Page 185 of Scorching the Alien Empire
Dracoth
Control
Ashift.AnInstinctscreamsat me. My stomach knots in warning.
Frantically, I scan the vast throne room, meeting Princesa’s gaze before sweeping my attention across the others. Nothing seems amiss, yet something iswrong.
Then, the navigational display flashes an urgent blue, warning alarms flaring to life. Sirens wail from every console, a discordant cacophony of disaster. My gut twists as I stare at the unfolding chaos before me.
The Klendathian Battlebarges—my kin—halt their advance. A heartbeat later, they turn their weapons upon one another. Arrays of plasma cannons erupt, blasting endless molten azure into each other’s broadsides. Shields which only moments agoflared brightly now do nothing—their silence and absence both glaring and deafening.
A massacre.
By Arawnoth, what is this?
“They’ve all lost their voiding minds,” Drexios mutters, amusement laced with surprise. “Want me to teach them a lesson, War Chief?”
“No,” I growl, my mind racing to make sense of the horror unraveling before me.
A brutal impact slams into theRavager’s Ruin,hurling us forward. Princesa shrieks as she tumbles from my lap, a pilot ejected from a doomed glider. I catch her midair, crushing her against my chest as my other hand digs into the terminal stand, anchoring us in place.
As I straighten, a rhythmic pounding echoes through the ship. Our shields flare against an unrelenting barrage, the generators groaning under the strain. On the display, the truth blazes in cold, merciless light—myBattlebarge, my own ship, has rammed us, its weapons unleashing every battery against our defenses. The prow is a crumpled ruin of twisted metal, but its cannons fire relentlessly, heedless of logic or command.
“Ceasefire!” I roar, the order surging through my warvisor to the altered young warriors of Nexarn and Keth. TheBattlebarge’sshields, like those of the other vessels, remain eerily inactive, its systems compromised.
Through the warvisor, the thoughts of Chieftains and warband leaders—War Heralds—spill into my mind—a rising tide of confusion, panic, and desperate calls for order amid the chaos.
“The ship is not responding to commands, War Chieftain.” Keth’s monotone thoughts belie the utter carnage unfolding outside. “Something has stolen control. We cannot override.”
Not something. The Voidbringer.
“Manually disable weapons and propulsion. Rip the Elerium from the engines if you must.” I command through the warvisor network, not only to Keth but the entire Klendathian fleet.
It is a desperate measure. Without power, they will drift helplessly, lost to the solar currents of war. But it is the only choice. Better to be stranded than to slaughter each other like rabid beasts. War brother killing war brother. The notion sickens me to my core. The Voidbringer in its twisted power, once again has us tearing at each other’s throat. At this crucial moment, seconds from victory now twisting into the cruelest jest.
“Shields at sixty-eight percent, War Chieftain,” Corsark announces, his tone edged with the same unease gnawing at my own mind. Outside, the steady thud and rumble of plasma fire reverberate through the ship.
Through the viewport, I am a helpless spectator to a theater of horror. The Nebian and mercenary fleet fade into the distance, biting at the retreating Scythian forces. Around us, hundreds of Battlebarges drift, their hulking forms igniting the void with flashes of shimmering blue plasma.
They smash into one another like war-weary colossi, their mangled frames still straining to unleash cannon salvos. It’s a slaughter. Without their shields, their hulls turn to molten slag in an instant, arcweave sloughing off like dripping blood before the abyssal cold of space snuffs it out.
Some vessels go nova, their Elerium engines—buried deep in the hearts of their ancient hulls—detonating under the relentless barrage.
One such explosion steals my breath. TheTidalith’s Lash—Aquaxus Clan Chieftain’s personal ship—erupts in a blinding flash of golden light. The force of the detonation sends molten arcweave shrapnel scything through the self-devouring fleet like a cluster bomb.
“What the hell’s happening, babes?” Princesa asks, tearing her gaze from the viewport to peer up at me, her eyes wide with surprise. “I thought we were winning, and now the bone-through-the-noses are all killing each other?”
“The Voidbringer,” I growl, the tendons of my fingers groaning as I clench them. “It has seized control of the Scythian Battlebarges.”
“Wait. So, you’re telling me you went to war with the murder-bots using murder-bot ships?” She huffs, exasperation twisting her full lips into a grimace. “How wonderful!” Throwing her hands into the air, she adds, “It’s a miracle our ship isn’t doing backflips into that red sun or something.”
Not my war, but Krogoth’s—a premature rebellion snuffed out in its infancy. Yet Princesa raises a good point. TheRavagers Ruinis still under my control. Could it be because I destroyed the Crucible, the putrid core that once infected this vessel? Or was it when Elder Ignixis claimed to have purged the profane?
Whatever the reason, it is a blessing from the Gods. Without our shields, this ship would be venting molten plasma into the void like all the others.
It’s a massacre. Through the warvisor, anguish and despair flood my mind—hundreds of dying voices screaming in a chaotic, mind-rending chorus. Each fading consciousness is a claw driven straight through my skull. The finest warriors in the universe, reduced to helpless wreckage, swallowed by the silent cold of space.
“Corsark.” My voice is gravel, ground between clenched teeth. “Deploy theShorthairs. Rescue who you can. Prioritize the Chieftain ships.”
