Page 20 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)
Before I can speak, Ignixis cuts in, a hint of distaste in his tone. “Tell them ,” he snarls, spitting the last word out like the vilest venom, “Dracoth, son of War Chieftain Gorexius, seeks the Crucible.”
Nexarn’s hands dart over the shimmering console with precision as an eerie, tense silence hangs in the air.
Then it happens—a blinding blue ray bursts from the sea of drones, countless individual beams converging into a single, dazzling strobe. It sweeps over my Battlebarge with overwhelming intensity, forcing me to narrow my eyes against its brilliance.
“They’re scanning the fleet, War Chieftain,” Keth announces the obvious, his tone utterly flat.
“I hope they can’t see through clothes,” Princesa mutters, wrapping her chieftainess cloak tightly around herself as if to shield against the invasive light. “You know, like how you were perving on us with that scary mask of yours,” she adds, shooting me a pointed look.
Where does she conjure these ridiculous notions from?
“You lie. It was you who kept exposing yourself,” I remind her with a stern glare.
“Me!” she fires back, indignant. “Says the guy who stole our—”
More garbled shrieks of nonsensical static cut through Princesa’s protest like the sharpest claw. Jarring and shrill, it rakes across my senses, a calculated weapon designed to unnerve and intimidate.
“That is so goddamn annoying,” Princesa huffs, placing a hand protectively over her pet cyloillar’s segmented head. “Poor wee Todd can’t hear himself think.”
If the meaningless creature thinks at all.
“War Chieftain, they command us to follow them,” Nexarn says, his green eyes locking onto mine. “Any deviation from the path will result in immediate termination.”
“We’d better stay between the lines, then,” Princesa quips, though the meaning of her words escapes me.
“Inform them to proceed,” I command, my voice steady despite the unease roiling beneath my calm. “Instruct Balsar to follow us... closely.”
“Are their hearts strong enough, young Dracoth?” Ignixis asks, his tone dripping with mockery, somehow echoing my own unspoken doubts.
“Will dread’s icy clutches snatch their feeble resolve?
” His green eyes narrow, glinting with accusation.
“I wonder... how will the Scythians respond if even one of their number flees?”
“Silence!” I roar, my glare promising swift retribution if he dares speak further. The old gas-cloud only glides toward the navigation console, a smug smirk twisting his scorched face.
Outside, the writhing visage of endless red eyes collapses, dissipating like grains of sand slipping through unseen fingers.
In a disturbingly synchronized motion, the drones part before my fleet, forming twin lines of crimson lights that stretch beyond the horizon—a path to either glory or damnation.
“Keth, take us through,” I command, my gaze locked ahead, scanning for any sign of treachery.
The engines hum louder, vibrating through the deck as my Battlebarge glides forward, steady through the void.
Princesa slips from my grasp, rushing to the viewport. “This looks like an airport runway... well, minus the endless murder-bots,” she muses, her voice tinged with awe as her nose nearly presses against the reinforced polymer.
But my focus is elsewhere—on the fleet trailing behind us. My eyes flick to the navigation display, where hundreds of blinking neon dots form a steady procession. Relief loosens my shoulders. All follow. All show courage. My loyal Shorthairs—they continue to impress.
“What are those things?” Princesa asks, her voice cutting through my thoughts. She gestures toward the viewport, where a vast latticework of machines emerges from the void.
Unlike the Seeker drones, these constructs are massive and square, with crackling green energy forming crosses that jut from their frames.
Together, they weave an intricate web of power, blanketing the expanse like a pulsing, artificial constellation.
Occasionally, sharp beams of green light sweep over my Battlebarge, their purpose unknown and unsettling.
“The profane,” Ignixis hisses, his bald head swiveling as he scans the viewport. Disgust deepens the furrows in his face.
“Brilliant,” Princesa mutters, her exasperation plain as she absently strokes Todd for comfort.
The matrix of machines grows denser, forcing the path of red Seeker drones to weave and undulate, their gleaming forms dodging the crisscrossing beams of green energy.
The latticework is so vast and intricate now that it casts an eerie glow across the void, bathing everything in a ghostly hue like the spectral fingers of some malevolent force tightening its grip.
Our ship tilts and shudders, mirroring the winding route laid out before us. Keth’s unwavering focus remains locked on the holographic navigation display. His hands dart over the controls with intense mastery.
“More come to herald your coronation, great War Chieftain ,” Ignixis declares, with a loathsome hint of mockery in my title.
His gnarled finger traces the viewport. “Look at them, aren’t they splendid?
Lifeless hulks of metal, their sole purpose only death and destruction.
” He titters, feigning an exaggerated shiver. “Eerily familiar, isn’t it?”
He cackles, the sound as shrill and grating as the Scythians’ garbled transmissions. I ignore the old gas-cloud, unable to decipher his more unsettling slips into madness.
Massive warships lumber into view, their brutal forms unmistakable.
Voidbanes . Unlike Battlebarges, these vessels are pure instruments of war, bristling with plasma cannons and designed for combat alone.
Six of them drift through the lattice like metallic mountains adrift in space, their hulking frames imposing.
They fall into formation alongside my fleet, their weapons bristling with silent menace, all pointed in our direction.
They greet us not as allies but as oppressors, imposing their dominance as one places a boot on a defeated enemy’s neck. Rage coils in my chest. It reeks of submission. My every instinct demands I reject this... this arrangement. But the cost is too high. There’s no turning back now.
A burst of static crackles through the comms, breaking the tense silence and drawing every gaze to Nexarn’s glowing terminal. This time, the sound is different—not the ear-piercing shriek of before, but a faint, insidious whisper that seems to crawl into my mind, leaving icy trails in its wake.
“Nexarn, their meaning?” I ask, my voice taut, as though we are traversing the jaws of a hungry venefex.
“There is no meaning,” Nexarn replies, his green eyes sweeping across the neon runes. “Just noise, War Chieftain.”
“No meaning!” Ignixis echoes, doubling over as another fit of deranged laughter seizes him, as if he just heard the funniest joke in the universe.
The comms erupt again, the whispering static laced with what almost sounds like mocking laughter, faint and hidden within its jarring audio. A chill prickles at the back of my neck.
“I don’t like it,” Princesa says, her voice tight. She scans the bridge, her silver eyes flickering with unease. “It’s super creepy. Poor Todd’s shaking in his wee boots.” She strokes her cyloillar absentmindedly.
“Nexarn, silence all comms,” I order, cutting through another burst of alien noise that threatens to drown me in its malignance.
Nexarn’s green eyes meet mine, his face a blank slate, as if he too is a machine. “The comms are silenced, War Chieftain,” he utters, his tone without any emotion.
“Clearly, they are not!” I roar, my voice reverberating through the command bridge as more haunting static echoes around us, lingering like mocking spirits. In a surge of fury, I rush to Nexarn’s console, sweeping him aside with a single powerful motion.
My crimson eyes dart over the glowing runes, searching for answers. The truth sends a chill through me—the comms are indeed disabled.
“What is this?” My ire shifts sharply to Ignixis, the one who always speaks in riddles cloaked as wisdom. “Explain!”
He glides forward, his black robes billowing in his wake as his gaze sweeps over the console.
“Well, it appears to be a disabled comm, young Dracoth,” he drawls, the faintest smirk twitching at his lips. Around us, the intrusive ghostly whisperings persist, as if mocking my frustration. “Ah, another mystery put to rest.”
Rage boils over, twisting into a feral snarl as the Rush floods my veins, demanding his death. “You!” I bellow, closing the distance in a murderous blur. My hands clamp around Ignixis’s collar, lifting him effortlessly off the ground. “You led me here! To this trap!”
He dangles in my grasp, his smirk unwavering, a serene defiance in his eyes that only fuels my fury.
“Answer me plainly, or I swear I will slowly peel your precious sacred words from your flesh and lay them bare for Princesa to study at her leisure!” My snarling breath brushes his face, my grip tightening with every heartbeat.
Ignixis’s smirk fades into a solemn expression that lacks any trace of fear.
How does he not balk? When only recently he was as craven as a znat? Was that also an illusion, more lies?
“What would you have me explain, boy? ” He lingers on the last word with mockery.
“That in a universe where Gods impose their wills, where a willful child harnesses the power of suns...” His sharp gaze shifts to Princesa, standing nearby with a raised brow and an almost amused curiosity.
“...or bonds that defy all logic, endless cycles through long-forgotten ages that thread across countless realities. Preordained destinies that converge to these very moments.”
My grip falters, the weight of his words clawing at my resolve. He sees it, and his smirk fades, replaced by something solemn, almost pitying. Slowly, I lower him until his feet touch the ground.