Scales like Stars Pt. 10

And best of all?

They were all shrouded in Julia's spells.

Julia knew she should have been deeply nervous. But it had been hard to feel anything but giddy excitement, when every day brought her new understanding of magic. She closed her eyes and recounted everything she had memorized. Relix had granted her an unofficial rank of class six. Six, out of twenty. But the important thing was that she had gotten her mitts on Summon Sexual Partner. For after this little kerfuffle.

"They're going to town on each other up there."

The disembodied voice came from the pilot of the VTOL.

That made Julia nervous. But she carefully took her nervousness about Merton and put it into a tiny box. Merton had Brash watching his back. He'd be fine. She nodded slightly.

"All right, everyone," Kisogawa said, her voice soft. "Hats on. And remember, no one fires a shot till Akko over here is out of level 1 slots."

"Did..." Julia blinked. "Was that a Little Witch Academia reference?" She grinned – mentally putting Kisogawa up a few notches in her mind. Kisogawa grunted as she slid on the face concealing helmet. Julia was kinda glad she didn't have to deal with that bullshit. Armor, any kind of armor, would fuck with her magic. And she'd rather take her chances ducking and using magic armor and shield spells and blur and mirror image and-

The VTOL rocked slightly. A faint crackling, hissing noise filled the deck. The members of D-Com stood. Each of them were the best of the best of the best, and they had trained their whole lives for this moment. Julia stood, bouncing from foot to foot, then readied herself. The door swung inwards – and a billowing cloud of acrid smoke flowed outwards. Through the cloud, Julia could see a pair of very confused kobolds. She thrust her finger at them and hissed. "Sleep!"

A bolt of energy flew from her finger, struck the kobolds, and sent them sprawling on the ground.

Kisogawa stepped into the narrow corridor, swinging her rifle around, checking each corner. She was followed by more D-Com soldiers. Julia was hustled out in the middle of the group. She rubbed her palms together, then placed her palms onto the deck. She murmured the words of the spell and felt one of the buzzing knots of magical energy that she had locked into her brain with eight hours of meditation uncoil. Her palms flashed and she felt a shiver rush through her brain.

A useful spell, Locate Weakness.

She pointed. "That way."

And together, she and D-Com started through the corridors of the Bryaugh Warsphere.

***

Merrrrtonnnnnn! Brash's squeal of alarm jerked Merton away from his current task, which was firing spinfusor disks at a heavy bomber that was rushing towards the USS Antietam. The shimmering blue-white disks of cutting, exploding plasma smashed into the sides of the bomber, whose PWS had been taken down by the Antietam's anti-missile cannons, which were still pouring high caliber machine gun bullets into the front of the bomber. Since they hadn't had time to enchant every single bullet, shell and missile used by the entire navy of the entire human race, those bullets weren't enchanted, and so simply bounced harmlessly off the adamantine armor.

The spinfusor disks did a lot better. The secondary explosion sent the bomber wheeling to the side, trailing smoke and fire.

"What?" Merton asked.

They launched the B-suits!

"Shit," Merton whispered.

They had been waiting for this moment.

But there was a difference between waiting and actually being ready.

A hundred B-suits shot out, each one in its own unique configuration, suited to the cruel mind of the black dragon wearing They rushed towards the human ships and the dragon ships that were, even now, harrying the Thresh Warsphere. They had swung straight past the Bryaugh sphere to begin firing on the massive red sphere that made up the centerpiece of the second wave of Chromatic attack. Shells slammed through massive planar shields, while missiles tried to jink around and hit the actual armor. Most were scooped up, but even the immense power of the Warsphere's shield emitters had limits, and some parts of the skin started to glow with the heat of explosion and shine with the fresh-metal gouges of shrapnel ripping across thick armor plating.

Brash kicked himself to full gear, shooting straight at the first of the enemy B-Suits.

Even that was too slow.

Hellwhips slashed out. Beamcasters snarled and split space. Tactical nuclear launches smashed down. Flares of brilliant white heat consumed one ship, then another. The Russian aircraft carrier – the Kuznetsov – heeled under the impacts. Great, jagged tears were ripped across the flight deck. Bodies tumbled into space. Flames poured through those holes, and Merton's eyes widened as he saw the whole ship start to crack in half under the strain of the damage. Lance-beams intersected and fuel tanks went off with crumps that shook him, even from this distance.

The Kuznetsov continued to tumble forward. But only as debris and wreckage.

A United States submarine was ripped from nose to propellers by a single B-suit, using nothing more than their claws. Three fighters were shot from the sky by dart-quick silver blades, fired by shrike catapults. The whole offense staggered as if it had struck a brick wall. And that was only the effect of ten or so of the B-Suits. Dozens more were forming up to attack in a unified pattern.

And there was nothing that Merton could do about it.

Brash hissed. Snarled. Bellowed.

It was a bellow that echoed through Merton's whole body and it made him stagger slightly in space, his knees jerking up reflexively. His wings flapped and he slowed to an almost complete stop. The bellow was wordless at first, but then Brash added – with a snarl full of real pain: STOP HURTING MY FRIENDS!

And to Merton's shock, every single B-Suit skidded to a stop, their bodies reacting convulsively.

The reaction of the human and Metallic ships was immediate. Missiles rushed off firing platforms and smashed into B-suits by the dozens. Explosions rocked and chunks of organic matter flew through space. Other B-suits were transfixed by intersecting lines of machine gun and cannon fire. Still others were sliced by X-ray lasers fired by the surviving Metallic ships.

"What did you do?" Merton whispered, his eyes wide.

***

"Noooooo!" Admiral Thresh screamed.

General Bryaugh spun around to glare – but not at Thresh, not at Xosh. No. He glared at Gimtesh. Gimtesh whimpered, grabbing onto the base of the spike that transfixed her. She made a great show of being in pain, but Bryaugh didn't seem to care. He stomped forward, then grabbed her by her throat and heaved her up. Shifting or no shifting, the sudden pressure of the spike against her belly sent new jolts of agony through her body.

"What was that you said?" Bryaugh growled. "That there was no way the control dragon could be an issue. Not when he was so young!? That was how you covered for your brother's failing, you half-elven bitch!"

Admiral Thresh, meanwhile, had shook off her shock. She grabbed onto the com crystal and screamed into it: "Shut down your coms, B-Suits! Go dark, go silent, and kill that fucking traitor! Now! Now!"

The surviving B-suits – all twenty of them – winked off the communication board. But they started to move again. Gimtesh whimpered, her eyes closed tight.

And grew her foot just a bit more.

***

Julia ran out of level one spell slots at just about the worst time. The small group had penetrated deep into the belly of the Warsphere, working their way closer and closer towards the vast guts that powered the immense Hellcannon that made a Warsphere such a destructive force. But here, the very scale of the sphere played against the intentions of its creators. There was no way to staff every corridor, every intersection, even every important room. And so, they had moved and used sleep on every knot of crew and guards that they came to.

Until Julia shook her head. "I'm out. We're on to second and third level spells. And cantrips." She shrugged, then wiggled her fingers – using prestidigitation to scrawl: Julia wuz here on the wall.

"All right," Kisogawa muttered. She looked over at the two soldiers who were using a nifty little fiber optic camera to peek underneath a heavy door.

"It looks like an engineering section," one of the soldiers muttered. "With a bunch of-"

His head exploded. The sound of the gunshot seemed to come afterwards and Julia swung her head around. She thrust her finger out and snarled out a quick work. The orc guard who had come up around the corner behind them – unexpectedly quiet – let out a garbled scream as he put his palms over the globe of acid that struck his face. But his other friends dove for cover, even as the D-Com troopers started to open fire.

The door opened. An orc, drawn by the gunfire stood there, holding a massive sword in one hand. Kisogawa reacted with astounding speed. She stepped past him, slamming her elbow into his throat with a twist that put the full weight of her body into the blow. The orc clutched at his throat, then let out a low grunt as Kisogawa rammed a combat knife into his heart. As he fell, she shouted: "Light em up!"

Laser fire strobed from her rifle, cutting another orc down as he turned to see what the call had been from. Julia slapped her palms together. "Give me the bombs!"

Kisogawa jerked her chin to the sapper. The sapper under-handed the backpack full of C4 to Julia. Julia caught it and spoke a single word...and vanished. And, painfully aware that a bullet fired by random chance was just as likely to kill her as one fired deliberately, Julia ducked low and sprinted past the door. Orcs were swarming into the engineering bay, bellowing as they realized that their Warsphere had been boarded.

Julia let the spell she had cast earlier guide herself. She slapped some C4 here, some C4 there, not knowing why this point was better than that. But she knew that it still wasn't enough. She rushed to a door that led to the next adjoining room. Each chamber contained multiple reactors, but each room also had thick doors and thick walls. She had a hunch that each chamber held just enough reactors to contain the blast if they went off.

But what if three chambers went off at once?

The spell in her gut chimed faintly, like it agreed.

The next room was nearly empty. Orcs had rushed from it to fight the pinned down D-com unit. From the sounds of gunfire and sizzling laser blasts, Julia thought that they were having a fun time. She wasn't sure how much more time her invisibility spell would last. But she still slapped down the next third of C4. She got to the door leading to the next reactor room just as it opened. There stood a massive knot of kobolds and orcs. They had gathered their weapons and were prepping to storm through this engine room to reach the combat in the first.

Julia grinned. It was a cold blooded, wicked grin.

Some people sneered at cantrips.

Some people were idiots.

She whispered – and a booming voice came from the far end of the engine room, from behind the gaggle of orcs and kobolds: "Hose them down, boys!" She used Clancy Brown's voice, because he was fucking terrifying. It worked. The orcs and kobolds sprinted for cover relative to the voice, looking around for the attack. Julia snapped her fingers and growled out the words for fireball. And this had made her giggle and clap with joy when she had learned them.

"Yol Toor Shul!"

A sphere of bright white light appeared above her palm. It flew out missile fast and smashed into the ground in the center of the orcish formation. The explosion roared outwards and orcs went sprawling. Their bodies were blown to bright green chunks and Julia winced – feeling her gorge rise as she saw that most Dungeon Masters left out. The horrible stink of burning blood, the dripping of blood splattered against the ceiling. The screams of those who had 'succeeded' their reflex saves. She shook herself out of her shock, clenching her jaw as she felt the floor under her feet shudder, then still. The movement of the Warsphere had been so faint that she hadn't noticed it...

Until it was gone.

They didn't have time. She rushed forward, slapping the C4 into place, then cast her final spell.

Her feet lifted off the ground and she felt the lightness that came from a Fly spell. She shot forward, emerging into the reactor chamber where the main battle was still going on. She flew up to hide among the rafters, and began to sling down acid spheres – splashing and splattering against orcs in cover, who screamed in alarm.

"Lets go, Kisogawa!" Julia shouted.

She remained above the orcs, flinging down cantrip after cantrip as the D-Com forces retreated. Once they were free, she flew forward as fast as the spell carried her. She shot past confused orcs. Shot past the D-com forces. That was intentional. She arrived at the place they had come from and found orcs rushing down the corridor. These orcs were burly and heavily armored and carried shotcannons that looked like they had been yanked right out of Warhammer 40,000. She squealed and flung herself into cover as the orcs opened fire on her. Pellets whine and screamed and Julia knew she had to do something before D-Com showed up and got slaughtered.

In a lull in the firing, she lifted her hands up. "I surrender!" she called out.

The orcs didn't shred her as she emerged. She saw them looking at her with narrowed eyes. She put on her cutest, most innocent face. She held her hands behind her back. She had one spell left. One little spell. She licked her lips.

The orcish leader stepped forward, growling. "Where your friends?" he sneered, his eyes dipping from Julia's eyes to her breasts – which were barely contained by the thin band of leather she wore. Cause shirts were for other people, really now.

"Well, that's a long story, cause, uh, stinking cloud!" Julia shouted throwing her palm forward. A shotcannon roared and she felt pellets tear along her shoulder and side. Fire hot pain screamed across her body and she cried out – but the sound was lost in the choking, gasping, coughing, spluttering sound as the orcs retched and spluttered and staggered within the sphere of billowing greenish smoke. Before Julia could so much as blink, Kisogawa was by her side, puffing and panting from her run. She grabbed onto Julia and dragged her into the ship.

Julia felt her ears roaring.

She was bleeding an...an awful lot. She looked down at the hamburger that was her shoulder. Her vision went to a narrow point and she breathed shallower and shallower. Distantly, she heard Kisogawa scream.

"Go! Go! Go!"

***

Merton grabbed onto the clawed hand of one B-suited dragon and jerked his head to to he side. Because he had locked the arm into one position, the shrike catapult's blades whined past his ear-frill, shooting into space. But then Merton had to kick the B-suited dragon away and snap up his psi-shield. Plasma caster bolts hammered home, jackknifing him backwards. Merton was not so much thinking as he was merely reacting, letting the programming that filled Brash to fill him. He twisted away from a tail strike that could have shattered bones, swung a hellwhip at a B-suit that shrank to a mouse size to evade the attack, then flew backwards, gasping for air.

There's too many of them! Brash wailed. And they're not listening to me!

Merton fired off two tac-nukes from the ankle mounted mine layers. They rocketed down and one of the B-suits, too eager and not attentive enough, flew right into them. The brilliant flash concealed whatever happened to that poor sucker, and when the light faded, the remaining twelve or so B-suits hung back.

They had training.

They had number.

But whatever Brash was made of, he was made a few steps better than the other B-suits. Made sense, if he was supposed to be worn by the future prince regent of the Chromatic Dominion. Merton took some small pleasure in that.

He was about to think of a new angle of attack...

When a new star was born.

The light was brilliant and everlasting. It seared through his body with the same kind of killing overabundance of life as that rewritten moment when the Talon-9 had been destroyed. The massive sphere of the Bryaugh Warsphere had peeled apart under that killing light, chunks of adamantine the size of small cities rocketing outwards. Some plowed through dragon battleships, but most of them tumbled off into space.

And then, with a dart of speed too fast to be believed, the Talon-9 shot by overhead.

Merton's mouth opened in shock. What was Relix doing!?

***

"Shields at ten percent, we can't take any more P-Rads!" Speccy shouted from the engineering console. Relix clutched onto the arm-rests of her command throne, leaning forward, snarling.

"Transfer all power to the planar shields!" she snapped. "We only have to last-"

The forward thrusters flared as the computer registered them arriving at the right position, the right place. Relix was almost pitched off her command throne. And then, with a quiet bink the wish-spells woven into the Warsphere triggered and reverted it from destruction to full operation. Instantly, corridors and components were back in place. Instantly, slain crew were back at their positions, blinking and looking around with wide eyes. Instantly, the Hellcannon was once more aimed at a defenseless Earth.

Everything was as it had been.

Save for the Talon-9.

Which floated within the massive, zero-gravity gantry bay that held the massive Hellcannon and the power feeds that fed into the weapon. There was a narrow trench that aimed towards the Earth. Relix grinned and sagged slightly back in her seat. Gunner chuckled.

"Good thinking, Princess," he said, quietly. Then. "Fire at will."

The Talon-9's forward railguns blazed with blue-white light. The wing-mounted plasma torpedoes opened up and darts of raw energy flew from them and into the side of the immense, ornately carved chunk of brass and orichalicum that made up the Hellcannon's external casings. Metal and magical material peeled apart as needle thin darts of tungsten accelerated to near light speed tore through it. Spheres of blue white plasma ripped into the power supplies and secondary explosions started to rippled through it.

"Engines!" Relix snarled.

The Talon-9 bucked and shot forward, zooming out of the narrow firing trench and into open space as...for the second time...the Warsphere crumpled and exploded. It was far less dramatic this time, as the internal explosions didn't set off the reactors. But the wave of hellish energy tearing through the sphere was more than enough to send chunks of armor plate spinning away and to cause the entire, moon-sized ship to drifting.

***

General Omadon Bryaugh didn't look away from the screen.

Quietly, he said: "I can see why you wanted her dead, Emperor Xosh."

The Thresh Warsphere chose that moment to crumple. There had been no fancy tricks. NO subtle tactics. Merely a pounding machine, with two heavy weight boxers. On one side, the Warsphere. On the other side, the entire armada of humanity. Cruisers fired missiles that shot into glowing armor plate, while cannon shells from battleships taken from museums and scrap-yards exploded against planar shields that struggled to stop the wave of torpedoes. Nuclear flashes burst around the sphere, fired from the wings of heavy bombers and launched from the spines of immense, deadly submarines. The sheer weight of fire caused adamantine to bubble, then boil, then slough away in great sheets, revealing the soft components within.