Cruise on the Drakine Seas
A\N: this is NOT written by me but by a friend for a school project so please enjoy and review for him.
Now on with the story!
Aratoro
"WATCH THE CRATES YOU CLUMSY IDIOTS! THAT CARGOS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR SORRY HIDES!" the dockyard foreman shouted as one of the crane operators misjudged the distance from the cargo crate he was carrying to the side of the cruise ship next to it, producing a nerve grating squeal of metal grinding against metal. I snorted in annoyance from under the thick navy blue cloak and hood that concealed my body almost entirely and turned to a bright orange and red ancestor next to me.
"I hope that wasn't one of the ones promised to me as payment." I commented dryly as the huge crate was lifted over the top of the cruise liner and disappeared from view. "No, yours has already been loaded. We gave you the command class model to use during the overland transit to the desert base." The draconian replied in the crisp tone of an officer. This particular one was a Warrant Officer of the Novian army. He'd been stationed on Drakine to oversee the transit of the new prototype military mechs which I had been hired to guard on their surface journey across Drakine.
"Hmm, well alright then. I know the plan and the transit route so id best find my scamp of a son and get aboard." I replied in polite goodbye as I left with a nod and walked back to where I had asked Obsidian to wait. Obsidian was my adopted son which I had raised from the egg after having found his egg abandoned in one of Drakines many caves. Oddly enough he was one of the reclusive subspecies of my kind known as Eclipse Ancestors.
As it turned out it wasn't hard to find him at all, he was enjoying a ride in the cockpit of one of the docks many cargo cranes. One of the workers had evidently been generous enough to take him up. Raising a silvery blue scaled arm from my cloak I waved them down and thanked the crane operator for his kindness after his excited passenger had disembarked. "The ship looks so much bigger on the ground than it does in the air dad!" Obsidian said excitedly in his still high hatchlings voice, he was almost a Youngling by now and was actually taller than me in my Draconian form. He wouldn't be able to change form for some time yet though.
"I'm sure it did son, now let's go. We don't want to keep the captain waiting." I chided as we walked towards the boarding ramp and greeted the captain before settling our things in our spacious first class cabin suite –the soldiers had been kind enough to pay for our passage- and went on deck to relax, or in obsidians case look eagerly out to see or swim in the decks pool.
Soon enough the last of the passengers and cargo were brought aboard and the ship set out and left the harbor for the wide green expanse of the Drakine seas. I didn't expect much trouble on this trip, an easy escort mission and at the end I get a few new mechs to tinker with, easy as pie. Plus obsidian would get to take his first real ocean cruise.
Darros
I watched through the ships telescopes as our target left port. "Captain Sir, when are we gonna hit her?" one of his lieutenants, a broad chested draconian with shredded wings asked me with an eager gleam in his eyes. He was unfortunately not an Ancestor; very few of THOSE dragons took to the pirate life. The rest of the crew mostly consisted of humans and dragons, I myself was a black and red fire dragon with an ugly red scar slashing down the right side of my face and through the eye patch I wore over the empty socket where my right eye used to be.
"Soon, once she's out of sight of the shore we'll swoop in. For now we watch and wait." I replied in a gruff voice. We had gotten a tip that a shipment of new, and very valuable, military tech was being transported to an outpost on this world, some far off rock named Drakine. The home world of the Ancestor race of dragons, not that I gave two shits if flying monkeys lived there.
I just wanted the cargo from the cruise liner, a set of new mech prototypes with a brand new kind of small scale, high output power reactor. Bidders would pay in the billions of credits for tech like that. Other than the cargo there were reportedly quite a few dragons on board this cruise. We would be able to take a very rich haul indeed in the form of the passengers and that priceless tech. There was after all a very high demand on the black market for dragon slaves. If all things went well my crew and I would be living the big life for YEARS after this.
Best part was the only guards on the cargo were the ship's crew, a few soldiers, and some mercenary they hired for added protection, too fucking easy.
Aratoro
Leaving Obsidian with a credit chit and instructions not to wander too far I left the deck to check in on the cargo. All I had to do was show the crewman guarding the elevator my ID card and I was let into the more restricted areas of the ship. As the elevator hummed to a stop and opened I whistled. Before me in two neat rows of two were the crates I was too guard.
"Mind if I take a quick peek inside, make sure nothings amiss?" I asked one of the soldiers, who assented and gave the okay to open the crates doors. Inside the first two were similar mechs, the only difference being their armament. The mechs themselves reminded me of large metal dogs with desert camouflage coloring.
Behind each leg was a small set of track treads and I immediately saw their use, the mech could crouch down and run on the treads to lower its profile, and give it a more tanklike appearance. The head baffled me for a moment, instead of the normal cockpit canopy there was a black hole with a single red eye looking out that could rotate, evidently the cockpit was not in the head. Frowning as I noticed two odd white protrusions on either side of the head, near where the mouth would be I turned to the soldier.
"What are those for?" I asked, pointing out the protrusions. "Those? Those are the emitters for plasma sabers. The things are nasty pieces of work that will rip right through military grade plating." The soldier replied with a chuckle as I nodded my head in appreciation as I turned back to the machines. On the back were wings with jet boosters near the end for added speed and in the middle of their backs was either a twin barreled plasma cannon, or a large 15 tube missile launcher, impressive.
Nodding to myself I turned to the last two crates. These held identical designs that, while similar to the others, were also different. For one thing they were painted a fiery orange and yellow and for another the optic sensor in the head was green instead of red. The wings were also slightly more streamlined and straighter. On the back however both sported a twin barreled beam cannon while the legs sported sets of two spiked claws on the feet. Not my usual weapon preference but I'll live.
Pronouncing myself satisfied I thanked the soldiers and left the room for the main deck again, Obsidian had gone to the bar while I was gone and gotten himself a virgin daiquiri and some French fries. I had apparently spent more time than I thought down below as the port had entirely disappeared, as had all trace of the coastline.
Suddenly the idyllic view was shattered as a black dot appeared in the sky. This dot quickly solidified into a Solar Sailor class ship…..a class often favored for use by pirates due to their built in stealth systems, decent weapon load out, and their ability to cruise closer to a star than most ships dared for fear of the heat.
"Obsidian, get down to our cabin and lock the door, we might have trouble on our hands." I said grimly as the other passengers looked at the approaching ship in confusion. Obsidian gulped and nodded. "Yes dad! Give em hell if their bad guys!" he said as he ran off. I chuckled as I left the deck and headed into the bowels of the ship to prepare, how lucky I was to have a son like him.
Darros
By now the ship was in sight and was preparing defenses, we'd already gotten a few hails from them which we promptly ignored. "Remember the drill boys, strafe em and board." I reminded the bridge crew as I went down to the deck to be with the boarding part, no fucking way was I missing any of the action.
The crew on deck tried to put up a fight with some automatic weapons and even a few hidden gun turrets, but one strafing broadside from our Sailor's thermal weapons and they were ashes and melted slag.
Once resistance on deck was taken care of my second parked the Sailor right alongside the liner and we jumped aboard. "Gather the passengers together; shoot the first one to try some stupid shit." I growled as a handful of others and myself entered into the ship itself, we were going after the mechs in the cargo hold. The soldiers guarding the cargo hold elevator posed no problem, a quick raking fire from our automatic energy rifles and they went down despite their power armor. Draco Armor I noticed in some consternation and was glad that they appeared unprepared; they could have been trouble if they were.
The soldiers down in the cargo hold were dispatched with equal ease and we began congratulating ourselves on an easy raid when the screams on the com started…
Obsidian
I huffed to myself as I walked sullenly back to our cabin. "Go hide and stay safe son." I said, mimicking my dads tone. "feh! I'm almost a Youngling now for Spirits sakes! I can help too!" I complained as I entered our cabin suite.
"….maybe I can!" I said gleefully to myself as I pulled out a smooth red and black helmet made for a dragons head from my backpack. The helmet was the second piece of a small one man mortar system I had 'borrowed' from the Draco Legions armory and never returned. Dad let me keep it for self defense purposes but I was a good enough shot that I didn't need to use it JUST for self defense.
"heehee. Look out pirates! Here I come!" I said as I donned the helmet and armed the mortar, which was integrated with my D-Pack and was pretty much a very small cannon that expelled balls of explosive plasma. Humming smugly to myself I left my room and went looking for some pirates to chase away.
Aratoro
The sounds of fighting on deck were dimly audible as I reached the hidden space in the depths of the ships cargo hold where the soldiers had stored my gear. It didn't look like much, about 4 silver and blue suitcases of larger than average size was all, though one of them was as long as I was tall and another was not much shorter.
Inside the first of these was a thick metal collar in the same color scheme with a softly glowing blue button on one side, this I snapped onto my neck with practiced ease as I threw off my cloak and looked over the rest of my arsenal. The second chest contained blue spheres roughly the size of my fisted claw and a pair of serrated edged combat knives weighted for throwing.
The third and fourth chest however only held a single item in each. In one there was a massive blue and gold broadsword, large enough that a human could never hope to wield it but small enough so that I could wield it comfortably in one claw. The other was an even larger blue and gold riot shield roughly in the shape of a diamond. The bottom end tapered to a point sharp enough to either rip through armor or stab deep into the ground, it had been made to be used either to defend my entire body from hails of weapon fire or act as a shield and weapon in hand to hand combat without hindering my movements too much.
Chuckling to myself I placed the shield and sword aside and pressed the button on the side of my collar, which caused the nanites inside to begin assembling the armor plates and machinery from material compacted in the collar into a form fitting silver and blue power armor made for me specifically. The whole process took less than 30 seconds to complete and during it plates of armor appeared to slide out and over my body from the collar, overlapping and fitting together with the other pieces almost like a puzzle
Once the armor was done I began loading its weapons with the contained plasma spheres in the first suitcase, attached my shield to the hard point on my left gauntlet, picked up my sword, and left the storage area to give the pirates a very nasty surprise.
The first group of pirates I encountered was busy looting an empty passenger's room. They heard my heavy footfalls and apparently thought I was comrade judging by their welcoming expressions as I entered the room. Those didn't last long as I quickly stabbed the closest one through the chest with my sword and fired a trio of shots to down the others with my plasma pistol. One of them dodged and began screaming on the com as he ran through the window and into the ocean, fucking idiot. Ah well, more where that came from.
Darros
"The FUCK is going on up there?" I yelled through the com to get peoples attention. "Sir! Its one of the soldiers or something, he's tearing us the hell apart! He's not like the others at all!" one of the less panicky officers said back in a nonetheless frightened voice. "Damn! Group at his location and kill him with a cross fire! I don't care who the fuck this bastard thinks he is, he's not a bloody Draco Commander for fires sakes!" I growled back.
Obsidian
I could already hear the sounds of my dad at work as I snuck up on one of the less wary pirate squads who were busy looting the kitchen of all places. While they were busy pigging out I jumped from behind the door and growled at them.
"Surrender now! I've got one hell of a cannon and I'm a real good shot!" I growled, trying to make my voice sound tough, and failing judging by the amused expressions on the pirate's faces. "Well lookie here boys! Kid here wants to be a hero" he said to the laughter of the others. Flushing in anger I shrieked. "I warned you! Burn in hell!" I said angrily as I hit the trigger in my helmet and…..nothing happened. Gulping in fear now I hoped the gun was just warming up still and hit it again, then again. Then it hit me, I forgot to load the plasma core into it for ammo when I left the room!
"uhhh, n-never mind fellas, I was just kidding." I said as I backed out of the room. "Get him!" the leader said in glee as I made an undignified 'eep' sound and scrambled out of the room and ran down the hallway as the pirates thundered after me. 'Aw man! Napalm and the others will NEVER let me live this down if they hear about this!' I thought in despair as I ran for my life
Aratoro
As I moved through the levels of the ship the squads of grunts got smarter. Their coms were heavily encrypted so I was pretty much flying blind. Thankfully my armor was designed to take more punishment than the regular variety of Draco Armor so when they grouped up and ambushed me in one of the ships many restaurants I was able to run to cover and return fire. Unfortunately that 'cover' turned out to be a large table that they were chewing threw at an alarming rate.
"Damn! Persistent bastards just don't know when to quit!" I growled as I stuck my head and right arm out from behind the table and opened fire with one of the small scale, three barreled plasma chain guns located in the backs of my gauntlets. That certainly made them all duck for cover and at least four out of the 10 or so pirates went down screaming with burning holes in their bodies.
I ducked into cover again as they returned fire and was about to open fire again when an all too familiar hatchling burst out of one of the side entrances and tore across the room, causing a hell of a lot of confusion among the pirates which I took advantage of to kill them with a raking fire from my weapons. Sadly as Obsidian disappeared down a different hallway another group of pirates emerged from the one he'd just left and began firing on ME. I am going to ground him for a year if we get out of this in one piece.
Obsidian
I winced as I saw my dad in the firefight I barged into. 'Crap, I'm going to be in so much trouble after this!' I thought as I ran the hell out of there. Perversely I was glad when I realized that the goons that had been chasing me weren't anymore. They had probably stopped to fight my dad.
Cautiously I walked back to the scene of the firefight just in time to see my dad decapitate the last remaining pirate and see the head land near my feet. I gulped in fright at the gruesome sight.
"Obsidian, once I finish killing the rest of these pirates I am going to ground you for a year." He growled, obviously angry at me. "Sorry dad. I just wanted to help." I replied dejectedly. "Next time if you're going to try taking on pirates, please by the Ancients make sure you're weapon is loaded." he said in exasperation, pointing at the obviously empty socket at the back of my mortar where the plasma sphere would go.
I laughed sheepishly. "Right, ill be sure to do that next time." I replied as my dad chuckled. "Right then, I'm still going to punish you for this but seeing as telling you to go back to the room is a bad idea you might as well stick with me. Just try not to hit me with that thing alright?" he asked as he tossed me a plasma sphere. "Gotcha dad! Lets make these guys regret ever boarding this ship!" I said ecstatically as we ran towards the cargo elevator. We both knew what the pirates were likely after, the mechs my dad had been hired to guard.
Darros
By the time the squads stopped reporting I was mad as hellfire. "Set up around the elevator! Ambush those mother fucking bastards and burn them to cinders!" I growled to my squads second as I moved towards one of the mechs. This one was one of the bright orange and yellow ones. "I am going to make that son of a bitch pay!" I growled as I hauled myself into the cockpit in the chest, conveniently sized for a dragon pilot as it so happened.
Aratoro
As we descended down the elevator, well, to be precise I was in the elevator; Obsidian was waiting on top of the elevator looking through the escape hatch. More to the point, As we descended I dug the sharpened bottom point of my riot shield into the floor fo the elevator, creating a convenient spot of cover I could shoot form and be secure in the knowledge that they would be unable to break it or shoot through it.
Predictably when the doors opened I was met with a hail of energy weapons fire, to which I responded by throwing a few smoke and plasma grenades into the cargo hold. As the grenades exploded I used the smoke and the explosions to enter the room and find some new cover, this time among a stack of metal crates. "Where'd that bastard go! FIND HIM!" a voice shouted through the loudspeakers on one of the command class mechs, mine I noticed in anger. 'crap, well that's annoying' I thought as Obsidian slipped out of the elevator as well and hid among a different set of boxes.
With an almost practiced synchronization both myself and Obsidian emerged from cover at the same time and caught the remaining pirates in a cross fire as my chain guns ripped through their ranks while Obsidian's mortar shots sowed confusion and destruction among them. It was over in less than 30 seconds.
As the last soldier fell I turned to the mech just in time to see it start up and leave the cradle it had been placed in for transit. "YOU! I don't know who the fuck you think you are but you made a BIG mistake fucking with me and my crew!" the pilot growled in rage, probably the captain of the Sailor. "Well now I'm offended! I would think my Armor would still be recognizable even though I've retired!" I said mockingly.
"Since you obviously don't know who I am let me enlighten you, you just crossed Aratoro Drakhosis Drakus you insignificant little shit." I growled with some heat. "And THAT is my mech! Say you're prayers because im going to turn you into a shiskababe!" I growled as I charged the mech even as the laser cannons trained on me and fired. With a deft roll I dodged the twin bolts of green energy and scaled one of the mechs legs.
"Get off you crazy dragon!" the pilot said, fear lacing his voice as he tried to shake me off. Like hell would I let that happen with practiced ease I scaled the leg and reached the chest, snarling as I plunged my sword through the armor protecting the cockpit, killing the pilot with a gratifying scream. A wet smacking sound accompanied my sword as I withdrew it from the mech before jumping down to the floor.
"Now to see how the bridge is doing before I take care of that Sailor." I said with a chuckle to my son as he grinned back, probably anticipating what I was going to do. A quick call to the bridge informed me that the bridge crew had overwhelmed the aggressors and taken the bridge back, unfortunately the Sailor was going to start firing on them soon if they didn't surrender.
I chucked as I told the captain not to worry, I would take care of the sailor myself and told them that I was sending my son up to the bridge. He would both be safer there and would get a very good view of the battle that would likely ensue.
Walking onto the center of the deck I turned to the sailor and hailed them on an open frequency. "This is Aratoro Drakhosis Drakus. I have eliminated nearly all of your boarders and am prepared to destroy your ship. Surrender now and I will not have to kill any more of you." I ordered in a clear, booming tone that had once commanded an army.
"Yea right! Aratoro is retired! You're just an imposter, blast him to hell!" an angry voice from the ships bridge roared back. I sighed. "Idiots, well don't say I didn't warn you." I replied ruefully as the Sailors thermal weapons trained on me.
Taking a deep breath I began the all too familiar transformation into my True form, which was that of a massive 60 foot tall 'western' style dragon. "Know that this battle could have been avoided had you only surrendered." I growled as I grew, and grew, and grew. Bones cracked and broke as my body shifted into a quadruped form while new vertebra grew in my neck, elongating it. The entire process took less than 10 seconds and didn't pain me at all thanks to painkillers administered by my armor, which had the ability to change with me.
Opening my eyes I roared loud enough to break some of the decorative windows still intact on the cruise ship and jumped from the deck of the cruise ship onto the Sailor, breathing torrents of blue fire as I went. "SHIT! KILL IT! KILL IT!" the acting captain screamed in terror as I began slaughtering the crewmen and weapon turrets on deck with my claws, which had been coated in a thin film of superheated plasma held in place by a magnetic field. Not only did this look intimidating it allowed my claws to cut through nearly any metal that wasn't shielded.
With another deafening roar I reared up onto my hind legs and slammed down on the ship with my forefeet, causing the entire ship to bob crazily in the air as its hover jets tried to stabilize the whole thing.
The pirates tried to put up a defense and actually managed to put up an impressive return fire against me using the remaining turrets and heavy personal energy weapons, too bad for them they only managed to make soot marks on my armor when the shields overloaded. Still, eventually even the Ancestor metals in my armor would break, so to end it I dug into the ship and began ripping. "Surrender or I will tear this ship in half and sink it to the bottom of the sea." I growled to the bridge
The acting captain wisely surrendered at that point and I took that opportunity to hail the orbital Draco base above the planet and ask for aid in securing the pirates.
Obsidian
I giggled as I watched the pirate's Sailor fly away under escort of about 20 Dracos and a cruiser waiting in orbit. The ship would be sent to a penal colony with its prisoners before being taken to the shipyards to either be refitted as a pirate hunter, or salvaged.
My dad raised an eye ridge as he looked at me; he had changed back into his Draconian form when the Dracos had arrived. "Well that was certainly more exciting a cruise than I had planned! We didn't even make it halfway before disaster struck." He said with a snort of laughter. "Oh well, least things should quiet down now and the rest of our journey SHOULD be uneventful." He commented ruefully.
I giggled again in response. "Agreed, Just, one thing dad, can you not mention my….lack of proper weapon maintenance to Napalm and the others?" I asked sheepishly as my dad laughed again. "Alright, as long as you promise never to do something like that again!" he said sternly, I nodded happily in agreement. "It's a deal" I said happily as we watched the sun set on the first day of our cruise on the Drakine seas.