Page 62 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)

Yet, beneath the camaraderie, I detect their exhaustion. Their sluggish movements. The forced, desperate edge of their laughter. Warriors resigned to their fates—the courage of the condemned.

Finally, the vat chamber exit swooshes open, the sound is sweet honey to my ears. The frigid, cool air brushing over our scorched bodies, pushing back the stiffening, swirling steam. The chamber is a ruin—floor partially melted, collapsed columns, molten piles of droids smoldering in heaps.

Glancing over my shoulder, my fleeting hope is almost crushed beneath the weight of more droids. The corridor is thick with them. Their plasma cannons already glowing with ominous intent, their red lenses glinting beneath shadowed, flat heads fixated on us—life that dares to survive.

“ Ugh, ” Princesa groans, bringing her arms down.

Suddenly, metal screeches across metal. A thousand skittering droid legs, straining, failing to resist the crushing force pressing them against the walls.

“I swear on divine mother and father, I’m so sick of these annoying murder-bots!” Her fingers clench, nails digging into her trembling palms.

The droids jerk and spasm, their programming demanding our deaths. Still, they fire their weapons, despite limbs bending, twisting at odd angles. The blasts that don’t backfire hurtle mere inches before stopping uselessly against Princesa’s divine barriers.

Two of her barriers have sliced through the corridor, crushing the droids against either side.

I can only listen, the droids in the vat chamber demanding my attention.

A cacophony of straining servo mechanisms, spluttering.

Metal plates shrieking in protest until they buckle and snap.

Hissing hydraulics from skittering legs gouging the floor, desperate to escape the inescapable.

Then, from behind—silence.

Princesa resumes her walk, a loud, frustrated exhale leaving her.

We step backward, following in her wake.

Our side is still a frantic battle. Hundreds of droids form a semi-circle, raining blast after blast as we retreat through the door.

Plasma blasts slam against plasma shields with a deafening thoom, exploding in bursts of light, sending ripples of energy across our shields’ surfaces.

A dazzling display of blue sparks. Our shields flicker slightly under the sustained fire, the strain beginning to show.

Razgor struggles bravely. His body jerks with each impact.

Veins bulge in his neck, his arm trembling under the strain.

Sweat drips from his face, rasping gasps as he gulps scorched oxygen.

Even the ground beneath our boots cracks.

Tiny fractures from melting metal, running together, forming treacherous, sinking traps.

He will die here. They all will. Only I remain undiminished. A titan of war. The greatest of our blessed kin. An avatar of our vengeance.

We back into the corridor, giving us some respite, the pursuing droids obstructed by the doorway. Princesa’s divinity is evident all around us. Thousands of shattered droids are crushed and fused into the very metal of the walls, as if they were crafted from a junk heap of droid pieces.

Yet more droids come, an endless tide streaming from the labyrinthine passages. From the sides, back, and front, they come. The high-pitched crack-hiss continues to streak through the air. Our shields’ low, steady vibrational hum grows louder under the stress of each jarring impact.

“I... I can’t go on,” Razgor utters from singed lips, his trembling shield arm lowering. “I can barely lift my arm.” He blurts a weak, faded laugh.

“RAISE YOUR SHIELD, BERSERKER!” Drexios roars, spitting in his face. “BERSERKERS NEVER SURRENDER, NEVER DIE! NOT EVEN LITTLE SNIVELLING CUNTS LIKE YOU!”

“BERSERKERS NEVER SURRENDER, NEVER DIE!” The other six warriors roar in unison. Their arc blasters fill the halls with ozone and burning metal as their bolts smash into the oncoming horde.

Razgor straightens. His breathing is heavy and ragged, a defiant smile crossing his weary face. “Berserkers never surrender, never die!” He raises his sputtering plasma shield. The wall of brothers reforming.

Why should he die? For my curiosity? That’s why he’s here, nothing more. A waste of his talents. No, this is my burden. Not theirs.

Glancing over my shoulder, I see we’re perhaps halfway. The rooms we destroyed earlier, the terrible memories we can’t escape. Adjoining corridors now ooze hordes of droids. Princesa sweeps them aside, maintaining her graceful stride.

“Do try to keep up.”

Princesa’s earlier words—a challenge.

A challenge to follow. But I’m not the one who follows. I lead. It’s in my blood. As tainted as it is.

This is far enough. From here, I can hold them.

A droid’s blast slams into Razgor’s arm, launching it upward. His shield blinks out of existence as he stumbles backward.

I catch him. “GO!” I roar, hurling him bodily behind my hulking frame. “ALL OF YOU!” My voice thunders over the chaotic din, a deafening command that cannot be ignored.

Behind their shields, the warriors hesitate, exchanging wary glances. The weight of exhaustion is visible in their stance, the sag in their shoulders.

Tharok with the plasma-scorched pauldron, his warvisor snaps to mine, fingers tightening into fists. “We will die honorably with you, great War Chieftain.”

A heartbeat of silence. Pride floods through me as blue fire glints off his warvisor. The bravest and finest warriors in existence. But I will not be deterred. I will not be stopped.

“NOW!”

“Void that, boss!” Drexios snaps, his gaze fixated on the enemy, arc blaster still hissing over his shield. “I’m just getting warmed up.” He pats his pouch of grenades, smirking.

“NO!” I grip the latch of his half-cloak, tossing him behind me like a discarded toy. “YOU’RE IN MY WAY!”

The remaining berserkers nod once, slamming their fists to their chest plates in salute. “May you die a glorious death.” They echo in unison, scrambling backward, retreating quickly behind their shields.

“ARAWNOTH DEMANDS SACRIFICE!”

The Rush blazes through me, scorching through my veins like boiling poison.

My eyes weep silvery-crimson, the ethereal plumes curling through the air like ghostly smoke.

The world crystallizes—every motion, every breath, every shifting shadow sharpened into piercing clarity.

The droids raise their weapons, their movements sluggish, as if mired in honey, lost in the slow decay of time.

“Come back to me,” Princesa’s voice is low, cutting through the battle fury clouding my mind. She tilts her head forward, silver-red eyes burning through the haze. “Or be reborn in strength.”

Brutal. Beautiful.

She turns with effortless grace, striding down the corridor, her wavy blonde hair rippling behind her, black robes sweeping like the mantle of a goddess.

The females and my berserkers follow in her wake as azure glows all around, from a hundred shimmering bolts, casting vivid purple over the crumbling walls.

The droids surge forward from the intersecting corridors—a tide of skittering legs and hissing cannons, their pulsing cores flaring in the gloom.

They disgust me. Empty husks of metal, daring to challenge me.

If they could comprehend even a fraction of my fury, my hatred, the vengeance I will reap upon them, their mechanical hearts would stutter and fail.

I lunge without hesitation, the Rush driving me, my body a blur of raw speed, I’ve never known.

Plasma fire streaks past, some missing by mere inches, others slamming into my raised shield.

The force jolts my arm, sending a sharp reverberation through my frame.

Another impact. Then another. The shield flickers, sputters, and dies with a final shriek of energy.

But I do not falter. My teeth grind together, muscles coiled like arcweave cables stretched to the breaking point. I press forward.

The enemy is dense ahead, a wall of metal bodies packed so tightly they can scarcely maneuver.

I leap, vaulting over their sleek, flat heads, red sensor lenses tracking my ascent in slow, struggling arcs.

For a moment, the air holds me aloft. Then I plummet, boots first, slamming into the horde with the force of a falling meteor.

The impact shatters droids beneath me, sending a ripple through their ranks.

Limbs snap, torsos crumple—metallic shrieks filling the corridor as the tide reels from the shock.

A nearby droid lunges, its three-pronged clamp outstretched—pathetic.

A smirk tugs at my lips as my plasma claw hisses to life, the low hum a song of death.

With a guttural roar, I spin, my molten blades carving through armor like an arrohawk piercing the clouds.

Liquid metal spills from sundered torsos, gleaming rivulets cascading down their segmented bodies before they collapse in broken heaps.

The floor writhes with the dying—droids twitching, red lenses dimming as the last traces of corrupted energy drain from their husks. More press in, clambering over their fallen brethren in their profane quest to end me, heedless of their own destruction. Mindless. Unrelenting.

Fools.

I tower over them like a stampeding aurodon in their midst, an unstoppable force of nature—divine retribution.

I am upon them before they can react. A single, brutal kick caves in a droid’s chest plate, sending it hurtling into its allies.

They crash together in a tangled mass of flailing limbs and sparking circuits.

Clamps scrape against my thick armor, a bristling array of jerking limbs stabbing, grasping. They fail to pierce my father’s armor. Fail to hold me. They are nothing more than frail puffrios clinging to the hide of a hunting venefex.

My plasma claws carve through them, molten arcs of devastation.

My boot drives forward, caving in another sleek, flat dome.

Again. And again. The slaughter does not cease, nor do I.

My heart soars with the carnage, the Rush a wildfire burning through my veins, exalting in the destruction.

More droids pour in, filling the gaps as swiftly as I create them.

I welcome it.

With every strike, every rending claw, every crushing step, I climb higher, higher—unstoppable, divine in my fury. Silver-red smoke trails from my eyes, wafting through the superheated air as the battlefield drowns in fire and ruin.

“COME! COME AND BE SLAUGHTERED!” I roar, manic laughter spilling from between bared fangs.

My warvisor flashes with alerts—droids further back, raising their cannons. Their aim is reckless, desperate. Blasts rain down, some striking their own ranks, turning their metal frames into molten slag. Others whizz over their flat heads, hurtling toward my face.

Instinct takes over. My hands move in a blur, seizing the nearest droid, yanking it into my grasp.

It spasms, twitching as I wield it as a makeshift shield.

The incoming fire slams into its chassis, scorching through metal, the heat pulsing against my palms. What was once solid collapses into liquefied ruin, the frame disintegrating in my grip, molten rivulets pooling in the growing graveyard of its brethren.

I hurl the smoldering remnants like missiles. They crash into two advancing droids, their insect-like heads crumpling under the impact, red sensor lenses flickering stubbornly clinging to life I’ve already taken.

Clamps screech against my armor, scraping, clutching, seeking to overwhelm me. Sparks cascade around me as metal bodies press in, a metal tide desperate to drag me down, to force me to my knees. They cling to my scaled Sneachir cloak, a mass of writhing limbs weighing me down.

They seek submission.

But I will never submit. Never again.

“I am War Chieftain Dracoth,” I snarl, muscles coiling with unyielding strength. “True-born son of Gorexius and my noble mother. The greatest of our kind. Blessed by the Gods. Bonded to Princesa. Disciple of Ignixis. I WILL NOT YIELD.”

With a violent twist, I tear free, my cloak shredding beneath the strain. The clinging droids are flung from me, hurtling into their allies like flailing wreckage. They collapse in a whirlwind of screeching metal before shattering into a hundred broken pieces.

“War Chieftain,” Corsark’s thoughts carve through the haze of my bloodlust. “Scanners detect movement. They’re approaching our fleet, a trickle before an unstoppable storm.” His concern is palpable, reverberating through the connection.

My plasma claw sweeps outward, molten blades slicing through three droids with effortless precision. Their scorched frames collapse, severed in a single motion. “Hold until Princesa docks. No matter the cost, Corsark.”

“Understood.”

The response barely leaves him before a blinding flash erupts above my shoulder.

A concussive force slams into me, the air splitting with the shriek of energy.

My father’s armor—Ignixis’s final gift—reacts in an instant, a translucent plasma barrier flaring to life.

The searing blast dissipates inches from my face, but the heat licks at my skin, burning the side of my neck.

Snarling, I retaliate with a brutal kick, my boot colliding with a droid’s chest. The impact sends it rocketing through the air, its shattered body crashing into the mass of its kin with a cacophonous clamor.

The corridor is a graveyard now. A battlefield choked with the broken and the burned. The ruined droids form an ankle-deep wall around me, a barricade of smoldering wreckage threatening to impede the beautiful carnage.

I smirk.

And leap.

Propelled through the air, I crash down deeper into the enemy ranks, boots crushing fragile frames beneath me. They falter, flailing, sensor lenses whirring in frantic motion. But before they can react, my plasma claws carve a merciless arc, molten edges rending through arcweave and wire.

They stagger toward me, limbs twitching, movements sluggish. Sputtering mannequins, floundering in the face of inevitability.

Pathetic.

Feeble.

They cannot stop me.

I stand amidst the slaughter, blood singing with unchained fury, silver-red smoke trailing from my eyes as I bellow into the chaos—

“I AM THE FIRE! I AM THE END!”