Dragon Renegade, page 1
DRAGON RENEGADE
STAR DRAGON
BOOK FIVE
JAMES DAVID VICTOR
Copyright © 2024 James David Victor
All Rights Reserved
Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All people, places, names, and events are products of the author’s imagination and / or used fictitiously. Any similarities to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design by Christian Bentulan
CONTENTS
1. The Fight-Back
2. Summoned, Not Exactly Friends
3. Of Fishes and Dragons
4. Treason Only Counts if You’re Not Going to Die Anyway
5. One Side of the Bars or the Other
6. War bot versus Murder Android
7. On the Run
8. The Night Star
9. Visitors
10. Choices
11. Transmission
12. Attack
13. Sula, at War
14. Keel, under Fire
15. Sula and the Sixth Shadow
16. Keel, Lost Signal
17. Negotiations
18. One Metal, One Flesh
19. Previously, Sula
20. Intercept
21. Ghost Fighters
22. Sula and the Spy
23. The Rift
24. Dead and Reborn
Epilogue
Thank You
1
THE FIGHT-BACK
Inner Systems Border
“Dive, Darkwing! Dive!” Keel shouted as weapons fire burned through the starry void around him.
The corporal of the Imperial Dragon Marines flew through the night, straddling the back of his star dragon as battle raged all around them. Keel felt the incredible power of the creature beneath him as Darkwing beat his wings and tucked his head. Keel wasn’t sure how much ‘flying’ the giant leather wings actually did in the void, as the dragon generated an energy field to move itself in space.
More plasma beams from the enemy fighters shot through the dark. The Jaali ships were harassing the line of Imperial warships, and vessels were starting to burst under their onslaught.
ALERT! Targeting Detected…
The sensors built into his metal body reacted as angry orange vectors zeroed in across his vision, one of the Jaali attack ships chasing him.
“Behind us, Darkwing!” The Marine leaned low over the dragon’s neck, holding onto the hoops of the wide harness made of special graphene materials.
‘Prey!’
Darkwing let out a screech that only Keel could hear through their telepathic bond and spun through the night as another crimson beam shot over them.
The battle raged on between the Jaali and the human Imperium. The Jaali ships, oddly beautiful with their iridescent armor, flashed through the void as the contingent of star dragons and allied Imperial warships tried to do their best to head them off.
Darkwing and Keel rolled, and the energy beams missed them. They would not be caught so easily. Not yet, anyway.
It had been like this ever since the Great Agonos Reactor had gone down. The Imperium’s megastructure was one of the principle manufacturers of irradiated mdenium, which was a substance essential for the creation of near-light-drives and humanity’s nascent field technology.
With that gone, we’re fighting a losing battle, Keel thought. No ship could be replaced. Every space station damaged would take months or years to rebuild.
The Jaali had known this, and their attacks had only increased since they had destroyed the reactor.
“Corporal! We’re losing the hub-ward flank!” The words of Lance Corporal Lembik, Keel’s longest-serving fellow Marine, sounded in his sensors. Keel checked the map that scrolled across his vision, seeing that the line of dragons and their Marines had completely broken apart.
The giant star dragons flew in pairs or trios. They were not used to holding battle lines and were spreading apart, leaving the larger, slower, and arguably more vulnerable Imperial ships exposed behind them. The human ships looked like tanks—looming disks made of stark gray and blue metals, toting gun turrets and plasma cannons. They stuck fear into the hearts of colonies in the Outer Systems with their power to level entire cities from high orbit, but against the swift alien ships, they appeared cumbersome and stupid.
‘Focus!’ Keel’s consciousness was battered by Darkwing’s voice in his mind as the dragon dragged him away from tactics to the very real danger of being shot.
ALERT!
Keel’s suit blipped with a warning, but it was too late. The next Jaali plasma beam struck Darkwing’s back. There was a flash of expanding blue as the beam hit Darkwing’s natural field, but it wasn’t enough to stop the impact.
Pain.
Agony ripped through Keel’s mind as he shared the dragon’s senses. He knew at once that the powerful plasma bolt had shattered several of Darkwing’s back scales, and there was a deep well of pain in the flesh beneath.
“My brother!” Keel howled.
Darkwing jackknifed, twisting as he spun and flew, drawing his rear leg up protectively to his side as he tried to evade the darting, twisting attack craft coming behind them.
The stars and darkness spun. It was lucky that Keel was a machine—a consciousness downloaded into a war bot body—otherwise, he was sure that the G-forces would have made him black out.
Suddenly, Darkwing was spearing ahead into…nothing. Behind them were the warring ships, dragons, and a sky full of stars, but ahead of them, every star had been scrubbed neatly from the cosmos.
The Long Night, where they currently fought, was well named. It was a region of space that separated the Outer Systems from the Inner, which some cosmic stellar event had rendered devoid of all stars. The Long Night was a tear in the fabric of the Milky Way, an exploded black hole or the remnants of where one had been, perhaps. It made near-light-travel almost impossible while also cutting all communications across this region of no-space.
Keel felt Darkwing’s effort to fly and generate his fields triple in an instant as the very fabric of the Long Night fought against his abilities.
The dragon slowed, but so too did the Jaali attack craft chasing them.
// Communications OFFLINE…
Keel’s vision updated as his connection to both the Marine Corps servers and the Imperial House of Records was lost. He felt oddly lightheaded, which should have been impossible for a mind housed in diodes and crystal lattices.
“Now, Darkwing!” Keel urged his dragon as he swung the long plasma lance that every Dragon Knight was equipped with.
These lances were actually stolen Jaali weapons, modified just a little to be used by bulky Marine gauntlets. They were long, sleek, and purple, ending in barrels attached to a wavy, silver-steel blade that gleamed in the starless void.
Keel twisted, knowing that this tiny pause in their flight might be the only advantage they had. He brought his plasma lance around to target the slowing Jaali craft.
// ERROR! Targeting Systems OFFLINE…
His vision didn’t update with the small green vectors that would help him direct his aim. He would have to do this freehand.
“Steady!” Keel called.
‘You try steady, human!’ Darkwing growled. Dragons didn’t exactly have a friendly way of talking at the best of times, let alone in the middle of battle.
Darkwing flared his wings, and they were flying true. Keel lined up the lance at the approaching Jaali ship. He saw the glow of the ship’s weapon ports as it geared up to fire again.
Keel pulled the trigger.
A purple beam blasted from the end of the lance, and Keel felt the kick against his shoulder. The beam shot across the darkness, slamming into the vessel that was almost a third of the size of the dragon. White light flashed from the nose of the alien craft.
If Keel could blink, he would have.
The explosive flash lasted for only a second but was quickly followed by a larger flash of quickly decaying particles. His errant strike must have hit some vital part of the ship. Perhaps it had been the generator for its beam weapons, because it was suddenly somersaulting as smaller explosions erupted along its hull.
Keel fired again and again at the spinning vehicle, watching his beams strike the hull and add to the conflagration.
‘Foolish human! Prey is dead!’
Darkwing beat his massive wings, and they rose up in the night and out of the way of the alien vessel as it spun past them. It was shedding smaller parts of its hull as it got smaller and smaller until it exploded with a muted flare of light.
“Yes!” Keel was victorious, but his dragon was pragmatic.
‘The hunt is not over yet, kin brother.’
The dragon turned them back to the battle, and they saw that two Imperial warships were now venting gases into the night. Keel could see escape pods bursting from their hull as the biological human guards fled their dying ships.
“No!” Keel saw the obvious problem there. The escape pods were easy prey for the fast-moving Jaali ship, which swerved around and through them, picking them apart with energy beams.
“Dragons! Protect the escape pods!” Keel called to the rest of the contingent, but only a few responded.
The dragons were caught in the thrill of their hunt. As Keel reached toward that place in his mind where he was bonded with the dragons, he could feel their fervent, feverish rage.
Never get between a dragon and their prey.
“Frack it,” Keel hissed as he saw the dragons flying in duos and trios after singular Jaali craft. He saw their powerful bodies shake as they released streams of plasma fire to engulf the engines of the Jaali ship.
There was no denying that the dragons were powerful, but the idea of fighting in formation was utterly new to them. As they sought their sport, the escape pods were being butchered.
“To me, dragons, to me!” Keel shouted as Darkwing threw them back toward the edge of the Long Night. “We have to attack together, as one, remember? One kin, one struggle!”
The dragon beneath him grunted with the exertion. Keel’s thoughts were colored with the pain that Darkwing was in, and he could feel the vast effort it took for the dragon to fight the strange inertia of the Long Night.
“Not far, Darkwing, not far!” Keel called a moment before he felt a strange electrical pulse run over his entire body as they crossed the edge of the Long Night.
All at once, they were thrown forward as they entered normal space. Darkwing roared with relief, and they skimmed over the top of plasma beams as Keel led them toward the nearest escape pod.
“Now!”
The dragon knew exactly what to do. Twin lines of fire ran up his sides as the dragon summoned his energy which flashed as they raced past Keel’s seat to gather at Darkwing’s throat before plasma burst from the dragon’s mouth, spearing from his extended maw. The bright flames were too fast for two of the pursuing attack craft to evade, and they crashed into the triangular Jaali vessels, knocking them aside before explosions ruptured against their hull.
On the other side of Keel and his dragon, three of the escape pods veered away from the fight and toward the brighter safety of the Inner Systems.
‘Eyes on the prey!’ Darkwing’s voice resounded in Keel’s head, and his attention snapped back to three Jaali attack craft veering in their direction.
Keel threw himself to one side, and the dragon beat his mighty wings. They swerved to one side and under the lance of approaching plasma beams. The dragon turned and swam through the night, spiraling between the lines of burning fire.
‘NEST!’
Darkwing’s voice resounded in Keel’s mind as they ducked and fled, getting between the enemy and the escape pods.
Suddenly, they were coming up to one of the giant bodies of an Imperial warship. Gases and plasma were venting across its bulk as lights flashed.
The Jaali gave chase, firing at the dragon, rider, and the warship that they shot past, but the battle was about to change. Keel felt the presence of the other dragons against his mind and then he saw them—a giant, chaotic cloud of scales and fangs as the rest of the dragons arrived to answer Darkwing’s call.
All of the other dragons had gathered into a horde and were chasing the Jaali who’d threatened one of their own.
“We’ll lead them in!” Keel saw the play they had to make and leaned forward to urge the dragon downward. Darkwing knew instinctively what his rider intended and performed a perfect, swooping backflip so that they were turning back toward the dragon horde.
The remaining five Jaali ships performed exactly as Keel had suspected they would. They turned after their prey as he led them straight across the path of the nest.
“Now!” Keel shouted.
‘Fight!’ the dragon roared, and the other dragons responded. Energy glimmered across their bodies for a split-second before they unleashed their flames.
Keel whooped as he and Darkwing swerved beneath the torrent of plasma fire racing across the void. The rage of the beasts slammed into the Jaali craft, and Keel saw the flashes of light as he rejoined the horde.
The dragons were proud and victorious, and their riders were totally consumed by the emotions that ran through their bonded partners.
Keel kept an eye on his scanners, seeing the three remaining Jaali attack craft turning away from the Imperium line and fleeing toward the Long Night.
There were no more Jaali craft attacking the Imperial ships. The line between the Outer and Inner systems had held, and today’s battle had been won, even if it was at the cost of two of the Imperium’s giant battleships.
“The Long Night will only slow them down,” Keel heard Lembik’s surprised assessment in his ear. He saw that his second-in-command was riding on the blue dragon not far from him. The lance corporal had also tracked the enemy’s movement and was urging his dragon to break away from the horde to follow.
“It’ll slow us down too,” Keel pointed out as he and Darkwing dropped out of the bottom of the horde at the same time.
And Darkwing is injured, Keel considered. Any flying through the Long Night would cost his energy dearly, and the Imperial Marine could sense how much it was costing Darkwing to be able to fly at all.
‘I’m fine, human. Look after yourself!’ Darkwing was characteristically diplomatic.
“The group could catch up with them, I’m sure of it,” Lembik said.
There was a flash of light from somewhere far out there in the dark.
“What is that?” Keel enhanced his vision to its maximum and saw the rear thrusters of the Jaali attack craft gleaming in the night as they headed toward a disturbance in the near endless dark of the Long Night.
Is that…
There was a ship out there, Keel was sure of it, but it was so far away as to just be a faint blush of light. He tried to extend his sensors as far as they would go, but all he received was a fuzzy image of a vessel that was ghostly white and appeared to be shaped like a half-ring whose ends didn’t quite meet each other.
“Lembik? Are you seeing that out there? A Jaali craft,” Keel directed his attention to the anomaly.
“It’s like no ship we’ve ever seen them use before. For one, it’s all white.” Lembik craned his head forward in a ridiculous biological affectation that would make no difference to how effective the Marine’s sensors were.
“No,” Keel murmured. It was also much larger, if he had his perspectives right. As the Jaali attack craft got nearer to it, it became smaller and smaller until there were only twin pinpricks of light.
“Is that…a mothership?” Keel wondered aloud before there was a ripple in the night and just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone.
Huh?
“Did I just dream that?” Keel asked.
‘No, kin brother. That was the cold one,’ Darkwing’s voice sounded in his mind, full of suspicion and resentment.
“Well, if you did, then I saw it too, sir,” Lembik confirmed.
2
SUMMONED, NOT EXACTLY FRIENDS
“Attention, corporal! You have been summoned by the emperor,” said the holo-image of General Ahzeer.
“Frack,” Sula, Keel’s guide and mentor, whispered beside him.
The pair stood in one of the small conference chambers located on board the Victorious, one of the only remaining fully functional warships left after the Long Night battle.
The room itself was barely big enough for Keel’s bulk in his Marine body with full armor and the much smaller, blonde biological that was Recorder Sula. Its walls were pocked with noise-canceling roundels and shaped like a hexagram. The holo of General Ahzeer flickered before them on the walls, looking imposing in his Marine suit that was larger and more ceremonial than Keel’s.
Keel understood Sula’s sentiments. An audience with the emperor was a rare thing and, as far as he was aware, it was also often a deadly thing.
Emperor Mikhael XIII had traditionally been a very reclusive premier for the last two centuries or so that he had been in power. For a fleeting moment, Keel wondered at the fact that the emperor’s longevity didn’t even make any among the biological community of the Imperium bat an eyelid. Perhaps that was no surprise either, as many of those in the wealthier Inner Systems used gene therapy to extend their lifespans. Keel’s own father was fifty-something going on eighty, but Keel knew that the emperor was at least three hundred years old. He had always been there, and he had always been the emperor.
“Did you hear me, corporal? This is a direct summons from the emperor. You should expect a transport within the shift,” General Ahzeer said.
