Star Conqueror: An Epic Space Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Thanks, ladies,” I grunted over the comms. While our situation seemed precarious, I had learned a long time ago that panic didn’t get you anywhere when the chips were down. Best to focus on the objectives and make sure they got done. “We need to save our ride. Tulip …?”

  I could hear her rapidly clambering up Old Blue’s partial walls to the ceiling. “Buy me ten seconds for a Judas Hack!”

  “Clara, keep us up while I get their attention.” I started that process by unloading a few tight bursts from the Arclight into their masses.

  What amazed me was how much damage they had done so quickly, even as my first few shots, bolstered by the burst of Recompense energy I had gained from that scythe cut, tore one of them apart. In less than a minute, they had shredded the hatches to the shielded compartments, eradicated the bench Tulip and Clara had used, and removed what was left of that wall.

  “Of course, darlings,” the ex-Matriarch responded, landing lightly next to me, her wings flaring to guide her down. Four of the remaining spiders whirled to deal with the threat, while the other four changed tactics, starting to stab down into the heart of the train.

  Tojo’s beleaguered cry ripped through the cab even as I dropped back a step, concentrating fire on the spiders swinging blades at Clara and me. “Those little bastards are going for the e-mags! If they cut those, we’re going to wipe out, dragon!”

  “Got it, Tojo,” I shouted back. “Let’s see how much Old Blue can take then!” He kept calling me dragon, so he deserved to see it for real. Focusing, I let the dragon out to play. As my body shifted and grew, the entire car started to tilt as scales, teeth, and hundreds of pounds of bone and muscle rippled through my form.

  Beside me, Clara’s light surged again, enveloping us both in glowing, cushioning shields that blunted spider claws as two swarmed over me and one leaped at her. “Gah, disgusting things,” she cried as she pumped pulses of starlight into it with her Wander.

  As her attacker sparked and spasmed from the direct injection of energy, my draconic roar seemed to activate some protocol in the rest of the spider’s programming. Instead of going for the kill shot on the train, they all rose up on their spindly legs, oriented on me, and charged.

  Right when Tulip let out a meow of victory. “Judas Hack engage!”

  As a full half of them started to spark and buzz before turning on their fellows, I met the charge halfway, cutting the air and their metallic bodies with glittering arcs as I sliced away with my claws. I couldn’t afford to use dragonfire in here since my size and weight was already making Old Blue unstable, after the spiders had damaged it considerably, but I wouldn’t need it.

  The hacked spiders tore into their brothers from all sides even as Clara injected another surge of stellar power in me, the added strength making my talons fly faster as I swept through the horrible things in indiscriminate strokes that turned our attackers into sparking hunks of slag.

  24

  To be honest, the member of our cadre that took the most damage was Old Blue. As I seethed over the wreckage of the spider bots, smoke curling out of my draconic snout, what little remained of the upper structure of the car started to fall away, causing Tulip to leap from the ceiling to join us on the floor. I could feel Tojo’s wide eyes glued on my hulking form and the destruction the spiders had wrought on his train.

  Then he let out a tremendous whoop.

  “I never thought I’d live to see this day!” the ancient Ar’abi cried over the growing wind. “You sure ripped those piles of junk apart!”

  I turned to glance back at him, as well as check Tulip and Clara to see if they had come through fine. The old man’s eyes were dancing with glee, which made sense as he was actually dancing some strange jig himself.

  Tulip was practically untouched as she scooped up my Swarmer and tossed it to me, her eyes gleaming as she looked up at me. Clara also looked fine, fussing more at the gouge the spider had cut into her breastplate than anything else. If she hadn’t shielded herself, that would have caused far more serious damage than scratched up armor … but she had, so we were all fine.

  “Tojo,” I rumbled, my draconic voice carrying over the growing rattle as we shed more pieces of the car, “are we going to make it? Is she going to —”

  “Oh, don’t you worry, mighty dragon,” the mechanic cackled as he spun back to the controls. “Old Blue will hold together. It’s just the external superstructure! As long as the platform and the magnets hold out, you’ll get to your vault!”

  “Have faith, David,” Tulip said with a grin as she came up beside me, running her fingers down my arm. “We’ll make it.”

  Putting the Swarmer back on my hip, the massive pistol now a toy in my draconic mitts, I nodded slowly. “I think I’m starting to buy into this whole fate thing.” I let out a roaring laugh. “Not that I need to. I’m going to keep working to bring down the Matriarchy until we win this. There isn’t another option.”

  “Besides,” Clara cooed as she fought the rushing air to get to Tojo’s side at the controls, “Tojo is the best mechanical engineer on the planet, darlings. If he says we’ll get there, we’ll get there, rest assured.”

  Clara was right. We did get there … with pretty much only half the floor, the controls, and the magnetic rail clamps left. I shifted back to human form during the rest of the ride, which was probably for the best for the train car. It didn’t need a thousand-pound dragon adding to its troubles.

  Old Blue rattled and smoked as it ground to a halt in front of a lonely, rusted metal landing in the middle of, well, nowhere. The maps Clara had uploaded to our suits showed nothing but empty tunnel for kilometers around.

  “There!” Tojo grinned, stroking his white beard with satisfaction. “Brave fighters of the Resistance, I deliver you, safe and sound, to your destination!” As if to punctuate his statement, one of the floor panels next to me fell away with a clang.

  Tulip bounded onto the platform with one easy leap and I followed her with a little less grace. Clara lingered a moment though, looking back at Tojo with a faint frown of worry. “Indeed, you did, Tojo, but … what about you? I fear we may run into more danger ahead, and … well, your train …”

  The old man scoffed. “Don’t worry about me or Blue. She’s still running, so I’ll go down track, set her on a run towards something explosive and important, and hit the maintenance tunnels.” His crazy grin of excitement was strangely infectious. “I’ll strike a blow for the revolution and fade into the shadows, like a proper Resistance fighter for once!”

  “That’s how you do it,” Tulip cried, her Cheshire cat grin returning. “Good luck, Tojo! Give them hell!”

  Clara let out a huff of a sigh as she spread her wings and flew up to us. “Just … be safe. Don’t die, all right? After all the damage I have already done to your people, I don’t wish to feel responsible for you being lost as well.”

  “You aren’t,” I reminded her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “And I know why you feel that way.” I flashed her a grin. “It shows that you’ve got a huge heart in you.”

  “I … well, yes, I do.” Clara puffed out her chest and raised her chin, putting on her mask of confidence. “Still, it would be a shame and a blow to the Resistance if you were to die, Tojo, so please … don’t?”

  I laughed and nodded. “Likewise. Kick some ass, man, but don’t sacrifice yourself.” I gave the old man a salute. “The Resistance needs every good fighter it can get.”

  “Yes, sir, dragon,” Tojo replied, matching my salute as he managed to get the shuddering remains of the car hovering again. “I’ll do my very best to stay safe. You do the same! May the gods watch over you!”

  With that, he threw what was left of Old Blue into motion, another strut falling away as it sped off further down the tunnel. Beside me, Tulip’s attention had gone to her tablet, fingers dancing over the display.

  “We’re still ahead of the game,” she reported, “but I’ve got small blips on long-range motion sensors coming dow
n the track. Slow, steady, and in a standard search pattern, but they’ll get here in less than ten minutes.”

  I nodded and looked to Clara, turning towards what looked like the smooth, blank metal wall of the tunnel in the process. “Okay, this is your show. Do I need to say open sesame or something?”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Clara said with a laugh, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, “that’s my job.” She drew her Wander and touched its glowing barrel to a section of the wall.

  As a seam grew out of nowhere from the spot she touched, I found myself hoping we could take a moment to get our bearings safely on the other side. The mass of drones and spider bots had wound up amounting to a pretty little pile of power credits. In fact, I swore there was more stored credits than there should be. Maybe it was the squad credit bonus from Star Conqueror taking effect, something that definitely odd to me but I was now in the realm of super-science and alien magic. As Tulip had said, I could ask the actual designer of this technology once we had finished this mission.

  For the moment, I’d simply be happy for the boon of four-hundred-and-seventy-two credits.

  The sound of the vault door, a massive panel that slid into the wall and to the right, much like the hidden door in Clara’s hideaway, brought me out of my thoughts, metal sparking against metal. A small entrance chamber opened before us, white fluorescent light starting to flood the room as dormant fixtures flared to life.

  “Everybody in,” I said, taking point with my rifle at the ready. “Clara, lock the door behind us. Tulip, stay frosty. Just because we beat the majority of the security force here doesn’t mean we’re home free.”

  The ladies flanked me as we entered the chamber, Clara stopping to seal us in. “While I wish I could reassure you that we are, as you would say on Earth, home free, darlings, there is some on-site security here. Though this is primarily my personal vault, Alyra and the planetary governess also have access to it, so they were rather insistent that purely robotic security was too, well, insecure.” She glanced at Tulip as the vault door hissed shut. “I believe your name was mentioned repeatedly in that particular conversation.”

  The catwoman’s eyes gleamed in delight. “I’m happy to know that my reputation precedes me.”

  “So, before we get too deep in patting ourselves on the back, even if it’s totally warranted,” I said with a wry grin, “what are we likely to be up against?”

  “Something rather, well, disturbing, if I am to be frank with you,” Clara explained, sauntering over to the only door forward. She pressed a few keys on the door’s console, locking it with a sharp buzz. “There, we should be safe to speak. Best to be safe, right, darlings?”

  I nodded. “So, disturbing things …?”

  “Oh, yes!” Clara leaned against the door. “As you know, the High Priestess dedicates much of our resources to studying and enhancing what makes magic possible. What determines who will have the talent for it, and how that talent will manifest. Of course, beyond that, the Matriarchy wishes to find a way to enhance that power.” She held up her Wander. “Trinkets like this are a by-product of that.”

  Tulip’s tail swung slowly from side to side as she arched an eyebrow. “I’m not seeing the disturbing part yet.”

  “We’re not there yet, my dear,” the ex-Matriarch said with a thin smile. “Recently, a certain somewhat unhinged Quib geneticist, Professor Pan, working on these projects performed a terrible experiment, attempting to infuse genetic material from a magic-wielder into, well, a Quib test subject. Quibs are utterly closed off to magic, you see, and Pan was certain that magical talent was a matter of genetics, not the favor of the gods or anything like that.”

  “I’m going to guess that he succeeded?” I crossed my arms and frowned at the prospect of magic-using Quibs.

  “Oh, no, darling!” Clara said with a faint giggle. “Well, not the first time, anyway. The poor Quib quite literally exploded into a mess of goo.” She raised a cautionary finger. “But that failure emboldened the Professor. A simple DNA fusion from compatible species shouldn’t have made a Quib blow up, after all.”

  Tulip shivered, her hackles rising as her tail poofed a little. “I don’t think I want to ask how many times he murdered his test subjects. Quibs may be bastards for the most part, but still …”

  I nodded somberly, holding back the bile that was starting to rise in my throat. The fact that such indiscriminate experimentation on anything sentient was allowed just made me hate the Matriarchy more. “But he did eventually succeed, didn’t he, Clara?”

  “Indeed, he did.” Clara laid her palm on the door behind her, tapping it rhythmically with her fingers. “Pan’s success rate is still, and this is putting it generously, abysmal, but he has managed to infuse magical talent in a few lucky Quibs. The Left Hand laid claim to the first, an exceptionally dim-witting brute of a man named Tur.”

  “I guess you’d have to be mighty dumb to enter a testing program when everyone else before you exploded, huh?” Tulip quipped as she tried to stroke out the poofiness in her tail.

  “Oh, they didn’t all explode,” Clara corrected. “Some disintegrated to ash, and one turned into a goat.”

  “That’s so much better,” I growled with a shake of my head. “Okay, so magic Quib. We can handle that. What kind of power does he have?”

  Clara clucked her tongue. “Ah, see, that’s the potentially dangerous part, darling. Tur has control over electricity, and through that, electronics. Potentially devastating to power suit systems, energy weapons, and just to make things a hair worse, Tur was stationed here with two Megadreds at his disposal to guard the vault.” As I cast her a questioning glance, she added, “Well, it is one of the few sites that hold our cloaking technology, not to mention the other treasures I squirreled away here.”

  Nodding with understanding, I glanced from the secret door to the tunnels to my dragon cooldown timer (two minutes and counting) and settled on the door forward. “Okay, this is a risky play, but I can’t summon the dragon for a few more minutes. If you’re sure those security forces were lagging behind as far as you said, Tulip—”

  “I’m as sure as I am that you are fantastic in bed,” she interrupted, her grin almost devilish.

  Blushing a bit, I still puffed my chest up. Hey, a compliment is a compliment. “Well, then, we’re going to stay locked in here until that timer is good to go. You told me the dragon is inside me, Tulip, so what better way to beat someone who might be able to mess with our suits than with something that doesn’t need a suit to kick ass?”

  25

  It was also a good excuse to take a look at my upgrade options, even if I had a pretty good idea of what I was about to blow my wad on. As the ladies agreed with my suggestion, they had decided to do the same, looking at their credit reserves and seeing what they could do, but I had a feeling they might not have much open to them.

  See, I had a couple of big advantages over my fairer companions that I was only now fully understanding. The first was obvious, and that was that I had been handed a power that in Star Conqueror had cost millions of credits for free. Now, from Tulip’s explanation of how the suits worked, I imagined that she and Clara both had started with ‘free’ abilities based on their natural talents, but nothing cost as much as Dragon Form, or really came close.

  The second was that I was starting from the basics. Upgrades started cheap enough, but they spiraled off from costing ten, twenty credits at the base to rapidly having costs in the tens of thousands of credits. Tulip had tons of field experience, I knew, so her ‘cheap’ options were exhausted. A few hundred power credits to her now was chump change, and Clara was likely in the same boat.

  So, it didn’t surprise me when they closed their upgrade screens well before I did. Me, I had some solid options to look at, starting as I usually did by pulling up my Dragon tree:

  * * *

  Five Fingered Death Swipe

  Cost: 150 power credits

  Once activated, all dragon form claw attac
ks inflict 100% extra damage and penetrate 50% of a target’s armor for 5 seconds

  10 seconds dragon form duration expended per activation

  * * *

  Enhanced Dragon Will

  Cost: 450 power credits

  Increases mental fortitude and strength while using Dragon Will

  Increases chance of a successful soulbond

  Passive Upgrade

  * * *

  Attuned to the Dragon

  Cost: 1,000 power credits

  Reduces your dragon form cooldown by 1 minute

  Passive Upgrade

  * * *

  Already the cost creep was beginning. My immediate temptation was to go straight for Enhanced Dragon Will. The time in Clara’s head had shown me how important Dragon Will would be for the future of this fight against the Matriarchs and freeing her hadn’t exactly been easy. With all the chains that had been put on her as a lowly administrator, what kind of defenses and traps had this Mother of Chains, whatever she was, laid in more powerful Matriarchs’ minds?

  At the same time, we were about to fight a magically-empowered asshole with two twelve-foot tall death machines at his side. He likely wasn’t chained or controlled, not if he was as dumb and brutish as Clara implied, so Dragon Will was pointless. Tur could also possibly mess with our suits and our energy weapons. Hell, even Tulip’s Mandible Elite had plenty of electronic components. Let’s not even talk about how sucky it would be to be struck by lightning, well, to see my ladies struck by such. Breath of the Wild would keep me safe from that, but not from the Megadreds’ chain guns.

  No, in that case, Five Fingered Death Swipe and the upgrade I knew should unlock after that, Flames of Freedom, a similar activated ability that amped breath weapon damage and cost, at least in SC, two-hundred-and-fifty credits, would be the smart play. After all, the best defense is a good offense.