Intergalactic conquest with an AI

Rex stood watching as the convoy sped away; their engines roared so loudly that the air trembled in their wake. His lips curled into a crooked smile, though there was something strange and maybe almost bitter in it.

"…Wow… they left in such a hurry. I felt like some kind of plague god chasing them away," he muttered while his eyes followed the trail of dust the vehicles left behind.

Cleo, who had just finished calibrating the gleaming plates of her arm after waking from her hacking adventure, glanced at him without much surprise. Her voice was calm and even, as always.

"It is understandable," she said. "They are nothing more than ordinary citizens. Only the guide among them carried any real status, a Rank Three civil servant..."

"But your current standing places you on a far higher level. In their data banks, you are listed as a Tier Eight noble. That means, with a single word, you could have their lives erased. That is how much power nobles are granted across the galaxy."

Rex made a face and gave a low sigh. "Even so… they could have been a little kinder. Getting dropped like that hurts my feelings." With exaggerated flair, he brushed the corner of his eye as though wiping away a tear, though the smile tugging at his lips betrayed the act.

Cleo tilted her head as her sensors scanned him. "According to your mental readings, there are no signs of sadness present. No emotion close to sorrow is detected." She looked at him again, her expression being utterly serious.

Rex chuckled while shaking his head. "You still have a lot to learn about sarcasm, Cleo." He placed a hand gently on her armored arm. She blinked once and tilted her head slightly farther, still not entirely grasping the subtle game of words.

Meanwhile, outside in the dock bay, the air carried a different tension. Little Red stood calmly at the base of the ship's ramp with her wings folded neatly behind her. The metallic gleam of the vessel loomed proudly above her, reflecting the artificial lights of the hangar.

It was then that her sharp eyes caught movement in the distance of a new convoy speeding toward her. This one looked much like the one Rex and Cleo had departed in earlier, though it was smaller and carried fewer guards.

As the vehicles screeched to a halt, the armored vehicle doors hissed open, and from them a noble of Nexum Dynamics stormed out, his octopus-like face turning a furious shade of crimson. His tentacles writhed and curled in wild agitation as his voice thundered across the bay.

"What is the meaning of this? Where is my ship?" His words echoed, fueled with outrage and entitlement.

Behind him, another figure emerged, this one dressed much like the guide who had departed with Rex earlier. He too was of the octopod race, though his posture was far meeker. His tentacles twitched nervously, his head bowed as he addressed the raging noble.

"D-dear noble, there must be some confusion. This is not your dockyard. According to records, your ship was assigned to bay number seven hundred and sixty."

The noble's face burned brighter, his body quivering with fury. "I do not care what the records say! This has always been my docking bay! Remove that vessel from my place at once!" He jabbed an arm toward the ship in accusation, his voice so sharp it seemed to cut through the very air.

The guide trembled and took a hesitant step back. "I—I am sorry, dear noble, but that is beyond my authority. I cannot move a vessel of such class without permission from higher command."

His words stumbled over themselves, the weight of fear dragging his voice down. Usually, he obeyed without question, bending to the noble's every demand. But the sight of the grand luxury ship docked before him made doubt gnaw at his mind.

After all, whoever owned that vessel was no ordinary traveler, and he dared not risk his life angering them.

The noble's fury boiled over, his crimson features twisting in wrath as his gaze shifted toward Little Red. She had been standing silently the entire time with her arms crossed while watching the scene unfold with the patience of a predator studying a squabble between weaker prey.

"You!" The noble's voice cracked like a whip as he pointed one writhing arm at her. "Identify yourself! I can see clearly that you are not of the noble octopod line. You are no owner of that vessel. Tell me this instant! Who is your master?" His voice grew louder with every word; the weight of his arrogance filled the hangar.

Little Red's expression did not change. She simply lifted her wings; the red feathers brushed the air as if flicking away an invisible layer of dust. She offered no bow, no explanation, only that small, dismissive gesture.

It was as though the furious noble's words were nothing more than the meaningless noise of an insect buzzing in her ear.

Thought... her bravado only made the noble more furious. He bared his teeth and shouted out with all his might, "You dare to ignore me? Kill her!"

His arm jabbed toward Little Red. The guards reacted like trained animals. Laser rifles rose in unison and bright red beams tore through the air toward her without a second thought.

But the shots never reached her. They thudded against a shimmering wall of light that had bloomed up around the ship; it was the shield that had been on all this time since the twins were still aboard.

Rex had left it active for that very reason. It swallowed the lasers as though the bolts were nothing more than rain. Sparks danced along the shield and then died.

The noble staggered back with his eyes widened. "What!? Where is this shield coming from?" he shouted with panic leaking into his voice. His guards kept firing, their faces set with the cruel certainty of men who expected obedience. The weapons clicked empty against the barrier but even so, nothing changed.

Little Red did not feel threatened by this; she only felt insulted, after all, royal blood runs deep in her veins, older than most governments in the system.

For her, the ten thousand years of history of the Kaelzars did not happen... so... to be shot at by strangers on another world felt like a declaration of war against her people. The anger inside her started to burn.

It burned small at first. Threads of heat rose from her hair and then from her scalp, tiny tongues of flame licking at the air. Behind her head a faint red halo made itself known, like the slow rise of a sun.

Her red feathers began to glow with a fiery red. Warmth gathered at her feet and curled around her ankles like a living thing. The air smelled faintly of embers.

She could have let the anger loose. She could have burned the noble and his guards to ash in a single motion. The dock bay would have been a graveyard and the message clear to anyone who watched.

But she stopped. She took a breath and let the fire cool inside her. Control is a kind of power too, and she had learned when to use force and when to let other forces move first.

Those forces arrived faster than anyone expected. Two transport ships arrived above the docking bay, their lights sweeping the hangar like searchlights. The hulls opened and four hulking mechanized bots dropped down with an authoritative thud. They unfolded like oaks waking from sleep and set their heavy feet on the metal floor.

A recorded shout from the transport echoed cold and flat. "Attention. This is a direct order from the planetary champion. Stop any hostilities." The voice carried a weight that bent the air.

The transport ships were flanked by bright beams. From their undersides small missiles launched and arced into the space between the noble and the bots. They detonated in a precise pattern and a new field snapped into place. It wrapped around the noble and his guards like a cage.

The noble felt trapped and immediately screamed into the light, "What is the meaning of this? How dare you do this to me, a noble?" He fired his handgun at the barrier, but the bullets just struck harmlessly and skittered away.

Then a voice answered him. It was not loud, but it cut through the noise with the same calm used by a patient teacher correcting a classroom. "They did it because I ordered it," the voice said.

The noble turned his head, fury boiling into a new color, purple-red, his tentacles quivering. "Who dares? I am from House Chrono. Show yourself. Who would stop a noble of my standing?"

Something moved in the light above. A figure drifted down, not storming but descending with the quiet confidence of someone who does not need to shout to be heard.

The presence itself seemed to settle the air. and with his sole presence, all whispers died. The noble lost his words when he faced the person who landed beneath the transport; it was the equivalent of standing before the planet's champion.

His rage deflated into something thinner and more fragile. After all, a Tier Five powerhouse was not someone a Tier Three noble could challenge. In this world, rank was authority.

Reckless insults could be punished with worse than embarrassment. The noble swallowed hard, and in that small silence everyone else understood who truly held the power here.