Page 86 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)
Dracoth
The Future
“ B reak off attack!” I roar, fingers slamming over the ship’s controls in a desperate effort to reverse course.
The Ravager’s Ruin shudders violently as I wrench the ship around, the sheer force of the reversal groaning through megatons of arcweave. The viewport lurches, twisting in a blur of motion, but it may be too late.
The trap has been sprung.
Four Voidbanes awaken from their slumber, hulking masses of blackened metal rising from the wreckage like hemovyrns stirring from their catacombs to devour our flesh. Their thrusters burst to golden life, shields flaring into existence, streaking toward us like predators locked onto prey.
Not just them.
Tens of thousands of Seeker drones spill from behind the drifting debris, their forms emerging in synchronized waves. Silent. Calculated. A perfect ambush.
Clever. Brutal. Nearly fatal.
“Well, smack my ass and call me a Snarlbroc,” Drexios hoots, his hands flinching from the weapon controls. “We’re hard and ready to unload, and these sneaky bastards are playing dead like a ten-credit whore with a laser cannon up—”
“Eww. You are so fucking gross, Drex-iot,” Princesa cuts him off with a groan, cupping Todd’s head segment between her hands. “Don’t let the disgusting man’s foul language corrupt your pure heart.”
The comms burst with another wave of static, but beneath the garbled noise, so faint I might have imagined it—my name.
“Dracoth...”
Icy tendrils crawl over my skin taking root in my mind, seeding doubt in my thoughts. This overwhelming force, this all-knowing intellect... can it even be defeated?
I grit my teeth and crush the hesitation before it can take hold, drowning it beneath the ceaseless fury burning in my chest. I vowed to avenge Ignixis and all the lost females.
For every twisted horror the Voidbringer has wrought, I will answer with fire and blood.
If there is a way, I will find it. I will tear through every circuit, shatter every polymer frame, pulverize every last fragment of code that the Voidbringer clings to.
The chaos around me fades into the background, my Rush-fueled senses blazing like rivers of fire beneath the Peaks of Scarn.
I push the ship to maximum non-hyperspeed, twisting and weaving through the storm of incoming fire.
Plasma blasts streak past the viewport in blinding arcs of azure, momentarily illuminating the black marble interior like a hundred miniature suns.
Others crash into our shields, the impact sending shockwaves through the hull, shrill generator wailing in protest. The black marble beneath my fingers vibrates from the force, a relentless percussion of destruction.
Four Voidbanes and a horde of Seeker drones cling to us like a pack of hydraliths sinking their fangs into struggling prey’s flesh, savoring the meal to come.
Had I hesitated—had I been a second slower in recognizing the trap—we’d already be wreckage, swallowed whole by their metal jaws.
Instead, they pursue us at the extreme edge of their weapon range, snapping at our heels, waiting for a mistake.
“Little ol’ me, spoilt for choice,” Drexios muses, fingers flying over the weapon controls.
The ship shudders as our cannons respond in kind, unleashing a storm of molten plasma. The rhythmic thud-thud-thud of artillery fire vibrates through the hull, a satisfying counterpoint to the chaos outside.
“Shields at seventy-four percent, War Chieftain,” Corsark calls out, gripping the terminal for support as another barrage slams into us.
Will we reach the defenders in time?
Another burst of static crackles over the comms.
“Dracoth...”
The sound lingers, scratching at the edge of my mind, followed by the faintest trace of laughter—mocking, taunting.
The defenders? No. This has become a desperate retreat.
Below us, the bloodied Nebian fleet no longer cuts through the Scythian ranks with brutal efficiency.
Their momentum has been lost, their forces whittled down by the surging metal cages of the Voidbringer’s swarm.
Now cautious, they fight from the edges, striking and retreating, scavenging whatever small victories they can.
It will not be enough.
The Klendathian Battlebarges mimic their tactics, though their formation is tighter, lacking the darting speed. But the mercenaries? They barely commit to the battle at all, lingering at the flanks, striking only at stray drones.
The Voidbringer adapts.
No longer attempting to grasp at Nebian ships, it reforms its vast forces into a solid wall, driving them toward Argon’s crimson sun.
It looms behind them, burning like the molten heart of Arawnoth.
Like a wave cresting in the distance, the Scythian metal tsunami expands, curling inward, swallowing space itself.
It is not simply crushing them.
It is herding them.
My gaze hardens. Our salvation is being swallowed below, devoured by a tide of Seeker drones and Voidbanes locking into formation. A rolling tide, washing all toward the sun at frightening pace. There will be no escape. Not for us. Not for anyone.
Do I sacrifice the Shorthairs to buy us an opening?
No. Offload the females. A savage last stand. A glorious death. The only choice left.
“Corsark—”
A voice cuts through my warvisor, calm but heavy with finality.
“Ravager’s Ruin, High Chieftain Krogoth commands you to disperse. For your own protection.”
Retreat? The word burns like acid.
He sees it too. The inevitable. The crushing fate awaiting us.
Still, every fiber of my being rejects it. The molten fury clenching my fists in rage. The desire to lash out, the desire to kill, burning through my veins like boiling lava. Withdrawal? I hate it! It’s an anathema to everything I stand for, everything I am—Arawnoth’s chosen, a titan of war.
“ Cowardice? ” I project, my claws digging into the throne’s armrests, the obsidian cracking under the pressure.
A slight hesitation. “Hope.” The response is laced with amusement. With anticipation.
Hope. Hope for death delayed?
But there is something in his voice that stirs my curiosity. Gritting my teeth, I wrench the ship sharply upward, the hull groaning in protest. The blazing ruby sun of Argon slips out of sight as I redirect our course.
Plasma fire thunders through the void, colliding with our shields, forcing the generators to scream under the onslaught.
Then something happens—a shift that undulates in the recesses of my mind, sending the hairs on my neck standing on end. Princesa senses it too. She gasps, a hand flying to her mouth.
Space itself ripples, as if the Gods have dragged their claws across the fabric of reality. From the heart of the embattled Klendathian fleet, it begins. Vortexes erupt—not the Voidbringer’s mockery of nature, but the Gods’ divine fury given form.
They bloom in the abyss—not darkness, but pulsing maelstroms of energy, swirling with the hues of creation.
They open like unfurling flowers, their cores alight with the vibrant glow of nebulae, their edges rimmed in violet light.
A Klendathor eclipse, a dance of annihilation.
The Scythian swarm doesn’t just fall into them—it is pulled.
As if the universe itself has deemed them unworthy.
The first vortex tears through a Voidbane.
The obsidian leviathan shudders, its shields flaring white-hot in protest—then contorts, its vast hull twisting like wire pulled by Arawnoth’s hand.
For a heartbeat, it hangs there, a grotesque sculpture of warped metal, before imploding into a singularity no larger than a warrior’s fist. The shockwave ripples outward, vaporizing a thousand Seeker drones in its wake.
The second vortex opens amidst a million drones.
They swarm, they writhe—they die.
The violet light licks at their metal hides, not melting, but unmaking.
Drones are drawn inexorably toward the swirling singularity, their cores flaring in one last, desperate attempt to escape the inescapable.
Piece by piece, metal is stripped away, oval frames crushed and contorted as they are dragged toward extermination.
Hundreds of thousands collide in their frantic retreat, compressed and shredded by forces beyond comprehension, their remains funneled into the vortex like a shattered hull venting into the void.
The vortexes pulse. A corridor of pure annihilation carves through the Scythian ranks. A path of divine judgment.
Princesa’s fingers dig into my arm, her voice hushed, filled with something approaching reverence. “What is this...?”
“Krogoth Star Eyes,” Drexios rasps, for once his tone laced with something resembling respect. “I nearly smashed his arrogant nose in once, but he was—oh, so fast. Oh, so deadly. He always thought he was better than us.” A short, sharp laugh. “Maybe he was right.”
This is his power? This is what consumed my father? The power to unmake reality itself.
Even with Arawnoth’s might, could I defeat him?
My gaze drifts to Princesa, her silver-crimson eyes locked on the viewport, her lips twisting into a sneer. The future I promised her, the empire I swore to carve for her, now fades like the Scythians dissolving in the void.
Another mangled audio burst rips through the comms—no longer a whisper at the edge of awareness, but a jolt of static and needles pricking at my ears. A harsh, synthetic voice struggles to form a single word.
“ANOMALY!”
The Voidbringer cannot compute what defies logic. What transcends the known universe.
The power of the Gods.
Good. Let it suffer.
For the first time, the Scythian forces falter, recoiling like a hand scorched by fire. They move with impossible synchronization, breaking like a school of fish in the abyss, fleeing the celestial maelstroms tearing through their ranks.
Their tsunami collapses inward, folding into itself.
Half their number—gone.
Some are shattered husks, drifting lifelessly through the void. Others are lost to the spiraling singularities, their existence erased.