“Don’t sell yourself short, Clara,” I said as I put my arm around her, as Xara turned in her chair, posture perfect as she folded her hands neatly in her lap.
“In truth, I require all the power you both possess to ensure the device functions. Alyra controls the hard, direct forces, the directly physical, while Clara, your biokinetic gift is the soft, indirect force.” Xara raised her hands and fitting them together, twining her fingers. “In total, your powers present the complete Sphere of Balance.” Her index fingers slid together to a point as she turned her hands towards me. “And you, David Briggs, are a soul dragon. You can provide a power I never could have imagined, the spiritual power that intertwines the halves of the Sphere.”
We three looked at one another, nodding, and I turned to Xara. “You point out what we have to do, and we’ll make your device work, no problem.”
Turner blinked a bit at the metaphysics of it all, but let out a grin, thumbing at himself with his stolen pulse laser over his shoulder. “And what about us, uh, not so magical types?” Tulip nodded, leaning against Turner, idly twirling a pistol on a finger.
“Your help is as critical as theirs,” Xara explained, spreading her hands in an open gesture. “You dealt heavy losses to the fleet with at Exo, especially when the planetoid exploded with both dreadnoughts docked there for repairs.”
Turner let out a cheer and a dance at that news, forcing Xara to pause politely while he got his deserved celebration out of the way. “As I was getting to, while our combined offense will clear the skies, I calculate that Leonis IV’s defenses will be reduced by thirty-seven percent due to damage from the conflict. If we are to truly save Leonis, we need the Resistance to push forward. With us being adjacent to free space, even a token starship presence will be sufficient to keep the Matriarchy deterred long enough for us to repair the defenses.”
“If you need ships, missy,” Turner replied as he looked around the room, “just point me at a hyperspace transmitter, and I’ll get them. Even if I have to chew out every knock-kneed Resistance pencil pusher at Command to do it!”
Tulip nodded, smiling at the ex-Matriarch as her tail swished. “And I think you can best use me on a terminal myself.” She leaned a hand on her hip as she holstered her gun. “If I know Matriarchy protocol, the entire security fleet is tied into the planetary network, right? You know, the one I hacked into to break into here?”
Xara smiled at the catwoman serenely. “Please, Null-K, work your magic. A sudden, surprising breakdown of various ships’ defensive systems would increase the success of our initial assault astronomically.” She gestured to the bank of terminals Xara and I had wound up against during our battle. “And you will also find the hyperspace transmitter in that part of the laboratory as well, Turner. Thank you for your help.”
Tulip rubbed her hands eagerly as she bounded over to the computers, while Turner scratched at his crewcut. “Hey, Xara, no need to thank us. It’s what we do.” He started to stomp over to the communicator. “Oh!” He turned around and grinned at her. “Welcome to the team!”
Xara lowered her gaze humbly and nodded. “I only hope so.”
“No, there’s no hoping to it,” I added, holding my hand out to her, Alyra and Clara by my side and smiling. “And it’s not just welcome to the team, Xara. It’s welcome to the family.”
She looked up at me, our eyes locking for a long moment, a wild mixture of emotions playing across her grey eyes before settling into that wonderful serenity again. Taking my hand, she rose as I tugged her upward. “Then let us not tarry.” She turned towards the blasted door. “We have a world to free.”
Alyra and Clara started after their former and now present sister, but I stopped after a step and raised my hands. “Wait. There’s just one thing we need to do first.” The three winged women stopped and turned, looks of confusion on their face, so to clarify the matter, I gestured down at my mostly naked body.
“I would really like to have some clothes before we go save the world if it’s not too much to ask.”
30
Pro tip: You don’t need clothes to channel your draconic magic into a giant death wand, especially if three fantastically hot women, two of which you’re actively sleeping with, insist that you don’t.
With my request patently denied, Xara led Alyra, Clara, and me through the ruptured door and into another research lab that I realized I recognized. Robotic arms were working feverishly on a large spire of bronze and crystal, the one that had been in the background of the transmission Xara had sent when she’d threatened us on our jump to the Leonis system. Now that I saw the scene in real life, without the distraction of a very cross and beautiful woman in the way, it was plain that this was exactly what Xara had implied.
It was a giant Wander, sans the grip and trigger mechanism. Instead, around the base of the weapon were four raised, circular platforms that reminded me of Star Trek transporter pads than anything else. Each pad was attached to the Siege Wander by virtue of bundles of wires and tangles of electrical conduits. It didn’t take a magitech engineer to tell that these were both jury-rigged and experimental, while the Wander itself looked mostly finished. Well, if you discounted the robots still frantically welding crystals and engraved bronze plates into place.
“Please, everyone, take a position on one of the mana-gathering platforms,” Xara intoned politely. “Alyra, if you could stand upon the right-most pad, and Clara, you on the left.” She smiled and bowed her head to me. “And you, master, stand here between the two, as the fulcrum point of their magic.”
I frowned vaguely at the word, Clara and Alyra both giving me a questioning look, but a moment of asking Xara’s memories fresh in my mind put me at ease. The Zandarans were a deeply philosophical people, replete with monasteries devoted to the study of various schools of thought, and to Xara, ‘master’ was meant as a title of a superior or teacher.
“It’s okay,” I told the others. “It doesn’t mean, uh, what I know you’re thinking.”
Xara tilted her head, one brow arching imperceptibly. “I must ask later what it is you are thinking, my sisters, but we have no time for such things right now.” She smiled softly and gestured again to the pads. “Please. I will begin to do the final preparations. All you will need to do is focus when I say so, concentrate on the essence of the magic inside of you. Leave the rest to me.”
I took the initiative, stepping on the indicated platform, Clara close behind me with Alyra taking up her spot last. Glancing over at Xara as she tapped swiftly at her wrist tablet, I said, “Can you open up some intercom channels with Tulip and Turner?”
“Of course, master.” She tapped a corner of her tablet, and the crackle of speakers came on overhead. “We will need precise coordination to have the maximum effectiveness for this gambit. Even a second of deviation off of our intended course of action may allow the fleet to respond to our assault. If even one of the capital ships escapes into hyperspace, it could jeopardize everything.”
I could hear the grin of confidence in Tulip’s voice as she purred, “As you might have noticed by now, Xara, we don’t fail when the chips are down. I have access points open to the entire fleet’s tactical computers. Give me a mark, and I’ll inject a modified Stutter Virus into all their systems. From there, you’ll have exactly point-seven seconds with zero shield coverage, with intermittent openings for another two-point-three seconds.”
“And clap yourself on the back, friend David,” Turner added, his boisterous tones almost blowing out the speakers. “You must have impressed Ferria because when I got on the horn here, I got an immediate response from the Blue Skies and seven other Synatan ships. Seems someone sent them a coded message yesterday that Leonis IV was about to be liberated, and the dragon of legend needed every hand on deck to secure that liberation.”
I grinned broadly. “See, folks? This is why you put faith into people. When you do, they can do some fucking amazing things. How soon will they be able to show up for the party, Turner?”<
br />
“Five minutes tops,” he replied. “They were waiting in an adjacent system, hiding in an asteroid belt, until they got the final call. So, Ms. Xara, how does this fit into your timetable?”
The crystals on Xara’s Cestari and, well, I still didn’t know the official name of the shitkickers of doom, glowed softly as her grey eyes flitted across her screen with ever-increasing speed. “Running all possible permutations of attack plans and comparing them on an index of maximum damage for minimum loss of life for the Resistance, we will unleash a staggered attack in three minutes and seventeen seconds. Tulip, please set the mark for your electronic infiltration for that time.”
“Marked!” the catwoman cried with glee over the intercom.
I nodded, seeing how this would play out from there. “Turner, get the Synatans moving, and then get back on the comms, see if you can get more reinforcements coming after that.”
“You see already the course of action, master,” Xara said with a serene smile. “I have already timed the automated defenses to begin their barrage the moment Tulip’s virus goes into effect. Then you three must power the Wander exactly point-three seconds after the initial barrage.”
Alyra’s eyes lit up with understanding, as she said exactly what I was thinking as well, “Precisely the window between all the munitions hitting home but before the shields come back up. That will allow the magic from the Wander to take advantage of any hull breaches or damaged armor. Maximum penetration.”
“Indeed, sister.” Xara took in a short, controlled breath. “Anything that survives will be left in confusion, expecting continued assaults from the planet, and just as their guard begins to drop—”
“BOOM!” Turner shouted. “The heroic Synatans jump in from the edge of orbit and pick off the stragglers!”
“Dead on, buddy.” While I didn’t have a magically-enhanced super-brain like Xara, I was getting pretty damn good at keeping time in my brain, and I was counting off the seconds towards the big show. The dragon roared and paced in my mind, tired from the battle with and inside Xara, but eager to burn down the enemy above us. “If I have any question, it’s that if this thing goes off right now, it’s going to blow your roof off, Xara.”
Clara giggled at that. “It could be argued that she can afford a new roof in this situation, darling, but it might reduce our stopping power a bit.”
In answer to our question, the Illuminator tapped her screen once. The robotic arms pulled away from the giant Wander, and a series of curved, bronze bars studded with crystals whirred down into place above the tip of the thing, configuring into a roughly circular shape thanks to the mechanical arms attached to them.
“It would indeed, Clara.” Xara nodded. “And I believe we would all wish to watch the High Priestess’s instruments of tyranny fall before your combined powers, so this spatial tunnel should accommodate both things.” She shook her head sadly as the portal sparked above us, energy coalescing between the crystals to form what looked like a soap bubble reflecting a view of the starfield above Leonis. “If only the power requirements weren’t astronomical, it could revolutionize interstellar travel. Oh well, there is always further research.”
Through the tunnel, I could see the glittering, white forms of the Matriarchy fleet. There were no more of Esterra dreadnoughts, but there were a few more Tierra battleships, and plenty of frigates, interceptors, and fighter carriers lazily hanging in orbit. They were about to get a very rude awakening though.
The minutes ticked by, and I knew it was time even before Xara’s sudden sharp call. “Now!” she cried, and from there, it all went off like clockwork. In the blink of an eye, the space around the ships rippled almost imperceptibly as their shields all flickered out of existence. That shimmer was followed immediately by three dozen orbiting gun emplacements and countless ground-based weapons unleashing a volley of beams, blasts, railgun slugs, and missiles onto the hapless starships. It was like I was getting the best view possible of the most extravagant Fourth of July fireworks show ever, except in space.
But I couldn’t take it in quite yet. I heard Xara’s intake of air, about to call for our magic, and I was already building the power inside me, my dragon’s spiritual roar matched by my own. As Xara made the call, red-gold flames erupted around me, the pad itself serving as a focus for my power, as Clara and Alyra each summoned up their magic. Clara’s golden light surged through the pad under her feet, and Alyra’s pure white power burst forth and down, all three magics spiraling through the magic sigils and crystals of the Siege Wander.
The entire thing shuddered from the massive surge of magical energy focused through it, and for a split-second, I wondered if the thing would just explode from the strain. But I pushed that worry away immediately, confident in Xara’s genius, and I wasn’t disappointed.
We were all blown clear off our feet by the tremendous pulse of magic that burst out of the Wander’s tip, red, gold, and silver beams of energy swirling together into one coherent stream. The mangled fleet, ships still exploding from the last few missiles and munitions that were striking home, just wasn’t ready for the beam of unadulterated power that burst through the spatial tunnel, striking a limping Tierra dead on and rupturing it like a tin can. As soon as the beam punched through the battleship, it exploded into a hundred smaller beams, forming a swirling web of destruction.
Picking myself up off my feet, I watched in awe at the tremendous expression of our combined magic. There was barely anything left in the skies above Leonis IV but a few smaller ships which had been lucky and quick enough to outmaneuver the onslaught, but even they seemed badly damaged. All the big ships though, they had been massive sitting ducks for our sneak attack, and especially for the spiraling, seeking beams of magical power.
“Now, if that isn’t the power of love,” I said with a faint grin, “I don’t know what is.”
Needless to say, there wasn’t much left for the Synatans to pick off, but to see their small fleet jump into orbit was a relief, a flight of guardian angels to watch over us while we finished our work here on the ground.
And finishing that job took a good week of constant action to finish the job we started. It was all, as strange as it sounds for me to say, busy work. With Xara on our side, as we had planned all along, the Resistance could track all the remaining Quibs on the planet, had access to all the weapons, armor, and equipment that formerly belonged the Matriarchy, while simultaneously cutting those same Quibs off from their own resources.
Plazzio came to present himself to us during that week, having heard through his beloved stone that we were freeing the whole world. Though he remained steadfast in his pacifist beliefs, it only made me respect him more when he offered his magic for us to use in any way possible to end the conflict quicker. Between the planetary security grid and Plazzio’s terrakinetic powers, well, it really wasn’t fair.
It didn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that a good half of the Quib forces surrendered as soon as they realized what had happened. Of that other half, a good chunk gave up the fight soon after, with only a small contingent of hardcore Matriarchy supporters holding out. We took care of them though, leaving us with a mission accomplished. In the aftermath, the big lug of a Quib got taken in by Ferria, Quar, and her miners, no doubt to form the core of a mining guild the likes of with will never be seen in the galaxy again.
It looked like Leonis IV would wind up in good hands, even if Xara was rather insistent that she come with us. As she had put it to me, she had spent her entire life either in monasteries training her body, universities training her mind, or in this research station, all insulated from the real world. This was her chance to live, to put all that training and knowledge to good use, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to deny her that.
Now, in the last few days, the first contingents of a small-but-feisty Resistance fleet pulled from a cross-section of systems across free space arrived, reinforcing the defenses of the planet. It even turned out Captain Krane and Ferria really wer
e sisters after all. Who knew?
I was thinking about this as I stood at the observation window of the Meridian Spaceport, the transfer point and space dock closest to Xara’s research tower. Now that the planet was secure, the Orion was getting an overdue round of repairs and, while we had the resources, upgrades. Down in the bay, overseeing the work, was Turner, not willing to let anyone touch his baby without his direct supervision. If you added his actual children and his bevy of bombs, Turner had more children than sense, a thought that made me laugh under my breath.
“What I can’t believe is that he managed to convince you to install the Siege Wander alongside the main gun, Xara,” Tulip purred, clinging close to me. Her gaze was directed past me and Clara, who was clinging to my other side, to the bespectacled woman, her suit’s wrist tablet detached in her hand.
She peeked up over the edge of it, a serene smile on her face. “I would be remiss if I didn’t ensure that my savior did not have a ship capable of the tasks ahead.” Turning on her heel, every move showing a precise economy of motion that still impressed me a week later, Xara shone that smile at not just Tulip, but Clara and Alyra as well, my Wing going through an inventory of our armory. “Though the rescue of Leonis IV has struck the first blow for freedom across the galaxy, every step from here will be harder. The universe thrives on balance, and every force creates an opposing counterforce.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Of course, the true riddle is if you, master, are the force … or the counter force to the High Priestess.”
Alyra scoffed, putting her tablet away. “While I respect your wisdom, Xara, that isn’t much of a riddle.” She pushed herself up from the cushy seat she had curled up to work, standing between Clara and Xara. “The Matriarchy has dominated the galaxy for centuries, while Draconis has just awakened, choosing David as his instrument. David is obviously the counterforce.” After glancing between the two taller women, she puffed herself up just a little.
Star Conqueror: Recompense: An Epic Space Harem Adventure Page 23
