Star Conqueror: An Epic Space Adventure

by J. A. Cipriano

  Alyra didn’t cry out as the biokinetic ball passed easily through her force barrier. Instead, as the golden light washed over her, the blazing light in her blue eyes faded, and she fell limp into my arms.

  I didn’t know how much time I had left as a dragon, but it couldn’t be long. Despite my bleeding wounds, I closed my eyes and summoned up the Dragon Will inside me.

  As I pulled her up and close to me, I rumbled in her ear as the fiery aura surrounded us. “Rest easy, Alyra Anzi, for I work the Will of the Dragons, and by that Will, I shall set you free.”

  30

  In a flash of fire and blaze of light, a more violent shift in my perceptions than when I had opened my Will to Clara, the hall, the shattered stone and twisted steel, fell away. Clara’s frozen form, caught in mid-slump of exhaustion disappeared in my fiery aura, as did Tulip as she was picking herself up with a shake of her panther head. My aura burst out further and further, until there was that strangely familiar orange nothingness of the mindscape, Alyra still clutched in my mighty arms.

  For now, my pain was gone, even if my wounds hadn’t healed over, and I opened my arms, letting Alyra drift free from me. Just as with Clara, my flames had burnt away the trappings of the Matriarchy, the Left Hand’s pure white wings gone along with her skin-tight power suit. Instead of that armor, Alyra was dressed in a dirty, torn dress, patched in a dozen places but still not whole, mud-brown in color even past the grime and stains. Dirt smudged her cheeks and her curly hair was limp, dirty, and dripping.

  The one thing that hadn’t been burnt away with everything else was the crystalline, blood-drenched dragon slaying blade, still clutched tightly in her grimy fist.

  Before I could take it all in, her brilliant blue eyes welled up with tears, utter despair mixed with an ugly rage. “So, you have your petty truth, dragon! See the real face of the Left Hand, the Wielder of the Golden Light, tenth in line to the High Priestess’ mantle!” She spread her arms wide, tears cutting lines through the smudges on her cheeks. “A child of the slums, discarded, abandoned, dragged through the muck and mire!”

  I took a deep breath. “And that’s why you embraced it, isn’t it? You knew what I could do when you challenged us. You really do want to kill me, don’t you?”

  Alyra’s face contorted, sobs mixing with her cries as she raised her clenched fists in sheer frustration. Past that, my draconic ears could detect what worried me, the clattering chains and slithering steel echoing in the distance, unseen but omnipresent.

  “Damn you, David Briggs!” She stomped a heel into the ground. “Damn you to hell! I do, I do want to kill you … and I don’t.” She held aloft an accusatory finger. “You couldn’t let me take comfort in the lie of my life, the lie that I was a powerful woman, a ruler. That someone loved me, that a whole civilization loved me!”

  “You don’t need that illusion,” I countered as I held a taloned hand out to her. “You don’t need a lie, when you could have the real thing. I can give you that. We can give you that.”

  Alyra’s response was to throw a wild slash with the knife. It was way off base, but I wasn’t going to risk getting cut here. This was my mind or my soul, I wasn’t sure which, and those were a hell of a lot more important than my body.

  “Who’s we? Your hacker friend? Clara, a junior Anchorite who doesn’t amount to a hill of beans?” Alyra spat to one side, and yet, I could hear a waver in her voice. I was making headway, but would it be enough? “What the High Priestess gave me, what Mother bestowed on me, is stronger than your measly little truths.”

  “How about the accolades and the glory of saving the entire galaxy, Alyra?” I offered. “The undying adoration of trillions of oppressed people you would help save, people like you were, crushed and abused, is what I’m offering you.” I crossed my arms. “If the deep love of a few isn’t what you want, you can’t beat bathing in the cheers of the universe, can you?”

  Alyra’s finger lowered, as did her dagger. She chewed her lip a moment, wiping the tears from her cheeks, adding a new layer of dirt to her sleeves. “Maybe … maybe you can’t. I didn’t really want to hurt anyone else, not like I was hurt. I kind of always thought that what the Matriarchy was doing, well, they were saving girls like me.” Her blue eyes looked off in the distance. “But … maybe …”

  That was when the chains tore through the dull glow of my aura, lashing out across the mindscape. This time, they moved with speed and in numbers that dwarfed what I experienced in Clara’s mind, the hooks and barbs rustling and rattling like leaves on a tree, animated with a life of their own.

  “Run!” I roared, actually snatching up Alyra and throwing her away from the point they converged on. There wasn’t time for anything else, and I was thankful I did, even as the chains tore into me.

  Though the barbs were sharp, tearing clean through the psychic representation of my power suit, they couldn’t pierce my draconic hide. All the same, they wrapped and coiled, trying to pull me upright and bind my arms to my side. It was like a million black iron hands trying to pin me down, and I strained with all my might to pull free. Claws flashed, and fire spilled from my mouth, but for every chain I snapped or melted into slag, another came in its place.

  Alyra picked herself up from the invisible ground, still clutching the dagger, her blue eyes shining as her jaw set.

  “I … I’m sorry, David.” She took in a deep, shuddering breath. “The Mother … the Mother of Chains didn’t send me here because she knew I could beat you, not out there, in the physical world. I swore that I could, but she … she didn’t.”

  As the chains pulled taut, pulling my clawed hands across my chest like a mummy, she carefully walked forward. “No, the Mother knew you would try this, try to set me free from her chains. And she told me … if you did, that I could kill you here. I … the High Priestess promised … she promised to raise me up, to not be her Left Hand but her Highest Wing. I would get a palace … my own star system … everything I always thought I wanted.”

  I couldn’t judge her. Yes, what she was doing was wrong. It was murder, after all. But the desperation of poverty, the desire to be wanted, those were powerful things and while I knew Alyra was wrong, I still felt sympathy for the lost, broken woman I saw before me.

  Before more links could wind around my snout, I rumbled, trying to keep all the worry about myself and fear of what might happen to the women I cared about out in the real world from my voice, “But it isn’t, Alyra. I can hear it in your voice, see in in your eyes. Killing me won’t give you what you want. In fact—”

  A double-thick fetter coiled around my snout and clamped it shut. I almost broke free again, letting dragon oil burst out of my nose in a clean gout, but the chains twisted my head left and right, ruining my aim. Still, for all their blades, their hooks, and their crushing weight, they couldn’t hurt me.

  The only one who could was the young woman staring at the dagger in her hands. One of the chains, thinner than the others and coiling like a snake, rose up from the unseen floor, rattling and rasping its links together, almost like it was trying to whisper in Alyra’s ear.

  “You said you would give me everything I always wanted, didn’t you?” she asked, to the chains I supposed.

  More rattles, whispers, punctuated by a twisting grind of steel on steel. Sparks flew from the thin chain’s links as it became more animated, eventually ceasing.

  Alyra sucked in a huge breath, eyes turning up to meet my gaze. “But you can’t do that, just like he said. You can’t … because I want him.” She wheeled on the chain, lashing out with the dagger which, to my surprise, split through the links as easily as it did my own scales. “I want a hero that would risk everything for me!” Fury roared in her voice as Alyra dropped to her knees, stabbing the diamond blade into the root of the chain, each blow making more of the links fall away from me. A mixture of hope and sympathy surged inside me as she ranted, “I want to be loved! Real love! He threw me out of harm’s way, with no way to save himself, and he’s
done it not just for me, but for others! Would you do that for me, Mother?”

  With one final primal scream, Alyra sunk the blade into the ground, up to its hilt, and a sibilant voice, grating to my ears like nails on a chalkboard, hissed, “Never. Never can all be sacrificed for one.” The last of the chains fell away from me and for good damn measure, I scoured the area around me with purifying flames, melting the remnants to slag, fueled by my rage for this thing we were facing. “You’ll see soon, Alyra. You’ll beg for my cold embrace again.”

  Alyra was still sobbing, the dagger plunged into the ground.

  “Come on, Alyra,” I rumbled, taking her by the shoulders and lifting her to her feet. I wanted to soothe her, to show her at least some true kindness and compassion she needed, but we had bigger fish to fry at that particular moment. “Time’s short, and we’re not done here. You have to take me to the door, the chained door. If I don’t break you free now—”

  That snapped her out of her haze. “I’ll never have another chance.” With a purposeful gaze, she pointed off into the void. “That way, dragon, it’s not far!” She cast a glance up at me, one eyebrow arched. “But it’d be faster if you carried me.”

  Who was I to argue? With every second counting, I snatched up Alyra, cradling her in my arms as I broke into a sprint. Not for the first time, I hoped and prayed that there might be a Dragon Wings upgrade further down my trees.

  As we charged on, guided by Alyra’s directions, the burning wisps of the aura that surrounded the mindscape began to dim and cool. There really wasn’t much time left. I had to assume that the Mother of Chains had fully retreated from Alyra’s mind, because no more barbed hooks lashed out at us or tried to block our way, but I didn’t know for sure.

  There was barely a dim glow left when we stopped in front of a familiar looking metal door. In every way, it was like the door I had found in Clara’s mind, and while the chains elsewhere had disappeared, they still wrapped around this door, with another padlock hanging from the center of the mass. It too had the stamped letter M instead of a keyhole but was made of pristine iron instead of the rusted lock on Clara’s memories.

  “You better hurry it up, dragon,” Alyra cried, fear fraying her voice. “If I wake up still in chains, I really will wind up killing you!”

  “Or I’ll kill you, and there’s no way in hell that will happen, Alyra, I swear it.” I put her down and motioned for her to stand back. “Fortunately, I know how to break this door down!”

  As the aura around us dimmed to near-black, I sucked in the biggest breath of dragonfire I could, steam blowing out of my nose as the fire in my belly surged. The oil pooled in my snout and as the final embers of my aura dimmed out, I let loose the hottest, most concentrated flame I could muster. Though this sturdier metal tried to hold out, iron was still no match for my flames, which now glowed blue-white in the mindscape, stoked hotter by my Enhanced Dragon Will.

  Things went completely black, but not before I heard the tearing of metal and caught, right before I was pulled free from Alyra’s mind, the bursting light of her memory door being blown open, a million memories carried on glowing shards, flying not just through Alyra’s mind, but my own as well.

  31

  I opened my eyes and took in a deep, gasping breath. I was back, we were back, in the battle-ravaged hall, with smashed Megadreds, Tur’s smear of a body, dented walls, shattered floors, and general destruction. Though I knew from the dull senses and agonizing pain from my wounds that I was back to my human form, Alyra was still clutched tightly in my arms.

  Multiple incisions detected! Please request aid from your squad medic or perform first aid immediately, my suit computer glibly reported, but I ignored it for the moment. I stepped back from Alyra, still holding her steady with my arms as she swayed drowsily, fighting with the effects of Clara’s Anesthetic Blast.

  “Hey, Alyra,” I said, trying not to vocalize my pain, “are you okay?”

  Her blue eyes fluttered open, focused on me, and then went wide. “I … I did it. I really did it, didn’t I?”

  Tulip was already running across the room, shifting easily from panther to Fertish in mid-run, while Clara was on her hands and knees, weak from over-exertion, but I kept my attention on Alyra. “If you’re referring to the fact you had the strength to tell off some amazingly wicked chain witch and free me in your own mindscape, then yes, yes you did.”

  Her eyes screwed shut and she tore away from me, fists balled up. She might have won the first internal battle, picked the hard choice over the easy one, but there was still a lot of confusion in her, that much was obvious. “Why did I do that? It’s so … sappy. Stupid. I’ll be … I’ll be …”

  Clara answered, having picked herself up as her suit energy started to recharge. “For love, Alyra. So, you’ll be loved.”

  When Clara’s eyes turned to me, they widened, even as Tulip wordlessly broke out a portable med-kit. Both of their eyes said everything, but mainly they said worry once they saw the deep cuts in my gut and my arm.

  Alyra stalked off, her dagger and Wander on her hips, hugging herself. “Love … is that enough?” She shot a glance back at me, eye softening as she took in both Tulip and Clara ministering to my wounds. “You had better treat me right, David Briggs. Treat them right. Or by the great god Thar’zoul, I will make you curse the day you ever laid eyes upon me.”

  Despite the pain, I put an arm around Tulip and drew her close, Clara summoning up enough strength to cast Mending Light over me. “I’ll hold you to that, Alyra, because I would never want to wrong any of you.”

  “And to answer that super stupid question,” Tulip chimed in, the worry only starting to fade as Clara’s starlight sealed all three bleeding gashes, “love is always enough. It’s hope, it’s passion, it’s everything that’s good in life. It’ll make you the strongest if you let it.”

  That seemed to perk Alyra up a little and she stopped, turning back to us, specifically focusing on Clara, who I’d pulled to my other side, letting her rest her weary body against me. “You, Anchorite …” She caught herself and tried again. “Clara. You … you were instrumental in stopping me, yet I am so much stronger than you. Was it love that let you beat me?”

  “Well, actually, darling, it was …” Tulip and I both fixed Clara with a death stare and she cleared her throat. “Actually, Alyra, yes, it was entirely the power of love that vanquished you.”

  Over our comms, Clara added, “… and not the fact that my biokinesis directly affects organic bodies on the cellular level.”

  Tulip snickered at that, stroking me on the shoulder once before stepping away and moving towards Alyra. “So, you’re part of the team now.” She glanced past her and towards the vault door, with its thoroughly wrecked controls. “Considering you smashed the opening mechanism, do you think it’s possible to create, like, a giant glowing prybar and open the vault for us?”

  The former Left Hand had been deeply considering Clara’s words and almost jumped at the sound of Tulip’s voice. To be fair, she was so naturally stealthy that you didn’t have to be deep in thought at all for her to surprise you.

  “Fertish! How dare …” She let out a puff of air. “My apologies. Tulip, yes?” She looked the catwoman up and down. “I … can do that, yes. As it’s critical for your, our mission and more reinforcements won’t be far behind, let me deal with that now.”

  Alyra drew her Wander, took a deep, cleansing breath, then thrust it at the vault door. The crystal at the tip of the barrel surged with white light and a beam shot out, expanding into a chisel-pointed rectangle. The tip of the force bar slammed into the minute gap along one edge of the vault, the side without hinges, denting metal as it gouged deeper and deeper. Alyra twisted the wand-like pistol, making faint motions with her other hand, and the tip of the force bar seemed to thin and spread, pushing deeper and deeper.

  “Everyone, stand back,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “This won’t be pretty.”

  After the power we
had seen her display, none of us were going to doubt that warning. We all moved to the far end of the room, and Clara took a moment to close and relock the door Alyra had come in through. Once we were all safely out of the way, Alyra yanked her Wander arm hard to one side, as if she were actually using the prybar herself, and the force construct responded, tearing through metal and lock. It took three mighty pulls, but with a final shriek of tortured metal, the vault door flew open, sending sheared-off debris across the room.

  Clara let out a little huff. “Oh, well, the place was already a wreck at this point.” She shrugged. “I doubt I’ll get a return on my deposit anymore, darlings.”

  Alyra only grunted as she wiped her brow. Tulip ran ahead, clapping our new squadmate on the shoulder as she dove into the vault, Clara on her heels. She said, “I remember the plan, David. You shall have your cloaking technology in but a moment!”

  I took my time following the pair, stopping beside where Alyra glowered at the now-unsealed vault. Now, we had the moment for me to show her the compassion I had wanted to in her mindscape. “Thank you, Alyra.”

  “For opening this ridiculous vault of Clara’s?” she snorted.

  I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and hugged her. “No. For saving my life and saving the lives of those two ladies in there.” I flashed her a grin. “Oh, and consider this a down payment of thanks for helping save the galaxy.”

  Alyra’s expression softened and she put her arm around my waist, turning to press herself against me, burying her face in my chest. “You’re welcome,” she murmured softly and then looked up, her eyes sharpening. “Now, don’t make me regret it. Let’s grab what we can and leave before your sentimentality makes us linger so long we get killed anyway!”