Man Vs Crusade
As the dragon stares at me from far away, I hear a booming voice – the Emperor’s voice - in my head.
Who are you to challenge me so, human?
I look down at Rei. She nods, indicating that she’s heard the voice too. I gesture to her, telling her to leave it to me.
“An Earthling, nothing more.” I reply.
The dragon snorts. Know that I am your rightful ruler, Earthling.
“Well, I didn’t vote for you.” There is a grinding of teeth as the dragon contemplates this answer. In the end, he decides not to pursue this line of conversation.
You plan to oppose me with that toy? Let me guess; you are going to tell me that you have tens of thousands more of those mechanical puppets awaiting my fleet at Earth, aren’t you?
“Of course not.” I chuckle. “We only built one. This is all we need to defeat you. Any more would be a waste.” The dragon roars angrily at the sound of my laughter.
“Hm, I was never any good at calming people down. Rei, let’s go.” We fly forward, straight at the fleet. They have begun to spread out, moving into a spread out formation. My sensors pick up countless heat signatures appearing from the warships – instead of using beams that can only travel in a straight line, they are resorting to missiles. The profile of Anhur-Shu must already be recorded as their target as the warheads reorient themselves and lock on to us. More and more heat signatures continue to appear; it looks like they are trying to overwhelm me with a veritable wave of explosives. One million, seven hundred and ninety six thousand, two hundred and twenty three missiles home in on me, streaking through space at high speed. I could just warp away, but…
“Yua, take over the basic weapons subroutines while I plot a course.”
“Roger that, Master!” My trusty AI acknowledges my order as I shift over control of Anhur-Shu’s more mundane armaments to her. This allows me to put all of my focus on the incoming missiles.
“Rei, follow the trajectory I’ve laid out for you to the letter.”
“Don’t worry, brother, I’ve got this.”
“I know. That’s why we’re doing this in the first place.”
The missiles had been launched in a rather clever manner – the tactical mind behind this attack had arranged for things so that the missiles would hit in precisely timed waves. Just a single hit would stop us long enough for the rest of the missiles to rain down upon the CF. Of course, all I had to do was to throw their timing off-sync. All of the warheads appear before me, represented as glowing red triangles. As I plot their projected trajectory, compensating for the way they track Anhur-Shu’s movement, I lay out a constantly changing track for Rei to follow. She pushes the throttle even further as we twirl and soar our way through in a dangerous dance. Rei’s preternatural battle instinct are the only thing that allow her to keep up with the rapid rate at which I change her guiding route – at times, she has begun moving in the right direction even before I make the adjustments. Slowly but surely, we begin weaving a pattern for the missiles while dodging the occasional beam from the Imperial ships, getting ever closer to the fleet. Some of them are already turning in the other direction as we approach. In the midst of it all, I drop most of my anti-fleet nuclear missiles, emptying my payload.
That should do it. I use the gravity wings to give us a little boost. With a sudden burst of speed, we dive right into the middle of the scattering, damaged fleet, before the ships can react. Their own missiles follow behind us, traitorously slamming into the very fleet that had launched them. Most of them explode harmlessly against the shields of the larger battleships, but even so, many of the smaller cruisers are rocked by the flashes of bright light that leave gaping holes in their hull. More than a few ships are destroyed by their own volley. Rei deftly dodges the remaining missiles that doggedly continue to pursue us and Yua takes care of them with a burst of lasers that carve up the missiles, causing them to explode harmlessly some ways away from us. Then, the nukes that I had hidden amongst their own missiles arrive, giving them an additional surprise. In a flash, six massive glowing spheres of raw energy erupt all across the fleet, reducing thousands of ships to molten slag. The shockwave from the debris cloud washes over me as I retake control of all weapons systems from Yua – it’s time to get down to work.
In such a target-rich environment, I scarcely have to aim. A few shots from Anhur-Shu’s graviton rifle passes through the battleships’ shields as if they are not there. The super-dense gravitons leave behind a twisted path of destruction, tearing through all materials in their way. We keep moving, zipping around the battlefield so quickly that the ships’ turrets cannot turn fast enough to keep up, all the while taking out ships in our way with our rifle and particle cannons. “Stay in the friendly fire zones, Rei. It keeps them from bringing their full firepower to bear.” I say.
“It’s not my first time piloting, brother… though I dare say I wouldn’t have jumped into the midst of tens of thousands of warships. You are as brave as ever.” she replies with a slight smile. I’m not sure if I would call this bravery. Reckless insanity, perhaps. Still, work is work. And speaking of work, I take the chance to leave behind a string of gravity mines as we go along. He should be making an appearance soon.
You dare! booms the voice again. As I expected, getting in this close means that the Dragon Emperor would come for me. As the massive beast surges forth from the wreckage of his flagship, I make a hasty retreat and activate the mines. They trip just as the Emperor passes near them. More than fifty ships smash into the dragon, pulled along by the mines. I consider whether to charge up the black hole cannon and make another try, but a tell-tale glow from within the mass of crushed metal disabuses me of that notion. Rei brings us into safety just as the dragon’s beam blows through the ships in his way.
“Here’s a guy that doesn’t care about friendly fire,” Rei remarks.
My soldiers will lay down their lives for me, as it should be.
“Perfect. That saves me a lot of time. I was worried I would have to hunt them down after skinning you.”
I notice that my attack has done some damage – the dragon’s coat is scratched, but the flesh appears to be regenerating very rapidly. That would coincide with the total absence of lines that I can observe on its being. This is not any normal immortal. The type of things that I cannot yet kill all reside in the realm of the metaphysical. If I were to pick what exactly, I would hazard a guess that this Emperor is somehow possessed by a concept, given what I have heard about him. Still, the damage I have inflicted means that he is far from invincible. If I blow him up enough times he might learn his lesson and go away.
I fire a few shots at him. The graviton beams pass right through his massive body, tearing gaping holes from one end to another, but these fill up quickly with new, rapidly growing flesh. The angered Emperor breathes another beam at me. As we dodge, his head turns to follow, tearing a streak of destruction across the stars. Of course, the only things getting destroyed are his own ships. Rei makes a sudden reversal of direction and brings Anhur-Shu into a backflip over the beam. I take the chance to fire off another nuclear missile at the dragon while it is caught off guard. Waste not, want not.
Right before the nuke hits, it appears to smash up against the same shimmering veil that had almost stopped the black hole. When the light from the ensuing explosion fades away, the Emperor remains unharmed, floating in the void of space.
Did you think you could-
“Yes, I thought I could kill you with that. Can’t blame a man for trying, can you? Oh, here comes the next one.”
What next-
The second missile, fired right outside the blast radius of the first, smashes into the dragon’s torso before it can react and blows up. The results were not exactly what I hoped for, though.
“He’s… really tough.” mutters Rei.
“Master, perhaps we should try the black holes again?”
The Dragon Emperor had survived a point blank, 100 megaton nuclear explosion. Even so, its body is utterly mangled to the point of falling apart, and the regeneration process appears to be failing. One more attack should do it. I hear an angered, pained roar in my mind, loud enough to give me a brief headache. Without warning, the dragon explodes into a gigantic mass of brown, fleshy tendrils. They swarm towards everything in all directions, latching onto debris, metal scraps, and even ships that have come in close to rescue their Emperor. As some of the tendrils wriggle towards us, I try using the anti-missile lasers.
No dice. The lasers do not even make the slightest scorch on the tendrils. Some of them begin to pass perilously close – I can see tiny little toothy maws opening and closing all over the tendrils, gaping in hunger. There are too many of them to evade properly – the proximity alerts sounding all around us is starting to cloud my mind.
“Behind us!”
Rei senses something and turns around, just in time to see the front of a cruiser headed straight for us. The tendrils had shrouded us long enough for it to actually sneak up on us. While we were focused on evading the thick mass of tendrils, the captain of the cruiser had apparently decided – or been ordered – to perform a rather inventive approach to fighting a CF. The cruiser rams into us with all the force of its tonnage behind it.
“The torso armour layer has been cracked. Slightly.” Yua reports.
“We’re still holding on,” I mutter. “Ten points for guts, good captain. A hundred points for good old Terran engineering.”
With a slight effort, Rei pries the cruiser away, fighting against the thrust of its powerful engines. After I fire my particle cannons point blank into the bridge, it becomes less of a fight. We push the cruiser off us and turn our attention back to the Emperor. While we had been distracted, the dragon had cobbled together its form and devoured the surrounding debris. The remaining ships of the fleet are moving to a safe distance, refraining on firing upon us perhaps for fear of hitting their Emperor.
“You really do gobble everything, don’t you?” I murmur.
You will pay for this, human.
One of its forepaws has turned into a more humanoid claw. A current of crackling electricity begins to form, shaping itself into a short spear with three prongs at each end. Suddenly, the dragon’s visage blurs and glows a brilliant blue. In a flash, its hulking form towers above me, streamers of lightning trailing behind it to where it had been just moments before. Up close, the huge dragon is clearly at least five times the size of our mech. I bring the saber up into Anhur-Shu’s hand as Rei moves to block the Dragon Emperor’s downward strike. The lightning spear clashes against our beam saber, releasing a corona of glowing plasma expanding outwards from where the two weapons had met. A surge of sapphire electricity travels down the spear and causes the saber to explode in our hand. As the dragon triumphantly raises its claw for another strike, I engage the wormhole rings for a tactical warp. We shift out of the way, travelling behind the dragon, and I fire a volley of micro-missiles at its back. It repeats the same move that it did before – there is that brilliant glow, and the dragon appears behind us in a flash.
I’m not so stupid as to try the saber again; this time, I bring the gravity wings into play. The spear crashes against it, spitting light and fury against the wall of darkness. The wings hold, but I can feel the power draining just to do so.
“Teleport again, Master!” yells Yua.
“I am not getting into a game of teleport tag with this guy. Besides, we have a cooldown on the damned system.” Just as I say that, the Emperor changes tactics. One of its arms changes into a mass of tendrils and latches onto us; this close, there is no evading it. The movement of the frame begins to slow down as its energy is drawn off by the tendrils.
I grin. “This is how you want to play it, eh?”
Anhur-Shu’s hands close themselves around the dragon’s neck, choking it off. I don’t want any stray beams coming my way.
Defiant to the end. The voice smirks in self-assured confidence that this will make no difference. It seems that it doesn’t need the vocal cords to talk. It is a pity you wouldn’t submit. You will be nothing more than food, human. This is your fate for defying me.
“If you’re that hungry… Rei, I’m bringing both of the generators to maximum power. As always, all you have to do is move forwards.” A smile flits across her face as she nods.
As I feel the pitch from the black hole engines rise, more power begins surging through Anhur-Shu’s frame. The thrusters on the back flare to life, expelling enough exhaust to be distinctively visible. The giant machine roars as it begins moving, pushing the gigantic dragon back. We pick up more and more speed. The tendrils begin to writhe, taking in more energy than they can handle. A snarl crosses my mind and the dragon raises its spear again. I swivel the particle cannons on Anhur’s shoulder and fire a close range blast that blows off the claw wielding the spear. The lightning scatters and fades, leaving nothing behind but sparks. It roars and begins to futilely hammer on us. As we move faster and faster, we smash the dragon through a battleship that is unlucky enough to be caught in the way. The ship creaks as its hull gives way, breaking in two at the point of impact. That doesn’t stop Anhur-Shu. The two halves fall away around us, as we continue flying towards our target. The dragon has already ceased moving, our rapid acceleration rendering it immobile. Behind it, the icy, pitted surface of Oberon grows larger and larger.
We plunge deep into the bedrock of the moon, the force and pressure generated by our impact melting the ice into plumes of vapour. I direct more power to the wings, flinging the gravity projections outwards. The increased propulsion drives us further inwards, deeper and deeper into the moon. Breaking past the mantle, we dive into a layer of liquid water. The heat generated by our passage begins to boil the inner ocean. Soon, the generators begin to whine, complaining about the increased load. We’ll have to hold on for a little longer. Just a little longer. As our speed slows just a bit, the Emperor regains enough strength to grab onto Anhur-Shu’s left arm with his claw.
Stop-
He smashes into the rocky core of the moon with enough power to shatter it – pieces of rock blow outwards as the moon begins to lose its shape. As it crumbles, Anhur-Shu picks up more and more speed until we break free of the crust at the other side, trailing streams of icy vapour behind us. The smooth, blue expanse of Uranus lies before us.
We let go of the dragon’s neck and fire a full salvo. Micro-missiles launch from the containers attached to the frame’s waist and limbs, slamming into the enemy’s chest one after another. As it is blown backwards, the scarred and cracked chest armour on Anhur-Shu’s front opens up.
Five mini black holes appear, rotating around the cylinder. I launch the cluster at the Dragon Emperor. The orbs hit him in the limbs and the torso – not big enough to swallow up him whole, but certainly big enough to eat away copious amounts of his flesh. As it struggles to break free, I use this chance to charge up a larger black hole. Then, I hit him with that too, just to be sure. The rapacious orbs swell up as their momentum carries the dragon away from me, sending it plunging into the gravity well of Uranus. Soon, the calm blue clouds of the gas giant’s surface are roiled into a terrible storm by the black holes, creating a massive vortex as the dragon tumbles into the depths of the planet. Where there had once been nothing but blue, a large black spot is now formed, spewing red lightning where the clouds swirl into the hole.
“Did we do it?” asks Rei, panting heavily.
“I’m not sure, but at least we won’t have a huge dragon breathing fire at us for a while.”
Heaving a quick sigh of relief, I do a quick count of the remainder of the fleet – it looks like their numbers had been reduced drastically to fifty five thousand; a bit more than half the amount of ships they set out with. Well, that went better than expected, though I’m not optimistic that he has been finished off yet. It might be a good time to retreat soon, while the shattered Crusade is still stunned by what just happened. Trying to destroy any more ships would really be pushing my luck. Even though Anhur-Shu probably had enough power to fight on, Rei and I were mentally exhausted from the struggle with the Emperor.
Before I can make preparations for a jump, however, a message arrives.
“Master, it’s Adrahasis, the tactician.”
“What does it say?”
“He says that he wants to negotiate with you, and quickly, before the Emperor returns. He claims that he can assuage the Emperor’s anger and will ensure your safety. Apparently the devastation you wreaked upon the fleet has convinced him that it is not a good idea to approach Earth. Also, he has sent out ten thousand ships to spread out across the solar system as insurance - he will recall them after you speak with him.”
“Oh, really? Must we negotiate here?”
“He doesn’t state the place, Master, but it is assumed from his urgency that he would like to meet right now.”
***
A. I delay my departure and meet with Adrahasis first. From the sounds of it, it seems that there may be some disgruntlement in the Empire. Perhaps we can come to an agreement of sorts; if we can’t, having the CF and Rei around means it will be easier for me to escape.
B. I meet with Adrahasis alone. I can set Anhur-Shu to jump with just Rei and Yua controlling it for the rest of the way. It is too important a machine; I can’t risk it falling into Imperial hands no matter what. I can take care of myself, and this meeting is too important a chance to pass up.
C. I ignore his proposal and jump away. Best to return and prepare for what is to come, since it seems that the Tactician himself is convinced that the Emperor is not yet dead. Besides, I have no guarantee that this is not a trap.
moment, so that's all that matters.
