Day after day, Magmus and the Galatonian armada hunted down the Mulgor’s dwindling fleet. Day after day, they knocked off another branch of the Mulgor threat.

He knew they were approaching the Mulgor home world. His bride grew heavy with child and he worried continuously for her safety. They had made the decision months ago to stay together and follow the Mulgor to their planet.

Cora was a brave woman, but sometimes he felt foolish for taking her, and the heir she carried inside her, into a war zone. But none of that could be helped now, even if he’d wanted to.

He relished her presence and had gratitude in his heart every day that she was near. If they all went down in a fiery ball of glory, at least they would be together.

He’d been receiving intermittent messages from the other princes of Galaton, who’d been left to the defense of the Earth Lands. It had taken every ounce of strength the princes had to quell the uprising in his home. They had nearly lost the Stone Fortress, but they were finally able to beat back the enraged aristocrats.

Magmus implored the princes to open the mating lottery to the other males, but the princes said it was not safe with the Mulgor invasion still ongoing.

When he eventually returned to Galaton, triumphant from battle, he intended to demand the mating lottery be opened to the rest of the planet. The fighting among themselves had to end. He also had some other ideas for how they would deal with the female problem in the future. Magmus, for one, was sick of depending on Draconia for everything. It was time for his people to fend for themselves.

But those thoughts were for the future. Right now, he had to deal with what was in front of him. In the distance, the planet Mulgor hung brown and green as it orbited its sun.

The Mulgor were an ancient relative of the Draconians. The lizard men had evolved separately on a colony that had once been much like Galaton. But through genetic changes and interbreeding with other races, the Mulgor had become a race of their own, and they no longer were able to shift into dragons. They were bipedal lizard men now, with reptilian faces and long, forked tongs.

They had long been the biggest threats to the Draconians. The Mulgor’s ancient hatred for dragons hadn’t dissipated at all over the vast millennia. But baseless hatred had a heavy price. The Mulgor had used all their resources to interfere with the Galatonian trade routes and now they would pay.

Magmus instructed his armada to move in. They approached the planet Mulgor, heavily fortified with orbiting warships.

Even though Magmus’s armada had been in space for several months, his fleet was still fresh and had taken little damage fighting the Mulgor. Prince Shay had already dealt heavy damage to their fleets, but Magmus was going to bring it to its final conclusion. This would be the end of the Mulgor.

Galaton and all Draconians alike would live in peace throughout the systems from now on if he had anything to do with it. He would not allow another day to go by when his woman or his world were in danger from these lizard creatures who cared so little for their own lives that they had to spend their resources harassing the dragons across the universe.

He stood on the command deck of the mothership Super Nova, facing the Mulgor fleet. Cora was safely stowed away in the safest place in the ship which happened to be the captain’s quarters. He’d made sure that she was prepared for the fight. Her time for birthing was coming soon and he wanted this battle to be done before it happened. His son would come into a world without war and destruction.

He gave the command to open fire on the closest Mulgor ships. There was no point in subterfuge. He intended to take them head-on, straightaway, without hesitation. He unleashed the full force of his laser volley at the Mulgor fleet. He then gave the command to send out the fighter jets.

Hundreds of small jets flew out from the cargo ships of his armada. The swarms spread out toward the Mulgor fleet, shooting them full of holes. The few fighter jets left to the Mulgor were blown to bits as his own jets overtook the larger Mulgor ships.

He recalled his fighters after they took out the last of the Mulgor jets, and then he moved the armada in. Magmus gave the command to engage the fleet while his fighters flew into the planet Mulgor’s atmosphere. He intended to lay waste to their home world entirely. If they were so much more concerned about starting wars than they were about their own people, he couldn’t be bothered to care about them either.

He gave the command to unleash one of their biggest weapons on the closest Mulgor mothership. The atomic laser shot across the distance and connected with the mothership, exploding it in a fiery blast. The breaking parts of the large ship smashed into other ships as they tried to maneuver away. With one blast, Magmus had been able to damage five ships beyond repair.

He quickly moved in on the damaged vessels and shot them with a laser volley. He thought that his armada was home free, but an unimaginably huge ship uncloaked just then in the orbit around Mulgor. It readied a beam and then quickly blasted at his ship with its own atomic laser weapon.

Magmus had raised the shields just in time, but it still shook the entire Super Nova. He thought instantly of Cora and quickly checked on her through his wrist holocom.

“Are you okay?” he said into the communication device on his wrist.

“I’m okay. Keep fighting.”

He gave the command to fire on the Mulgor mothership. They blasted the ship, but its own shields were activated. His weapon did little damage.

“Open laser volley. Recall the fighters from the planet.”

The laser volley from his armada opened on the Mulgor mothership, and his jets emerged from the Mulgor atmosphere.

“Direct all fire at that mothership,” he commanded.

The jets turned to the Mulgor mothership and opened fire. All of the smaller laser attacks on the mothership would weaken the shield eventually. Then he could blast it with his atomic laser weapon when it came back online. That was the plan anyway.

First, the Mulgor mothership hit him again with its own atomic laser. The shields on his own ship were weakening too. They wouldn’t be able to withstand another blow like that.

“Fire atomic lasers,” he commanded.

The atomic laser powered up and shot across the distance at the Mulgor mothership, chipping away at their shields.

“Captain,” Admiral Saka said. “We can’t take another hit. Our shields need time to reactivate. Should we cloak?”

“No,” Magmus said. “We aren’t hiding anymore. Open laser fire, all guns.”

The entire force of the Galatonian armada, including all fighter jets, opened fire on the giant Mulgor mothership as the atomic laser powered up. He knew that the Mulgor’s weapon was at least a minute ahead of his own atomic laser.

He could have been making the greatest mistake of his life, but Magmus was tired of fighting. He was tired of running. He wanted it all to end now. The smaller laser fire from all of his jets and all of his ships still focused on the mothership, and soon it finally blasted open the Mulgor shields.

“Fire the atomic laser!” Magmus shouted as soon as the weapon came back online.

Admiral Saka fired the weapon and it shot across space at the Mulgor mothership. Magmus could see the shields attempting to cover the Mulgor mothership, but it was too late. Magmus’s atomic laser blasted through, hitting their hull with full impact. It blew the mothership apart. Pieces of the craft went flying through space.

“Recall the jets,” Magmus commanded.

His own fighter jets turned and headed back towards home as the massive Mulgor mothership broke apart over the planet. Huge meteor-sized portions of the ship crashed into the planet below in a fiery blaze. It would devastate their population for generations to come. In that instant, Magmus knew that the Mulgor would not be a threat to them again.

As he watched the planet burn, he considered whether he should commit total genocide against his ancient foe. He still had the weapons to do it. With the Mulgor disarmed, there was nothing stopping him.

As much as they had hurt his people, Magmus would not stoop to their level and become a monster. He had his mate and his heir on the way. His thrall was finally sated. He had put down the Mulgor threat, but he refused to become a destroyer of worlds. He would leave the Mulgor to rebuild in whatever way they could. Next time, they would think twice about interfering with Galaton.