Prologue - Magitech Wars 1: Alpha Magic

Empress Adodella ran through the trembling starship’s corridors, as fast as an injured and pregnant elf could run. She had been stabbed in the belly by flying shrapnel, so her guard was down and no protective spell in place. After using a fast and simple healing spell, there was little bleeding, but much internal damage remained.
Was her unborn child okay? How had they been found?
The royal starship was well camouflaged and cloaked from all known detection sources, including visual, electronic, and magical. She wasn’t sure how she had gotten separated from Sekmet and Jaylin in the chaos, but she knew they were her only chance of escape. Adodella had already depleted the last of her magic reserves just to seal her wound and keep from giving birth in the midst of this battle.
She ran down another corridor, away from any noise that sounded like continued fighting or the clacking of enemy boots. Finally, she found a room in one of the outer reaches of the hull and in the lower decks of the large starship. It should take a while for the enemy soldiers to find her here, perhaps just enough time for her to recover some magic to postpone her childbirth again. How had they known where she was, and how had they picked such an inconvenient time as when she had gone into labor? There must be a traitor amongst them. But who would betray her to that monster the Dragon Queen, Lamia Morta? Her contractions were now just minutes apart, meaning that the birth of her child was imminent. Gasping for breath and giving in to the stabbing pains of labor, Adodella could run no longer. She closed the room off and activated the emergency blast door. She hunkered down in a corner and started her breathing exercises. Suddenly she heard boots beating in unison down the corridor to her left. She tried to raise up and run, but the contractions were too much. She had no energy left to both run and give birth … she chose to focus on giving birth. A tall, middle-aged woman of Asian descent with jade-green eyes, fiery red hair, long pointed ears, and a small green dragon perched on her shoulder, came down the passageway. Queen Lamia Morta rounded the corner, being closely followed by a small troop of her supreme guards of Kapada witches. The small dragon hopped down from her shoulder and transformed into a dragonkin named Yazi. Yazi stared intently at the crystal held in his right hand while it traced a pattern over his left hand.
“Here, in this room my Queen!” Yazi indicated the blaster door while casting another spell upon it. “This blast door appears to be made from the scales of an Ice Dragon so is most susceptible to fire magic.”
Queen Morta took out her wand and began tracing a symbol on the door while chanting a transfiguration spell upon the ice molecules of it. In less than 15 minutes, the area of the door inscribed with the symbol turned into a sludge of water and metal shards then splashed to the floor. She strode into the room, flanked by her supreme guards while Yazi transformed again into a small dragon and perched back onto the Queen’s shoulders.
Sweat covered Empress Adodella’s body and her arms trembled as she lay exhausted on the floor clutching her newborn child to her breast while pointing her wand up at Queen Morta.
“I’ll … vaporize … you!”, she could barely speak as she took in gasps of air.
“Please don’t belittle yourself, Empress, I know you have no magic left or you would have teleported yourself away from this room moments before I broke through the door!” Queen Morta smiled in quiet triumph at the fact of just having caught such a formidable foe.
“How did … find us?” Empress Adodella gasped as she let the wand go limp in her grasp and now used both hands to hug her child to her.
“Now, now Empress, I can’t tell you my secrets!” Queen Morta smirked.
“Why? You’re going … to … kill us … you don’t … take prisoners.”
“That’s not exactly true my dear. I do indeed take prisoners, but not exactly living or dead, so to speak, and they never escape to tell the tale of what’s happened to them … so those should be the rumors, but I’m happy to know of my reputation nonetheless. You see, I take prisoners for experimentation purposes. I have a grand scheme that requires special magic that only wizards can provide, so I’ve been collecting wizards to experiment on … although it requires you to be alive, it doesn’t require you to be actively conscious exactly. I’ll store you in a crystalline cocoon. I’ve nearly perfected the art of it … some cocoons are living for years now before being fully drained of their life energy.”
“You’re sick … sucking … life … from people!”
“Well, to be technical, I’ve found a way to extract the magic energy out of the cocoon … but it does have the nasty side effect of sucking out the life energy gradually too, but I’m getting better at extending the life of my ‘subjects’ and getting more magic energy out of the cocoon. It’s a new pioneering vampire art form really if you look at it right.”
“Why? … we mean … nothing … to you!” Adodella looked sternly at her enemy, refusing to lose face by weeping, which is more what she wanted to do in this moment.
Queen Morta squinted her eyes and pursed her lips, “I’ve had a divination you see. A child from the House of Vala will destroy you unless you can together rule the Galaxy. You’re the last of your lineage and this child is potentially my downfall, or my greatest triumph. Don’t worry about the child, I will raise it as my own … if it eventually refuses to help me to rule the Galaxy, then I’ll destroy it too.”
“You’re … evil! We’ll die … before … surrendering!” Even though she was well aware she had no magic left to draw upon, Adodella grasped her wand desperately and raised it towards the Queen.
“Now” Queen Morta ordered. The Kapada witches on either side of the Queen cast binding spells on Empress Adodella making her immobile and mute at the same time. “Take the child and the wand from her and give them to me!” Queen Morta ordered and another of the Kapada witches stepped forward and ripped both the baby and the wand from Adodella’s frozen grasp. Queen Morta pocketed the wand and held the baby, seeing that it was a boy. She wrapped him in her cloak and began to stride away from the frozen figure of Empress Adodella. “Take the Empress to my command ship. I’ll enjoy adding her to my collection.” Queen Morta gave an evil laugh as she handed the baby over to Yazi and walked triumphantly down the corridor. The Kapada witches conjured a hover-cart and placed Empress Adodella upon it, but just as they were about to leave the room, Jaylin and Sekmet appeared with a troop of elf Elite soldiers. Spell-guns blasted left and right, spell-swords deflected the blasts and slashed at their targets, as wand spells were slung in every direction. In the end, all Kapada witches were dead, while Jaylin, Sekmet, and four elf Elites remained standing. Instead of wasting time and magic here, Jaylin used the last of her magic to teleport the group to their hidden escape ship. Once on board they made the jump to hyperspace and set about unbinding the spells upon the Empress.
Free to move again, the Empress gasped for air and immediately screamed in pain. Jaylin was aghast, “What is wrong Empress?”.
“Baby … coming!” Adodella howled again in more pain.
“You can do this my Majesty, for the sake of the child and of our Empire, you can do this! Just breathe and push, don’t talk!” Jaylin held Adodella’s hand tightly while gently caressing the Empress’ belly. Empress Adodella groaned as she threw her head back and gave a push with another contraction. After a few more contractions and pushes, Empress Adodella gave birth to a healthy, but human looking little girl.
Needless to say, some whispers went around the room quickly so Jaylin immediately cleared the room of everyone else. Jaylin slowly turned to Adodella, “My Empress, she looks human. You know what affect this will have upon the populace. They are not ready for a half-breed to be a royal.”
“I know … hide her … my Faybel … Earth.” Adodella wept as she rocked her baby gently.
“I will do as you command my Empress, but I don’t agree with leaving the child in a world without magic and one full of human gunga.” Jaylin looked solemnly down upon the Empress and child.
“Hide her … Earth!”, barely able to again utter the words with her dying breaths.
“Yes Empress. I will do as you command.” Jaylin knelt before the Empress and child and bowed her head.
Baby Faybel started crying just as the last of Adodella’s life flowed from her body.

Plot type

Prologue