I could hardly keep the smile off my face as I looked over my assembled captains, generals and scientists. Almost each and every one of them I knew I could trust not only with my plans but with the continuation of humanity. While we had agreed to fade away into the shadows, no promises were ever made so over the years I kept in touch with the other soldiers and scientists. I may have needed to end a few lines but those that still existed grew in size and their loyalty continued to become more ingrained till their current generation in front of me. Even back then I can take pride in my forethought and it was something I know Christopher, if or rather when he finds out how far I had planned, would complement me in his own way for planning ahead while Agatha would no doubt be aghast. Even the voices call me a hypocrite for it, questioning how my own actions are any different than that accursed Leviathan's.
The difference though was that they were loyal only to me, towards humanity and ensuring its enemies both known and unknown were eliminated. Having learnt to trust my judgement and know that I was the only one who knew what was truly best.
“If you're done taking a walk down memory lane and strolling through thoughts of the stone age maybe you can get to the point on why you had everyone assemble for this meeting, hopefully before we end up as old as you are. I mean at that point you’d probably be a walking skeleton.” A young voice said mockingly belonging to a guy in his early twenties, long hair over slightly over the edges of his glasses and framing a broad and plain looking face, tall but slightly muscled with his gaze switching between me and Emy. I couldn’t keep the smile from widening as I noticed the various generals and captains seemed upset on my behalf along with the other scientists, all looking angrily at him while Emy seemed absolutely mortified and embarrassed.
I couldn’t keep the slight chuckle from escaping my lips. “I’m old Michael, so I am rather sorry if I get lost in my thoughts at times but maybe when you reach my age you will realize how nice it is to sometimes reflect.”
I allowed him a bit more leeway for many reasons. He was Emy’s fiancé, he was someone who actually stood up to and wasn’t afraid to set me right like a few months ago when I had a rather bad falling out with the order and wanted to use them as a scapegoat for the coming war. He then spent over two hours drilling it into my head why it was a bad idea. He also had such a bright and sharp mind that it had honestly scared me the first time I had met him; it was only overshadowed by his hatred for the dragons and the church who led to the death of his family. That was what allowed me to use him to advance my own projects by leaps and bounds and I know he was using me for resources and his own revenge. We both knew it and oddly it seemed to only grow our mutual respect for one another.
“Well then, I pray I never get that old or do something stupid enough to end up cursed. Since all your tin men and fly boys are also here then it means you're no doubt planning to properly go through with that idealistic plan of yours. I already sent the latest report to Emy over there but would you like me to give the dumbed down and simple version for you and them? You might also prefer hearing the results for the toys I gave them rather than in a report.” He said, starting teasingly before seemingly leaning forward and becoming half serious.
“Let’s hear the abridged report first and then I will hear from them personally how they found your weapons and modified ships, but I will also need numbers on the amount you have already produced and we will need to ensure they can be produced at a steady pace to make up for losses.” I told him before urging him to tell everyone his latest progress.
I could see he was ready to make another remark but the look Emy sent him shut that down before the words could leave his mouth. Instead clearing his throat and seemingly leaning forward with his fingers knitted together. “As everyone knows the ships we use hasn’t changed much since the original arks. The frames being made of multiple dragon bones as they were found to act as natural dampeners, the scales and leather from those breeds who survived in magma pits and the deepest sea retaining their resistances layered and stuck to the preserved membrane used as lining because of their ability to seal any leaks or micro fractures while self-healing what connects the entire ship to a special organ we found in the dragons that now reduce the total mass of the ships like it did them while they were alive and what allowed them to fly with such ease and now causes our ships, or rather everyone else’s to glide through space. It even managed to absorb various forms of cosmic radiation and convert it into energy that is then fed through to its weapons and elemental thrusters and even up to the various brain bits in jars to give the damn corpse ships their commands and communicate with one another. We also know how it snowballed from there till every element of daily life integrated draconic bio-tech till we ended up using it for everything.” He stopped for a moment there and chuckled before looking at me. “I have to give you a lot of credit there, by building a dependency on dragon bio-tech you limited what could be made and how humanity advanced. Making old tech seem obsolete and useless compared to their draconic counterparts.”
I shook my head and resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “As I’ve told you before, that decision wasn’t mine alone. It was one everyone else came to and something I never agreed with. As you just said it limited our creativity and advancement while forcing us into a box. It worked back then when we had no other options but not something I wished to forever remain the case. The others are the ones who made it so that using old tech became frowned upon and treated as backwards and pointless.” I paused, irritation creeping into my voice. “They pushed their reforms and then steadily changing laws and I did try to stand against them every step of the way. It’s why old tech is only frowned upon and not outlawed. Even when as they keep trying to force through their ever-evolving leather and scale armors and their oversized elemental weapons for ‘protection’ or those so-called staves they claim channel dragon magic.”
I snorted softly. “We both know what they really are, just elemental organs threaded through dragon veins and membranes that they secretly embedded into a shaft and vented out the top as versatile weapons. Not a damn thing mystical about it at all and then there are their ‘special’ weapons, the ones they never fully explain or let the public know about like their plasma spewing three-man weapons they think I don’t know about.” I looked back at him, expression hardening. “It took far more effort than you realize to stop them from going through with many of their plans and to even dig out their various secret projects without them knowing.”
“And we’re all thankful for that. I mean I can’t speak for everyone here, but I’m genuinely glad I have the freedom to make changes to how our ships are built and designed. You already had most of them pull away from being draconic Frankenstein’s so it gave me a good place to build on. You’re also having us use real dragons rather than corpses like those skeletal ‘robots’ that use veins for movement and whatever leftover organs the Corporate leaders decided to wire in to create fake life.” He gave a small, amused huff. “And that’s before we even get to their so-called special weapons you haven’t shared info about yet, you know, the ones they keep tucked away but haven’t spoken about yet but claim to have uncovered?”
He shook his head, ignoring the grumblings and angry glares Michael kept talking. “Even clothing is made from dragon materials now, thin bits of leather processed to fabrics and then all woven together and I am all but convinced were intentionally made to be able to shrug off small arms and non-draconic cold weapons which at some point led to people just deciding that firearms were obsolete and stopped trying. I still blame you and the rest of the fossils for letting it get that far, making it so much more complicated to have people defend themselves or kill each other.”
The look he gave me wasn’t hostile and while I did feel some annoyance there was no real heat to it, meant to get a rise out of everyone.
“Just focus on the report please as I already shared the important stuff with them already. You said I was wasting peoples time a few moments ago but here you are whining like a baby and doing the exact same.” The sour look he sent me when I all but ignored his digging attempts made it more than worth it. I even almost laughed when he flipped me the bird.
“Stick to the report? Fine, fine. I used your collection of designs that you accumulated over decades and some of my own along with the various half-finished plans and abandoned prototypes to create our newest generation of ships, integrating them while ensuring that our fleet, even if I say so myself is the best for both attack and defense. From the outside they look like everything else out there, scales and leather like the rest but that’s more cosmetic with minimal actual use instead acting as a shell but that’s about all. Ours is built with layered steel alloys, tungsten reinforcement along stress lines, and composite plates where impact and heat are expected to be the most intense rather than relying on bone. We did still need to use membrane lining though as that damn mass reducing organ can’t be reproduced just yet but we use far less than other ships and managed to improve the energy conversion immensely.”
I leaned back in my seat, enjoying how he began to play the crowd, giving a small nod of approval towards him. The previous grumbling now replaced with clear focus as he brought up a separate diagram to float in front of him, something I would ask about later as I hadn’t realized it was possible. Clearly, he had done something to my systems without me knowing again. “To help assist with the lower amounts of membrane the power and control elements are now routed through copper, gold and fiber lines while having ensured all of them are shielded with redundancies put in place for safety. It doesn’t rely on nerve clusters or any kind of reflex organs or even organic ‘interpretation’ of commands through the damn brain jars in the captain’s seat. When the helm issues an order, the ship executes it exactly as given. Yes there are more switches, buttons and dials but they’re far more controlled and precise that way.”
He let that sink in before continuing. “I managed to also create mechanical life support systems using oxygen scrubbers rather than dragon lungs. Heat regulation is handled through radiators instead of the membrane layer and their propulsion uses controlled plasma and reaction mass instead of the horribly ineffective wind sacs chained to fire glands that need constant regulation. If something breaks, you replace it there without needing to wait for a ‘repair crew’ to come and practically perform surgery to fix something or for it to scar over and hope it heals the right way if you’re lucky to have a more advanced regenerative ship.”
A thin smile crossed his face. “While we still have dragon materials in them they’re only used where they make sense and even then, it’s only till I manage to figure out how to replace them. While I said the scales and leather are for cosmetic reasons they do still help with radiation damping along with the leather feeding the mass reduction organ. We also still use dragon fire glands to refine metals because it burns cleaner than any furnace we’ve built thus far. Everything else though? All purely human with clearly detailed means on how they work and easily been mass produced.”
He looked back at me then. “Bio-tech ships are floating corpses, something ugly no one wants to acknowledge, something we had to do to survive but complacency and how easy they made things caused us to not bother with finding new alternatives after establishing ourselves. Maybe you all found it easier at the time to help keep control, I don’t know and don’t really care. Our ships though are machines. They do what they’re told or they don’t. When they don’t or something breaks, we know exactly why because every piece and part is clearly labelled and detailed. We don’t need specialists or transplants only a good team of mechanics.”
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He glanced around the room, clearly enjoying having the floor and how everyone seemed hooked on his every word. I even gave my own little smile. “But that’s only just the ships, and you no doubt know I wouldn’t spend all my time just gutting them and building those up. No you all want to know about the important stuff, right? The weapons.” His grin widened. “I kept the best for last since I know you’re going to love this.”
He leaned forward, his excitement practically bleeding through the hologram now as it changed from ships to cycling through various dragons. “Our dragons, those bred and grown to maturity in the labs rather than being used as stem cells are entirely loyal to us. Through multiple tests we can confirm there is no chance of being turned or controlled. We even found three that showed above-normal intelligence and implanted them with multiple, specialized chips directly into their spines and brains while ensuring ports were included and healed over so we can plug them straight into our systems for health monitoring, behavioral checks and steady upgrades such as shutting down their pain receptors when performing evasive surgery or in extreme cases changing their bodies chemical make-up. We even subtly generated the creation of multiple new neural pathways to further improve their intelligence. They can already communicate with us through the interface and we’ve confirmed they have an innate ability to exert control over their less intelligent brethren. Verbal communication is coming along far slower but we are making steady progress.”
He continued without pause, ignoring my slight displeasure at this. We were to use them as a means to create scapegoats of the cultists, not create our own entirely new breed of them. Regardless if they have become intelligent soldiers for our cause I wasn’t too sure how I really felt about this part. “We’ve started reinforcing all of the intelligent ones and the strongest, most responsive ones with a special metallic coating across their bones and claws. The ones not slated for forced evolution and lacking any real reactions or able to follow proper commands were altered chemically through controlled doses. The larger, more resistant specimens received enhanced compounds to push their growth and strength well beyond anything the corporates are fielding for labor. Along their spines we installed concealed delivery tubes with multi phased triggers, the first releases an adrenaline booster but if that’s not enough there is a second cocktail, made to be far stronger than a boost to push them into a berserk state. The smaller ones had their bones hollowed to become more bird like, claws thinner and sharper, made for speed and to rip through their targets, far deadlier than their taxi and courier counterparts.”
That smile of his returned, broader now. “And that’s just the main groups of dragons I’ve been working on. Our weapons for troops and ships have gone through just as large of a change.” He spread his arms theatrically now, knowing everyone was focusing intently and hooked on his every word. “That’s where I really had fun and pushed the limits of what’s possible.”
I felt a faint chill at that. Whenever he went full showman, it meant he had something big to reveal, something he was proud of. I swear he also did it to set me on edge as his eyes intentionally glanced my way as I leaned forward now.
“They ride whelps and juveniles. They turned organs into weapons, wave around their so-called magic staves and dress their soldiers in skin, bone and scale because of how easy it is to do, because it’s how they make everyone believe is best.” He scoffed. “I went old school instead. The teams you had working on legacy tech before me barely scratched the surface of what we could really do and focused only on prototypes, making things and tucking them away to gather dust. No direction, no follow-through no nothing, just one project onto the next without even thinking of how to mass produce them or even use them together. Lucky for all of you, I showed up a few years ago and kicked the whole thing into motion. Now let’s start with what exists and don’t get me wrong they are interesting. The fire organs molded to look like rifles from sinew and bone are great at melting through anything in its path, their bigger versions being one of the weapons mounted to ships with air sacks linked to them to provide the oxygen component needed to ignite its volatile elements while the lightning ones when channeled through water often supplied by a side tank is great for stunning or frying people and work surprisingly well through the vacuum of space and please don’t get me started on how lethal the flash freezing ice glands could be if adapted to military use over food preservation. But all of those glands need care, they require a certain level of moisture to keep functional and if they get damaged, they can blow up rather violently and I haven’t even mentioned the calcification aspect that can happen or how it practically needs medical attention to ‘repair’.” I nodded at this, my own experience over the years having validated those points many times over and a large part of why I had us try to revert to the old methods of technology.
“Dragon armor works almost the same way. Scale plates are layered over treated hide and then reinforced with bone struts or just changed into various threads and silks for fabrics and clothing. They’re excellent insulation and resistance. That’s no doubt why it spread everywhere so easily, you and the others ensured people would try to emulate the dragon’s survivability to the point it became yet another staple. Thankfully it means once we found a way around that we pretty much learnt how to counter everyone’s defenses including what’s used on ships.” His grin grew almost feral now. I noticed many of the generals begin to smile now as well, realizing exactly what he was getting at while growing far more excited to hear what he would say next. Admittedly I was feeling rather excited now as well, my cane was clutched tightly in my hands as I leaned more forward now, my heart pumping and my old bones practically thrumming with excitement as even I grew excited to hear the progress and while I had read the reports already I couldn’t help but be swept up into his showmanship as a range of weapons, each with different shapes before settling on the image of a person wearing a tank on their back connected to a rifle.
“High pressure water honed to such a degree it can cut through rock like butter. It used to be used for industrial mining according to old records. The prototype I found was viable so I modified it further. It uses dragon bone for the outlet but the rest is stainless steel tanks meant for our heavies to cut down their mounts and any vehicles they choose to use. It also cuts decently through leather armor but isn’t that effective against scale.” The image changed to a pair of images, one of a soldier carrying what seemed like a blocky assault rifle. “A resonance rifle, these are designed to launch quarter inch titanium rods, made to punch through scale armor like a hot knife through butter. The magnetic elements used to launch the rods even vibrate them at a slight frequency so if they enter a person’s body it causes extreme debilitating pain. It can even punch through an elder dragon from the single attempt we did. We even managed to outfit a large number of our ships with the bigger versions along with extreme electromagnetic railguns and while I hope we never need to use them I have a handful of ships equipped with what I call the spike of humanity, depleted uranium rods, thirty inches thick and fifty long and while that doesn’t seem like much they’re treated with highly magnetic materials and to be launched from modified railguns designed to send them with extreme force.” Even I could only stare, my brow furrowing slightly. I may have authorized everything but I was never told of this ‘spike of humanity’ or even that such a thing was in production. “And what use would that serve? The railguns according to reports should be accurate enough to destroy control decks, so what would these be used for?”
His smile became strained. “For the Leviathan and the damn church of the dragon. Like I said I hope we never need to use them but this should be a good way to put an end to it and if the church doesn’t bend the knee, it should prove effective in destroying their cities and seats of power, needing us to only sweep in and do clean up. Fitting for those traitors of humanity and far more merciful than they deserve.” He was practically spitting at the end, his composure cracking as he snarled.
I sighed and whispered to Emy to leave, to go to Michael’s lab so she could help calm him and comfort him once the meeting was done. This was his anger rearing its head and part of what truly made him dangerous. He no doubt already planned to use those rods on the church. The reason I sent Emy is because I hoped she would be the anchor for him I never had. I didn’t want him to become a true mirror of me who had nothing but vengeance, a thirst for his enemy’s blood and the desire to ensure humanity continued no matter the cost, even if it required wiping some of it out. “What of the armors? Will they counter the dragon bio-weapons?” I hoped my question would get him to focus back on our current subject and by the way he seemed to even out his breathing and run his hand through his hair it seemed to work.
“Sorry about that, I lost myself for a moment. I’ll share a file about the rest of the weapons later, but for armor we would be using these. The armor is multi pieced so if one is damaged or hampers motion it can be removed. Our soldiers don’t need to slow or be stopped by a piece of armor being broken or bent. It’s made from Aegis Alloy, a composite metal made from a mix of Titanium, Aluminum-lithium and faint bits of tungsten for localized reinforcement. It’s not perfect but it will withstand multiple rounds before slowly giving way and designed to be outer layer. The skin layer is a skin suit specially designed to disperse kinetic impact across it, regulate temperature and even offer some further resistance but isn’t as good as the main armors.” What he showed was first a person wearing a dive suit soon followed by various bits of what I remember medieval knights would wear. It soon changed to something much larger and blocky, a massive shield attached to one arm and the previously shown high pressure water launcher connected to its back with a massive tank clearly meant to hold the water, at its side a massive blade similar to what I used to end the war.
“The Vanguards, equipped with the pressure cutters and a specially designed shield, dragon membrane between multiple Aegis Alloy panels linked to a small mass reduction gland specially grown for them to lighten their armor and modified to absorb most of the dragon tech weapons attacks to boost their parameters. They are also equipped with a prototype sword designed to vibrate at extremely high frequencies and not only powered by whatever is absorbed by the shield including kinetic force but having the possibility of taking on the elemental characteristics of whatever the shield absorbs. I also have these for the irony.” The final thing he showed us was a metallic dragon, various barrels clearly visible along its form.
“Cyber dragons, my middle finger to the dragon church. Each one entirely made from Aegis alloy, armed with railguns, specialized tanks filled with the equivalent of napalm that will ignite upon contact with air and stick to whatever they hit like burning glue. There’s a thin membrane layer and a different kind of internal organ I personally led the development of. Every attack will damage it but feed the energy to this special core, and should the dragon go down, it will discharge all of it at once in an extreme level explosion. They even have wings designed to allow rapid reactions, move at deceptive speeds and even manage to glide through space thanks to the specialized thrusters. It even allows them to hover and leap large distances across various terrains.” The room went silent at this. Even I couldn’t help but stare between him and the image.
“How many have you created? How do we avoid friendly fire and where would you deploy these… Cyber dragons?” One of the generals finally asked.
“I’ve created enough shock knight armors to fully equip thirty percent of our total ground forces and have an additional twenty percent act as vanguards. I have seven Cyber dragons fully constructed and ready for deployment or even orbital drops. They’re meant for wherever we don’t want our own troops. As for the weaponry and all else seventy percent of the ships have been altered and upgraded including their communication systems, radars and other components, their crews trained along with various maintenance personal already knowing exactly what to do with the rest of the ships and their crew already slowly being adapted and trained. Troops have been trained and taught to use the new weaponry over the last three months, not perfect but ready for what we’re going to do. I also have fifty total dragons ready for deployment and ready for war, the rest still in their growth phase or still going through forceful evolution.”
Silence once more descended across the table broken only by Michael excusing himself and turning his hologram off. I looked towards my generals before turning to the scientists. “Begin preparing a small group of dragons, roughly ten along with our best agents trained in espionage, those who can pass off as dragon cultists and have them deploy with the dragons onto the Bio-Organic Conglomerates outer rim. Have them begin creating chaos across three planets before encroaching as deep into the empire as possible. Ensure they know this is a suicide mission, there is no coming back from this. It is our first strike to reawaken humanity and drag the Leviathan to the light.” I told them, receiving reluctant nods, some whispering between one another and asking if we were really doing this. None questioned me though, something I was glad about. They knew this was best for humanity, that I knew best. I would soon be releasing an ocean of blood across the galaxy. I would do it every time if it meant I could ensure humanity continued. It may even prove a good method to break their dependency and reliance on dragons as a whole, or so I hoped. Standing up I walked to the window of my office, the holograms flickering out one by one till I stood alone, looking out across the city. The voices grew louder now, screaming profanities, cursing me, calling me various names and even begging me not to do this but I had to. Humanity was ruled from the shadows and guided by a council only for this to be the result of it, an over reliance on what almost killed us all, their final ember prowling through the shadows plotting vengeance while my fellow shadow council does nothing, choosing ignorance and comfort. Humanity will head to its own destruction if left on its current course and I refuse to allow that. I will take the mantle of humanity's leader, the leader they don’t realize they need. No more divides, just one solid unified front under me. I will rule it all as I am the only one left who knows what’s best for humanity.
