Ariock sat in an alien prairie, enjoying the quietude. The air was searing hot and the gravity was heavy. This was Nuss. But his powered suit of armor kept him at a comfortable temperature.
He studied the floating city which he was about to conquer.
CloudShadow MetroHub was one of the grandest megalopolises in the galaxy, according to both Thomas and Garrett. It looked the part. Buildings piled atop buildings, and they all defied gravity like towering thunderheads. Vast districts rotated, letting rays of sunlight play over the croplands below. Gauzy veils of artificial rain swept over other crops.
There was even more urbanization underground. When Ariock expanded his awareness, he sensed countless millions of life sparks crowded, unseen, in what must be a warren of bunk-rooms and factories.
Cables ferried slaves between the upper, middle, and lower portions of the megalopolis, up to work or down to sleep.
“Are they alarmed?” Ariock asked. His troops were nowhere in sight, but his own huge sphere of influence was detectable to anyone with Yeresunsa powers.
“Nope. They have no clue about the coming storm.” Garrett seemed pleased. “They’re not expecting us at all.” He sat next to Ariock in the grass, helping with last minute analysis. “I guess the boy was right. They can’t imagine we’ll interrupt our own conquest of Verdantia to strike a city on Nuss.” He shook his head in mock consternation. “This is going to be fun.”
Most of the cities Ariock invaded were already evacuated. That made conquests easy and predictable. “It’s dangerous for us to fall into a routine pattern,” Thomas had said during a recent private council. “The Torth Empire studies our every move. We should target an unsuspecting city on a different planet and try a new battle tactic.”
So here they were.
Verdantia was a wealthy, beautiful planet, habitable for humanoids. Ariock’s people would leave it in disarray, with a disrupted infrastructure and millions of liberated slaves. He worried about his cities there. What would the Torth do to them when news of his latest invasion hit the Megacosm?
“The Torth Empire will go into panic mode,” Thomas predicted. “They’ll throw all their resources into evacuating Nuss, rather than make a concerted effort to reclaim the territories they’ve lost on Verdantia.”
That was something of a reassurance. Ariock’s military arm on Verdantia should be able to stave off any raids the local Torth could muster. Later, at his leisure, he would mass-teleport millions of people to safety on Umdalkdul or Reject-20. It shouldn’t be a problem.
Garrett grinned. “I sense upwards of a thousand Rosies in that city.” He rubbed his armored hands together, and his grin turned savage. “That will translate to a lot of zombies for us.”
“Not what we’re here for,” Ariock said.
“I know, I know.” Garrett stood and began ratcheting his armor, tightening the seals. “Don’t worry, they won’t all survive long enough to get zombified. I’m sure a lot of the morons will die pitting themselves against me.”
Ariock sighed. It was useless to warn Garrett not to be reckless, but he tried anyway. “Please remember that some of them approach your level of raw power. If they team up, especially ten or more—”
“Yeah, whatever.” Garrett rolled his eyes. “Look, I may be a little bit decrepit—” he banged his bad leg— “but the Rosies are called ‘Recruits’ for a reason. They’re a bunch of amateurs.”
“They’ve had months of practice,” Ariock reminded Garrett. “I’m not sure we can keep calling them amateurs.”
He said it without rancor. After learning about Garrett’s childhood, he felt protective of his great-grandfather. He understood, now, that Garrett was insecure, constantly striving to prove that he was a hero rather than an abusive tyrant like his biological father.
“You can go on thinking of me as flawed.” Garrett clapped Ariock on the back. “Especially when you’re within range of Torth. Make sure to think of me as extra slow and stupid.”
Ariock winced with shame. “I don’t … agh.” He reconsidered his thoughts. “I just think you’re too valuable to lose.”
That was nothing but the truth. Garrett’s skills and abilities were unmatched by anyone except Ariock himself. The old man made the winning difference in battles whenever Ariock wasn’t around.
“So are you.” Garrett clipped on his earpiece. “We’ll look out for each other. As usual. Right?”
“Right.” Ariock had to stop himself from giving his great-grandfather a reassuring pat on the shoulder. That would be too paternalistic.
Standing, Ariock cast a shadow like an inverted obelisk. He must be visible even from the floating city. But that was all right.
The battle was about to begin.
Ariock activated his armor, causing it to tighten within two seconds. His helmet faceplate came down and sealed.
Garrett’s voice was gritty in his earpiece. “Let’s go kill some Torth.”
Ariock infused his body with extra strength and leaped high into the air. He soared upwards nearly fast enough to create a sonic boom.
That was so he could fall, so he could gather a lot of momentum.
As he plummeted towards the ground, he went into a clairvoyant trance. He and Garrett had studied wireframe maps of this city. With Thomas’s help, they had memorized critical locations. Ariock ghosted through skyscraper walls. His target, the spaceport mall, bustled with activity.
It was strange to see Torth conducting business as usual. Ariock was used to conquering mostly empty cities. Here, people browsed high-end clothing or trinket shops, followed by personal slaves who carried their shopping bags, or who pushed hoverbaskets. There was a luxury gymnasium, where Torth did aerobic exercises amidst holographs. Others lay on massage beds.
Ariock grinned, disembodied.
He chose a place near the glass ceiling. It was important that he appear beyond the easy range of blaster gloves. The first half-second after he teleported was always a critical, dangerous moment of vulnerability.
No time to waste. The longer Ariock ghosted, the greater the mental strain, and the more drained he would feel.
He snapped his plummeting body to the location of his mind.
Ariock had teleported in mid-action so often, he was growing used to free-fall. He was aware of pointing fingers and upturned faces, many eyes wide with shock. Slaves dropped their burdens. A hovercart careened off course and slammed into a crowd. People screamed in pain.
Quite a few Torth hurried to don their blaster gloves.
Ariock puffed his awareness outward to seize doors and furniture, and he blocked or sealed every exit. He slowed his fall to a stop at the same time.
He hovered in the central atrium. Fiery explosions slammed against his shield. Flames engulfed his fireproof armor, until he seized the surrounding air and channeled the flames away. Excess electricity snapped off his arms and fists.
He gazed down at the crowd.
They ran.
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Torth tripped over their robes or over each other. They shoved slaves off balconies or mowed them down in hover vehicles in their blind panic to get away. Many Torth attempted to cower in shops, commanding their nussian bodyguards to serve them as living shields. The smarter mind readers realized there was no viable escape. Those knelt in surrender.
Ariock encompassed everyone on the ground floor within his awareness.
It was a flat disk of living mayhem. People trampled each other. The Torth didn’t want to become corpses or slaves, and the slaves just wanted to survive the next few minutes.
Ariock had already predesignated a flat prairie outside the city limits for the purpose of winnowing prisoners, penitents, and former slaves. He ghosted to the winnowing area. Then he yanked his extended awareness to that location—and everyone and everything he encompassed came along with him.
Ariock caught himself high up in midair.
Meanwhile, the people below him stumbled or fell. Thunder rolled as the teleported air dissipated. Hover vehicles and other debris, released from Ariock’s awareness, hit the prairie ground.
Ariock had stationed an army regiment nearby, protected from the sun beneath a series of canopies. Armored ummins, govki, and nussians rushed towards the mass of disoriented mall shoppers. A few of his soldiers struggled, unused to the heavy gravity and heat, but their powered armor helped.
They shot inhibitor serum at any Torth they saw. A squad of shani warriors, protected by powered armor and commanded by Guradjur, one of Jinishta’s no-nonsense peers, would take care of any unanticipated problems.
Ariock left them to do their jobs.
He shot upwards, above puffy white clouds. Then he dipped into a clairvoyant trance, uncaring that it left his body in free-fall, albeit well beyond the range of blaster gloves. He only needed half a second to ghost across the galaxy.
He followed a cosmic route from Nuss to Reject-20, which he had repeatedly practiced and memorized.
The rain was letting up over the teleportation flats of Freedomland. Scattered clouds revealed the neighboring planet’s rings; enormous streaks of color in the afternoon sky.
Ariock appeared above fifteen thousand eager and ready soldiers. Thomas had already advised the battle leaders on how best to prearrange each unit for this conquest, so Ariock did not need to make estimates or deal with stragglers.
The primary regiments were obvious. They included ragged-looking zombies on the outer fringe, ready to serve as living shields for the shani warriors.
Ariock tried not to think too hard about the zombie factor. His warriors and soldiers could conquer a city without such “help,” but Jinishta insisted that the presence of zombies boosted morale. They saved lives. They were like an extra layer of armor.
The zombies were doomed, anyway. No one could reverse their brain damage. No one could save them.
Ariock encompassed the first regiment within his awareness. He ghosted across the galaxy, back to CloudShadow MetroHub on Nuss, and deposited this regiment onto the now-empty spaceport mall floor.
Thunder rolled, causing pillars to shake. That was a side effect of mass-teleporting so many people.
There were differences in gravity and air pressure between Reject-20 and Nuss, and the regiment sprawled. The soldiers would need a few seconds in order to regain their equilibrium. Ariock, floating in midair and used to teleportation, needed less time.
Soon the soldiers would recover and rove off in well-trained units. They had all participated in conquests before. Ariock had surreptitiously set up data relays on buildings within the city, at Thomas’s behest, in order to create a local communications network. His soldiers all wore earpieces. They obeyed orders about which major boulevards and intersections they needed to secure.
Ariock ghosted to the next location on his mental list: a transport bay.
Just as Thomas had predicted, it was overcrowded. The Torth were now in panic mode and trying to escape. Some of them vomited in sheer terror upon seeing Ariock.
He almost felt sorry for them.
Almost.
Ariock seized thousands of people within his awareness. It would be all too easy to drop them into outer space, or to kill them in some other near-accidental way … but fortunately for them, he was not in murder mode.
He deposited them onto the winnowing prairie.
It was a good thing it was such a large prairie. The first load was mostly sorted and collared, and the winnowing regiment moved in to deal with the fresh arrivals.
Ariock went back to Reject-20 to import more of his army.
Thomas called this particular tactic the turbine method. Ariock churned blades of mass-teleportation, an ability no one else in the known universe had enough raw strength to pull off. One blade of the turbine removed Torth from the target city and deposited them to a winnowing ground. Less than ten seconds later, the other blade replaced the absent Torth with friendly soldiers.
Ariock repeated his mass-teleportation turbine routine twenty more times. He mentally crossed off each location on his memorized checklist. Within a matter of minutes, he had cleared away the densest populations of the upper city, replacing them with his own people.
Fifteen thousand of his soldiers marauded through boulevards and intersections. They invaded gardens, lounges, and even private suites. They liberated slaves. They shot inhibitor serum at any Torth they found, then collared them. If they ran into problems? They could switch their blaster gloves into deadly mode.
Liberated slaves threw themselves prostrate on the ground when they saw Ariock, mistaking him for some sort of demigod.
Not that he did anything miraculous. Once the invasion was underway, Ariock merely walked down a boulevard, listening to battle updates in his earpiece. In past battles, he would quell the most violent hot spots, but now…? Well, Garrett was more than enough in the brutality department.
The final body count was grim for the Torth.
None of Jinishta’s warriors died.
None of Weptolyso’s soldiers died.
It was a total victory. Again.
Ariock mass-teleported more than five hundred inhibited Rosies and Servants to his Mirror Prison on Reject-20, to await zombification.
And then he brought in the finishing stroke of any conquest: Kessa.
The floating gladiatorial stadium of CloudShadow MetroHub had very steep tiers, each tier wide enough to accommodate hoverchairs and personal slaves. Now those tiers were filled with nussians and other freshly liberated slaves. Huge, airy cutouts in the crowning wall let in plenty of fresh air and sunlight.
Ariock teleported Kessa directly to the center of the stadium.
He did not show himself. Instead, he hid behind one of the cutout pillars of the miles-high stadium. Garrett and any Alashani troops would stay out of sight, like him. Most of them were securing newly collared penitents anyway, herding them into the filthy tunnels of the lower city. This stage was for former slaves.
Weptolyso and Nethroko loomed behind Kessa. Since this planet had a lot of nussians, Kessa had insisted that her favorite nussians speak to the crowd. They had already introduced themselves and primed the audience.
“You are free.” Kessa’s amplified voice filled the stadium.
A huge cheer went up.
Kessa went on, speaking to the newly liberated city, with interjections by Weptolyso and Nethroko. Their speech was live-streamed to various holographic displays and monitors throughout the city. There was a makeshift audio system, jury-rigged by former slaves and designed by Thomas.
“… And we also owe our freedom to the Son of Storms!” Weptolyso said.
“It is true!” Nethroko boomed. “You may have seen him. He looks like a Torth. Except he is the size of a nussian!”
The audience stomped their feet with pride. It was strange, how thousands of jubilant nussians could seem more intimidating than an army of Red Ranks.
“Perhaps he may be good enough to show himself?” Nethroko queried the air.
“It’s in everyone’s best interest for you to be visible,” Thomas had told Ariock during one of their private councils. “It makes our troops feel more connected to you, and more honored to fight for you.”
“Also,” Garrett had added, “the imagery gets back to Megacosm. You should always do your best to come across as godlike and unstoppable. It helps to scare the Torth.”
The two nussians on stage searched the sky with exaggerated hope while the vast audience of newly liberated slaves hushed in anticipation.
Ariock would rather stay hidden. His powers were impressive, but he himself was not.
Then again, this conquest had been the best one yet. Perhaps … well, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea for him to take a tiny bit of credit for it?
He couldn’t have done it without help from Thomas and from so many thousands of soldiers and warriors. But that was implied, wasn’t it? Anyone who celebrated him would also be celebrating those who had helped make this victory possible.
Ariock stretched his awareness and squeezed vapor from the clouds.
A vibrant triple rainbow shimmered into existence, framed by the huge cutouts in the stadium. The rainbow arced above the shining skyscrapers of the floating city. Ariock had practiced rare weather phenomena for Vy, to make her throw her arms around him with delight. It impressed this audience, too.
Ariock zeroed in on the staging area where Kessa and the two nussians stood. Instead of landing gently, he threw himself down with enough excess force to make the whole stadium tremble. Sparks of energy rippled up his body.
Let them see a conqueror.
Skeins of lightning crackled off him. He straightened, tall and gigantic in his spiky black and purple armor, impossible to ignore.
“ARIOCK!!!” More than fifty thousand freed nussians shouted, lifting the syllables of his name in a thunderous chorus.
“Son of Storms!” Weptolyso pumped his fist in the air.
“He is fearless!” Nethroko roared.
“ARIOCK!!!”
His name sounded like a storm, bellowed from thousands of gravelly nussian voices.
A younger version of Ariock would have assumed that the praise was unwarranted.
But not today.
Ariock pumped both fists like a gladiator winning a fight. The audience screamed and stamped so hard, the stadium shook.
Every one of these nussians would probably be eager to fight in future battles. They understood that no Torth would behave like Ariock was acting, or wear armor that gave him an artificially nussian appearance.
They saw him. They knew that he was a former gladiator, a former prisoner, just like them.
This is where I belong, Ariock thought. This is what I am meant to do.
And why shouldn’t he and his people celebrate? Why shouldn’t Ariock be proud? He was doing what he was best at, amidst people who appreciated that.
“This is your home, now.” Ariock amplified his voice so that he could be heard even over the praise.
The crowd went wild with cheers.