Three Square Meals Ch. 117

Irillith groaned with the strain as she attempted to reach out to yet more Kirrix vessels, while still maintaining control of the initial eight. Suddenly her eyes shone bright and she gasped with relief as Alyssa pumped a surge of psychic energy into the Maliri hacker. Another quartet of drone carriers sealed their launch tubes, causing muted explosions along their flanks, then opened fire on the rest of the Kirrix fleet.

The remaining capital ships paused and hung there motionless in space, as if trying to make sense of the chaos swirling around them. With Irillith's acquisitions refusing to acknowledge any attempt at communication, the uncorrupted fleet was forced to return fire on the belligerent half of the Kirrix force. Irillith's twelve drone carriers squared off against the other ten, with swarms of drones whirling around the capital ships, trying to support their outnumbered allies.

Tashana shook her head in disbelief. In less than a minute, the once-unified Kirrix battle group was now engulfed in a brutal civil war, with both sides trying to slaughter the other without remorse. Amidst that desperate fight for survival, even the hive ships had joined in the effort to subdue the rogue carriers, the Kirrix completely forgetting about the instigator of all the carnage.

"I have to hand it to you, Rill... you sure know how to stir up trouble," she marvelled, throwing an admiring glance at her sister.

Irillith was too absorbed in maintaining her web of control over the Kirrix carriers to reply, but she still managed a wicked grin.

***

Jade charged down the tunnel, watching the rear ranks of the Kirrix guard force turn and start firing in her direction. Sickly-green energy bolts zipped past and struck her body, making her snarl at the irritating pinpricks. Although the neutron gun shots were nowhere near powerful enough to penetrate her incredibly resilient hide, the weapons had been specifically designed to inflict neural pain and the hail of needle-like darts stung her scaly body.

Despite the irritating sting of their shots, Jade still had a broad grin of delight on her fearsome draconic face. Her master certainly was a complicated one. He wasn't even aware of what he'd done yet, but Jade had seen... and she exalted to see him embrace his power.

Pouncing on the first group, she made a rapid flurry of swipes with her right forepaw, metre-long claws slashing through insectoid bodies with ease. She tore off dozens of arms and legs with each frenzied attack, leaving piles of crippled Kirrix troopers twitching in agony on the ground. Advancing on the rear ranks of the drone formation, Jade's forepaws slashed back and forth, battering the annoying insects aside in a shower of chitinous limbs. She took a moment to stomp the mangled survivors into the ground with her rear paws, trampling them underneath her massive weight.

*How goes your pursuit, Master?* she asked, rending the Kirrix limb from limb.

There was a brief pause, then John replied, *I'm using speed, so I'm on the rear guards already.*

Frightened cries from further up the tunnel drew Jade's attention, her huge muzzle whipping around to locate her prey. The rest of the Kirrix guards had given up trying to fight her and were hurrying the children along in an attempt to escape from the angry dragon. Jade set off in pursuit, claws digging into the resin deck for extra grip as she sprang into a galloping run. Between the thumps of her massive scaly paws hitting the ground, she heard familiar heavy footfalls ahead of her and spied several juggernauts rushing down the tunnel.

The hulking onyx siege beasts had drawn back their scythe-like blades, ready to impale her draconic form as they charged her way. Her emerald eyes narrowed as she considered blasting the juggernauts with her breath weapon, but the children were too close and she wouldn't risk hitting them. Jade skidded to a halt, her scaly tail lashing with anticipation as she waited for the black-carapaced bugs to close the distance. Each of them was bigger than a hovertruck, their four huge chitinous legs pumped away as they barrelled towards her, the juggernauts moving as fast as a horse over open ground.

At the last second, she counter-charged, leaping forward with both forepaws to pounce on the closest. Claws sheathed in arcing lightning pierced through black armour plates, the electricity discharging through the juggernaut's body, its mandibles snapping open as it let loose a tortured shriek. Segmented limbs jerked about out of control as she overloaded its nervous system and Jade knocked the thrashing creature over onto its side as she gouged it with her claws.

Then the next juggernaut was on her, lashing out with both blades. Those forelimbs were like compressed springs, with the muscles coiled back, ready to unleash a strike propelled by massive force. They punched through the dragon scales on Jade's left forepaw, the cruel chitinous weapons piercing six-feet into her flesh. She hissed with the stabbing pain, lurching backwards with the juggernaut still impaled to her forearm. Clamping her immense jaws over its head, she bit down, crushing its black-plated skull in a fountain of disgusting green goop.

*How about you, Jade?* John asked, his concerned voice sending a thrill through her mind. *Are you okay?*

*They don't taste very nice, Master,* she replied, spitting out the foul gore and grimacing with disgust.

The next two juggernauts stampeded towards her and leapt to the attack, upper limbs coiled in preparation to strike. Jade lashed out by reflex with her uninjured forepaw, knocking one of the beasts sprawling, but the other hit her flank, driving its claws deep into her flesh. Snarling with the pain, she tried to shake the decapitated juggernaut free, but the wicked barbs on its blades made it hard to dislodge from her arm. Meanwhile the one on her right side was twisting its claws, trying to widen and aggravate the wound in her chest. The final juggernaut picked itself up off the ground and shook its dazed head, getting ready to charge again.

*Have you caught up to the children?* John pressed, sounding tense.

She turned and ran back down the tunnel, wincing as the two juggernauts impaling her body bounced on the ground with every stride. *Ah... not quite yet. Just taking care of a few Kirrix...*

Twisting her long neck serpentine around to look behind her, she saw the third of the black beasts set off in pursuit, swinging back its claws in readiness to attack. The Juggernaut was faster, what with Jade trying to run with a wounded paw, and it quickly closed the distance as it rushed for one of her hind legs. She whipped her enormous tail around, catching it with a thunderous tail slap that slammed the black insect into the wall.

*Let me know if you need help.*

*I will, Master,* Jade promised, vaulting into the air and curling her body to expose her right side.

The green dragon crashed to the ground, landing directly on the juggernaut stabbing her flank. She weighed over 50 tons and the juggernaut popped like a grape when she brought her full weight down on its black body, every section of its exoskeleton shattering into hundreds of pieces. The bladed claws were torn from its broken thorax, left embedded up to the elbow joint in her heaving chest. She roared with the stabbing pain, her body shuddering as the blades pierced deep.

Jade staggered upright and grabbed the tattered remains of the first juggernaut, then yanked it out of her injured forepaw, finally freeing herself from its torment. Sitting back on her haunches, the Nymph looked down at the broken blades driven deep into her torso and grimaced at the gaping wounds. She could feel one of the tips digging into her flesh only inches away from her crystalline heart. Taking a deep breath, she tugged the two final blades from her chest, trying to ignore the shooting pain as she pulled them out.

Sagging with relief, Jade closed her cat-like emerald eyes and concentrated on renewing her shape. Ragged wounds sealed closed, with the rents in her hide knitting back together, the scales made whole once more. With a terrifying toothy grin, she whirled around and continued her pursuit of the fleeing Kirrix and their tiny captives.

***

John sprinted down the corridor, leaving a fresh pile of mangled insectoid corpses in his wake. There were another two squads of Kirrix up ahead, twenty troopers per squad, standing to either side of the long line of colonists.

"Get down!" he shouted, his amplified voice booming down the tunnel.

Most of the colonists were already huddled on the floor, staring at him with wide-eyed looks of terror as he skidded to a halt. Those that had frozen with fear were hauled to the deck by their friends, leaving the mass of humanity hugging the ground.

The Kirrix took advantage of the Terrans ducking, the troops fanning out into a firing line and spraying him with neutron bolts. The shields in John's suit were of Brimorian design, so they muted the strength of those shots, but the sheer volume was slowly taking its toll. Ignoring the subdued yellows of his shield status for the moment, John took a firm grip on his sword with both hands as he pulled it back and prepared to swing. His gleaming blade sliced through the air, whipping around his body in a lightning fast arc that was perfectly parallel to the ground and left a blue trail in its wake.

A gleaming force projection blasted outwards, wide enough to cover the entire breadth of the huge tunnel. Striking forty Kirrix between abdomen and thorax, the telekinetic scythe disembowelled the entire group, blasting the troopers backwards in bloody chunks. With the slight incline to the tunnel, the blast wave flashed onwards until it eventually slammed into the ceiling in a shower of rubble.

"Go back up the tunnel, you'll be safe there!" John called out to this group of Menganus IV colonists. "Evacuate to the starport!"

They gaped at him in shock, looking small and scared as they cowered on the floor. John looked down on them with pity and let out a frustrated sigh. He couldn't spare the time to gently encourage them, so he hoped they'd start to move once they'd started to get over their shock and fear. Turning his attention to the tunnel, he broke into a loping run, his long stride accelerated by psychic speed. He quickly reached the end of this group of colonists, but the next started a hundred metres further along the tunnel. These people represented the entire population of a remote Terran border world, all abducted from Menganus IV by the quartet of hive ships he'd smashed in the starport.

There were juggernauts intermixed with the next group of Kirrix troopers and as they turned to face him, John charged fearlessly towards them. In his psychically accelerated state, it was like watching someone moving in slow motion as the black-armoured behemoths lumbered around, chitinous legs rising and falling to rotate their bulk. John reached the first before it was even half-way through the turn and he used the momentum of his charge to add extra force to his passing blow. The juggernaut folded in on itself as he smashed it with a titanic two-handed swipe, the concussive force instantly crushing its chest as it was battered aside.

He launched a muted force wave through a dozen drone troopers, then lunged forward, bringing his blade down in a looping overhead chop. He struck the next juggernaut in the head, carving through its body in a gratuitous spray of green ichor. The creature was smashed to the ground like a boulder had been dropped on its head, four legs splaying outwards and jerking spasmodically in its death throes.

Another dozen troopers to his right... met with another force arc that saw their bodies exploding with the ferocious impact.

A juggernaut loomed ahead... so he cut it down with a backhanded stroke that hacked the beast in half.

Desperate Kirrix drones backed away in fear... then their insectoid bodies were flying apart like leaves in a hurricane.

A juggernaut staggered backwards to his left... and was intercepted by his blade rammed through its skull.

There was a certain poetry to the way he slaughtered his way through the alien forces, with the Kirrix providing the stanza and John the bloody refrain.

He watched a juggernaut's head as it sailed through the air in slow motion, followed by a spray of blood that marked its tumbling passage. The droplets caught the light and glistened with an eerie viridian hue, falling like lazy snowflakes in a grotesque green blizzard. John vaulted over the terrified colonists to land on the opposite side, clearing five metres with barely any effort. The Kirrix here soon joined their dismembered brethren, adding their sticky green blood to the monsoon of gore raining down in the tunnel.

Back and forth he went, annihilating all the Kirrix in his path, descending deeper into their fortress as he followed the snaking tunnel down. John was moving by instinct now, embracing the natural flow of combat as he butchered every last trooper guarding the colonists. It almost came as a disappointment when he reached the front edge of the prisoner line, bringing the massacre to an abrupt conclusion.

"Head back to the starport," John said quietly to the terrified colonists, his focus on the end of the tunnel and the cavernous room it opened out into.

"T-thank you," one of the men stammered, staring up at him with eyes like saucers.

John acknowledged the man with a nod and a sympathetic smile, then turned to look at the room again. His eyes locked on the huge double doors in the distance. "Any more colonists ahead of you?"

The man exchanged anxious glances with his fellow colonists. "I d-don't think so... I'm pretty sure we were first off the hive ships."

"I better make sure..." John murmured, his incandescent eyes narrowing with anticipation as he stalked towards the room. "Go back up the tunnel."

The colonists were already moving, helping their friends up off the floor as they fled back the way they'd come. The man paused and darted one last fearful glance over his shoulder. He'd seen videos of the Lion fighting the Kirrix, but nothing could have prepared him... for that. His gaze fell to the twitching remains of the blood splattered insectoids strewn across the floor. One moment the Kirrix had been herding the colonists along at gunpoint, then they'd just... exploded... before his very eyes. He knew he'd never forget the sight of the Lion looming over them, magnificent and terrifying in equal measure. Trying not to shiver with fear, he turned and fled with the rest of the colonists, running as fast as his feet could carry him.

***

Jade's heart fluttered with fear as she saw the children being forced through a set of big doors into a chamber at the end of the tunnel. Charging the Kirrix drones that turned to fire at her, she stampeded through the middle of the group, crushing several underfoot. Her long tail whipped from side to side, splattering the remaining troopers against the walls.

Inside were more Kirrix, the soldiers pushing and shoving the crying Terran children towards a hulking broodmother. The hideous multi-limbed monstrosity was waiting by an ochre-hued machine, whirring serrated blades making its grisly purpose horrifyingly clear. The broodmother lumbered forward, chitinous limbs reaching out to pluck a screaming young girl from the group of terrified children. Another pair of juggernauts were here protecting the broodmother and they let out shrill shrieks when they saw Jade, before charging towards the intruder.

Jade countered with a deafening roar of rage that drowned out the battle cries from the juggernauts. Bounding into the room, she crushed the Kirrix troopers in her path and leapt at the black-carapaced siege monsters with long claws fully-extended. The juggernauts' bladed limbs whistled around to impale her scaly forearms, but Jade snarled and ignored the pain as their serrated weapons stabbed deep into her flesh. She caught both monsters around the throat and knocked them backwards, the trio locked together in a ferocious battle to the death.

Tightening her grip, Jade sank her claws into the juggernauts, piercing their armour-plated thoraxes and making them hiss in agony. Then she lifted both into the air and slammed them into the floor, her arms pumping up and down as she pounded the prone beasts. Furious shrieks turned into broken gargles as she smashed them both into a bloody pulp, sprays of green ichor drenching the ground. Using her jaws, Jade tore away the shattered cadavers still attached to her arms, leaving their barbed blades sticking out of her body.

Falling to all fours again, Jade limped towards the retreating broodmother, her glistening fangs bared in a feral snarl. The Kirrix abomination backed away, huge black compound eyes looking up in fear at the enormous draconic predator advancing towards her. The broodmother's many legs made an eerie skittering noise as she reversed, the unsettling sound accompanied by the little girl's stomach-churning screams. The tiny blonde wriggled in the monster's impossibly strong grip, more frightened of the vast dragon bearing down on her that the big ugly insect that was holding her captive. With a hiss of defiance, the broodmother threw the young girl at the mulching machine, then whirled around and bolted for the doors at the rear of the room.

Jade cried out in anguish, lunging forward with scaly paws outstretched. She managed to get her hand in the way just in time, saving the screaming girl by blocking the machine's jagged maw, but at the cost of her paw being snagged instead. Jade gently caught the child in her right hand, while snarling with pain as wicked barbs flayed her left, slicing through dragon scales and tearing strips from her flesh. Her face twisted in agony as she yanked her ravaged limb out of the butchering blades, having to tug hard to stop it from being dragged further inside. The little girl tumbled off Jade's scaly palm and looked up at the benevolent green dragon with eyes like saucers.

"Lucy!" an older boy cried out, running over to throw his arms around her. He looked up at Jade defiantly. "Don't you hurt my sister!"

"It's a friendly dwagon!" Lucy gasped, brushing her dirty blonde hair from her tiny face.

Jade nodded, her massive muzzle bobbing up and down. "YES, I WON'T HURT YOU..."

"You can talk!" the boy exclaimed, staring up at Jade in amazement. "You're really not going to eat us?"

"NO, I'M HERE TO PROTECT YOU," Jade rumbled, trying not to frighten them.

"The scary monster is getting away!" Lucy cried out, pointing across the room.

Satisfied that the children were safe for a moment, Jade's serpentine neck whipped around to fix a baleful stare at the broodmother skittering for the door. Clutching her mangled left arm to her chest, Jade hobbled across the ground and lunged out to catch the rear of the Kirrix beast's abdomen in her massive jaws. The broodmother shrieked in a mixture of fear and pain as Jade bit down, long razor-sharp fangs piercing her chitinous shell as the dragon dragged her back into the room. The broodmother's mandibles twitched violently as she screamed and thrashed in Jade's grip, desperate to get away. Jade dropped the convulsing creature on the floor, then pinned her down, imprisoning her thorax with long claws that were like unbreakable bars.

"Yeah! Bite its head off!" one of the older boys called out, his face twisted with vengeful glee.

Another shook his head. "No, pull off all its arms and legs... THEN bite its head off!"

Jade turned to look at the huddle of children, who had stopped cowering and were now gaping at her in wonder.

Lucy's eyes flicked to the whirring machine. "In my bedtime stories, if someone's really naughty, then usually... somethin' bad happens to them."