Star Force: Origin (SF24) Page 7

  Suddenly both Archons got a surge of pain in their minds along with words they did not recognize, but whose meaning they somehow understood.

  The pain disappeared as soon as it began, but the words flowed, instructing all those near to cease fighting…with the unmistakable threat of doom should they dare to disobey.

  “Boss, can you hear that?”

  Mark nodded, his nerve already weakened by his injury. The power of the mental contact was so great that he was stunned into silent awe as he stared up at the enormous beast that somehow was staying aloft without flapping its wings.

  “Hey, you still with me?” Boen said, kneeling down next to him without completely taking his eyes off the dragon.

  “Yeah…yeah, sorry,” Mark said, blinking away both pain and the tears welling up in his eyes. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking. “Might want to delay that pickup for a while…till the skies are clear.”

  Down in the Nestafar camp where the pair of Archons couldn’t see, the enemy pilots of the nearest walkers began exiting their war machines while the infantry around them, clearly intimidated by the dragon’s words, looked about, confused as to what was happening. Then one of the giraffes on the back edge of the formation, apparently unaffected by the dragon’s mind control, tilted its head around and fired a red plasma blast at the distant aerial target.

  The shot missed badly due to the range, but it prompted several more to follow, along with missiles launched from a pair of spider walkers. Those tracked directly to the dragon and impacted it on the chest and wings, blowing apart in a short-lived fireworks display that left the dragon exactly where it had been. Boen and Mark couldn’t see what damage had been done, for they were on the wrong viewing side of the attack, but they didn’t miss the subsequent roar of rage, both audial and mental, that ripped forth from the great beast…followed by it flapping its wings and rising higher up into the sky as more plasma and missiles came in at it.

  It flew in lazily towards the camp and halfway there stalled out briefly, flapping its wings forward once violently, which resulted in some sort of clear ripple through the air that crossed to the now moving walkers in less than two seconds…and knocked them off their feet as if they were toys. The super dragon tipped over as well, falling on its right side and crushing a protomech that got swept up underneath.

  The zombified Nestafar in the ruins that could see what was happening suddenly snapped out of their haze, turning their weapons on the dragon or heading towards it for those that were out of firing range. The remaining upright walkers in the camp began heading towards the dragon, firing as they went…then the leaders would stop their advance and weaponsfire as their minds were frozen once again, though it seemed that combat was significantly diminishing the dragon’s ability to hold as many minds inert as before.

  “Get that transport in here now,” Mark urged, watching the dragon sweep its wings again, this time towards the ground from overhead and crush one of the stalled spiders with the invisible concussion wave as rounds of plasma were hitting its red scales and appearing to do no damage whatsoever…though it was difficult to see from such a distance. Regardless, the dragon wasn’t thwarted and continued to quickly break up the overflowing camp of enemies that Mark and the Alliance had been about to be overwhelmed by. How one aerial craft, dragon or not, could be so powerful filled Mark with a mixture of both dread and inspiration.

  “Already on the way,” Boen said, lifting Mark up to his feet. “You feel up to flying?”

  “Not really,” Mark said, tearing his eyes away from the carnage below for a moment. “What did you do?”

  “You’re flying back, we’re running,” he said, catching a glimpse of reflected light from the top of the mountain as a skeet zipped over the summit. “Three minutes and you’ll be in the air.”

  “Thank you,” Mark said, for more than just the good news.

  Boen nodded, but didn’t say anything until the skeet got to their position and landed. When the hatch opened Liara hopped out on top and helped Boen lift Mark up and into position, which took some doing without leveraging his bad leg. Still, getting it over the pommel and into position hurt him badly, but once down on the seat he was more than happy for the tradeoff.

  “Door are open,” she told him from behind his head as he reconfigured the controls so he wouldn’t need to use his bad leg. “Put her down by the column, we’ve got people standing by.”

  “Better step back,” Mark warned. “I’m a bit shaky.”

  Liara smiled beneath her helmet, but her mirth was still evident in her voice. “At least now I can say there was one day I was a better pilot than you.”

  She slid down off the skeet and ran around it to where Boen was already climbing the mountain at an angle to get to the nearest auxiliary entrance a few kilometers away. They both glanced back as the skeet slowly rose up into the air and shot out ahead of them…then the Archons picked up the pace, turning the ascent into a mixture of workout and race, eager to get back inside and away from the dragon.

  “Do you know what’s going on with that?” Boen asked, thumbing back over his shoulder towards the one-sided battle.

  “Kara’s doing. She was starting to explain when you called for pickup.”

  “Is that the same one that we found below?”

  “Sleeping beauty it is, and she brokered some sort of deal with it.”

  “Score one for Kara,” Boen said, feeling slightly less at risk but still wanting to get back inside as quickly as possible.

  The Zak’de’ron landed in the midst of what had been the Nestafar camp, lifting up and crushing one of the giraffes without even touching it. The walker simply levitated then collapsed down into a rough ball, which was then thrown into a nearby spider, denting and knocking it off its feet as another telepathic wave shot out to those in the immediate vicinity.

  “Submit!” he warned, “or I will destroy you all.”

  A group of flying infantry fired a pair of rockets towards the dragon, but a pyre of blue flame shot out from its throat, vaporizing both rockets and the Nestafar that had fired them.

  With considerable mental prodding the minds around him began to cave…not him overriding their control of their own bodies, but submitting to his will and command, once again becoming the Zak’de’ron’s servants as they once had, though he knew such servitude would be short lived if he could not also control those in orbit above.

  The minds elsewhere were also in turmoil, but a quick check of those at the tunnel entrance confirmed that they were still obeying his orders, though the aftereffects were beginning to wear off. He sent another surge of telepathic energy their way, furthering his tenuous link binding them to his will. So long as the Zen’zat or their pathetic allies didn’t fire on them they shouldn’t be able to break free of his control…and if the fools did, the outcome would serve their stupidity well.

  The dragon walked over to one of the broken spiders and lifted it up into the air by apparent magic and loosed a stream of fire into the side of it, melting straight through and cutting the machine in half. It threw the two pieces aside in concurrence with another telepathic wave, this one reaching even further in range and he felt the outlying troops submitting in turn.

  A few dozen at a time he contacted directly, imposing his will and command on them until they fully submitted, then he withdrew the focus of his mind while leaving only a tiny monitoring tendril behind. In such a way the dragon quickly and efficiently conscripted the surviving Nestafar troops to its command and had them abandon their machines, then fly back over to their LZ while he trashed their walkers beyond repair, both as a demonstration of power and in order to take away their means to fight should they shuck his mental control as he contended with the others.

  Eventually he returned to flight, relishing in the battle and the freedom of the air once again after having slept for so many countless years. He stayed aloft for some time, picking off the minds of those Nestafar that had remained behind a
t their landing zone, including the pilots of the dropships on station.

  From them he also learned many secrets, now that he had the time to pry into their memories. He learned of the assault in orbit and the victory of the Zen’zat in the defense of their orbital station. Crude as it may have been, the design and tactics employed were sound, befitting their ancestry. He had always wondered what the Ter’nat would become if taken off the V’kit’no’sat’s leash. The other races had deemed them stupid and unworthy of peerdom, but then again the Zak’de’ron viewed the others races just the same.

  The Ter’nat had been primitive savages when the Hjar’at had discovered and conquered them, then they were ‘elevated’ to mere primitives and allowed to reproduce as a labor force, given their small size and dexterity. They learned quickly, however, and soon became valued slaves that the other races demanded be shared. The Hjar’at complied, and the Ter’nat became wards of the V’kit’no’sat. The Zen’zat had been created so that their new slaves could better serve the more advanced duties needed of them, as well as making them at least minimally useful on the battlefield and had proven remarkably adept for such primitive origins.

  They were still inferior, as all were to the Zak’de’ron, but the dragon knew they were not so inferior to the others. He would have liked to have conscripted these rogue Zen’zat, but their shielded minds would prevent traditional conscription and he did not have the time necessary to absorb their race in the means that would preserve their usefulness. A pity, for he would very much have liked to teach them the ways of warfare and throw them back at the V’kit’no’sat…but that was not an option. His race’s survival depended on secrecy and flight. Perhaps one day, millennia from now, he would see to their revenge.

  The Zen’zat were on their own and doomed to failure, but it was gratifying to see them making inroads of their own where the V’kit’no’sat had said they were totally inept.

  The little ones’ battle station had done well to destroy so many of the Nestafar warships, but many still remained, including their jumpships that contained too many minds for him to overwhelm directly. Conscripting them all would take time, and he could not allow any of their ships to flee the system with knowledge of his presence…meaning he had to act quickly before they recognized the threat and ran for their lives.

  8

  Out of the ground another tunnel formed and an object hurled forth…this one much larger than the dragon and deep blue in color. It flew up to where the Zak’de’ron was hovering above the Nestafar LZ and impacted it, twisting around and transforming into some form of exoskeleton that covered the red armor scales and turned the dragon into a much larger beast 3 times its original size. Once the fluid machine had encased it the beast shot up into the sky, leaving the Nestafar on the ground to continue loading into their dropships as previously instructed.

  The blue of the additional armor began to glow brighter as it rose up into space, ending with a flash of light that left it neon in color. From there it flew up to where the Nestafar fleet was waiting and passed them by, heading directly for the distant group of jumpships parked in a higher orbit.

  The Nestafar warships tried to move to intercept the dragon, but it was far too fast…making them seem as if chess pieces it could run around at its leisure. Even the Valeries escorting the warships couldn’t keep up and before they knew it the Nestafar commanders had the image of a blue, glowing dragon staring down at them from outside their jumpships.

  “You will submit,” the powerful mental signal shot forth to all those onboard the jumpship the dragon was perched over. There were thousands of individual minds onboard, all of which heard the dragon’s thoughts as if it were standing behind them and breathing down their neck as it spoke. “Or I shall destroy you. Disarm and stand down now. This world belongs to me and you shall not claim it.”

  He could sense the reactions of the jumpship crew, mixed as they were, as well as their confusion…but the rest of the Nestafar fleet was not so affected and the warships that the dragon had blithely flow past were now catching up, with their fighters hanging back, probably because of the carnage they had witnessed on the surface.

  From the minds onboard the jumpship the dragon drew much information, including the communications occurring between the ships, indicating that they were indeed going to strike.

  “Submit,” he repeated, focusing on the minds within the jumpship as some of its weaponry was beginning to come online. Soon those batteries deactivated as he cherry-picked minds to assert control over and gradually the tide of sentiment on the ship began to shift into compliance as he bathed them in telepathic influence…but he could not fully conscript them before the warships arrived, so he linked the jumpship commanders’ minds to his and released the others, then flew off to intercept the approaching warships.

  The glowing armor that the dragon was encased in increased in intensity drastically, becoming a harsh point of light rather than a shape, so fierce that it hurt all eyes that viewed it. It flew directly towards the leading warship and cut through it…passing into the front hull and exiting out the back as if nothing had stood between it, though the hole it tore straight through the core of the ship testified otherwise. It banked to the right and rammed another Nestafar warship out of the dozens that were approaching, coming down on one of the ship’s wings and tearing clean through, only to arc back up and go through the other one, leaving two giant holes in the ship as if playing with it as the dragon repeated its mental summons, this time stretching out so as to touch all the Nestafar ships in orbit.

  “Submit,” he repeated as he lazily flew towards the next closest ship…but this one shut down its weapons in a hurry and the dragon pulled off, buzzing the warship but not damaging it as he felt its crew wisely relent.

  Others did not and fired upon the dragon…or tried to. It was moving so fast that they couldn’t land any plasma on it and their missiles simply disintegrated when they hit the fierce point of light, never getting a chance to detonate.

  Suddenly one of the other jumpships winked out, making a microjump away from the planet. On cue the attacking warships spread apart and fled, with all the other jumpships save one running away. Only three warships remained behind, all complying with the dragon’s mental demands, and then the Zak’de’ron suddenly vanished as well, with the point of light disappearing in a flash heading outward.

  There was no more time left to try and conscript these fools, so the dragon abandoned its mental links and chased after the jumpships who were wisely heading separate ways, tugging at various planets in the system to spread themselves apart from one another as they all headed by circuitous routes towards the system’s central star…from where they hoped to escape the system.

  He couldn’t let that happen, for knowledge of his presence would spread, not just from the stories told but from the images captured from the surface and in space. Those he could not let go or they would likely find their way to the V’kit’no’sat and all his years of sleep would be for nothing. He must maintain secrecy or all would be lost!

  Catching up to the still accelerating jumpship was difficult, but soon he rammed into its hull and disappeared inside…with the gravity drives cutting off almost instantaneously. His glowing blue form punched out the port side, temporarily diminished in glow, then arced around tightly as it regained its terrifying brightness and punched back inside.

  In and out the dragon traveled like a bee buzzing through a hive, tearing apart the giant ship until it was no longer capable of response…then he landed atop it and summoned all the power he could muster. The blue glow quickly disappeared, returning the dragon’s armor to its deep blue that almost disappeared against the blackness of space, then the ship began to move, towed along by the dragon as it changed its course and headed it into a spiral that would land it in the star. It took far longer than the dragon wished to yank the ship into the proper alignment and as soon as the proper mathematics were reached it released its hold and disappeared from view
in a blur of motion as it shot off in pursuit of the next closest jumpship.

  One by one it killed the fleeing jumpships, but could not redirect them all in the short space of time it had, so it left some of them free floating while it tracked down the others, then went back and pulled all of them into degrading orbits that would eradicate all traces of the dragon’s presence from their databanks when they burned up inside the star.

  After that he tracked down and conscripted the fleeing warships, each of which was too weak to flee the system on its own, though two tried. He tracked them down over the next few days and destroyed them in transit between the stars, for he didn’t have enough power to redirect their masses at such a speed mid jump. He did have the power to redirect himself, however, and flew back into the system and rounded up the surviving warships and lone jumpship, corralling them into a low orbital zone and systematically wiping their memories and databanks of every trace of his presence.

  The Nestafar ground troops were recalled to the jumpship, as were the warships, though there were too many left to fit inside. The crews of those ships that would have to be left behind were transferred over to the jumpship, then the dragon set it on its way, escorting it all the way out to the star and holding mental control over its bridge crew until the jump was made and the last of the Nestafar were removed from the star system.

  After that he returned to orbit and began wiping the memories and records from the Alliance ships, though the Canderians were beyond his influence. The dragon was taking a chance leaving them alive, but they were at even more risk from the V’kit’no’sat than he was…and he needed the intelligence they had on the Les’i’kron. Their databanks, however, he did wipe. Interfacing with their computer systems remotely and scrubbing all applicable data before they even knew he had hacked in, then he covertly traveled back to the surface, not appearing on any of the ship’s sensors.