by P. R. Adams
He dropped behind a wedge of what must have been an impressive rock some time ago. The narrow tip and striated sides had been weather smoothed. It was sufficient cover, at least for the moment.
And he’d need it. This wasn’t really a small dragon. Probably close to twenty feet long, it was just the smallest of the three.
Still an ugly brute.
A horrible screech raked his ears, and the ugly lizard adjusted course while bringing its talons up to its breast. The smell—like the sewer they’d been in—rolled over everything.
Riyun had compared it to an airburst bomb. Those things somehow released a gas. A lot of gas.
Then…boom. High-pressure flames.
Now Hirvok had to see just how flammable that gas was.
When the dragon was about one hundred feet out, Symbra threw herself flat.
And he fired.
It was a big target—the broad torso—easy enough to hit with a tight burst. Then another.
The gas didn’t ignite, but the bullets got the ugly brute’s attention.
Wide wings beat at the air, braking, then adjusting the angle of descent. A furious red eye fixed on him, then the long neck twisted around, and as the dragon climbed, it spat its liquid fire at the protective rock.
Hirvok rolled away, pitching over and tumbling down the ramp toward the pit.
His awareness was of a spinning world: the hard ramp banging against his elbow and forearm pads…the path back up then deeper down…a plane of fire that stretched several feet overhead.
Partway down the ramp, the fire burned out.
He stuck out his arms to slow his tumble. When he came to a stop, he searched the sky.
The smaller dragon was still climbing, and there seemed to be less ease and grace to that ascent. High above, the huge dragon continued circling and gaining altitude. It took a moment to spot the mid-sized one, which was banking and beginning what looked like a strafing run.
Now was the time to test their tactics.
Hirvok’s helmet rattled toward him, torn loose from his belt when he’d rolled down the ramp. He rushed back up, scooping the helmet as he went and slapping it onto his head. “Tank, you in position?”
Lonar didn’t respond at first, then a clean signal showed. “Yeah. Ready to light these things up. Where’s Lightning?”
“Don’t you worry about him. We trained for this. Make it count.”
“Okay.”
Something had drained all enthusiasm from the big man’s voice. Maybe he wasn’t seeing the giant lizard as clearly as Hirvok was. Kicking on the tactical network would fix that.
As Hirvok approached the rock he’d been using for cover, he slowed. His weapon was still there, undamaged. The fire had been unleashed too early, before whatever gas the things emitted sank to the ground.
Heavier than air, released when they screeched, high flashpoint. Those were all good things to know.
The tac–net HUD glowed as it built out the battlefield. Green dots for the team, red dots for the dragons. Topographic details would take a few seconds to fill in, as would data feeding in from the weapons. Everything was close to full charge, but running the tac-net was going to chew through battery fast.
Tough. They needed the edge.
Everyone’s vitals looked good, except for Riyun’s, which had flat-lined. As fast as the big lizard had been flying when it struck, every bone in the old guy’s body would have been pulverized instantly.
Juggernaut armor had its limits.
Hirvok tagged the mid-sized dragon, noting the way it had flown wide of the field before starting a more serious assault run. Its angle of attack was aggressive, as if it might be planning to batter a target rather than to breathe fire.
That might indicate the animals were actually dumber than they’d been led to believe. With primitive people, it was probably easy to create a belief in things like smart animals.
They believed in magic, after all. Magic!
The big lizard altered its approach, heading for Naru and Quil’s position.
What the—?
The two of them had dropped behind weak cover and remained far too close together.
“Ice!” Hirvok sprinted toward a series of dirt mounds that would get him into an ideal position for crossfire. “Ice!”
The pseudo was receiving. The connection was strong. For some reason—
“What is it, Sergeant Hirvok?”
Formality in combat! That was new! Hirvok would have to sort that out. Later. “Call signs! Get some distance from Neon. Now.”
“She is experiencing trouble with her gear.”
“The two of you are about to have a whole new experience, like a dragon right up your ass.”
“Her helmet has gone offline, and her weapon has jammed.”
Not surprising. She didn’t know how to take care of anything in the field. “Leave it. Get some distance.”
Overhead, the dragon seemed to already be adjusting. It had an excellent vantage point, but there had to be some limit to its vision. Birds didn’t have the best eyesight—meant to detect movement more than anything else—and Hirvok was pretty sure lizards had their own limitations. If Quil made a run for it, that would draw the big thing off from the chubby hacker.
The terrain began to take on very basic shapes—wireframes with limited shading—at the same time as the team members became bipedal forms rather than dots.
Lonar had cover, Javika had cover, Naru had limited cover, and Quil was running to better cover.
Only the hacker presented an easy target.
Hirvok blinked to get the HUD to lock-on to the approaching beast, then shared that with the others. “Everyone seeing this target?”
Naru gasped. “It’s coming right at me! I don’t have a gun!”
The thing hadn’t adjusted course for Quil. That was odd. “Tank, you still have a clean shot at it?”
“Yeah.” The big man sounded confident enough, but…
Hirvok looked up, momentarily disabling the HUD to get a clean image of the big lizard. Maybe sixty feet long, with wings probably twice that size, it didn’t have its talons up like the other one had. Something was different about this approach. The thing seemed to have a tight focus on Naru. It was already flying just above the ground, too low to fully beat its wings.
Landing. The thing was going to land. Right next to the hacker.
He activated the HUD again. “Tank, hit it! Knock it off course!” Hirvok brought his gun up and fired.
An instant later, the autocannon roared. They hit the beast, and he was sure he saw blood spurting from a few nasty wounds.
But the dragon continued, then it landed maybe twenty feet in front of the hacker. Hopping. Skidding.
Stopping. Right on top of her.
Naru shrieked.
Hirvok put another burst into the thing’s side, then he aimed for its head and put another burst there. “Light it up!”
The other weapons fired—Symbra, Lonar, Quil.
Not Javika. She was moving, sprinting toward the hacker.
What in the Hollow Hills did she think she was doing?
She certainly had the dragon’s attention. It was right over Naru, but rather than pluck her up with its beak—a beak that could crush her armor without any effort—it reared its head back and twisted its neck until it was looking at Javika.
Then it screeched.
It was spraying the area with its gas. It was going to breathe, incinerate the charging woman.
Before he could shout an order or even formulate one, the lizard coughed, and the air all around the Biwali warrior erupted in flame.
She disappeared in that fire.
And an instant later, she burst out of the flames, surrounded by an emerald glow.
An emerald glow… That protected her from fire…
The wizard! Tarlayn!
He had completely forgotten about her, but she was out there somewhere, not part of the tac-net, but involved.
Althou
gh the dragon rocked backward in apparent surprise, it quickly recovered. With a hop, it was once again over Naru. One of the huge talons shot out, snatching the plump girl from her position and silencing her screams.
Balanced only on one leg, the big beast squatted, then launched itself high into the air. Its wings beat once, then again, and then it was moving forward faster than it fell.
They needed to bring it down before it took the hacker away. Her vitals were still solid. And—
Hirvok blinked in disbelief. He had completely missed it, but Javika had somehow gotten onto the dragon’s leg. Her form—an outline that was quickly degrading into a dot again—was right on top of Naru’s.
He hadn’t given that order. This was typical poor discipline, the results of Riyun’s weak leadership. “Whisper! Get out of there. We can’t take a clean shot—”
“You will not need the clean shot. Not on this one.”
He snarled, ready to order her to abandon the hacker. Until it sank in what she’d said: this one.
A quick check of the HUD, and his guts clenched.
The other two dragons were coming.
Four. That was all that remained of the team now. It wasn’t enough to take down the big beast, but it might be enough to finish off the smaller one.
Hirvok targeted that one as its icon transformed into a detailed, animated winged reptile. “Leave the big one for now. We can’t stop it, but we can finish off the runt.”
Symbra’s connection flared green as she transmitted. “If you don’t fire on that big one, he’s going to kill someone.”
“Better we lose one than the whole team.” Hirvok couldn’t believe he had to state something so obvious.
“Let me fire on him.”
She was challenging him at such a critical point in time. More of the shoddy discipline that made the team so ineffective. “I’m in charge now. Do what I say, or you’ll get us all killed.”
“I think you’re doing a good enough job of that on your own.”
She disconnected before he could say anything else, but her targeting showed she was still focused on the smaller lizard, as he’d ordered. That was the one headed for Quil. Although the pseudo was the most expendable of them, there was no way Hirvok was going to let the little lizard escape. Not this time.
At about two hundred feet, he signaled they could fire at will.
And they did exactly that, the autocannon operating at full capacity, and the assault weapons letting fly with short bursts.
Combined, they did exactly as Hirvok had hoped: The lizard’s body went limp, and it crashed into the ground with a loud snap of bones.
Hirvok had just a moment to enjoy the way the wings cracked and neck twisted until the wedge-shaped head was facing toward its rear…
Then the real threat was on them.
It came in hot on the path of the smaller one, probably intending all along to use it as a decoy. When the little one finally came to rest, the big one banked and dropped right on top of Lonar. There was no way for the heavy weapons expert to get his big weapon around in time. Hirvok thought there might have been a second where the big guy tossed the gun aside.
Stupid. However long he lasted, that gun was a threat.
Hirvok advanced, targeting the baleful eyes of the dragon. Armor piercing rounds didn’t have much effect, although the thing seemed pissed. It snapped toward him, as if warning that he was next.
And Hirvok’s helmet fritzed. First the tac-net, then the optics died.
He tore the device off and tossed it aside. “Come on! Get away from him!” He switched to the closest wing, hoping to tear the thin membrane connecting the long finger bones. Those bones would have to be hollow to make the thing’s weight remotely feasible for flight.
Except when it had crashed into the building where they slept, the whole place shook.
He couldn’t think of things rationally. It really was magical here.
Well, technology was a good remedy for magic: He sent another burst into the wings, smiling when the membrane tore.
The smile faded when his weapon stopped firing.
Click! Click! Empty magazine.
He swapped in a regular load, but it was too late.
The big lizard’s neck arched. It screeched.
A methane-like smell, the air thick and clinging, a feeling like being pressed back by an invisible force.
Red, malevolent eyes glimmered.
Somewhere far away, he thought he heard Naru’s scream.
Then the pressure surrounding him faded, replaced by an unimaginable heat—the sort of heat that evaporated blood and dissolved flesh in the blink of an eye.
And Hirvok had just an instant to wonder if he really had done better than Riyun.
36
The ground was a black blur that receded far too quickly, but that was the least of Javika’s concerns. The wind threatened to tear her from the dragon’s leg. Caught in that leg’s talon, Naru’s black-and-neon blue hair whipped around wildly. She shrieked in what might have been agony or terror. Javika assumed both.
And the dragon itself was now aware that it had an unwanted passenger. It peered at its underside once, then the head raised back up. The only explanation she could think of for it not snapping her in half was some limitation in how it flew. Maybe the long neck couldn’t curl under the belly while it was climbing.
She had a moment to act. “Naru, you can hear me?”
The hacker gurgled. “It hurts.”
It would. The monster would have no concept of tenderness. Javika intended to show it none herself. “This one was wounded. Blood trails from its gut. You smell it? Ruptured intestines.”
When Naru opened her eyes and searched around, Javika pointed to where thick, black fluid dripped from a hole twice the size of her thumb. That got a weak nod.
“I will drive my sword into that wound. You understand?” Javika waited for another nod.
Naru groaned. “It can breathe on you.” Her words were almost lost in the wind.
“Not while it flies. Be ready.”
Javika climbed. Waiting would give the younger woman opportunities she didn’t need—opportunities to ask questions or think through what was going to happen.
There were no good answers, so Javika probed for gaps and creases in the monster’s scales. She drove powerful fingertips into every opening she could find, pulling herself up the leg and onto the belly. Blood trickled where her metal–tipped gloves penetrated too deep. A creature of such size might register an irritation from her, nothing more.
But even an irritation would eventually force it to react.
Wind threatened to tear the Biwali warrior away. Not being able to dig her boots in like she could her gloves only made things worse. The creature’s muscle and flesh also threatened her grip, as did the slick, foul blood.
When possible, she moved in a straight line toward the wound. At times, she had to move sideways or retreat. There were areas where no gaps existed in the scales. There were areas where the scales were small and impervious to her probes.
But Javika was patient and persistent. She’d trained for such challenges since childhood.
Killing the dragon would mean plunging to their deaths. Not killing the dragon would mean being crushed or rent limb from limb before being eaten.
Stabbing the beast might make it squeeze Naru with fatal force.
When faced with impossible odds, the only option was to make new odds.
Halfway up the belly, with legs dangling in the whip of the wind, a new problem arose for Javika: The bleeding had gone on for some time, and everything was coated in the dark fluid. From the smell of it, that blood was mixed with feces. It left everything between her and the wound extremely slick.
Reversing back to the leg that held Naru would mean an even tougher climb.
Time was running out.
There was no choice but to circle wide of the slick areas and come at the wound from the dragon’s opposite side.
> Javika’s arms trembled from the exertion. It wasn’t just suspending from the beast’s belly but clinging with such force against the wind’s drag. Her gloves had circuitry that provided some of that grip, but she hadn’t had time to drop her backpack. It was extra drag and weight, and no amount of training was going to make her anything other than human. She would eventually tire.
Naru shrieked again.
The talons—they were moving. They were leveling off.
Javika stopped at the edge of the gory slick and began moving forward again. But when she reached forward, her glove found no purchase, and her weight rocked back onto the glove she used as an anchor.
Then that glove came free as well.
And she fell.
The wind that had torn at her all along dragged her along the underbelly.
She flailed, searching for a new grip before she might fall to her death.
Her legs caught in the crease of the upper thigh above the talon holding the young hacker.
That was all Javika needed to regain her hold.
Breathing became difficult. Her body needed oxygen. Her muscles needed rest.
Seconds ticked in her head, each taking with it a small measure of hope. Already, it seemed as if the hacker had gone into shock.
So Javika gave herself one shake of each arm and a roll of each shoulder, then began again.
Hand over hand, legs kicking against the wind in time, until she was farther out from the blood slick than before. She climbed forward, past the wound, then she climbed towards it.
Something changed as she closed on her target. The angle of her dangling relative to the slope of the underbelly was off.
The dragon was banking.
Its head curled around, and it peered at her.
Then it rolled, belly on top for a moment, then back on bottom.
Javika dug her fingertips in until blood trickled around the scales.
That only seemed to anger the monster, which performed the same maneuver again.
And again.
Then it descended, wedge head peering back and mouth opening to reveal terrible, pointy teeth. Those teeth could penetrate armor like hers, but the thing didn’t snap at her.
It must not have fine enough control to attack something as small as a human safely. The teeth must be able to penetrate its own scales.
