Page 133 of Scorching the Alien Empire
The cacophony beyond is deafening. This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for. I take a deep breath. Shoulders back. Time to shine.
The door swooshes open. I stride through. An involuntary gasp.
Chaos. Beautiful chaos!
The space hangar is a battlefield, a twisting storm of fire and ruin. Ships lie in wreckage, scorched metal ripped apart by unrelenting combat. Murder-bots burn in shattered heaps. Smoke clogs the air, thick and choking, the acrid stench of burning plasma searing my nostrils.
Above, the stomach-churning void is alive, a spectacle of flashing light and fire. Murder-orbs whirl through the darkness, their numbers a swarm, a storm, a red-lit plague.
And there—almost invisible, hulking, monstrous—a black warship looms in orbit, raining fire upon theRavager’s Ruin. The space-hobo ships—patched together wrecks of desperation—dart through the shimmering blue volleys, weaving, dodging, surviving.
How exciting!
I step further into the hangar, willing myself not to think about the nauseating vertigo creeping in, caused by the fact I might be sucked into the vastness of open space.
Confident. Calm. Regal. That is what I project. That is what I am.
My divine barriers shimmer around me and the Revered Mothers. Their silver-edged barriers deflecting stray blasts and debris, divine protection for those who follow me faithfully.
An army of murder-bots stands between me and the space-knights. Hundreds of their towering frames form a shimmering wall of pulsing blue.
Ear-shrieking zaps and thrums exchange across the expanse. The machines skitter closer, pressing in, a tidal wave of thousands splashing against a cliff of meathead-ary.
Jazreal’s voice booms over the carnage, raw and unhinged.
“Where are the real Scythians?! So I can tear out their throats, rip out their guts. There’s nothing but machines—empty husks, lifeless, soulless phantoms mocking nature!” His long black-gray hair whips wildly as he dances between the grasping prongs of a murder-bot, an eight-foot bodybuilding gymnast. His searing spear carves a path through their ranks, the molten weapon sweeping through metal and circuitry like a hurricane of fire.
“Forward, Berserkers!” Sarkoth bellows.
Despite their fewer numbers, the space-knights surge ahead, methodical, dangerous. Only a few have fallen, but they are quickly dragged from the fray, their gaps swiftly filled, shield wall reforging. It bristles with retaliatory fire—an unstoppable hedgehog of delicious murder.
Oh, my.
My fingers trace the runic blessing on my chest, its warmth pulsing against my skin, mirroring the fire stirring deep in my core.
So much so, I nearly forget myself.
But then, some murder-bots notice us behind their backs. They pivot, servos whirring, their red lenses locking onto my group, processing, recalculating.
But it’s too late. It always was.
I raise my arms, a theatrical touch, my heart hammering in my chest, the power of my Gods burning within.
Two of my barriers materialize, shimmering walls of divine force severing through the ranks of machines like celestialguillotines. The dumb machines lurch, their programming struggling to comprehend the impossible.
This is just the beginning.
A smirk twists my lips. I sweep my arms wide, dramatically, like a conductor about to bring the orchestra to its crescendo. My barriers part. Slowly. Inexorably. Driving the horde toward the shimmering blue force field encapsulating this entire haunted mansion turned warzone.
The murder-bots shudder, pressed tighter and tighter together, their movements growing erratic, frantic. Servo-gears whine, skittering legs clawing at the floor, scraping over their own fallen. Some topple, a writhing heap of limbs blasting wildly into the void. Others trace the edges of my shields, seeking an escape that doesn’t exist.
Their doom is inevitable.
Their scurrying huddled mass reaches the edge of the open hangar. With nothing but the vastness of space beyond them. I frown slightly, tilting my head. Will they be crushed between my barriers and the station’s shields?
Or—
The first bodies breach the edge. Then the next. And suddenly, they float. Like pathetic little toys in deranged spacesuits.
