around like records to reorient them to new tracks. A constant flow of Quibs, robots, and even a few Matriarchs came and went on the trams, as well as large cargo crates loaded onto flatbed units.

  The station was understandably well guarded. Each track had two one-stripe Quib Elites and an honest-to-God Megadred stationed nearby. Some of the standard twelve-foot models, the assault robots were broad and humanoid in shape, curved white armor matching the Matriarchy’s design aesthetic. Instead of heads, they had a small turret-like sensor array that barely poked up over the shoulders. Speaking of those shoulders, each one had a massive ten-barreled chain gun mounted to it, giving the Dreds a strange, double-hunchback look.

  Of course, that was only active guards. There was no doubt plenty of cameras, security sensors, spider clusters, and the passengers themselves. Going down there would be suicide, even for my Ascension dragon self.

  “Thank Felinus we don’t have to go through there,” Tulip murmured. “I mean, I’d make it okay, because they’d never know I was there, but you two …”

  Clara nodded. “Indeed, sister. If we were to start a fight in here, the whole rail system will be shut down before we even killed the first Quib, and there is no other way to the vault. Still, no matter how well-designed the security layout is here, there are holes in every security system.”

  She walked with an alluring confidence, as if she had all the answers to every question right in front of her. “No doubt your inside man is one of those holes.”

  Tulip grinned as she followed along, with me right behind. “Yes, we Resistance folks are like that. No matter what the Matriarchy might think, we’re more pervasive than they could ever know.”

  I grunted my agreement with that sentiment as we moved down the service tunnel, right to the coordinates Tulip’s informant had given her. It was another hatch like the one we had passed through to get to the assembly line, but larger, the sounds of constant work echoing even through the thick metal.

  Taking a deep breath, I nodded to the girls and gave them a sign to be ready. As they drew weapons, just in case this was some elaborate trap, I turned the wheel and threw open the door.

  21

  The large workshop beyond the hatch had much more in common with the train station we had just looked at than the maintenance tunnels, but it was still too dirty to live up to normal Matriarchy standards. Though the curving walls were the same white metal and the lighting was as perfectly bright, grease, dirt, and stains covered the walls while the scents of grinding metal and motor oil reminding me of a Marine motor pool.

  Held aloft by a series of mechanical cranes, a train car like the ones we had seen on the maglev track dominated the room. Most of the maintenance panels running along the undercarriage were open, while a large, rusty maintenance robot, a four-armed torso mounted on a three-wheeled base, worked away, sparks flying from the underbelly. A couple of smaller machines, hovering bug-like things, flew around the room, carrying small parts back and forth from the hard-working robot and the one living creature in the room.

  That was an ancient Ar’abi man dressed in the same jumpsuit as the other Ar’abi workers. His close-cropped white hair was smudged with as much grease as the walls making his thin beard contrast harshly with his dark-red skin. His crooked form was bent over a worktable while he worked feverishly at something hidden from view, blocked by the way his body was turned away from the door.

  One of the little hover bots right by the old man’s shoulder let out a loud beep, the sound making the mechanic start before he spun around while drawing a grungy rag across his worktable.

  “Yes, yes, what …” His voice trailed off, his eyes widening at the sight of Clara. “Anchorite, I, uh, didn’t expect an inspection today.”

  Clara raised her hands dismissively. “Oh, so this is your Resistance contact?” she said off-handedly to us. “Calm down, Tojo, I’m not here for an inspection or even for a special project.”

  Tojo stared at her in confusion for a moment before his eyes flicked to Tulip and me. “What exactly is going on here, then? And I don’t know anything about any Resistance people, like I’ve told you —”

  Tulip grinned at the old mechanic, cutting him off with that same simple hand sign I had seen her use at the Ar’abi gathering spot out in the slums. Tojo’s eyes widened in response, and I was already holstering my rifle, sure that this Ar’abi was squarely on our side based on his reaction to that sign.

  “Unbelievable!” the old man crowed as he turned back to his table. “But then again, I saw the transmissions, I saw the dragon!” Throwing the cloth off with a flourish, he snatched up whatever he had been working on and spun clean around again. “It’s time for the revolution!”

  What the extremely enthusiastic engineer was clutching in his mitts was a crude-but-functional bullpup-style railgun of some kind. Well, I assumed it was functional because the magnetic rails along the sides of the barrel hummed dangerously. Its ‘magazine’ wasn’t anything of the kind. Instead, it had something like a chute on the top of the gun, stuffed with scrap metal.

  “Down with the Matriarchy,” he cried as he aimed for, well, the Matriarch in the room.

  Clara’s eyes widened in surprise, totally caught off guard by our neo-revolutionary, but I didn’t. Stepping in front of her with arms spread, I let out a near-draconic shout, the dragon oil thick in my throat. “Stop! She is not your enemy!”

  That made Tojo arrest his shot, a mix of surprise and awe staying his hand. Not that he would have managed to pull the trigger because Tulip was on him before I had even finished my shout, twisting the junk-railgun out of his hand.

  “I … you …” The old man muttered, his jaw still working as his eyes flashed up and down me. “The dragon …! But …” He pointed with a long finger past me. “The Anchorite …?”

  Tulip set the humming weapon on the table, her free hand starting to stroke the Ar’abi’s arm. “Sshhh. It’s okay, sir. She’s with us.”

  I let the dragon in me recede. I had almost shifted involuntarily at the thought of Clara being harmed. Maybe it was part of this soulbond? Whatever the reason, I let out a breath as I tried to answer all of Tojo’s half-asked questions. “Yes, I am the champion of legend, bonded with the power of the old dragons.” I took a step to the side, half-turning to take the slowly recovering Clara around the arm, holding her close. “And Clara here, well, do you know the ancient legend of the dragon who did not need to fight his foes?”

  Between that and Tulip’s tender ministrations, the mechanic seemed to come around, his eyes still wide. “Oh, yes. Yes! You are the breaker of chains, the one who will unshackle the heart and mind.” His religious fervor was as great as Tulip’s, maybe more so, as he looked at Clara. “Oh, Draconis smiles on all of us. He’s freed you, hasn’t he? Made you the good daughter all the Matriarchs once were.”

  “I …” Clara tried to find her voice and managed to do so. “I am free. Yes, this man, David Briggs, my darling dragon, did break my chains. I am
the daughter of Azail Danton again, not the Anchorite slave of the Left Hand.” A smile graced her angelic features. “And, good Tojo, we need your help.”

  Before she or anyone else could fully explain, the old man let out a whooping cry in what I guessed was the native Ar’abi tongue, rushing up to Clara and throwing his rail-thin arms around her. “Oh, you make this poor old man’s heart sing! I should have known … you would have to have been the first to be broken free, what with all that strange work you had me do. So not a Matriarch, I told myself!”

  Clara laughed a bit nervously as she gingerly hugged Tojo back, her trepidation probably caused by the grease monkey’s well, grease. Wherever he touched her, her immaculate white-and-gold power suit came away smudged with grime. “Ah, yes, well, dear, I am so glad you had faith in my eventual return to the side of freedom.”

  I was grinning, suppressing a chuckle as I patted Clara on the shoulder. “I’m guessing Tojo here was one of the people you had help you build your little hideaway.”

  “Oh, yes, darling.” Clara managed to gently disengage herself from the jubilant mechanic. “I had always suspected Tojo was a revolutionary, but I decided I could use his help instead of turning him in.” She daintily tried to wipe away some of the grime stuck to her suit. “Again, I must agree with Tulip’s assessment. This is all fate, the work of the gods.” She caught my gaze with the golden eyes. “This is meant to be.”

  With the immediate gunplay quashed, Tulip had actually wandered over to where the janky maintenance droid had been working hard on the train car, inspecting what it was doing. “I told you, David!” she added before glancing over at Tojo. “So, you do the main train maintenance here, I guess?”

  As I dug up a shop rag from a nearby bin for Clara’s benefit, Tojo tromped over to Tulip, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, work boots echoing over the sounds of the bot welding. “Indeed, young lady. There aren’t many trained engineers among the Quibs that will lower themselves to mess with the transit system. All experimental weapons research for them, right?”

  “Well, their loss,” Tulip purred, “because they won’t see what we have coming for them.”

  “And what’s that, missy?” He trundled back over to his table, stuffing his junk-gun into a wooden toolbox laden with tools. “And whatever it is, how can I help the glorious Resistance?”

  Clara and I walked up to where Tojo was loading up his gear. I clapped the old man on the shoulder. “What we need is a ride, an incognito ride, to a special vault.” Glancing back at Clara, I nodded. “Clara has the specific details.”

  “Ah, special ride, huh?” Tojo nodded to the partly disassembled car as he hefted his tool box. “Well, lucky for you, the Quib guards don’t care much about old Blue here or old Tojo for that matter.” Now that he mentioned it, the mostly grime covered car did seem to have a faded blue paint job. “Blue’s also got some, uh, compartments. Shielded compartments.”

  Tulip arched an eyebrow and popped her tablet off of her suit, hopping up into the car. Meanwhile, Clara was tapping her own wrist screen, pulling up map information. “Yes,” she cooed. “Tojo also did several supply runs for me off the record, such as your delightful lunches.”

  “Then we really are in luck,” I said with a nod, walking over to the car as Clara showed the information of her little hidden vault to Tojo. “I think we’ve got a definite plan then.”

  Tulip poked her head back out of the train car. “Well, our friend here isn’t lying one bit. There’s not a single tracking device or surveillance camera on this rig.” She shrugged as Tojo gave her a scathing look. “Sorry, but I’m an infiltration expert. We’re trained to be a little paranoid.”

  “Fine, fine, missy, I suppose I can’t blame you in this crazy galaxy we live in,” Tojo grumbled as he glanced back at Clara. “So, you need us to go down line seven, all the way down, right?”

  The old repair bot pulled back, closing the maintenance hatches on the tram, as Clara nodded. “Exactly. Thank you very much, Tojo, we —”

  “Oh, quiet up now, Clara,” he laughed as he slung his toolbox up into Old Blue. “It will be my honor to take the dragon and the brave soldiers of the Resistance to shove their foot up the Matriarchy’s ass”

  I laughed, grinning broadly at the old man’s vim and vigor. “Well, you heard the man.” I hopped up into the tram as the lifts lowered it down onto a turntable. “Let’s go, Clara.”

  Clara chewed her lip as she flared her wings, hovering right outside the train car’s door. “Indeed, but I wonder if I should grab more of those towels, you know, to cover the seats and —”

  Tulip rolled her eyes. “Clara!”

  Properly chastised, the ex-Matriarch sighed and joined us, as Tojo fired up the train’s generator.

  22

  It took a few minutes for the ancient engineer to guide the mag-lev car along the workshop’s test tracks to get us closer to the main line, hidden behind a circular set of airlock doors on the far right of the chamber.

  Old Blue was indeed as rundown and dirty as Tojo was, much to Clara’s chagrin. It had once been a passenger car, that much was obvious, but much of the seating had been stripped away. So had over half the wall panels … and the communication system … and the emergency crash suppression … and the fire extinguishers. Honestly, there wasn’t much left of the thing save for some of the core structural struts, some wall panels, the cab itself, and the electromagnets that made the thing go.

  As Tojo settled Old Blue in front of the doors to the main line, he looked back at us huddled in the barren passenger compartment. “Okay, brave heroes! The shielded compartments are right below you. Considering we’re gonna get stopped not ten meters past this point, you’d best get under there.”

  Clara cleared her throat as she tried to touch absolutely nothing around her. “These compartments are nice and spacious, right, Tojo?”

  The engineer just laughed, unable to answer her as he wiped at his eyes.

  “It’ll be okay.” I grinned. “Tulip can shapeshift to a smaller form, and at worst, we just have to get cozy. You didn’t seem to have a problem with that before.”

  That seemed to change her mind on the situation. “Oh, well, putting it that way, darling, I suppose I can stand being all cozy with the both of you.”

  Tulip only answered with a meow, having already shifted into the shape of a strange, luminous-eyed and two-tailed cat-like creature.

  Cramped was an understatement. Once we opened up the floor compartments, it was obvious that it was going to be a tighter squeeze than even I anticipated. We were packed in like sardines, to be honest, especially with Clara’s impressive wings. I put my arms around her as we lay on our sides and she seemed to fit against me perfectly as Tulip curled up at my feet.

  “This might be cramped,” Clara whispered softly, a hint of a blush on her cheeks, “but I suppose I could get used to it.”

  I coughed a little, flushing a bit myself, her honey-sweet scent filling my nose, but the dragon spirit in me felt no such embarrassment. We were bound together after all, so cuddling with her …

  I’d seriously have to sort this out once we had some real R and R.

  “All right!” Tojo chirped. “Leave it all to me!” He closed the lid over us, leaving our lives in the hands of a possibly unhinged ancient Ar’abi revolutionary.

  The train hummed softly, shuddering only a little as the sounds of the heavy doors opening filled the tiny space. The only light we had were from a few small holes in the grating, only adding to the claustrophobia of the situation. The magnets below us hummed louder as the train slid forward on the monorail and we picked up speed.

  For all of three minutes.

  Well, Tojo had warned us we would be stopped soon, probably a security check. I tried to quiet my breathing and stilled my movements. This would be the moment of truth. If we made it past this, we would be in the clear, at least until we got to the vault itself.

  Of course, me even thinking that meant we were probabl
y going to have to fight for every inch on our way there. The prospect actually made me smile a little.

  Muffled partly by the metal door above us, an authoritative Quib’s voice barked a question. “Where are you off to now, Tojo?”

  “I need to do a safety check on the security systems, sir,” Tojo said, his voice sounding weak and defeated, as if he expected to be beat by the Quib for saying the wrong word. “You know, with the Resistance attack.”

  The Quib grunted with annoyance. “Are you sure? There’s nothing scheduled.”

  “Oh, yes, sir. I assure you, I have the orders right here.” A beeping sound, probably from a tablet or micro-computer, caught my ear. I hoped he knew what he was doing, because we sure as hell hadn’t given him any false security files.

  There was a long pause, a fair amount of grumbling from the Quib, and then, finally, he said, “Fine, whatever. Start with line four. It’s unoccupied at the moment.”

  Tojo’s voice grew even meeker as he practically stuttered, “I-I was going to take seven. There is some damage reported on the track, and I’d like to take a look for myself while doing this check.”

  A hint of suspicion grew in the Quib’s voice. “I can’t let you on seven without approval.”

  I tensed, getting ready to burst out of the compartment in case things went wrong.

  “Listen, Kraid,” Tojo pleaded, “if I wait to get approval during this high alert, it’ll take weeks, and if a Matriarch happened to take line seven and get disturbed by the bumpy track, we’re both in big trouble. If you let me through, I’ll save our necks.”

  There was a long, tense pause, and I was happy to know my dragon form was available, just in case.

  “Fine, I’ll open up seven for you, but next time, make sure you get the proper approvals,” Kraid finally acquiesced.