by Bruce Marcom
They drop out of light speed and collision alarms immediately begin blaring as the ship takes an impact on the starboard then again on the port side. The battle station shakes slightly. On the large wide screen there is an epic ship battle involving hundreds of thousands of ships fighting over the entire area of space surrounding the planet.
“REPORT!”
42 says, “Two battleships collided into us and were destroyed upon impact on our shields. No damage. Scanners are picking up an Undead invasion force—5,460 Undead Carriers, a few million Undead fighters, suicide bombers, ship breachers, and troop transports. Elemental Battleships are either destroyed or covered with breachers and most likely taken over by Bone Warriors.”
“Legions 1 and 2, take out all of the Battleships. 3 and 4, go down to the capital city and kill any troop transports or battleships attacking the city. Launch all 10,000 fighters and cover the capital; focus on Bone Warrior transports or groupings with strafing runs. Use plasma bombs when possible. Fire all weapon batteries at will. Move the ship down to the surface and place us over the capital. General Pace, get ready for troop deployment with Undead gear, plasma grenades, and flame throwers.” Eve issues commands quickly and forcefully, leaving no room for argument or hesitation.
“Roger that.”
“Roger that.”
“Roger that.”
“Understood.”
“General Pace, we going to be dropping the Marines right over the senate, courts, and council buildings. Your objectives are in the following order: Find the Chancellor and the council members. Kill any Undead in the way. After you have achieved those orders, we will extract our ground troops. I hope those new Undead armor suits work against the Bone Warrior plague touch.”
“Understood.”
The ship gets in position above the capitol city of 50 million people. 30,000 Marine troops land in troop transports under heavy fire in the government district and begin searching buildings.
Eve concentrates and contacts General Scales telepathically. Begin Operation Scorpion.
***
As the invasion of the Spider World escalates into millions of casualties planet-wide, the arachnids are fighting an increasingly desperate battle to save their home world. Bone Warriors are overrunning all their positions, infecting hundreds of thousands of arachnid troops with the Undead virus. The virus is changing them to Bone Warriors, adding to the Undead numbers.
Deep in the capital city in a grand cavern where the Spider Queen's lair is, the Undead Dragonlich is locked in mortal combat with the Spider Queen.
“There is no hope. No one is coming to rescue you or your kind. Soon you will all be my servants, either in life or undeath,” Xoth says as the giant spider circles his dragon form, each looking for an opening.
“Never!”
The Queen suddenly lurches forward, latching all eight of her legs to the Undead Dragon and biting its neck. Acid poison is ejected from the spider's huge fangs. Xoth screams in pain and slams into a forward roll as they tumble together in a ball of legs and bones. Dust and rocks fly everywhere as the locking embrace comes apart and they separate. The Spider Queen shoots a massive web that wraps around Xoth, leaving her entangled. Xoth breathes her nasty dragon breath that burns the webbing away as the big black spider casts a cone of icicles at Xoth. The dragon takes some damage but ignites herself in flames, engulfing and melting the large ice shards. Xoth lifts a group of large boulders with her telekinesis and fires them at the Spider Queen. The Spider Queen tosses up a large web just in time to catch the deadly flying rocks.
They both advance, as the Spider Queen casts a spell to cover herself in icy armor. The massive flaming dragon and the ice-covered spider collide together, once again locking in a savage embrace. They fall over wrestling on the ground; the Spider Queen ends up on top of the dragon and sprays acid all over the upper chest and neck of the Undead dragon. The dragon squirms in pain trying to get out from under the colossal spider.
Xoth fires two red laser beams from her eyes to the ceiling, cutting across the hefty stalagmites above them. The spear-like rocks come crashing down and stab the Spider Queen in the back. Some of the rock lances break on the icy armor and some pierce through to the Spider Queen's back, causing the her to jolt backward from the wounds. The dragon gets back up on her feet. Both combatants are injured but continue fighting as they once again circle as other to look for an opening.
***
In a chamber called The Arena near the Queen's lair, scores of Undead bodies are burning. Undead troops have been flooding into The Arena by the hundreds to get to the other areas of the complex, but they are getting killed immediately by some unknown force.
Helcar walks up the hall through a mess of Bone Warriors waiting for orders from their commander. Said commander is a vampire looking around the corner. Helcar comes up to the vampire and questions, “What is the holdup, Commander?”
“We keep trying to swarm through this large chamber to get to the other side, but something in there is killing everything,” the vampire answers.
“Something? It can only be an arachnid sorcerer or warrior, you cowering idiots. That shouldn't be any problem for your unit,” Helcar says. “Move aside! Let me deal with it.”
Helcar turns the corner, goes down the short hall, and enters The Arena.
“Oh, how fitting. An arena,” Helcar says mostly to herself.
She summons a long magical fire whip. The demon casts a detection spell as her eyes light up in flames. She can sense something is there but not its location. She thinks maybe it is immune to detection spells.
“Impressive invisibility. Not many can escape my detection spells, whoever you are,” the dragon demon says, still trying to sense the creature or person.
Suddenly an arachnid appears behind Helcar, attacking her with four magical ice swords in the back of her bony exterior. Helcar yells in pain as the swords clip off some of the pointed bone spikes on her back. Her attacker disappears immediately as Helcar's flaming whip flips over her back to catch her attacker. But the attacker is gone.
“Very clever, warrior. I don't how you are evading my detection spell, but I will try something else.” As she speaks, her body ignites with fire and she casts a huge glittery spell that covers the whole area. “Let's add a little Faerie Fire dust to this area and see what pops up.” Still nothing.
“What are you? You are not a warrior or a sorcerer,” Helcar concludes.
“I am the one that will end you,” the arachnid answers.
Helcar laughs. “My, you are a funny one aren't you?”
The attacker appears again after striking Helcar with a whirl of blades on her left side. One of the frosty swords makes it through Helcar's armor, sinking into the fiery body. Fiery ooze comes out of the wound. Helcar cringes in pain as she flicks her whip, catching one of the arachnid’s eight legs before it can disappear again. The flaming whip contracts and burns through her leg, severing it. The arachnid yells in agony, disappearing again to nurse the wound.
Helcar holds her bleeding side and taunts, “I will burn all of your limbs off arachnid, one at a time. Don't think that just because you got lucky, that you will win.”
“You are lucky I have not cut your head off yet, demon. I am Gothica, just so you know what name will go on your tombstone as your destroyer,” Gothica says, just trying to stall for an opening.
Gothica lunges again with a whirlwind of icy blades on the demon's left side. Helcar dodges, trying to avoid the attacks and counterattacks with her flaming whip. She manages to catch one of Gothica’s arms, partially searing it. Helcar lashes her bony tail with pinpoint accuracy. The scorpion-like stinger strikes home into Gothica's side. Gothica staggers backwards but regains her balance, swinging one of her four blades downward and chopping off the demon’s tail. Helcar squeals loudly and retracts her injured tail.
Helcar fires a fireball in the area just as Gothica vanishes, but the explosions covers her and the area with fire. Helcar lashe
s out her fire whip and it wraps around another of Gothica's arms. Helcar pulls the whip back, severing another of Gothica's limbs. Gothica shoots a web up into the ceiling and pulls herself out of the fire, casting frost armor again. Helcar casts another fireball at Gothica while she is hanging from her web. Gothica disappears before the flaming ball hits and explodes. She reappears behind Helcar, stabbing her in the back. Her blades do not penetrate the bony armor the demon has. This gives Helcar time to dodge to the left and twist around to flick her whip at Gothica. She deflects the whip with one of her icy blades. Gothica counters with a slash to Helcar's face, hitting her in the left eye socket, knocking Helcar off balance as she falls backwards. A giant dragon roar comes from the adjacent chamber, causing the whole arena to rumble and shake as some of the ceiling comes down.
A thundering voice that booms so loud it can be heard for miles announces, “I, Xoth the Dragonlich, have slain your Spider Queen. You will all serve me now. Resistance is useless.”
Gothica says, “That's my cue to exit, you one-eyed flaming bitch. Maybe next I will get your other eye. Toodles.” She activates her visor and releases an immense green energy beam, gutting the ceiling above Helcar and causing it to come crashing down on top of the demon. Gothica escapes out the door, knocking down all of the vampires and Bone Warriors in the hall, also infecting each of them with the killer Undead virus she is carrying.
“I need to find a ship to get off this wanking planet,” Gothica mutters as she runs out to the surface where millions of Undead troops are swarming all over the planet.
***
Back in Elemental Space on the capitol planet of Fewguiqu, Eve's dragons have destroyed most of the Undead carriers; the carriers are simply not designed to fight dragons. The Space Marines locate Eve's mother, the council, and fifty senators. They transport them up to Dragonseve before that area of the city is overrun by Bone Troopers. The Bone Warriors were attacking the citizens infecting them with the Undead virus that changes them to Bone Warriors. Millions of citizens are being changed to Undead in the city. Every minute the Bone Warrior population is multiplying exponentially.
The council and the fifty senators enter the large bridge with five large screens and hundreds of small screens on monitors at each of the fifty officer stations in rows around Eve's towering chair. The Marines line up against the back of the wall in a group so they can see what is happening, but in a way that does not disturb the bridge crew. They hear communication chatter and orders being barked in different areas of the bridge. Eve's command chair is facing the large screen, but she knows they have entered just behind her.
“Greetings, senators and councilmen,” Eve says without turning around. “In bet you are wondering why I am here saving your planet. If your councilman would have answered my call, I would have been able to warn you about this invasion. Sure, it is unlikely you could have stopped it. But with 23 hours' notice you could have evacuated a lot of people and fortified some of your military. But instead, the reply I got from you was 'It does not concern me.' You’re right: this doesn't concern me. In fact, the only reason I am here to be honest with you, is because I came to get Grand Chancellor Kredigal. Or should I say former Grand Chancellor Kredigal?” She stops and looks at who is standing next to her and says, “I am sending you back to base. Project Scorpion has begun. Special Units are ready for their part. Good luck.”
“Roger that,” General Tala says.
Eve says, “Nak buuk tis fer port.” A six foot portal opens in front of Tala and she steps through before it vanishes.
42 informs, “Your Highness, I am afraid 85% of the capital is now Undead, meaning it cannot be saved. I recommend a high yield nuclear bomb just to make sure we get them all. If we don't, the whole planet of 8.5 billion citizens will be overrun and changed to Bone Warriors within 48 hours.”
Eve says, “Understood. Grimtooth, load a new Mark 5 U.P.N. Then launch it in the center of the Undead mass.”
“That will make that whole area a 15 mile crater, unlivable for the next 100 years or so,” he says.
“I am aware, but I need to save the other 8 billion people. I need to kill 50 million zombie people just because some wanker didn't take my phone call,” Eve says just to screw with the council standing behind her. She had no idea there was going to be an invasion, but she never passes up an opportunity to gain political advantage. No one will ever know exactly what she knew and when, because not even the crew knew why they were coming here.
“Ready to fire.”
Eve presses a button and broadcasts on the Elemental Empire network. “I am Evella Noctu, Empress of the Dragon Empire. Today your capitol home world was attacked by an Undead Invasion force of over 5,000 carriers and few billion Undead warriors. Thanks to my Dragon Legions and my command ship with 100,000 telepaths, we successfully repelled the Undead invaders. My Space Marines saved the council and the senate, as well as my good friend Grand Chancellor Kredigal. Unfortunately, many people died or were changed to Undead Warriors. It is with regret I was not able to save the capitol city; I am now forced to use a devastating nuclear bomb in order to save the other 8 billion citizens on this planet. I alone made this decision and take full responsibility for it. End transmission.” Eve presses a button on her console and a missile fires into the city. The devastation that come a few seconds later is hard to comprehend.
“Report.”
42 says, “There is a 15-mile crater that is several miles deep; the radiation level is beyond my instrument's measurement capabilities. Not detecting any Undead. It is highly unlikely anything survived that, Your Highness.”
“Just keep scanning that area. We can't have even one of those creatures escape,” Eve says.
“Understood.”
Eve stands up and turns around to the small group behind her. She goes down a few steps and walks over to Grand Chancellor Kredigal.
“Hello, Mother,” the morphic dragon says with a smile. She hugs Grand Chancellor Kredigal.
“Hello, daughter. How are my granddaughters?”
The council and senate are shocked and confused, as are the bridge crew. Mumbling and talking ensue.
“They are fine. They are on Dragon World worrying about you. In fact, if it wasn't for them, I would not have known to come get you. This miss you a lot,” Eve says. She walks over to the council standing in a small group. “It is ironic that the telepaths you have been persecuting have come to save your world. I have been wondering just who reported my mother as a telepath. It would have had to have been another telepath of equal or stronger PSI than my mother. Only a select few humans would fall into that category. A telepath from this Empire would have never given her up. That means it would have had to be an imposter from another Empire.” She concludes her diatribe as she walks slowly, scanning each councilman. Then suddenly she whips her tail around with blinding speed and wraps it around a councilman's neck, squeezing it hard as he chokes and falls to his knees. Everyone stops talking and watches with concern.
“Councilman Hujer. Funny how a master sorcerer such as yourself doesn't radiate magic. Probably because you’re not a sorcerer but a telepath. You probably killed the real Councilman Hujer, who has been on the council for 25 years. You probably killed him in the last few days and took his place. You had to get rid of the one person that would have known you are a fake by informing everyone that she was a telepath before she got the chance to turn you in. And of course, the rest of you were so eager to persecute her that none of you even question just how he knew she was a telepath. Even though she has been a good civil servant for 30 years, that didn't matter,” Eve reads the man’s thoughts as she squeezes her tail tighter. His eyes glow blue as his tries to use his telepathic powers; he morphs into his true form, unable to maintain his false form any longer. He is a grotesque aberration of humanoid, a form of Undead known as a specter.
Eve says, “A BLOODY SPECTER! I knew it.” Everyone starts moving away in fear from the two, and the three Marines aim their rifles
at the ghost-like creature.
“Your feeble abilities are no match for mine, specter,” Eve taunts.
The specter says, “You may kill me, Dragon, but my master will be coming for you all.”
“No specter. It is I that will be coming for YOUR master,” Eve assures as she casts a spell. “Nag Iku Maush, Pyre.” The specter is enveloped with dragon fire. The Undead shrieks in pain and fades away.
Grimtooth says, “Boss, an unknown ship just dropped out of light speed. It's about the same size as our ship. Can't get any readings; it has some pretty powerful shields.”
Eve says, “Undead?”
“It just locked on to us. Preparing to fire.”
“All divisions: attack unknown ship,” Eve commands.
“It’s firing. Brace for impact,” Grimtooth blurts out. The ship shakes violently.
42 informs, “It took out our shields with one hit. I did get Undead readings the moment it fired through their shield rotation. The weapons and shields are beyond their tech level. I am thinking they got it from a world they conquered. Our weapons have no effect on the shield. The Dragon Magic and physical attacks will be deflected by that shield.”
Eve says to herself, “So energy, projectiles, physicality, and magic can't affect that shield.”
Eve’s mother asks, “How about telepathic abilities?”
“There is a thought,” Eve says.
“It’s firing again,” Grimtooth says.
The ship shakes as if an earthquake has just taken place. Power flickers and small fires crop up on the bridge; emergency power comes on.
“Report!”
The android says, “Massive crater on the portside. Levels 24-67, sections A through E were destroyed. 25,000 estimated dead and 5,000 wounded.”
“Okay, now I am really pissed off,” Eve says. She then looks at the alien ship and says, “Tel Porzu Con Yu.” She disappears off the bridge out in front of Dragonstar and the alien ship. She changes into dragon form. As this colossal dragon emerges, she makes both ships look toy ships in comparison.
Everyone on the bridge is in complete awe as they watch the epic dragon move to the Undead ship. The ship fires its main weapon; it hits Eve's PSI shield but does no damage. Eve grabs the ship with eight of her arms and legs, wrapping herself around it and squeezing it. The amount of energy the shield is consuming to maintain the crushing hold on the ship is substantial. Eve can feel the shield weakening after a few minutes, and she continues to squeeze it. The shield is starting to wane and fluctuate.
