The Knight who had come with Sir Hagen had picked himself up from where he had
fallen. He composed himself and came over to join the three of them. Morphing to dragon, he called out, “Sir Hagen—there! See there!”
Leanne blurted the obvious question: “What’s happening over there now?”
“Let’s have a better look,” said Hagen. “Sir Coram…?”
Coram immediately knew what the older Knight meant. In unison, they both shifted to dragon form and trained their eyes, with sight more acute and powerful than human sight, on the
strobing column of energy. “Incredible,” Coram reacted.
“What is it?” Leanne asked, her tone as dire as the situation itself.
“There’s a figure rising up in the energy column,” replied Coram. “Rising right out of the mountain.”
“Not just a figure,” Leanne said. “We know who—what—that is.”
“What?” Hagen asked, the moment feeling as ominous to him as it did to them.
The three dragon men watched the figure rise up in the fountain of energy until, high over the mountaintop, it emerged and began to levitate itself in the direction of Silverwing, trailing a wake of glowing power behind it like the tail of a comet. As it moved out towards the city, the energy column behind it flickered like a ghost or a candle in a breeze, and shrank down, retracting and disappearing back into the mountain.
Hagen focused his dragon eyes on the figure. He blinked and looked again, recognizing it and not wanting to believe.
“No…,” he whispered.
In the middle of a broad thoroughfare at the edge of the city, civilians had fled or taken shelter. Only people in uniforms and armor skins were present, in human or dragon forms. The way had been cleared; the wounded were being tended to, and the dead were being taken away. The throbbing and pulsating of a glow from above turned all eyes upward.
Something was descending, a mass of light that looked almost like a miniature sun, with what appeared to be a figure suspended inside it. Figures quickly scattered across the street, moving away from the point where the object was set to touch down. The energy nimbus descended and lit on the ground. The glow around the inner figure parted, dimmed, and dissipated, leaving only the figure itself, now fully revealed. Audible gasps and expressions of shock reverberated up and down the street. Those who had weapons drew them, fighting the horror that clutched at them, preparing for battle anew.
The voice of the creature throbbed in their minds. Cast aside your resistance. Unto you is the High Chimerian. I bring you the union of your beings, the Unity of all that lives. Join with me and do not resist.
Only a second passed between the telepathic demand and the response. A second later, the street came alive with the flying, searing bolts of laser weapons and the billowing jets of mist, all directed at the alien figure standing in the street and raising a terrifying din. The High Chimerian became the eye of an enclosing storm of fire and vapor. The alien stood still,
unmoved, unfaltering, seemingly unaffected.
From the rooftop where they had seen the High Chimerian emerge, Coram, Leanne,
Hagen, and the other Knight assessed the situation.
“Only one thing will stop that creature now,” said Coram.
“I know,” Leanne replied. “We have to get over there and be ready.”
Coram put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her gravely. “Are you prepared to face…that…again?”
Leanne shook her head. There was nothing else to do now, and they both knew it. “It isn’t about being ‘prepared.’ It’s about getting the job done, no matter what.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Hagen. “We spend our lives becoming prepared, being ready. You know that.”
A look passed between Leanne and Hagen, a look of the deepest understanding. Leanne saw in Hagen’s eyes a look of understanding and acceptance that bridged the gap between the girl she had been so long ago and the woman she was now. It was a silent acknowledgement of how far she had come and who she had become in the process. What Leanne saw from Hagen now was absolute respect, implicit acceptance.
“I remember a young girl who would be very proud if she could look ahead and see you right now,” said Sir Hagen Maxon. “We have a job to finish.”
Leanne tapped her sleeve twice and spoke aloud: “This is Lieutenant Commander Leanne Shire to Fleet Headquarters. Mark the following coordinates…”
At the same time, Sir Hagen spoke into his badge, “This is Sir Hagen Maxon to Spires Command and Fleet Headquarters. I’m requesting all available reinforcements, every Knight at the Spires and throughout the city. Converge on the area of…”
Coram listened to Leanne and Hagen issuing their commands. His dragon heart beat faster. His dragon soul knew that the moment of truth for Lacerta and the galaxy beyond was soon at hand.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
The outskirts of Silverwing had quickly become a tableau of terror, a surreal and
impossible scene of weredragons and human troops swarming like hornets around a single tall, gaunt, inhuman figure.
The forces of the Spires and the Fleet flew in and out, spraying plumes of vapor at the unmoving and unmoved foe that simply stood its ground. The vapors expanded, swirled, and parted around the High Chimerian, and the alien did nothing but watch the futile attacks. The attackers stood and crouched at every point along the thoroughfare, hurling a barrage of laser fire that was enough to destroy any other foe a thousand times over. The energy of their attack screamed in the air with a blistering, punishing, obliterating power.
Every beam thus far unfettered did nothing to the High Chimerian except to disappear into its body as a spring rain into dry and parched soil. The High Chimerian stood on the pavement and glowed with ever-increasing power. It was becoming clear with every passing second of the
battle that the enemy could not be stopped.
The entity’s telepathic voice rippled out infernally in all directions: The end is inevitable. You cannot resist. You belong to me. It is the immutable destiny of all life to belong to me. Take up your arms not against me—but for me. Wield your weapons and your power in my service. Do battle in my name. There is nothing else. You are mine, for I am the High Chimerian.
At the far end of the battle scene, Leanne, Coram, Hagen, and Hagen’s comrade, the three Knights in dragon form, had quietly arrived and slipped in to crouch behind a Fleet transport hover van. Leanne and Coram took up a vantage point behind the front of the vehicle, the others at the rear, and together, they all looked out on the scene of battle, taking a strategic position just outside of it and watching things grow more desperate by the minute.
His voice almost drowned in the din, Coram cried, “They’re not doing a damned bit of good! The bloody thing is soaking up their attack the same as it did the energy from the geothermal vent!”
Leanne shouted back, “The anti-mutagen doesn’t work on it! It’s too powerful! This isn’t a mutation of another life form with Chimerian genes; this is a clone of the source of the mutation! There’s no mutation to reverse; this is the Chimerian! We’ve only got one defense now!”
Coram replied and pointed, “No one’s giving up yet! Look!”
They both looked up over the rooftops of the buildings on the side towards the center of the city. From there came another wave of the Corps, the Knights, and the Fleet, hurtling in on wings and in hovercars, transport vans coming to a hover and letting out still more. In moments, there were scores of them, numbers that seemed as if they would darken the sky, and they all came soaring and screaming in at the one figure that stood at the eye of the storm of
carnage.
The inbound troops unleashed their battery of laser beams and biochemical clouds,
doubling and tripling the assault of the ones they were joining. The sound and fury of their
attack grew deafening. The air was thick with bodies and beams and vapors, in some places obscuring the flying bodies of
the ones attacking.
And still, the High Chimerian stood, unmoved, undeterred, undaunted, supreme in its
confidence of its growing power. That was when a new shadow fell across its gaunt and malevolent form, another shadow with a dragon’s broad wings and a dragon’s mighty tail. The alien’s attackers parted on all sides to make way for the newcomer. The sounds of battle dwindled and almost became a hush. All eyes turned upward. The High Chimerian looked where its assailants were looking…
…At once, it was engulfed in a colossal torrent of fire, a downpour of flames into which its form completely disappeared. And the defenders of Lacerta sent up a great whoop and cheer at the massively built weredragon circling overhead, breathing down a Niagara of fire onto the enemy of all life.
From behind the van, Coram watched with his own dragon jaws dropping open, and Leanne and the others gaped along with him. As awestruck as they were, it was only natural that he should appear now, of all times.
Coram blurted out, “It’s Sir Rawn! It’s Sir Rawn Ullery!”
The forces in the battle continued to give the alien a wide berth, and continued to watch the mightiest of all the weredragons breathe down a deluge of fire onto their foe. He poured forth every gout of flame he had to give until a broad circle of scorched and red-hot pavement appeared, and at its center stood the High Chimerian, its skin looking almost molten as the last flames parted. He had not fallen. He sent a look of contempt up at the circling Sir Rawn.
“It didn’t do any good. I was afraid of this,” said Leanne. “The Chimerian just soaked up Sir Rawn’s fire the way it did the geothermal power in the cavern.”
“Sir Rawn isn’t done yet,” replied Coram. “Watch.”
As if he had heard Coram, Sir Rawn came in for a landing on the thoroughfare, and troops moved aside at his approach to a lighting post. With an almost casual gesture, the augmented Knight sank his gauntleted man-dragon fingers into the metal-ceramic composite of the post—and ripped it from the ground with a sound of brittle tearing. The other forces of Lacerta moved aside once again as Sir Rawn, hissing and growling, wielded the post, which was a story tall, and charged directly at the High Chimerian.
For the first time, the alien expressed something resembling shock and surprise, which registered only for a moment: for in the space of a heartbeat, the end of the light post came ramming directly into him with a horrid crashing, crunching sound. The tyrant from space, knocked from where he stood with a force that could cave in the face of a building, was sent flying half a block down the thoroughfare.
The High Chimerian lay still on the ground in the distance. At the second that it landed, Sir Rawn Ullery cried out, “All at once—SMASH IT!”
Those in uniform and armor skin moved like lightning down the street, Sir Rawn among them, all charging or flying at the suddenly stricken enemy. They saw the High Chimerian stir and rise up on one knee, still smoking and partly reddened from Sir Rawn’s earlier attack. And the High Chimerian cast out its thoughts yet again: Defy me no more. No more! You are mine. You battle for me. For ME…
The response was immediate and shocking. Half of the forces that had stood against the High Chimerian moved as one. They raised their lasers and brandished their powerblades—and with a will not their own, they attacked their comrades. Bodies flew everywhere, on the attack and on the defense, dragon against dragon, human against human, friend and comrade against their fellows. Rawn stood in a roiling sea of bodies, fearing to bring his full strength and power against his fellow Knights and allies. He swatted them aside with wings and tail, bringing just enough of his strength to knock them senseless without doing them harm.
Some fell to the ground in an appalling litter of uniformed and armor-skinned figures. Some landed on the ground and set about defending themselves from the thrusts and swings of energy blades and the blasts of lasers, and returning the attacks. The High Chimerian now stood at the threshold of a dreadful and horrifying civil war of its own making.
At their vantage point, Leanne, Coram, and their comrades had been physically knocked to the ground by the expanding wave of the alien’s mental command. They thrashed about on pavement and grass, desperately clinging to their own will against being taken over—or taken over again.
“Fight it!” Coram said through a grimace. “Don’t give in now! There’s too much at stake! Fight it!”
Leanne gasped, “It hasn’t got me yet. It hasn’t got any of us back here. I don’t think it can. I think it’s reaching the limits of its power. Even with all the power it took from the cavern and the power it took on just now, it’s got to have a limit. It has to do too many things at one time: absorb the attacks against it, take control of more troops, try to extend its power to even more of them. I think it’s doing all it can do right now.”
Hagen and his comrade crawled over beside them. Hagen growled, “If we’re going to do what we must, it has to be now, Commander Shire. Now!”
Leanne nodded. She dragged herself up to her knees, still feeling wobbly from the waves of mental force emanating from the alien. The others pulled themselves up near her. She touched her sleeve and called, “Shire to Fleet Headquarters. Status of Southwest Corner Protocol Devices.”
A voice from her comm system answered, “Southwest Corner Protocol Devices online.”
In a hard and decisive tone, Leanne barked, “Maximum power! Fire at will!”
Barely a second passed. From somewhere among the rooftops, a beam of power, huge and blinding, came stabbing down through the melee of battling forms, cutting the air and striking dead on target. The defenders whose minds he had seized and those whom they had been battling only a second ago all fell back. The High Chimerian was at once enveloped in a churning excrescence of power. The beam maintained its focus and did not let up. The figure of the High Chimerian at the center of the upheaval of force turned to a gaunt silhouette—and began to stagger and waver.
The bludgeoning waves of telepathic power from the alien ceased at once. The battling troops on and over the thoroughfare, having broken off their struggle, stopped completely—and then, all eyes turned to the silhouetted figure of the alien staggering from side to side in the envelope of power delivered from the Protocol beam.
It was then that the High Chimerian’s malevolent mind spoke again, but this time, it was
different than before. It was a telepathic howl of fury that cut to the heart and soul of everyone in view. Cease this attack! Cease this assault upon your lord and master! You belong to me! YOU BELONG TO ME…!
By this time, Leanne and her companions had found their footing again. They were virtually transfixed at the struggle of their ultimate foe. If it had been any other creature, they might almost have pitied it.
“It’s not enough,” said Coram. “It’s resisting. It’s fighting back. It must be trying to
absorb this energy the same as it did all the other power that it took on.”
“It can’t do it,” said Leanne. “Not with this power. Not with this.”
“We still need more,” Coram said.
Leanne called into her comm system again, “Fleet Headquarters: Status of Anti-Chimerian Protocol Satellite.”
The same voice returned, “Satellite at full power, locked on the given coordinates.”
As decisively as before, Leanne commanded, “Fire NOW!”
It took only a second. From beyond the clouds and the blue of the sky, a screaming bolt of blinding power as huge as the geyser of energy from the mountain stabbed down like the finger of an angry god and hit the spot where the High Chimerian thrashed and staggered in the original beam from the rooftops. Now, the creature was caught in two power beams, one twice as great as the other.
It turned to a crackling silhouette, pitching and writhing inside a corona of light that cast a terrifying glow up and down the street. The champions of the planet Lacerta continued to fall back lest they be caught at the edge of the inconceivable power that rained down before them. Eyes were clenched. H
ands were raised before faces. The cascade of power went on and on until everyone present feared it would grow to tear the place down around them.
And in their minds, the High Chimerian screamed: You cannot destroy me! You cannot slay me! I am the great unifier of all life! I am the living vision of the future of existence! All things will live in me, and I will live in all things! You cannot destroy me! You cannot destroy me! I AM THE HIGH CHIMERIAN! I COMMAND YOU, STOP! STOP! STOP…!
The rain of power did not stop. The mental scream of the High Chimerian disappeared into a deafening whine of released energy—and then, everything turned white, a harsh and
horrific whiteness like the ignition of an old nuclear weapon. Everyone on the thoroughfare
recoiled from the shock. The whine of energy gave way to a sound like a sonic boom. Some were knocked off their feet, others were knocked from the air—and as the sound ebbed away and the light faded, a stillness like death settled over the scene.
When the troops gathered on the outskirts of Silverwing recovered enough of their sight to look, they found the entire width of the street where the High Chimerian had stood now transformed to a hot and smoking surface like fused and cracked glass. In the center of it lay a heap of hot, churning, noisome slime; a boiling mass of protoplasm that would never again form a
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