Star Conqueror: An Epic Space Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  Golden bullets, a sickly green bolt, and an Arclight Double mega blast slammed into the dying Quib all at once, sending his final arc of lightning tearing up and off the one side, shattering a stained-glass design depicting the High Priestess spreading her wings over the stars. As those glittering shards fell over our little battlefield, Tur exploded like a jar of raspberry jam.

  Of course, that was when my suit computer rebooted.

  … suit disabled, life signs flatlined. Remote transfer initiated!

  And a whole cascade of power credits chimed in my ear.

  27

  But I didn’t care about that, not at that moment. Instead, I scrambled to my feet, moving to scoop up Tulip and Clara each in an arm. I held them close and tight, hoping they could feel the soothing heat from my draconic heart. My suit kept whispering in my ear with status reports as the nanites did their best to put my armor back together, but all I cared about were the women in my arms.

  “David, darling,” Clara got out in a half-strangled voice. “While I find this rather pleasant, I fear that you’re far too strong for your own good right now.”

  “What she’s saying is that you’re kind of crushing us,” Tulip mrowled, “but we’re happy to see you too.”

  A bit sheepishly, well, as sheepish as a dragon can be, I let out a smoky cough and put them both down. “Sorry,” I grumbled as I looked them up and down. “I was just worried after that asshole brought the thunder, I heard screams, and my computer was down.”

  Tulip’s right shoulder plate was split in half and there was a little blood trickling down her arm from a gash in the suit, her fur and hair a mess as she stroked my shoulder with her good arm. “Oh, great Felinus, I was about to panic myself. Your link to the squad went dead, and honestly, if the Dred’s torso hadn’t already fallen off and Clara hadn’t shielded us …”

  “I’m just glad I was there to do so.” Clara ignored the bloody gash in her forehead and her obviously sprained wing for the moment. “I could not have lived with myself had you been seriously harmed, Tulip, or you, darling.”

  I let out a fiery sigh of relief and nodded slowly. “Speaking of harm, do you have enough power to heal yourself and Tulip? I’ve got a minute or so left of dragon form, so I should regenerate from my own injuries before it fades.”

  Clara nodded slowly, finally noticing the blood dripping into her eye. “Oh, yes, of course. I will need time to rest, but with us so close to our goal …” She let her voice trail off as she touched both herself and Tulip with her Wander, golden starlight rippling over the both of them with her Mending Light.

  As Clara tended to their wounds, my own draconic healing soothed the pain in my bones as scales mended and the nanite repair units started to repair my armor. Feeling better already, I walked over to where the splattered remains of Tur stained the marble. Despite the violence of his death, those chrome-and-crystal gauntlets were still untouched, only smeared with a bit of soot from the flames. Before the protection of my draconic form faded away and I returned to my somewhat squishier human form, I decided to pluck the steaming gloves away from the rest of the bloody smear.

  There was definitely something odd about them, and we needed to take a closer look before we broke into the vault itself.

  Tulip walked up beside me, rolling her arm slowly as Clara’s light faded from her wounds. Her armor was slowly repairing itself as well, a little slower than mine. “Amazing! Those things survived a dragon’s flames?”

  I set them on the ground and stood up. “Yeah, which means they have to be something important …” My voice trailed off as my time as a dragon concluded. With a soft, low sigh, I breathed out as the world pulled inward once more, the scents, sights, and feelings of my draconic sense cut off. Muscles and scales melted away, my claws and teeth sheathing themselves in my all-too-human bones.

  Soothing touches trailed down my back. “Are you all right?” Tulip asked softly.

  “Yeah,” I said with a nod. “It’s always, well, it’s like going back into the darkness after having your eyes opened.” Laughing a bit, I shook my head. “Just comes with being human, I guess.”

  A very exhausted Clara slowly walked over to us from where she had sat on a chunk of Megadred to catch her breath. “Well, darling, no offense, but humanity is one of the most primitive sentient species in the galaxy.” Tulip shrugged, apparently unable to offer a defense to that, and Clara rapidly tacked on, “But they have great potential, as you display time and time again, David.”

  “It’s okay, Clara.” I cracked my sore neck. “I mean, how can I really argue that? Humanity will get out here one day, and hopefully by then, we’ll find a free galaxy waiting to welcome us with open arms.” Nudging the gauntlets with my armored boot, I said, “Let’s focus on these things and getting that vault open. We don’t have forever before those security teams show up.”

  Clara took in a deep breath, closing her eyes as she tried to fully regain her composure. Our wounds were healed, but streaks of blood, dirt, and debris remained, making us all look like hell. “This is my vault, so I shall go get the door open.”

  Nodding, I scooped up one of the gauntlets. “Maybe you should go with her, Tulip. I know she’s confident it’ll open like normal, but there’s no guarantee that the Matriarchy hasn’t canceled her security clearance by now.”

  “Oh, it’s quite likely,” Tulip agreed, pulling her battered tablet off of her arm. “It’s been hours and if she hasn’t checked in, they’ll assume she’s dead or captured. I have no doubt that these locks are linked to the overall security net.” She began to skip after Clara. “We’ll crack it, don’t worry about it, David!”

  “I know you two can handle it. I’ll catch up in a minute.” It was always nice to see Tulip go, if you catch my meaning, but I forced myself to turn away from the catwoman and focus on the gauntlets. After a moment of analysis, my HUD updated with information about the gloves.

  * * *

  Cestari-T Spellfists

  Type: Magical Focus (Melee)

  Item Level: 42

  Durability: 31,000/87,000

  Damage: 220 (based on user’s magic potential)

  Focus Rating: 38

  Enchantments: Mana Gathering I (+5% power regeneration)

  Ability: None

  * * *

  These were like nothing I’d seen in the game, just like I’d never run into anything like Tur. I shouldn’t have been surprised, Tulip herself said that Star Conqueror was just a way to attune to the dragon and get an instructional manual on the basics of surviving in the galaxy at large. Still, my initial suspicions based on the glowing crystals was right. These were basically big, punchy Wanders … which made me wonder if I could use them.

  “Curse this thing to the Tentacles of Zoa!” Clara screeched from the vault door. “How dare those arrogant bitches declare me dead already!”

  Picking up the other Cestari, I walked over towards the vault, grinning. “I’m guessing your codes aren’t opening the door, Clara?”

  She stepped back from the lock, crossing her arms under her pert breasts and huffing. “I know I may have just been an Anchorite, but to think they thought so little of me to think I died the moment I met a dragon!”

  “Don’t worry, Clara,” Tulip purred as she stepped up to bat. “You’ll be able to show them first hand just how alive you are later.” She pulled a lead from the tablet and connected it to the locking panel. “For now, let Null-K work her magic.”

  Clara let out a puff of a sigh as she glanced over at me. “Well, perhaps I can help you then, darling. Speaking of magic, you seem to have some in your hands.”

  Tulip’s fingers flew across her tablet, her eyes narrowing in intensity and focus, as I nodded to Clara. “Yeah, I was going to ask you about these, because as near as I can tell, these are like your Wander.”

  Clicking her tongue, she made a bit of a disgusted face. “If you mean to compare my precision magical instrument to this crude hammer of a thing, then yes,
they are exactly alike.” Her eyes came a little out of focus as she looked at her own HUD. “They gave that slobbering fool a T-class foci and they only gave me a Z?! Those ungrateful, stuck-up—"

  “Whoa, Clara, easy now!” I soothed. “Look, who cares what they think, right? I know you, I trust you, and if they couldn’t appreciate what they had, I sure as hell do.”

  Her anger started to cool as she let out a little huff. “Well, for that, I am quite grateful, darling.” She smoothed out her frazzled hair with both hands before explaining further. “So, yes, in essence, these Cestari operate like my Wander, serving as both a weapon, channeling a wielder’s innate magic if they have it, and as a focusing tool. While one can do magic without a foci, as you have demonstrated numerous times, foci allow for more refined uses.”

  She pulled out her Wander and twirled it like a baton. “For example, before I was taken, I knew I had the power to heal. I could call for the starlight to soothe the hurts of those I could touch, but I couldn’t project it as I can with a Wander, or create shields, or a dozen other things.”

  “I see.” It made perfect sense as she explained it, which made me wonder one thing. “So, what do you think would happen if I tried using a foci? I know I have dragon magic, that’s what’s behind the Dragon Will that freed you and bonded us.”

  Clara’s eyes lit up, partly in excitement and partly in sheer awe. “I simply do not know, David, but if it will serve to strengthen you and allow you to break the hold of the Matriarchy, well, we simply must see!”

  From over by the door, still working feverishly as sweat began to bead on her forehead, Tulip chimed in with, “If it makes you even more badass and works to bring about the great prophecy, you better put those big shiny things on right now!”

  I laughed at that, shaking my head before focusing on Clara. “What about you, though? These Cestari are, not to prod a sore spot, better than your Wander. Do you want to swap that for these? I am junior birdman when it comes to magic, after all.”

  “See, Clara?” Tulip giggled as she kept at it. “He’s just about the most warm-hearted man I’ve met.”

  “Indeed, Tulip,” Clara said softly, her eyes glittering with happy tears as she looked me over. “And as tempted as I am to give in to your generous nature, my dearest David, I think those massive things are best suited to your particular flavor of combat. Besides, if another Matriarch is part of the security team, and I’m sure that there will be, I want you as strong as possible magically so as to free her.”

  Frowning a bit, I nodded. I wasn’t sure I totally agreed, considering Clara’s healing and support magic was a true force multiplier while I was simply our front-line assault, but I accepted it. “Okay, Clara, if you’re sure.”

  I slipped the Cestari on, watching with a bit of amazement as my armor reconfigured around them, my previous gauntlets sliding back into the sleeves as my new ones chromatically shifted to match the rest of my armor, from shining chrome to gleaming near-black.

  Cestari-T Spellfists synchronizing. Soullink established. Upgrade trees will be updated in ten minutes once spiritual alignment is complete. Weapon functions are already available.

  Of course. Again, it was like the power suits themselves, providing a way to unlock powers and abilities already inside me. If the Ascension tree were the roots from where it grew, and the Dragon tree the trunk, focusing devices like this would unlock the branches.

  “Awesome,” I whispered softly as I flexed my newly-weaponized hands. Fiery sparks erupted from the crystals on the knuckles. “Well, I better wait until my upgrade functions update before I spend the … wow … seven-hundred power credits we just earned.”

  “A wise decision, darling,” Clara cooed as she headed back to Tulip. “How goes the battle?” she asked with all seriousness.

  “I’m winning, of course,” Tulip murmured with a smirk. She probably was, but from the intense look in her eyes, this one was a real challenge. “Five minutes, tops.”

  “Cutting it close to your estimation on the security, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” I said as I followed after Clara, amazed at how light the big gloves felt on my hands. “As soon as Tulip cracks it, we go right in, grab anything that looks critical. Clara, you know exactly what we’re looking for as far as the cloaking device and schematics, so that’s your job. Once we have the mission objective, we are hitting returners and getting home.”

  I looked at Clara specifically. “Do not let us go without one of us holding onto you. You’ll pop back if you’re touching one of us and are squad-linked but if you’re not … well … it won’t happen.” She nodded in understanding as I added, “Fortunately, I’ve only got about three minutes left before I can shift again, so I’ll be good to go well before any security arrives.”

  Of course, because I was foolish enough to tempt fate by even saying that, something had to go wrong. The moment I let that slip out of my mouth, the only entrance to this vast chamber was torn off its hinges, a blinding white light bursting through the now-open doorway and flooding the room.

  Standing silhouetted by that intense light was a surprisingly petite, feminine figure, with flared wings and a bad attitude.

  “I am Inquisitor Alyra,” a scarily familiar woman’s voice boomed, powerful despite her short stature, “Left Hand of the High Priestess, Grand Starshaper, Wielder of the Golden Light of Thar’zoul, and I have come to kill you for the greater glory of the Matriarchy, dragon!”

  28

  Seeing the Left Hand of the High Priestess in person was nothing like seeing her on a viewscreen, much like seeing a movie star on the big screen didn’t match meeting them in real life. But instead of being diminished in reality, as is often the case with movie stars, Alyra Azani was magnified a million-fold. That became startling clear as she strode purposefully into the room, the light behind her fading, but never fully ceasing.

  While there had been a great fear in her before when confronted with the truth of my dragonhood, there wasn’t an ounce of it in her now. Her features were terrible and majestic, though she only stood five feet tall. She had light grey skin with the perfect sheen of polished marble and blue eyes that blazed with light. The narrow lines of her face were framed by coppery curls, as if her hair was spun wire, and cascaded behind her shoulders. Her pure white wings spread wide, twice the wingspan of Clara’s despite their differences in height and build.

  Speaking of build, Alyra’s form was that of pure angelic beauty, her curves more generous than Clara’s fit, lithe body but more balanced than Tulip’s hourglass figure. Much like Clara’s power suit, the Left Hand’s suit molded to her body, capturing every line, every muscle, from her perfectly formed breasts to the swell of her hips. The undersuit shone gold, literally shone, while the reinforcing armored plates that covered her chest, forearms, shoulders, hips, and feet were some kind of translucent material, seeming to hang suspended above her form, adding an ethereal quality to her suit reinforced by the glowing white inscriptions that adorned the plates.

  In her left hand, she gripped a Wander tightly, the crystal at the end of its barrel shining with white light like the open doorway behind her, and in her right, she carried a long, wicked-looking dagger that from across the room looked to be made of pure diamond.

  Though resting inside me, the fire in my heart, the dragon spirit both raged at the Matriarch and stood back in, well, not fear but respect for the diamond blade in her hands. A healthy respect.

  “Do you want me to fire, darling?” Clara said over the comms, a wholly justified fear in her voice. “I’m still weak from healing us but—”

  “Four minutes and forty-two seconds on the door,” Tulip reported. “Stall her!”

  Talk about déjà vu. But Tulip was right, not just because it could give us a chance to get the cloaking device and teleport out. Before she even got the door cracked, I’d have dragon form again, which meant there was a small chance we could do a hell of a lot more than get the cloaking tech.


  We could free the number three Matriarch in the galaxy.

  “Why?” I began, even as I scanned through my HUD. While the additions to my upgrades from the Cestari hadn’t updated, thankfully my usual trees were there. “Why do you want to kill me? I know that your legends” – I gestured up to one of the stained-glass images, showing a mighty dragon dueling with a winged woman – “say we have to be enemies, that you’re supposed to kill me, but what if those aren’t true?”

  It wasn’t even a lie. The Matriarchy’s version of things was patently false, that much I was sure of now, and even the prophecies and beliefs that Tulip and Tojo espoused felt a little off. Yes, the dragon in me rumbled to do battle with the Matriarchy, yet at the same time guided me to free those of them under mental influence. And with how Clara spoke of the Mother of Chains before she was interrupted …

  Alyra responded to my questions with laughter. While Clara’s had been like a twisted angel’s, Alyra’s laugh was more discordant, like out-of-tune bells. “First, you say you want to kill me. Now, you say you want to kiss me? As they say on your planet Earth, fuck off.”

  Surprisingly, though, she didn’t lunge forward with her diamond dagger, or call down any tremendous blast of magic. Hell, she didn’t even have an army backing her up. Before I could counter her cute little argument, Clara called out across the room. “Inquisitor, please, he does speak the truth. I have seen inside David Brigg’s mind and soul, and he has seen inside of mine. He found the cruel spikes and chains our Mother put inside me, inside us all, and—”

  Alyra’s Wander flicked up and cut Clara off with a simple flare of warning light. “He did what?! Blasphemy! To tear the daughter from the Mother, to cut the ties that bind our holy sisterhood, that is the height of crimes.” The Wander flicked dangerously towards me. “Do you know what the legends say, Earth dragon? Did your little Fertish hacker tell you that the dragons bound women like slaves, subjugated the Matriarchs to their will, used them as tools to rule the galaxy. The dragon in you won’t bring freedom, David Briggs. You will only become the greatest tyrant this universe has ever known!”