Page 144 of Scorching the Alien Empire
“TO THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE!”
Chapter 27
Dracoth
Onward
ThebridgedoorsoftheRavager’s Ruinslide open with a hiss, but to my Rush-heightened senses, even that fraction of a delay is agony. Seeker drones swarm our ships, a relentless tide, their erratic, darting movements like znats feasting on a bloated corpse. Through the massive viewport, I watch them weave and spiral, firing wave after wave of blistering plasma against our shields. The barrier holds, shimmering blue, but it never fades—not under this ceaseless bombardment.
The chamber trembles with distant impacts, the shockwaves rattling through the deck. War banners—ancient, glorious, and blackened by centuries of battle—flutter from towering walls. Below, Corsark and my berserkers work furiously, hands flyingover glowing terminals, faces focused as they struggle to hold our battered fleet together.
“Has the shorthair fleet docked?” I demand, striding toward my throne, the towering seat of obsidian rock and bone that looms at the center of the bridge. Beyond it, the viewport frames the swirling chaos of plasma fire in the void, a surreal dance of destruction—light refracting through the abyss like sunbeams through deep water.
“Yes, just now,” Corsark replies without looking up, his focus locked onto his console. “What’s left of them, War Chieftain.”
My fists clench, gauntlets groaning under the pressure. My boots strike the black marble floor, each step ringing out over the vast hall. The shorthairs—my shorthairs. They followed me. Almost revere me, and I led them into this slaughter. Not the glory I promised, but pawns in a desperate bid for our survival.
“How many?”
I ascend my throne—the same seat my father ruled from for centuries. The seat of an undefeated War Chieftain. And yet, in my twentieth year, I have already tasted defeat’s bitter draft.
Krogoth. Kazumi. The Voidbringer. And now this desperate retreat.
My hair will never grow long. The shame of my failures will stain my name forever. But I do not care. I will hold my nose and drink deeply of defeat if it means survival. If it means I can strike back again. And again. Until the Scythians are nothing but shattered wreckage, their twisted metal corpses a testament to my vengeance.
And what worth is an easy victory?
Nothing.
“Sixty ships lost. More damaged,” Corsark answers, his voice flat, controlled.
Sixty...too many.
While we only lost four Ravager Berserkers on the station. Each loss a brutal body blow—centuries of experience, warriors honed to the razor’s edge, now gone. We shall honor them in the Catacombs of Nardune by adding their warvisors to those of their ancestors.
If we survive.
Dozens more are injured, but they are already on their way to the healing pods. If there was time, I would seek the healing mists myself, let the soothing gas purge the exhaustion gnawing at my muscles, the ache burrowing deep into my bones. My flesh is burned and raw beneath my armor. But I push it aside.
Pain does not matter.
I activate the console embedded in my throne. A blue holographic projection pulses to life before me, the battlefield displayed in chilling detail.
Tiny blips race toward us from all sides, so numerous they blur into a single bright mass, a luminous wound in the void that threatens to consume us.
And through the viewport, darkness closes in—the absence of starlight—Voidbanes. A fleet of inert, angular behemoths, looming like mountains of stone torn from the abyss itself. They drift closer, silent, and unstoppable.
Without hesitation, I punch in the commands to follow Corsark’s nav points to Argon Six.
“Inform Keth. Have the Battlebarge follow,” I order, gesturing toward the viewport. “Keep killing these Seeker drones.”
TheRavager’s Ruinlurches, banking hard to port. Through the viewport, the swarms shift as we turn, the Voidbanes sliding out of sight. But I still feel them—an ominous shadow at my back, prickling the hairs on my neck.
“At once, War Chieftain,” Corsark replies.
A moment later, deafening thrums shudder through the chamber as the ship’s plasma cannons unleash their wrath.
Twin-linked turrets ignite, their beams slicing through the void like the birth of azure stars.
