Page 83 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)

Dracoth

Fight for

“ Y eah, I think you should keep piloting for now, babes. ” Princesa mutters, her misty silver-crimson eyes reflecting the pulsing white mass on the navigational display.

I feel the ripple of doubt and fear from her side of our bond, but within me, there is only Rush.

It surges through my veins like molten lava, burning with fury and murderous intent.

The warning alerts whine incessantly, each flash of red signaling another ship detected—another piece of an endless storm of light and clamor.

My eyes flick across the console, struggling to process the sheer scale of what lies before us.

Even my tactical mind strains under the weight of the numbers.

Millions? No. Billions.

A vast horde beyond imagining.

Some blips vanish as quickly as they appear, the flashing indicators of weapons discharge confirming what I already know. A battle—Krogoth’s alliance with the Nebians—an uprising against the Scythians’ murderous stranglehold on our people. A chance to win our freedom.

A chance to change our fates. To cleanse our sins in blood and death.

Our blood. Their death.

My hands tighten over the controls, frustration gnawing at me like a wyrm burrowing through my skull.

What is the situation? Where are the battle lines?

Where should I strike? The navigational display was never designed to handle such an overwhelming mass of ships—instead of individual markers, all I see is an impenetrable field of white light, a shapeless storm of war.

“Corsark, try to hail any ships,” I order, my voice a steady rumble beneath the raised voices of warriors and the garbled static haunting our comms.

“I... I can’t,” Corsark replies, his usual composure shaken. “Something is disrupting communications.”

The whispering static surges, curling through the air like a phantom’s breath. Amusement flickers at its edges, a distant, mocking laughter that presses into the recesses of my mind.

A chill cuts through the heat of my skin, sliding down my spine like an icy blade.

The Voidbringer.

Its presence lingers—unseen but suffocating. The murmurs in our ears slither through the comms like a miasma settling over us, an intangible toxin waiting to corrupt. It seeks to poison our hearts with fear.

But such weakness has no place in me.

My heart is a furnace of rage, a burning forge of brutal vengeance. Every beat pumps lifeblood for my people’s rebirth.

“Warvisors,” I command, sliding my own into place with a practiced motion. The mask seals around my face with a soft hiss. Below me, Princesa frowns, her annoyance obvious.

Then, my mind implodes with too much knowing.

The warvisor pricks my consciousness like a thousand sharpened needles. A tidal wave of awareness floods my mind, a violent surge of raw data and impossible scale.

I flinch. My skull splits with pain.

Too much. Too fast.

But I force myself to endure it. To see.

The battlefield stretches before me in its true, unfiltered horror.

Billions of vessels.

Seeker drones swarm like a metal plague, darting between the looming shapes of thousands of Voidbanes. Above Argon-Six, hundreds of Battlebarges shift into position, their payloads of droids ready for orbital drop.

And across the gulf of space, the defenders return fire.

Not just Nebians. Klendathians. My kin.

Two hundred Scythian Battlebarges line up beside their once-sworn enemies. Among them, the Nebian fleet holds its ground—nearly a thousand Starcruisers, backed by twice as many smaller Starfighters. Tens of thousands of Battlesuits brace for engagement, their pilots ready to fight, to die.

And at the flanks, scattered like scavengers awaiting a feast, lie mercenary ships of every design—a motley mix of desperate fighters and opportunists seeking to carve their own place in the chaos to come.

Has such a powerful force ever been assembled before?

Under normal circumstances, a Nebian war fleet of this size would be unstoppable—a force capable of conquering entire galaxies with ease, their superior technology crushing all opposition. But against this?

Against the relentless, churning war machine of the Scythians—an empire of hundreds of conquered worlds, each bent to a singular, tireless purpose?

This is not just a fleet.

It is a tide.

An unending tsunami of metal, surging forward, threatening to wash away all life in its path.

“Oh, we’re going to need more Elerium for this lot, boys,” Drexios muses, his voice maddeningly light despite the monumental force looming ahead. His hands flit across the weapon controls, his claws clacking rhythmically against the display. “A lot more.”

Princesa huffs impatiently, shifting in my lap. Her glossy blonde hair catches the pulsing lights from the display as she glances back at the others, brow furrowing.

“What’s happening, babes?” she demands, shifting her weight. “Why’s everyone gone all quiet—like we just crashed a funeral?”

Without hesitation, she reaches for my warvisor, fingers grazing the edges in a feeble attempt to tear it from my face.

“Let me see.”

I indulge her pointless demand. Removing the blessed warvisor, I place it over her face, the sheer size of it swallowing her entire dainty head.

She tilts her chin as if that will somehow help.

“Your creepy, perv mask doesn’t work. I can’t see a thing,” she mutters, her voice muffled in a way that is almost comical. Then, she sniffs loudly, wrinkling her nose.

“When was the last time you washed this thing, anyway? Smells like moldy cheese.”

I snatch it back, the familiar seal hissing as it locks into place over my face.

Even now, she grows distracted?

“Each warvisor only serves its owner,” I remind her, my voice steady. “You must complete the Proving, as the human female Rocks did, to earn the right.”

I peer down at her—not to shame, but to ground her in the truth.

She is not yet all-powerful.

There is still much to learn, much to prove.

And if I can remind her of that, if I can pull her back from the precipice, perhaps I can reclaim my flawed, beautiful, clever, and endlessly amusing Mortakin-Kis. Not this arrogant, reckless, self-proclaimed Goddess she is determined to become.

“I already know all that,” she mutters, irritation creasing her face. “I just wanted to see the murder-bots, not get another lecture about how great Queen Bitch is.”

I watch her for a moment before turning back to the viewport.

“You will see them soon,” I growl. A solemn promise.

Beyond the swirling churn of hyperspeed, faint specks begin to emerge from the abyss—distant, glinting fragments of gray-black metal, simmering with red light, reflecting the roaring crimson sun of the Argon system.

Drawing closer, they grow. Taking shape, the full force revealing in chilling detail.

A solid wall of swarming metal, surging forward, its mass stretching across the void. Searing blue plasma pulses from them in billowing, unrelenting storms.

Not a fleet. But a storm-front of war. A monsoon of destruction. A sky without stars, only the glow of death.

And we are racing straight into its jaws.

My fingers dance across the ship’s controls as the whine of the engines fades. The swirling kaleidoscopic streaks of hyperspeed slow down, morphing into the distant stars—pinpricks of light in an abyss.

To starboard, Argon-Six looms. Once an industrial core world of the Nebians, now a war-ravaged husk. Perhaps it was beautiful once. But now? Now it burns. A scarred planet wrapped in obsidian clouds, drowning under a ceaseless deluge of acid rain.

Half its axis is misshapen, fractured by relentless bombardment and seismic weapons.

Vast canyons stretch for miles, wounds carved deep into its crust like a skull caved in by the swing of a colossal hammer—a hammer of fire.

Even from this distance, I see rivers of flame cutting through the gloom of its dying atmosphere.

We approach from behind the vast Scythian force, having come from their territory. Too close. With a dozen Voidbanes and a million-strong Seeker drone swarm still in pursuit, we risk being caught between two unstoppable forces.

The ship groans under my command as I shift course, the arcweave hull shuddering like the bones of an ancient beast. The shields flare to life, casting shimmering blue light across the vast black marble interior.

I fire thrusters in a radial-out burn, hauling the ship toward the zenith vector—above the swarm, above death itself. Only my kin’s lines offer salvation.

A rhythmic rat-tat echoes through the ship as debris pelts against our hull. My gaze flicks to the viewport, instincts sharpening at the sudden impacts. Are we under attack? No—just fragments of metal drifting aimlessly.

Not just metal.

Wreckage.

A vast graveyard of shattered drones and broken ships sprawls before us, their ruined forms tumbling through the void like discarded offerings to some uncaring god.

“Past battles?” I murmur, frowning.

“Our metal friends don’t waste anything,” Drexios sneers, his masked face turning toward the viewport. “They’d melt down every last scrap, like good little wyrms turning over soil. No, this is recent. And it’s all theirs.” He barks a short, sharp laugh. “Looks like they got a right whipping.”

I zoom in through my warvisor, cycling between multiple vision spectrums. He’s right.

The wreckage bears the telltale marks of precision laser strikes—clean, searing cuts.

Not the melted, reshaped pools from plasma fire.

And among the drifting ruins, there are only Seeker drones and the blackened remnants of Voidbanes—granite tombstones in a graveyard of metal.

What could have done this?

“So, we just find whatever did this, and we win, right, babes? ” Princesa’s voice is light, glimmering with hopeful expectation. She leans against me, stretching languidly, her limbs sprawling like a venefex waking from a nap.

But this wreckage? It’s not hope. It’s a warning.