Scales like Stars Pt. 10

Into those components came the cannons, the machine guns, the nukes.

But even as the Thresh Warsphere took a pounding...it dished it out.

There were more weapons than the Hellcannon. Polar ray cannons the size of small buildings struck torpedo ships and froze their entire crews solid. Railguns perforated submarines, tearing apart their internal components and setting off their unfired munitions. Corpses of ships and men alike cluttered space as the fighter-brawl that had been going since the battle started continued. Now, more fighters were being take out by debris and floating corpses than enemy weaponry.

The Thresh Warsphere exploded in a rippling wave of fire.

But, likewise, the flagship of the entire united human navy was burning as well.

The USS John F. Kennedy smoldered from dozens of holes and hundreds of impact sites. Dimples pock-marked the bottom, and smoke poured from a great chunk taken from the side by a glancing nuclear missile strike. Its conning tower was missing half the roof, revealing a jagged mangled mess where the internal components had been. But despite all that, its propellers still turned. Its anti-missile machine guns still roared.

And it's commander could still give an order. Even if they were just a junior lieutenant, lucky enough to not take a scratch where the rest of the bridge officers had been torn to minced meat by a railgun slug.

"Full speed ahead," she snarled, glaring at the crackling, sparking screen that showed where the exploding Warsphere was located.

The USS John F. Kennedy roared forward through space. Fighter planes from the Chromatic Dominion flew forward, firing blasts of acid into it, trying to slow it down. An enemy battleship gallantly burned, putting its bulk between itself and the Kennedy. But the captain had clearly still imagined that a spelljammer couldn't possibly match a true star-ship. A Nimitz aircraft carrier was nearly a kilometer long and carried the inventive momentum of its entire voyage.

It struck the draconic battleship.

Shoved it into the maelstrom of the exploding Warsphere.

And the universe saw what happened when a wish – to return the Warsphere to life in the exact place it had been destroyed – ran up against the stubborn, gritted will of the human race.

Wishes blink.

And the Warsphere reformed with a massive chunk of its internal components meshed with a kilometer of aircraft carrier and half a kilometer of friendly battleship. Atoms struggled to stay in the same location as other atoms for a single moment measurable only on the Planck scale. Nucleoli split with the impact of foreign atoms and, despite being mostly inert, the mass of both ships detonated. If they had been pure uranium, there would likely have been nothing left of the solar system. As it was, the second Warsphere's true death was easily the most energetic thing to happen in the solar system since the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

Thankfully, it was a comfortable distance outside of the Earth's magnetosphere.

***

Sometimes, Merton wished Brash was less helpful.

Two Warspheres were down. But Brash's capacity as a radar scanner showed that the human and metallic fleets were decimated. Worse, actually. If they had only lost one ship for every ten, Merton would have been happy. More wreckage seemed to be floating out there than functioning ships. Many of the fighters were down. A few kobold fighters were still dog-fighting, and the enemy B-suits had drawn back, recalled to their last remaining Warsphere. They guarded it and intercepted incoming fire with hellwhips.

The Xosh Warsphere was driving towards the firing position at top speed, careless of any debris that smashed into its hull. It wasn't even using portal shields to block anything!

Merton reached up, tapping his ear. Brash knew this was how Merton said he wanted his communicator online and cheerfully made a 'bleep' noise to indicate he was broadcasting. "D-Com, you got any ideas?"

"We're out of ammo, our of C-4..." Lt. Kisogawa said, sounding tired. "And our wizard is down."

Merton's heart froze. "What!?"

"Cool your jets – your mistress just went into shock. It was barely a flesh wound..." Kisogawa muttered. Merton closed his eyes and forced his heart to slow down. Then he nodded.

"Every fighter," he said – trusting Brash to translate his language to the myriad of human tongues. "Everyone who still has cannon and missiles, form up on my tail. We're going to Death Star this bitch."

He shot forward without hesitation. Brash spread his wings and Merton narrowed his eyes as he flew towards the Xosh Warsphere. He had no idea how they'd stop the Warsphere a second time. But he figured...one step at a time. He flew forward and then risked a glance backwards. He saw fighters peeling off and zooming up to flank him. There were Russian and Indian MIGs, American F-14s, British fighters, Spanish ones. Each force had been winnowed down, but the number of flags he saw behind him made his heart swell.

"Lets do this!" Merton shouted.

The remaining B-Suits moved up, their hellwhips crackling. Brash roared in fury and then grew four extra arms. Merton strained his talent and put a psi-sword into each one. He slashed a hellwhip out of the air, grabbed onto a second and screamed as it wrapped around his wrist and began to burn. Brash's hands grabbed others from the air as he grew yet more arms. Pain roared through his body, but Merton fought it down as Brash yanked. Hard. The hellwhips buzzed, drew taut, and the B-suits flew towards him. Two were cut down by cannon fire from Russian planes. One was blown in half by a missile fired by who knows what.

At the last second, Merton withdrew arms and legs and wings and aimed those psi-swords out, becoming nothing more than a very spiky cannonball. He mashed into tumbling, stunned B-suits and grunted as the blades sawed through limbs, necks, chests. Then he and the surviving jets were through and Brash whooped. "Don't loooooose your waaaaay!" he sang as they arrowed into the Hellcannon's firing trench.

Several jets clipped the walls. Even a tiny bump sent them tumbling into the wall. The fierce explosions made Merton wince. Then he and Brash were through, flying out into the massive, zero-gravity gantry bay that contained the planet killing weapon. It was starting to glow with gathering energies.

"Light. Them. Up!" Merton shouted as Brash extended his everything. His shrike catapults, his spinfusors, his fucking water cannon. Everything fired into the side of the massive barrel of bronze and glowing golden metal. Explosions rippled across it as the jet fighters areobraked to slow themselves down and started to pour weaponry into it as well. Merton felt his heart pang as several fighters fired for literally less than a second before their cannons went dry.

Two missiles joined his fire.

But it was enough.

Secondary explosions started to ripple along the hellcannon and Brash screamed in raw effort. Dozens of arms shot out from his back and sides. They stretched narrow and Merton felt the warmth of Brash's surrounding skin grow thin and stretchy. He threw everything into those arms. Each one punched through cockpit and metal. Grabbed onto a single squishy human. Then yanked them forward. Planes tumbled and flew out of control and Brash's feet kicked on a thrust plume as he shot out, holding every single human being next to him in a tight hug.

They arrowed out of the Warsphere. Merton could feel Brash tiring.

"Reliiiiiix!" He screamed.

Just as he felt Brash's concentration start to snap, the Talon-9 swept down. The cargo hold was opened and Brash slowed down just enough that they smashed into the deck like a football tackle rather than cannon ball. Brash popped off Merton with a loud slurp. The human pilots groaned as they sprawled onto the deck, even as the cargo hold slammed shut – closing on the sight of the Warsphere exploding.

Merton knew there was no time to wait. He pushed himself to weak, rubbery legs, then clung to Brash, holding the small, cat-sized dragon to his chest. Brash mumbled. "No mas...no mas..."

"It's okay, Brash. You did good..." Merton whispered as he stumbled towards the bridge.

He arrived in time to see the Warsphere returning with a faint bing. Relix sprang up and grabbed onto the both of them, hugging Brash and Merton both to her chest. But before Merton could ask anything, Speccy stepped over with a pair of hypo-sprays. She pressed them to Brash's body and to Merton's neck. Merton felt a rush of energy fill him and Brash gasped as he went from gray-scaled and completely limp to dark black and quivering with excitement. He hopped onto Merton's shoulder.

"I'm healed!" he exclaimed. Then he cried out. "No!"

The returned Warsphere was firing its secondary guns. The scraps of the human and metallic fleet were crumpling. Fleeing. Desperately turning to try and get away from the polar ray cannons and railguns.

"We are completely out of everything but the railguns," Gunner growled.

"Come on, Brash." Merton said, voice grim. Brash flowed around him and before Relix could do more than squeak, Merton strode to the airlock. He flung himself out without bothering to wait for the outer door to open – the inner door slammed shut and then he and Brash flew out.

"What do we got, Brash?" Merton asked.

Well, I'm strong as an ox and tough as diamond! Brash paused. But we're out of ammo for literally every single gun we have.

Merton thought. Desperately.

He was a game-master. It had not seemed like much, when this crazy adventure started...but it meant he had seen every single insane trick that a party could pull. But no matter how hard he pushed, no matter how hard he thought, nothing came to mind. He could see nothing that could stop the glowing mass of hellish energy that started to fill the Warsphere's main guns. He closed his eyes. He knew what he had to do. Brash gasped quietly – then cried out.

"Wait! I'm getting a planar message!"

Merton blinked.

"Open a portal on my coordinates! Now! Now! Now! Nowwwwww!"

The voice.

Was Dart.

The elven wizard that they had rescued from a dimensional maze. Who had claimed to be reformed – then snuck away at the first chance. Merton blinked, then shouted: "Do it!"

The Talon-9 created a portal using their PWS. Dart burst from the human sized hole – landing on the prow of the ship. Her magnetic boots locked home – she was dressed in a sleek space suit, with a slender firearm strapped to her back. She screamed, as loudly as she could: "Biiiiiiiigerrrrrr!"

Merton grabbed onto the edge of the portal. He knew so little about magic, but he knew that sometimes, brute force did a remarkable amount. Brash beat his wings and Merton strained his arm and his talent and the portal that the Talon-9 had opened grew bigger and bigger and bigger, the Talon-9's whole frame shuddering as it added power as well. It became the size of a house. Then the size of a city. And to Merton's shock, Dart kicked off the prow of the ship. She floated out and shouted through the portal, her hands cupped.

"Oi! I'm still alive, you wanna-be-Gigerish motherfuckers!"

Brash reacted before Merton could think – growing out an arm to grab onto Dart and yank her back.

With the speed of a bullet train and the weight of a furious god, something shot out of the portal. But it wasn't merely one thing. It was one thing that went on and on and on, a blurring spread of motion and lines and textures. Merton's eyes bugged and he flew backwards, Brash gaping just as much as he was as Dart cackled like a mad woman. His arms were closed around her belly, keeping her close, and she let herself float and kick her legs and clap her hands.

Bong!

The unmusical sound came from the impact.

The impact...of a hand.

A hand that was nearly...incomprehensible in terms of it's sheer size. It was a hand that should not be, a hand made of hissing biomechanical components, of smooth lines of ridged flesh, of hardened carapace. It was a hand that belonged in a nightmarish dreamscape, a hand that should have been on the fist of an Old One. It was a hand that made the Warsphere look like a child's toy. And it had impacted, closed into a fist, at the speed of a screaming bullet, into the center of the Warsphere's mass. Armor plate had crumpled, and secondary explosions were ripping through it as the surviving members of the chromatic fleet reeled in shock.

"What. The. Fuck?" Merton whispered.

Dart laughed, then sighed. "I figured you'd need help..." She licked her lips. "I found zero takers on Sigil, no dice in the Sunder, I got laughed out of Purgatory, and finally...I figured...if I couldn't get friends, I could use my one real talent."

"Which is?" Brash whispered.

"Pissing people off," Dart said, craning her head back.

The fist withdraw.

The portal snapped shut.

The Warsphere exploded with a flare of pale white light, consuming Emperor Xosh and his dreams of galactic domination.

"Who did you fucking honk off?" Brash whispered.

"Oh, uh, the Night C-"

Bink.

Like an unfair joke. Like a player with a broken character. Like a GM who wanted the party to die. Like all of that, the Warsphere returned. Utterly unharmed. Undamaged. Brash, Dart, Merton – and every single last survivor of the human fleet and metallic fleets – gaped at the sphere as it hung there in space, a shining, blue-black tombostone, announcing the end of everything. As it floated there, Merton heard the crackle of a radio...and a voice as cruel and as cold as the space between stars.

"I ensured that my ship...had two layers of ablative wish shielding," Emperor Xosh of the Chromatic Dominion snarled. "You may fire when ready."

***

The wish spell had returned the warsphere to life with the amount of charge it had gathered when it had been destroyed. It was at 99%. Admiral Thresh stepped over at the order of her Emperor. She grabbed onto the firing leaver that would unleash complete and utter hell upon the Earth. It would not merely destroy it. It would shunt the Earth into the Abyss itself. The rippling cascade of energies would cause each human being's nightmare to come to hideous life, and the weak willed among them would be turned into demons. A bloody orgy of violence, rape, and worse would follow as nine billion souls were tortured for eternity.

It was the single greatest deterrent to war in the former Five Talon Empire – a weapon so horrifying that the very thought of it being unleashed upon you would stop a war before it started.

Gimtesh did not give a flying fuck about humanity.

But...

She was a red dragon.

And if heroism wasn't enough...a desire to fuck that smug prick Xosh over was more than enough.

Her foot was just long enough for her to surge her leg up and slam her ankle down on the emergency power vent switch on the engineering console. The kobold sitting there – so utterly distracted by the pageantry of the oncoming death of a world that he hadn't even noticed the movement until it was too late – squalled. "What!?"

Admiral Thresh flung the switch and a low, droning woom woom woom woom sound filled the bridge as the percentile number dripped from 99% to 83% to 72%. Xosh stood in complete shock – then spun around. He roared in pure fury as Gimtesh smirked and lifted up a single middle finger. The blast of raw lightning that slammed into her was utterly painless.

Which had been part of the point.

***

The surviving human ships steamed towards the Warsphere – taking advantage of the baffling fluctuation in power. But the surviving chromatic ships met them. Beams of killing cold struck, even as shells soared out and smashed into adamantine hulls.

"They won't make it in time," Brash whispered.

"What?" Merton asked.

Brash was silent for a moment.

Then.

"Thanks. Dad. For everything." There was a sudden, wrenching dislocation. A feeling like being squeezed and shoved. Then suddenly Merton was blind. Not literally, but the thousands of tiny augmentations that had been in Brash's eyes were gone. He could no longer see the outlines of ships, the tracery of fire was missing. He saw only the faint winks of light that indicated movement, explosions. He looked around himself and saw he floated in a bubble of thin membrane – slightly transparent and glistening. A thin strand unwove into space.

"W-What!?" Merton whispered. Then he saw the rocket engine kick on. The thin strand continued to unweave...and following it, he could see the darting form of Brash.

Flying towards the battle.

A tiny strand connected Brash to Merton – a strand that let Brash maintain the life support bubble. But Brash himself was shooting forward. Then, slowly, Merton started to hear a snare drum. A bass line. A piano. The sound of clapping. Fingers snapping. His eyes widened.

He recognized that song.

***

Brash loved humans. He loved their cute faces, their cute noses, their stubbornness. He loved their butts. But he also loved, more than a whole lot of things, their music. He had eaten Merton's iPod a while ago, and listened to every song ten million times. And this one was his favorite. He listened to it as his rockets flared and burned, because when he listened to the song, he could be brave. His eyes narrowed.

Pressure! Pushing down on me!

Pushing down on you! No man asked for!

Fighters zoomed towards him – beams and acid darts flying out. Brash wove to the side. He flicked his tail and knocked one – with a black scaled kobold inside – spinning out of the way. Then he saw a battleship blocking his way. He flew forward as polar beams scythed out, trying to strike him out. He shrank to cat-sized, corkscrewing around.

It's the terror of knowing what this world is about

Watching some good friends screamin'

Let me out!

Brash arrowed forward at max speed. He tucked his head to the side and smashed into a weakened part of the hull and exploded through. There was a shudder and then another bang as he emerged out of the other side. Blood dripped along his scales as he beat his wings harder and harder. He stopped trying to dodge as he looked upwards, at the Warsphere. The hellcannon was growing brighter and brighter. Point defense rays reached out as he flew up and up and up.

Keep coming up with love, but it's so slashed and torn

Why?

Why?

Why?

As the last why reached to angelic, echoing levels, Brash felt cold stab into him from a dozen sides. He shuddered and beat his wings harder and harder.

Insanity laughs, under pressure we're breaking

Why can't we give ourselves one more chance?

Why can't we give love that one more chance?

Why can't we give love

He felt so cold. But he beat harder as he flew up into the red eye of the cannon. Energies throbbed there as the song reached higher and higher, like a dragon spreading its wings. Brash spread his wings wide.

Give love. Give love. Give love.

Cause loves such an old fashioned wordless

And love dares you to care for the people on the

edge of the night

and love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves

On the bridge, Xosh screeched. He stamped his foot – fury driving him past all reason.