Star Conqueror: An Epic Space Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  But then again, we couldn’t say for sure if Tur was all we had to face ahead. Sure, I had no doubt him and the Dreds would be worth a chunk of credits, but would we have a chance to spend them before the next threat hit? What if that threat was a Matriarch?

  Glancing up, my eyes drifted to Tulip, her perfect hourglass body stretched out against the opposite wall as she inspected her Starshots, and then to Clara, golden eyes regarding me closely. I had feelings for Tulip, that much I knew for sure, and I was starting to think warmly of Clara beyond the ties of the soulbond. The dragon spirit rumbled in agreement, as if to remind me of that bond.

  I guess Tulip had been right. Humans were pretty foolish and prudish about love, sex, all that sort of thing. I had nothing to be ashamed of, no reason not to have feelings for both of them, even grow to love them, if that’s how things went. It felt right, so I smiled at Clara and nodded, to myself more than anything. With that in my mind, I knew how I had to spend my credits.

  I couldn’t worry about a hypothetical situation, about if there will be a Matriarch ahead. No, I had to buy the upgrades to make myself strong enough to ensure that my squad, the women I cared for, didn’t die fighting some sparking jerk and his tinker toys. I mentally scooped up Five Finger Death Swipe, and as I expected, Flames of Freedom lit up as an option.

  * * *

  Flames of Freedom

  Cost: 250 power credits

  Once activated, dragonfire inflicts 100% extra damage and lingering flames inflict 50% extra damage for 5 seconds

  10 seconds dragon form duration expended per activation

  * * *

  I nabbed it as well. I’d have to be careful not to overuse either or I’d shift back to human form too early, but if I thought of the thirty extra seconds I had purchased previously as ‘ammo’ for those boosting skills, I could manage their costs efficiently. As I confirmed my purchases, the now-familiar surge of energy ran through me, settling into the always-present ember of dragonfire in my gut.

  “Okay, ladies,” I said with a grin, cracking my neck, “are we ready to rock?”

  Tulip grinned back, spinning her pistols in a show of skill that would make Annie Oakley give up shooting. “Ready and able, David!”

  “As am I.” Clara’s voice was filled with resolve as she stepped away from the door going forward, drawing her Wander in one hand and a Banger Elite in her other.

  “Smart thinking there.” I nodded to the grenade. “We need to hit them with everything we have. Tulip, if you can try to hack a Dred …?”

  The catwoman nodded. “While you were finishing your upgrades, I went ahead and loaded up a Puppet Master Virus. Judas Hacks won’t stick on their advanced programming, but if I can get close enough to physically link my tablet to one, I can take it over directly.”

  “Okay, I’m guessing our friends are right beyond this door, Clara?” I glanced past her, the door lock still glowing red and secure.

  “Yes, very much so,” the ex-Matriarch confirmed. “Private vaults don’t need to be sprawling complexes. Past this door is a ten by thirty meter hallway, with the vault door proper at the far end. Tur and his electronic friends should be there.”

  “The attack plan is simple then.” I slung my Arclight Double out from my back clamp and snatched a Banger off of my hip. “Full-on assault. Clara and I will toss Bangers the moment we open the door and see our friends. Tulip, go panther form and go around to flank. Stick to their peripherals and hopefully the Bangers will cause enough damage and confusion that they won’t care about one black panther off to the side.”

  “Right, that should give me the opening I need to get to one of the Dreds and go Puppet Master,” Tulip said, her mischievous grin growing. “Between you two and a Dred on our side, the odds should go into our favor.”

  “But please, sister, be both careful and cautious,” Clara warned. “Megadreds are notoriously sturdy and deadly, plus it is very much in Tur’s power to shut down the Dred before you can use it to cause much damage.”

  I nodded. “Both good points, but hopefully I’ll have his full attention. I’m going to go dragon as soon as we throw grenades.” I set my jaw. “Saving it now would be stupid. I’m not going to let either of you get hurt because I hold back.”

  Tulip stroked my arm. “And we won’t let you get hurt by doing the same.”

  Clara nodded. “We shall go all out and send this monstrosity to the Unseen Nebula!” She raised her Wander, golden light pooling at the barrel. “Let me fill you with the light of the stars and then we can charge.”

  I grunted my assent as she stepped to one side, letting me take the lead as Tulip shifted into her panther form. The light grew, and in rapid succession, Clara worked her magic.

  “Bolstering Light!” she cried, and then followed it with, “Strength of the Stars!”

  Her golden aura surged over all three of us, our shields glowing with starlight as well as our weapons. My suit began to chirp away in my ear, the first report familiar, the second new.

  Shield emitters overcharged! 200% efficiency boost. Armor repair nanites overcharged! Repair speed at 175%. All linked energy weapons boosted! 75% increase to damage parameters. All linked slugthrower firing systems accelerated! 50% increase in projected rate of fire. Suit actuators overcharged! 75% increase in strength amplification.

  Both power boosts got ticking timers at the corner of my HUD, a minute a piece, so there was no time to waste. I slammed the door lock release with a fist closed around a Banger, the door hissing open as we charged.

  26

  The ‘hallway’ beyond was as Clara said, which mean it was the size of a football field. Hallway didn’t really do it justice, especially with its curved arching ceiling that soared to a height of at least twenty meters or more. Honestly, this chamber looked more like a cathedral than a treasure vault. The shining white metal of the walls were set regularly with golden framed circles, filled with beautifully crafted stained-glass creations. I thought they were depictions of Matriarch dogma, but my attention was drawn not to the beauty in the room, but the beasts at the far end of it.

  Flanking a vault door that made your average federal bank’s security look like it was made of tissue paper were two of the mighty, twelve-foot tall Megadreds. They were no less impressive looking than the ones I had seen from a distance through the maintenance tunnel’ portholes, gleaming black armor, stubby sensor heads, and shoulder-mounted chain guns.

  There was a critical difference between the models we had seen before and these two, and that was their claws, well, lack thereof. Instead of the rending, sharpened steel of a normal Dred, these Dreds had what I could best describe as Tesla coils mounted on their wrists. Clear domes covered those coils, protecting them even as it made them light up like plasma lamps.

  From the shoulders, the back, and the hips, smaller versions of the Tesla coils on the Megadreds sprouted, sparking and flaring with intense electrical energy that didn’t seem to bother the Quib, growling and pacing between the Dreds like a watchdog on a leash. He was the biggest, ugliest Quib I had ever seen. Instead of the black armor of a Quib Elite, this one was garbed in shining white armor, like a perversion of an Arthurian knight, heavier and bulkier than the two-striped Elites we fought.

  He didn’t carry a conventional weapon I could recognize, but his suit’s gauntlets were oversized, chromed things, set with crystals along the knuckles that reminded me of the stone at the tip of Clara’s Wander.

  Through the force field, I could see that this Quib, Tur obviously, was deformed, no doubt from Professor Pan’s horrific experiments, with a jutting brow, one eye significantly smaller and off center with the other, and burn scars crisscrossing his yellow skin.

  As soon as the door slid open, he turned to face it, opening his mouth as he raised one of those gauntleted hands to point at us, probably about to shout a command.

  “Fire in the hole!” I yelled out, my bellow overpowering his growling voice as I hurled my readied Banger with all my might
, the spoon I had been holding in place flying free as it hurtled across the chamber. Clara’s throw was almost synchronous with mine, the strength granted by her starlight letting her hurl her Banger as far as mine.

  Tur’s voice choked up as his good eye widened, his attention properly on the grenades and not Tulip slipping off with cat-like stealth to the right. He raised his shining gauntlets in a vain effort to protect his face from the imminent explosions …

  “Spark Shield,” Tur shouted in a deep, half-gurgling voice, right before the Bangers rained down.

  As electricity surged from Tur’s gauntlets and across his Tesla coils, it formed a literal dome of lightning, sparks of it flaring out as the metallic grenades came close. There was a pair of tremendous explosions, both several meters early, and dust and shrapnel filled the air, engulfing that end of the room.

  As I received no power credit transfers, I knew nothing had been taken out, but I didn’t care because I was already calling upon the dragon spirit within me. My scales burst through my skin as my muscles surged with might and my senses expanded to take in the flash of lightning and roar of thunder. The flames in my heart roared to life as the dragon oil filled my snout with its sweet, sticky taste, golden talons ripping forth from their sheaths as I rose to my full height. Not waiting for the smoke to clear, I broke into a full sprint, breathing in deeply as I mentally called forth the Flames of Freedom.

  Even with my draconic senses, I could barely detect Tulip as she crept forward, while Clara wrapped me in a bubble of cushioning starlight. What I could easily hear was the high-pitched whine of the Megadred’s chain guns and the crackle of electricity past the smoke. The Dreds didn’t have to see us to spray the room with enough lead to cut anything in half … anything that wasn’t a dragon … and lightning, well, the metal in our weapons and suits would attract it right to us.

  “Fly, Clara,” I rumbled over the comms, flaming oil dripping from my jaws as I brought my arms up to shield my face. I caught the gasp of alarm and the sudden snap of feathers from behind me, right before a withering barrage of high-caliber bullets and a literal bolt of blue electricity ripped out of the settling debris.

  The sweeping fire from the two Dreds blew the smoke away as they quite simply swiveled their guns from one side of the room to the other, aiming down at an angle that would have cut apart any normal-sized target near the midpoint of the room. Fortunately, I was the only one who took any real fire, being both huge and further forward, while Clara had taken to the air a split-second before she would have been torn apart.

  The lightning, well, that one was meant for me and me alone. While Tur probably hadn’t seen me change, well, I would think it highly likely that what I was had now been passed around the Balarian defenses.

  Tur’s blast struck first, shattering Clara’s barrier as it took most of the punch. What remained cascaded harmlessly off of my scales, diffused by the power of Breath of the Wild, but my suit began complaining in my ear.

  Electrical surges detected in shielding and targeting sub-systems! Environmental—

  I didn’t hear the rest as my forward momentum was arrested by the hail of bullets blasting into my arms and my gut. Even as the golden glow from my Ascension aura surged to life, the onslaught punched through my shields and gouged into my armor. By virtue of the layers of protection Clara and my own draconic might added, nothing penetrated all the way in, but my suit was getting hit and hit hard.

  Shielding compromised! 3.8 seconds to recharge. Forearm and midsection armor at 28% integrity! Nano-repair units active.

  Peering past my forearms with the debris and smoke cleared, I got a clear sight of our enemy. The Dreds began to stomp forward, one turning to focus his continued barrage fully at me while the other swiveled upward to track Clara’s frantic flight, while Tur, mostly unharmed save for some shrapnel stuck in his thick armor, roared, electricity roiling around him like the angriest storm I had ever seen.

  “Alyra tells Tur to kill dragon,” he yelled, almost impossible to be heard over the roar of the Megadred’s guns. “Then Professor give Tur dragon genes, make Tur dragon too!”

  Maybe it was that proclamation, or maybe it was the fact that those guns were getting dangerously close to Clara that pissed me right off. Hell, it could even have been the fact that the final notes of the Dred’s barrage, its barrels spinning down to cool-off after unleashing thousands of rounds into me, had torn the armor from my arms, drilling bloody welts into my scales. Either way, for the first time in this entire mission, I was well and truly angry.

  My sight went flame-red as I let out a primal roar, fire bursting from my nose and mouth, not that it gave the brutish Tur pause as he ran at me, his fists crackling with power. Only because of my incredibly enhanced senses still letting me focus past the rage did I catch Tulip appearing out of the shadows next to one Dred, while the other, going into a gun cooldown itself, raised both plasma globes towards Clara’s lithely twisting form to unleash electric hell.

  The fire in my belly surged with the Flames of Freedom as my claws flared with golden light from the Five Fingered Death Swipe. I had to trust the ladies to do their jobs, so I could do mine, which was to tear this monster apart. A bolt of lightning blasted overhead, even as Clara called down her Mending Light on me, immediately healing the bloody welts in my arms and sealing armor breeches. Her cry of pain as lightning lanced over her just added to my fury, even though I could see from our squad vitals that her shield had saved her.

  I met Tur’s electric fist with a backhand. Electricity clashed with draconic might, but only for a moment. Even though the high-intensity charge cut out the voice of my suit’s computer, it couldn’t shut off the draconic spirit inside me. Throwing his punch aside, I followed with a swipe of my claws, the glowing golden talons shredding into the outer layer of armor after cutting clean through Tur’s shields as the surging rush of Recompense energy flowed through my arm.

  Unlike the lesser Elites, even with all my buffs, I didn’t get to flesh and bone. Still, I ripped clear through the reinforced breastplate, tearing tremendous gouges into it, my claws practically touching his skin. Metal, plastic, and lubricant flew everywhere, trailing in the arc of my talons. Tur’s grunting and growling took on a desperate edge as he staggered back, electricity building like wildfire around him even as most of the upper section of his breastplate fell to pieces on the floor. Not wanting to give him space to regroup, I pressed forward.

  “That was for hurting Clara,” I roared. I could take whatever this asshole could bring. As I began to suck up a big lungful of air, I added, “This is for the Resistance!”

  As I was about to cut loose with dragonfire, Clara dove downward, healing her own wounds as she looked for a safe haven. Maybe she hoped to draw one Dred into accidentally shooting the other, or at least exploiting protocols against friendly fire as she tucked in her wings and angled right for the feet of the rightmost Dred. As she got near its feet, right towards a familiar black shape, a loud, robotic voice cut through the din.

  WARNING! Internal computer security of Electrodred 87Q compromised! Countermeasures deplooooo …

  The Dred’s monotone faded out as Tulip let out a cry of victory. “Who wants a taste of their own medicine?” she shouted, laughing from the base of the Dred’s foot, her tablet slapped against its ankle. Her Dred’s torso spun to face its brother, who mimed that motion, programmed to take out compromised units first and foremost.

  As their chain guns spun up, and Tur slammed his lightning-wrapped fists together in a surge of magic, I let out the searing Flames of Freedom. The heat burst from my lungs, hotter than ever, mingling with a high-octane mix of dragon oil, igniting a concentrated stream of white-blue flames. Even as that fire tore into Tur, his own magic exploded from his fists, not pure electricity this time, but the tremendous force of a point-blank thunderclap. The furious elemental exchange was punctuated by the constant roar of four chain guns overhead, the two Dreds unloading onto each other.

  T
he tremendous shockwave of Tur’s attack caught me full in the chest, throwing even my half-ton body through the air, the crumpling of armor plates ringing in my ears as I hurtled a good ten meters backward. Pain, real pain, radiated through my dense bones as I hit the marble floor, cracking it beneath my bulk. The wind knocked out of me, I groaned and struggled to right myself, biting back the pain as screams, flames, and explosions greeted my amplified senses.

  Tur himself was screaming, gurgling as he tore fruitlessly at his armor, face, and throat as the blue-white dragonflames clung to him and burned. His breastplate was melting in as the sparks from his coils faded as the force dome protecting his head failed, letting the sticky flames fall across his already ruined face. The only thing the dragonfire didn’t seem to immediately consume were his gauntlets.

  Behind him, the combined force of his thunderclap and the mutual onslaught of their chain guns had torn the two Dreds to pieces. Tulip’s had its entire torso shorn off at the waist, the two legs and pelvis standing like a bizarre archway, while the other was missing an arm and its sensor dome, having fallen inert and sparking against the opposite wall.

  Panic rose up in my throat as I didn’t immediately catch sight of Tulip or Clara. My suit’s systems were still on the fritz and my HUD was gone, so prompted by worry, I threw myself to my feet, ignoring the dying Tur as I sprinted towards where I had last seen them by the bisected Dred.

  I heard Tur gurgle, and as the crackle of the last surge of lightning from behind me filled my ears, I leaped for what little cover was offered behind the shattered mech’s torso, to where I swore I smelled both Tulip’s forest pine and Clara’s honey-like scents.

  As I landed hard on my back while drawing my Arclight Double and unloading it on the mutated Quib, Clara and Tulip came out from either side of the Dred’s torso. Though they had obviously seen better days, the wreckage must have shielded them from the worst of Tur’s shockwave. They both drew down, Tulip firing a pair of Magic Bullets as Clara called for a Necrotic Shot from her Wander.