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Ruin of Dragons

Page 33

by Clay Kronke


  Aris sighed. "This is going to be more difficult than I thought."

  "We've got a second wave, get back up here!" Frakes shouted through the communicator. Aris swung back around to see a second group of dragons drop out of the lower holds, only this time half of them looped up and started toward the groups of fighters already engaged in combat.

  "Uh oh." He kicked in his engines and headed back to the fray. As he approached he watched in horror as the dragons reached the first line of ships, attached themselves to the hulls and started eating into the metal. And they were only attacking Republic ships.

  • • •

  "All right Wasp, we're on deck," Mira said, making her way down a side passage toward one of the maintenance lift clusters. "I'm making my way up to the command level, where are you?"

  "Kale and I are still on the lower levels," Voss's voice came back. "I'm not that familiar with this area, so we're kinda lost."

  "Hang on," Mira said, pulling out her handheld. "I'm sending you ship schematics. It'll show you service tunnels and passages, along with where you are. Should help keep you out of sight."

  "Will it show me where the rest of the people are?" Voss said, her tone only half serious.

  "It's not that useful, I'm afraid."

  "Well, it's a start," Voss said. "I appreciate it, princess."

  Mira smiled. "You have any trouble yet?"

  "We've seen a couple of armed teams," Voss said, "but we've managed to avoid confrontation so far. I got a better look at the armor, though. These guys don't look like part of any organization I'm familiar with, and they're not military, that's for sure."

  "Well, stay sharp," Mira said. "This could go sideways real quick."

  "No arguments there."

  Mira stopped as she heard a noise and ducked into a cross passageway just as a set of troops rounded the corner. She held her breath as she watched them continue down the corridor. The armor seemed familiar, and she wracked her brain searching for the connection but couldn't place the design. The helmets were also full-face, obscuring the wearers' identities.

  One of them carried a long-caliber halfaxe, and they both had sidearms in belt holsters. Mira drew her own sidearm and waited another minute for them to get farther down the passage. When she was certain they could no longer hear her, she slipped out and continued back the way she had been going. Checking her own location on the schematic, she continued down two more sections before turning to duck into a service accessway. Little more than a tube with a ladder running its length, it cut vertically through several levels, offering access to maintenance crawlways between floors. She took the tube up two more levels and exited out into the corridor between the clinical and medical wings—

  Right in front of a pair of troops she didn't hear coming. Both drew their sidearms, but Mira was faster, diving at the one closest to her and tackling him before the other could target her. They hit the ground and his weapon slid off toward the side of the corridor while Mira grappled to keep him from pinning her down. The second trooper had taken a step back to find his aim, but hesitated, waiting for a clean shot.

  Mira was surprised at the man's strength. Even an athletic human would have been no trouble for her to overpower, but she found herself struggling against his grip as he ended up on top of her with his hands on her throat. She twisted around, swiveling her hips and bringing her legs up between the man's arms and neck. Kicking away from the floor, she managed to knock him off balance and off of her, but he grabbed her arms and she found herself being pulled along with him as he tumbled sideways, leaving them both sprawled on the floor at arm's length. Mira caught the slight movement out of the corner of her eyes of the standing trooper shifting his aim, and she rolled flat, pulling the other one up to shield her as the first one fired his weapon. The one on top of her collapsed as he took a blast to the back, and before the one standing could adjust his aim, Mira had pulled her own sidearm and fired three shots into his chest in return.

  The trooper dropped where he stood, and silence descended over the corridor. She shoved the body off of her onto the floor and gulped down a deep breath as she was able to breathe again. Two separate voices rang over her comm, asking if she was all right, but she couldn't tell who they belonged to over the pulse pounding in her ears. She took a moment to catch her breath, then sat up. "I'm fine," she said finally, stumbling to her feet and holstering her weapon.

  She looked down at the body lying in front of her and noticed a glint under the helmet near the neck. She knelt down, frowning, and pulled the helmet off. A wave of platinum hair spilled out and she felt her breath catch in her throat as the face of an elven woman stared lifelessly up at her.

  No, she thought, getting to her feet and stepping over to the other downed trooper. She removed the helmet, revealing another elf, male this time, with close shorn hair and a scrolling tattoo winding through the contours of the right side of his face. Mira took a step back, feeling nauseous. "Guys," she said, swallowing. "We have a problem."

  • • •

  "Elves?" Petra repeated, making her way along the walkway toward what looked like a small control room at the end. "Why is that significant?"

  "Elves are not a militant people," Mira explained. "We don't have active armed forces outside of independent security details, and I can't think of an instance when we were involved in anything remotely resembling this. They look like…"

  "They look like a mercenary force," Voss's voice cut in.

  "Yes," Mira agreed. "Yes, that's it."

  Petra reached the end and stepped into the control room. There was a single chair in the middle surrounded by a bank of monitors showing each section of cryo containment, their current status, and the various conveyor systems coming in from each of the docking bay clusters. In the center was a wide control board with a dozen different panels of switches and smaller monitor screens.

  "It looks like they're using appropriated weapons, too," Voss continued. "Those are dwarven halfaxes the team leaders are carrying, and the helmets look like a human design. And if their gear is hastily assembled, I'm hoping their command structure is, as well."

  "I'm not holding my breath," Mira said, her voice an equal mix of sarcasm and disgust. "Any other updates?"

  Petra piped up. "I'm at the monitor station for the dragons in storage," she said, looking over the array of controls, "but I have an issue."

  "Can't find the right control panel?" Mira guessed.

  "I can't read the labels," Petra said, feeling embarrassed. "I don't know what language this is."

  Allow me, Lirwe said, and Petra turned to see the great head of the dragon filling the doorway, as it had managed to slink along the relatively narrow walkway after her.

  Stand back, please.

  Petra quickly ducked out of the room just in time for Lirwe to hunch her shoulders, open her jaw and release a white-hot stream of dragonfire, filling the control room with corrosive plasma that quickly ate through the monitor station machinery, causing an alarm to sound throughout the massive cryo chamber and bright amber lights to flash along the edges of the space. Lirwe closed her jaw, the flames subsided, and they both turned and watched as the conveyor system ground to a halt.

  "Never mind, we're good," Petra said, wide-eyed.

  A second alarm sounded accompanied by a flashing red light, and a shrill hissing sound filled the room as emergency locks were released and hundreds of cryo tubes split open.

  "Um, there are a lot of dragons about to wake up," Petra said. "Should we … go somewhere else?"

  "Get back out into the main corridor," Mira's voice suggested. "They'll be hungry when they wake up, and they'll probably start to eat whatever's close, including bulkheads, so you'll want to be on the other side of the pressure doors."

  Petra nodded. "Understood."

  She looked up at Lirwe, then headed back the way they came, out i
nto the access corridor. She could hear Lirwe's heavy footfalls behind her, which were a strange comfort in this unfamiliar place. She exited out into the main corridor and turned to see a pair of troops coming out into the corridor from the hangar bay. She slid to a halt as they immediately snapped their weapons up.

  "Stop right there!" one of them shouted.

  She was frozen in place, her heart beating up in her throat. She brought her hands up, slowly, and held them out to her sides. As the troopers began moving toward her, she heard Lirwe's voice in her head.

  Stand very still.

  She nodded a fraction, keeping her eyes on the approaching troops, but as she watched, they slowed down, looked at each other, then started backing up. A flicker of light was her only warning as she was suddenly engulfed in a wall of dragon plasma that swept past, clearing the corridor ahead of her.

  She felt it flow across her like a warm breeze, along with a strange charge of electricity that seemed to prickle over the surface of her skin, and even though she could feel the intensity of the heat, it didn't touch her. A second longer and the flames extinguished, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and long scorch marks across the floor.

  She turned around to see Lirwe looming overhead.

  We should go. We're needed elsewhere.

  • • •

  "Fly evasive!" Aris shouted. "Don't let them attach to your hull!" Aris had made it back up to the fray and didn't know where to turn first. All around him were a myriad of combat engagement combinations: Republic ships going head to head with Sanctuary fighters, Republic ships grappling with dragons that were attempting to burn holes in their hull or take bites out of their fuselage, or sets of fighters coming to the aid of the previous two. The Republic forces were fighting battles on two separate fronts and losing. "And don't bother with energy weapons," Aris continued. "They won't work. EM pulses are your best bet."

  "EM pulses?" Frakes voice sounded incredulous. "That would leave the ships vuln—"

  "I know!" Aris shouted. "You're gonna have to get creative." He turned to see a ship spinning in place, a dragon attached to its cockpit section. He increased speed, firing his pulse cannons at the creature as he approached. The energy blasts sunk into the dragon's hide, and while they didn't seem to do any damage, it was enough of a distraction that the fighter underneath was able to throw its topside vents and drop out from under the creature's grip, just as it turned its attention to Vermithrax.

  Aris didn't change course, instead kicking in his thrust as the dragon reared back and blasted a stream of plasma at him. Aris angled into the stream, colliding with the creature and knocking it out away from the limping fighter. It was a momentary victory, but he knew it wouldn't last. Conventional weapons couldn't kill a dragon, and EM pulses were only a temporary solution. But even though their only objective was to buy time, he didn't know how much longer they could hold out. Gritting his teeth, Aris swung around to begin a pass at the next one but stopped as he noticed a flicker in space above them as three ships exited slipstream overlooking the battle.

  A new voice piped up over his communicator. "Kingsguard, this is Hornet, Nine-Eight-Nine-Actual, do you read?"

  "Davv!" Aris shouted. "Thank god, who'd you bring?"

  "I've got Merc and Wynn," Davv said, "and I just talked to Andren and Mauree, they should be here soon."

  "Awesome, Mauree's ship is a monster."

  "She shouldn't be more than a few minutes behind us," Davv said.

  "Good," Aris said, breathing a little easier. "We have more coming, but I don't know how far out they are."

  "Do we have a plan, or are we just shooting at anything not Republic?"

  "Um, definitely that," Aris said, finding his next target, "but try to engage the dragons, get them away from the Republic ships, they have Sanctuary fighters to deal with and no plasma armor."

  "You letting them know we're not enemy ships?" Davv asked. "They're likely looking kinda cross at anything Kingsguard right now."

  "They know," Aris confirmed. "We're just flyboys under contract."

  "Maybe," Davv returned, "but if this isn't a pretty firm resignation, I don't know what is."

  "No arguments there," Aris agreed. "Keep to this channel, I've got Frakes and the Republic forces on twenty-three hundred."

  "Copy that. Give 'em hell."

  Aris turned to his comm screen and keyed in Frakes. "New arrivals are on our side, Commander," he said, "and there should be more on the way. They'll try to occupy the dragons so you can concentrate on their fighters."

  "There are more dragons coming, too," Frakes pointed.

  "I know," Aris said, "but every bit helps. Stork, what's your status?"

  "Making our way out," Petra said. "Lirwe thinks we're needed."

  "She's not wrong," Aris said. "We've got two waves of dragons out here and we can't split our attention. The group heading toward the surface aren't being distracted."

  "On our way."

  "Good," Aris said, "because we—"

  "We have a third wave!" Frake's voice cut in, and Aris spun to see yet another group dropping out of Avernus's lower holds. Again, they split in two, half of them looping up and making to join the fray, with the other half continuing toward the planet below.

  "We're being overrun," Aris sighed.

  • • •

  The lift doors opened, and Voss poked her head out, casting a quick glance in either direction. Satisfied the corridor was empty, she stepped out and motioned for Kale to follow. They were on a circular maintenance level at the top of the station that ringed the various sensor dishes, towers and transmitters that comprised Avernus's communications array, with several connecting corridors providing accessways to the various control stations for each module.

  "Come on," she said. "We shouldn't see many people up here."

  Kale looked skeptical. "You don't think they'll be guarding their communications array?"

  "I'm hoping they're not expecting anyone to be on board in the first place," Voss said, taking the access corridor to the transmitter tower. "And I'm hoping they think we're still in our cell."

  "You should always expect them to be a step ahead of you," Kale said.

  Voss turned to look at him. "Now you're being sage? This isn't a military incursion. There may be a troop contingent, but trust me, whoever's running this show has never pulled off an operation like this."

  "But you have?" Kale said.

  "Whose side are you on?"

  Kale shrugged. "It just sounds like a lot to assume. Those halfaxes will still kill you."

  "Would you rather go back to holding?" Voss said, turning around and continuing to the end of the corridor. "I'll take a few halfaxes over your bellyaching right now."

  Kale frowned. "I'm just not used to tactics that aren't frontal." He balled his hands into fists, puffing out his chest a bit. "We're dwarves, not sneakthieves."

  They made it to the end of the corridor and Voss tried the door, but it was locked. She checked the monitor next to the door, and found the entry protocol locked down, effectively barring them access. "You may get your wish," she said, turning back around. "I think they know we're here. Come on, let's try the next one."

  They headed back the way they came, but as they stepped out into the main corridor, an alarm sounded and a set of heavy doors slid down, cutting off the accessway completely.

  "Well that's not suspect at all," Kale grumbled.

  "This way," Voss said, continuing down the corridor toward the next accessway. But before they could even get to it, another heavy door slid down in front of them.

  "We're not making much headway," Kale said.

  "We're running out of accessways," Voss said. They continued on, this time at a sprint, only to find the third and final accessway already blocked. "They definitely know we're here. Come on, back to the lift."
r />   "What's that sound?" Kale asked.

  Voss stopped, listening. She heard nothing at first, but after a minute, she could hear a distinct, high-pitched whistling. Frowning, she stepped closer to the blocked accessway and put her ear up to the fire door. "Whatever it is, it's coming from inside," she said, checking the control panel next to the door access. "Are they venting the air?

  Kale scoffed. "They really don't want anyone messing with their array, do they?" he said as they continued, making their way back around to the lift alcove. They turned the corner, just as the lift doors opened and four troops stepped forward, their weapons immediately snapping up to point at their heads.

  "Not even a little," Voss said.

  • • •

  Petra stepped out into the hangar, made a quick scan of the space, but froze when she saw two armed men at the opposite end. They saw her as well, and they drew their weapons as they started toward her, but her vision was suddenly obscured as Lirwe moved up beside her.

  Climb on, Lirwe said, and Petra stepped back, pulling her helmet up, snapping it open and putting it on as quickly as she could. Lirwe lowered herself down so Petra could climb on, raising her left wing to form a screen between her and the two troops that she could no longer see.

  "Ready," Petra said, extending her scale hooks and securing her grip as she settled in at the base of Lirwe's neck. She gasped as she was immediately propelled forward on the dragon's loping stride as they crossed the hangar in three bounds.

  They cleared the hangar entry and immediately fell into a steep dive toward the planet below. Petra huddled close to the dragon's body, suddenly aware of all the activity they were surrounded by and feeling very exposed. She watched as numerous pairs of ships seemed to swarm the space around them, punctuated by the black blurs of dragons and the accompanying flares of bright orange and purple as expulsions of dragonfire lanced out. Debris and chunks of broken ships skimmed by in random bursts. Lirwe dodged, continuing her dive until they were past the bulk of the fray. Another minute and the battle was behind them.

 

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