Intergalactic conquest with an AI

Rex's knuckles cracked. "He's hiding like a rat. Let him." His gaze shifted to Ys, now back in human form, giggling as she poked a surrendered soldier's dented helmet. "We've got what we came for."

But Lilla wasn't celebrating. She stared northward while narrowing her eyes. "That coward won't stop. He'll dig up something worse; men like him always do."

Rex smirked. "Good. Saves me the trouble of hunting him down later."

Meanwhile, beneath the planet's polar ice, the Supreme Commander limped through a hidden facility, his boots clicking on obsidian floors. The walls pulsed with bioluminescent veins, and the air reeked of ozone and decay.

Before him was the Chief Scientist, a gaunt figure with too many mechanical limbs bowed. "The Aurora Protocol is ready, Commander. But the cost—"

"I don't care if it burns this planet to cinders," the Commander spat. "If I can't rule it, no one will."

A massive console hummed to life, revealing a hologram of a massive beast.

"Wake it up," he ordered.

"But, sir... even if I wanted to wake it up, it won't respond! We still don't have a pilot for the main interface! The last test subject died just yesterday; his brain exploded after barely an hour of neural sync!"

The Chief Scientist's voice was frayed with desperation, his hands trembling as he gestured toward the monstrous machine.

He had tried, again and again, to convince the Supreme Commander to abandon this suicide mission and to flee the planet with what little research remained. But reason had long since left the commander's eyes.

"Enough." The Supreme Commander's voice was a blade of ice. "Connect me to the Beast. Once it's done, take whoever's left and run. Find my brother's colony and continue your work there."

Without hesitation, he began stripping off his armor, his scarred body already tensing for the agony to come. The Chief Scientist swallowed hard, fingers flying over the console as he input the final activation codes.

Meanwhile, Cleo's sensors flared to life, cutting through the static of the orbital graveyard.

Her fleet's augmented scanners, which were far superior to the others fleet's standard range, picked up a surge of energy at the planet's north pole. A anomaly. A threat.

[Deploying space probe…]

[Probe activated. Zooming in on target.]

The feed sharpened. Even through the enemy's camouflage, their thermal dampeners, and their scrambling tech, they couldn't hide from X-ray penetration of the space probe. Shadows resolved into figures, and Cleo could finally see the guards in defensive positions and a hidden facility pulsing with unstable energy.

[Establishing link with Rex…]

"Cleo? Everything okay?" Rex's voice was calm, but the distant screams in the background betrayed the carnage he'd just wrought. He sat atop the wreckage of a tank, blood and smoke hanging thick in the air.

"Orbit's secure, but we've got a problem. The north pole energy spike and there are traces of hidden activity. I'm betting that's where the Supreme Commander fled. Sending coordinates now."

Her fingers flicked across the interface, relaying the data through Mini Cleo's network.

{Coordinates received! Uploading to your HUD now boss!}

A crimson arrow blazed across Rex's vision, searing the path forward. "Got it. Moving out soon... just one last thing to clean up." The transmission cut. His gaze fell to the broken figure at his feet.

The Grand Elder, once a Tier 4 Peak powerhouse, a titan of flesh and fury, was now little more than a withered husk. His muscles had atrophied mid-battle, his skin clinging to bone like parchment. A failed experiment. A necessary sacrifice.

"Did we get enough data, Mini Cleo?" Rex asked while watching as Mini Cleo materialized beside him, clad in a mock scientist's coat and glasses. She twirled a holographic stylus while grinning.

{Oh, absolutely, boss! But one test subject? Barely an appetizer. We'll need more! lots more!} She perched on his shoulder, already transmitting the findings to Cleo.

Rex exhaled, summoning a spear of crackling energy. "Then let's not waste this one. Thank you for your… contribution, Grand Elder."

After an hour of flight, pushing his wings to their screaming limit, Rex finally reached the coordinates.

The moment he breached the kill zone, the Supreme Commander's last defenses erupted in fury. Auto-turrets spun to life, plasma batteries whined as they charged, and a storm of bullets and searing laserfire filled the air.

"Cleo! Any time now would be fantastic!" Rex snarled while weaving through the barrage with predatory grace. He kept just enough distance from the hideout, his eyes locked on the hangar bays. No one escapes. Not this time.

[WARNING: ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT INBOUND. CLEAR THE AREA.]

The alert flashed across his HUD a heartbeat before the sky split open.

The first shell from the Cleopatra struck like the fist of a vengeful god. The mountain, fortified, hidden, untouchable.... disintegrated in four thunderous impacts.

But the bombardment didn't stop. For three agonizing minutes, the world shook as high-yield explosives turned rock to vapor, the shockwaves rippling outward like a quake.

For a single, breathless second, the night held still.

Then the sky turned gold.

A plasma lance from the Liberator Dreadnought seared downward like a column of raw annihilation.

The beam carved through the ruins like a scalpel through flesh, melting stone to glass, boiling the snowfields to steam. When it faded, all that remained was a gaping, molten crater, a wound in the earth.

Rex let out a low whistle. "You sure that wasn't overkill?" He poked Mini Cleo, who lounged on his shoulder, now sporting sleek black shades as she watched the fireworks.

[Overkill? Boss, we're hunting roaches. You don't stop stomping until you see the chitin crack!]

With a flick of her wrist, she tossed a holographic nuclear warhead into the crater for emphasis. The projection detonated in a silent, mocking mushroom cloud over the devastation.

[INCOMING TRANSMISSION]

Rex tapped his earpiece with eyes still fixed on the smoldering pit. "Yeah? What's up?"

Cleo's voice was razor-sharp. "Rex, we've got a problem. Scanners just picked up a Tier 5 energy signature. Low at first, but it's climbing. Fast. Now it's Mid-Tier. And it's—"

The crater moved.

Molten rock sloughed away as something massive clawed its way free. A lizard-like behemoth, its hide charred and blistered, flesh knitting itself back together faster than the burns could take hold.

Muscles the size of tanks coiled beneath its regenerating skin and its eyes glowing like dying stars locked onto Rex.

A dry chuckle escaped him. "Yeah… I'm not fighting that. Cleo? How about another round of 'turn-it-into-glass'?"

The beast's roar split the air like thunder, its eyes burning with primal fury as it locked onto Rex. The ground trembled beneath its weight, its regenerated flesh steaming in the frozen wind.

"Orbital strikes would be useless now," Cleo's voice crackled in Rex's ear, tense but controlled. "The fleet's reserves are depleted. At best, we could stall it for minutes—but no more. Still… you need not worry. There's someone else who will handle this."

Rex opened his mouth to ask who but then a space crack tore open behind him.

A jagged rift in space yawned wide, and from its depths, a crimson laser beam thicker than a battleship came out. It struck the beast head-on, forcing it back, its monstrous arms rising to shield itself as the beam seared into its flesh.

For an eternity of seconds, the energy poured forth, scorching the earth and melting snow into geysers of steam.

Then, silence.

The beam faded and from the rift emerged Zynaria with her wings of fire, casting an eerie glow across the battlefield. Her crimson hair shimmered like liquid embers, and her gaze cold and regal settled first on Rex, then on the beast already regenerating its ruined limbs.

"Rest, young Emperor," she said, her voice a melody of steel and smoke. "This one is mine."

The beast roared with a sound that shook the mountains. It charged, its claws carving trenches in the earth as it closed the distance with terrifying speed.

Zynaria didn't flinch.

Twin halos of red light ignited around her wrists, and from them, living metal surged forth like a flood of molten steel, writhing, twisting, and taking shape. The silhouette of the dragon Rex had fought before began forming, but the beast was too fast. It wouldn't wait.

"Fuck! She won't finish in time!" Rex shouted out. "Mini Cleo! gimme a hand!"

He shot forward, boots slamming onto the half-formed dragon's head as Mini Cleo expanded beside him, her form blazing with stellar energy. No longer hidden, her presence burned like a newborn star.

{"WHEN THE EMPEROR'S SWORD RISES… THE WHISPERS OF REBELLION FALL SILENT."}

Her voice echoed across the battlefield as she raised a colossal blade of pure stellar fire. The sword's power crashed down, freezing the beast mid-lunge, its muscles locked in defiance.

But the strain was immediate as space itself fractured around the creature, cracks spiderwebbing through reality as it fought against the binding.

It was breaking free.

What Rex didn't know was that Zynaria had never needed his help.

She could've halted the beast alone. His intervention forced her to abandon the technique she'd prepared... yet instead of irritation, something unfamiliar stirred within her.

For a Kaelzar, bodies were disposable. Consciousness could be transferred; death was a temporary inconvenience. But this? This was different.

This was… the feeling of being protected...

"Go," Zynaria commanded, her voice cutting through the chaos.

The red dragon, now fully formed, unleashed a roar that split the sky. It took flight, circling above the trapped beast as the railguns along its wings hummed to life, charging with lethal intent.

The beast tried even harder to brake free from the Emperor's Stance....

Then the storm of hyper-accelerated rounds descended....