Page 52 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)

I gasp as Drexios recoils. His sneer vanishes. For the first time—panic flickers in his single eye. But Dracoth directs his murderous strikes not at him, but toward the metal tables, the murder-bot droids nearby.

I’m jostled like a ragdoll in his arm as he swings like a savage beast. Again and again, he hacks, snarling with fury, his energy blades scream, slicing through metal like butter.

Molten slag splatters, circuits hiss, and the acrid scent of burning metal chokes my lungs.

He’s a primal whirlwind of destruction, kicking aside the wreckage, ripping down more shelves, reducing the room to a sizzling broken mess.

Then as quickly as it started—silence.

We hold our breath. Waiting. None dare to speak, the tension thicker than my mother’s lip filler. Dracoth stands in the wreckage, chest heaving, his massive frame radiating heat in murderous waves.

“...These rooms.” Dracoth’s tone, an unnerving, final whisper. “Destroy them.”

With that, he whips around, the space-knights hurrying out of our path as he surges between them like rolling magma.

He strides down the vast corridor with haste, his eyes leaking blood-red fumes into the frigid, sterile air.

Behind us, the space-knights carry out his orders. I glance back as they flood into the rooms, quickly followed by the ear- piercing zaps, bangs, and screeches. Doors ripped open. Walls are torn apart.

Dracoth’s gaze is fixed ahead, locked onto something deeper in the murder-bot fortress. But I can still feel his doubt gnawing through our bond.

I hesitate, then murmur, “Listen, babes... don’t let that prick get under your skin.” My voice wavers, uncertain if I should speak. “He’s just trying to save his—”

“What I was. What I am. Is of no concern.” Dracoth’s voice is a growl, cutting me off. His heavy armor clicks, his boots thud against the metal floor, each step heavy with pounding resolve. “Only vengeance matters now.”

I would be relieved—if I couldn’t feel the crimson thread of doubt twisting inside him.

Ahead, an immense door comes into view. Larger than the others. It caps the end of this vast corridor, the sheer size drawing my gaze upward to the numerous glyphs fading into the shadows stretching high into the unseen ceiling.

“Lifeforms ahead,” Dracoth rumbles, his masked gaze piercing through metal and shadow, his massive hand poised to blast something into oblivion.

I stiffen. “Lifeforms? What are we talking about here?” My voice drops to a frantic whisper, heart hammering against my ribs. “Flies or Godzillas?”

My pulse pounds as I brace myself, inhaling deeply, preparing to bury us under so many shields we’ll look like diamond-shelled turtles.

“Klendathians,” Dracoth growls, stepping forward. The massive doors groan, whirling open.

Inside. Rows upon rows of vats. A sickly green glow pulses from the chamber, casting the space in an eerie, faintly luminescent haze.

Metal stalks stretch from floor to ceiling filling the vast chamber.

They hold countless containers stacked with mechanical precision—layered one atop another in an endless, suffocating grid.

The utter scale is horrifying. Like we’re ants wandering into a putrid, metal jungle.

It’s what’s inside that churns my stomach.

Fetal-like figures curled and suspended in thick, green, viscous fluid.

Some tanks hold monstrous, failed experiments—limbs fused, missing, altered, extra, and grotesque proportions.

Wherever my eyes land, another heart-wrenching, deplorable sight awaits, another unimaginable combination that shouldn’t exist.

But that’s not the worst of it. I gag. My stomach lurches. Cold sweat beads down my back.

Some of them are children. Infants.

Those I turn away from. I can’t. I won’t. The sight is too cruel, too twisted.

“Arawnoth, let them be reborn in your divine image.” I whisper, hands clutching Ignixis’s ashes, the faint heat pressing against my palm—a small comfort in this waking nightmare.

Dracoth doesn’t stop. Doesn’t balk. He strides forward between the towering metallic columns, each step thudding with unspoken fury. Only his fuming eyes and rapid breaths betray the storm raging inside him. His gaze is locked ahead—to a raised platform bristling with deactivated terminals.

As we pass more of the tanks, I realize that most of the figures inside are healthy young Klendathian males. Curled up, they bob gently, suspended in the green fluid that both sustains and traps them. There’s an army of them being grown in this place, harvested like rotten fruits.

My throat tightens as I glance up at Dracoth, suddenly wishing I could see the man beneath the mask. Is this where he was born? Created? The thought sends a shiver down my spine. No friends. No family. Not even a childhood.

Just a weapon—a tool built by murder-bots, only to return and haunt them. Serves them right, the creepy sickos.

“So, this is where they grow those crazy bastards,” Drexios’s voice slices through the tension with all the subtlety of a root canal.

The rude prick saunters forward, stopping beside a vat, his lips curl into a grimace as he peers inside. “Well, blast me out a Mutalisk’s asshole—if this isn’t a young Omoth.”

He glances back, grinning like he just found a long-lost drinking buddy at the bar. “Hey, you lot!” He jerks his chin toward the trailing space-knights. “Tell me this isn’t the same idiot?”

The space-knights move hesitantly, masked faces sweeping across the grotesque sea of vats, muttering curses under their breath, wrist weapons poised.

A few approach Drexios, slow and measured, as if they’ve just walked onto the set of a zombie apocalypse movie. They lean in, their faces mere inches from the glass.

“Aye... aye!” A long brown-haired space-knight exclaims, recognition dawning on him. “That’s Omoth alright. But didn’t he get vaporized on Argon Six? Remember that voiding short-hopper?” He glances at a nearby soldier.

“Gods be good,” A red-haired space-knight mutters, placing an armored hand against the glass, the eerie green glow bathing their masks.

Then—the clone moves.

It unfurls.

SNAP.

A wet slap against the glass—blindingly fast.

My heart leaps, though not as far as Drexios and the others.

They curse, stumbling back, weapons raised. But Omoth the clone doesn’t attack. He just blinks, slow, eerily, eyes flicking between the shocked space-knights without a single hint of emotion.

Drexios leans forward cautiously, rapping his knuckles against the vat, moving as if worried Omoth might burst out to choke him to death.

One can dream.

But the clone barely reacts, content to watch Drexios with unsettling indifference. “Omoth always was as boring as a dying snarlbroc,” Drexios sneers, head tilting between the warriors like he’s waiting for them to agree. “Slow voider too. Got turned into goo.”

The space-knights chuckle, but the sound rings hollow, strained, the echoes swallowed by the sheer vastness of the chamber. They move away from the vat, but their gazes linger. Some wander deeper into the maze of metal stalks, their steps slowing, their muffled voices trailing off into silence.

I realize why.

They recognize more faces.

More friends.

Maybe even themselves.

A macabre museum of horrors, their camaraderie fades into an oppressive hush.

All except Dracoth.

He strides ahead, unwavering, his fuming red-silver gaze locked forward.

We reach the raised semicircle of terminals.

My nose wrinkles. The dust is so thick, a single sneeze could probably dislodge centuries of neglect.

Dracoth waves a hand over the consoles, seeking to activate them only for them to remain silent, dark.

His frustration, rage, and impatience are palpable through our bond, a twisting flame lashing against mine. But what does he expect? It’s obvious no one has touched these computers in years. Then a realization strikes me like a clipped nail.

“Who—or what—controls the vats?” I glance at the countless tubes snaking up the towering metal stalks, a sickly, tangled vineyard of depravity.

“They’re clones!” Razgor announces the freaking obvious, slicing through the tension like a giggling child at a funeral. He sweeps his wrist console over a nearby vat, eyes glued to the glowing blue runes.

Drexios’s head whips toward him, a sneer already curling his lips. “Of course, they’re clones, you voiding imbecile!” He throws up his hands. “What, you think this is a Scythian vegetable garden? Or do you need your little scanner to tell you the sky is voiding black too?”

“Ah... yes. Well, no actually.” Razgor stutters, noticing Drexios leering over him with a menacing snarl.

He inhales sharply, shoulders squaring before he continues.

“Now I’ve confirmed and logged it.” He lifts his wrist console, displaying flickering data.

“Besides... I’ve also ascertained that they are dying.

Their fluids aren’t being filtered. They’ll die of oxygen deprivation within the day. ”

“They’re dying?” I echo in disbelief.

So many—tens of thousands—about to drown in the very fluid that sustains them. It’s hard to believe looking at the fetal figures. They float languidly, almost peaceful in their grotesque sleep. Oblivious. They don’t know what they are. They don’t know they’re dying.

“I’m afraid so,” Razgor replies, drawing my attention back to his shaking head. “This whole facility has been shut down. It’s only thanks to Scythian ingenuity that they still live.” With pressed lips, he glances at a nearby tank.

Crap, we’ve caused this. When Aenarael trapped the Voidbringer.

My breath hitches, eyes snapping to Dracoth, a silent plea that he can fix this, that something can be done.

His masked visage tilts toward me—then shifts to Razgor. “Power the main controls and release them,” he growls, an order resounding like a war drum.