“Fire,” called the Squadron Commander, a second before Jessica pulled the joystick trigger. Her missile joined the fifteen others that were heading toward the dragons at over a thousand knots.
Hellfires and the German equivalent were not made for shooting at aerial targets. They had been designed with ground targets in mind. But they could prove to be effective against slow movers, as helicopters were called on Earth. And the dragons of Refuge were the original large slow movers.
Fifty huge heads whipped around as the missiles were launched, followed by the smaller heads of the riders and crews. The hellfires didn’t leave a lot of smoke in the air, having been designed to not generate that telltale pointing back to the launch platform. Still the sharp eyes of the dragons could pick up the slightly less than man sized objects moving through the air with bright haloes surrounding them.
The natural instinct of the dragons and the riders were to attack objects in the air that were heading for them. Over forty of the beasts did so, wheeling in the air and flapping out toward the missiles that were coming their way. Having excellent depth perception, the dragons spit out fireballs at the edge of their range. Slow moving fireball and faster missiles came within proximity a thousand yards from the leading monsters. Seven missiles went into fireballs. The tremendous heat set them off, blasting the fireballs out of existence in the process. Weapons officers kept the remaining missiles moving toward the monsters, while the copters that lost missiles reacquired targets and sent off a second missile.
The nine missiles of the first wave continued on. Riders with wands blew three of them out of the sky with bolts of lightning, while several bolts and a number balls of colored lights missed their targets. The balls of colored light turned in midair and pursued the missiles, but lost ground as the six bore in on their targets.
Two leading juveniles caught hellfires, one to the chest, the other to the side. The warheads, which could penetrate twenty inches of homogenous steel armor, cut into the torsos of the ten ton dragons, burning hearts and lungs to charcoal and slicing into the fire bladder that each monster used to store its internal heat. The fires erupted out of the dragons, torching riders and tack before the whole fiery mass plunged from the sky. Two more hellfires took out another juvenile and a middle aged beast, before the last two hit a pair of ancients. One ancient was hit in the mouth just before it released its breath at the incoming weapon, blasting through the back of the skull and killing the monster instantly. The other ancient red took a missile to the upper rear leg and flapped heavily, dripping steaming blood, toward the clearing in the center of the small valley it was in.
More missiles came in, and the dragons, who seemed a little shaken by the first batch of flame trailing arrows that had knocked some of their number from the sky, were less accurate in their targeting of this batch. Five more were knocked from the air, along with four injured. The third wave tallied four more kills and a half dozen wounded. By that time the dragons had closed to within breath weapon range of the helicopters and let loose with their own fireballs.
Jessica saw at least three of the balls of fire heading in her direction, seemingly right at her, growing by the moment. She pulled back on her stick and her Comanche shot into the air, turning a loop as she rotated the helicopter back to right side orientation. The helicopter was heading away from the dragons and breath weapons as she cranked the throttle up to full and moved away at her maximum of over two hundred knots. Behind her a German copter held its ground as its weapon’s officer attempted to bring another of his missiles into a dragon. She saw the copter explode when a fireball struck its fuselage, an instant before a bright pinpoint of light in the distance indicated a strike by the missile it had been guiding in.
“They’re gaining on us, Stuart,” called the weapons officer over the circuit, his voice rising high.
“We’re going as fast as this thing can, sir,” she hissed back, watching in the rear viewer as the fireballs slowly gained on her speeding gunship. Slowly is the operative word, she thought, knowing that the fireballs had to have a maximum range. If she could just keep ahead of them until they got to that range, she was safe. But the damned things kept on plowing in behind her. Slightly to the rear another copter, this a Comanche like her own, brewed up when a fireball hit its tail, rolling up the fuselage in a wave of heat and fire. It turned over as the tail section exploded, then the belly blew upward as the fire reached the engine.
That could be us, any second now, thought Jessica, trying to will the copter to go faster, and planning out her terminal maneuvers if the fireballs got too close. As that thought crossed her mind one of the chasing fireballs exploded in midair, causing another to go off in sympathetic detonation. That left one, which soon blew up on its own as well.
“Hold on, LT,” she said over the com while she banked the helicopter around, making sure that the chain gun was slaved to her joystick. “We’re going in for a dogfight.”
* * *
Kurt had never felt so helpless in his life. He was the hero that this world had been waiting for, or at least that was what the native people kept telling him. And here he was, in the middle of the climactic battle, or at least one of those fights. And the action was above him, out of his reach.
Dragons flapped through the air, or glided swiftly from point to point, unleashing their fiery breath on ground targets. Tracers lanced through the air, chasing the monsters, the larger of them exploding into flak at closest approach. Missiles roared through the sky, trailing almost invisible smoke, twisting and turning as they sought the monsters that evaded them as best they could. Some contacted dragons, blasting them from the sky to fall like multi-ton rocks, striking the ground with an earth shaking thud.
At one point they had seen a half score of the golden dragons of their allies, attacking five or six of the enemy and raking them from the air at the cost of one of their own. The golds had then fled as a score of reds came after them, leading the reds into an antiaircraft ambush that knocked ten of them from the air, along with a friendly fire kill of a gold. Kurt had felt heartsick watching the beautiful good dragon die from a missile strike. But that was war. It always had been, and from what he had seen here it always would be.
“Stop for a minute,” roared the big Immortal, his eye following a middle aged red that was paralleling them on the road. He had continued to man the gun at the back of the hummer. During his war he had heard about the power of the American machine gun, not quite a cannon, but capable of destroying lighter armored vehicles, and a terror to infantry. Now he gripped the twin handles and placed his thumbs on the trigger, watching the big red, and he thought he might have a go at the mid ager that was less than a thousand meters away.
Kurt swung the machine gun around on its pindle, lining up the big scope that had been mounted to the weapon. He centered the cross hairs of the scope on the rider, then pulled his head back as he tightened his grip on twin handles of the weapon and pushed with his thumbs on the trigger. The gun bucked as the first rounds went out. Every fifth round was a tracer, each shining like a red spark as it arched seemingly slowly through the air toward its target. Kurt knew that the apparent slowness was deceptive, as each round could take off a limb or kill with a peripheral hit to the torso.
Whacking noises came back as the rounds tore through the plate armor of the rider and ate into the scales over the back. The dragon screeched in pain and the rider exploded blood from under the tough armor. The red started to flap toward them, its mouth opened and flames flaring from its nostrils. Kurt pulled the fifty caliber’s barrel down and triggered off a long burst into the chest of the thirty ton monster. Some of the tracers glanced from the thick scales, though most punched through, and the screech rose in pitch as the monster struggled to stay in the air, falling slowly to the ground while its leathery wings beat with the sound of booming sails. Kurt fired a burst at the head, going for the sure kill, but that part of the monster was darting back and forth, up and down, and proved too hard to eng
age.
“Let’s go finish the beast,” yelled Kurt, watching the creature go down into a small hollow in the wooded valley a kilometer away. Levine smiled up at him, shifted the hummer into gear and headed up the road, turning off on what looked like a goat trail moving up into the low hills that overlooked the river. Jackie let out a loud yell of delight as the hummer bounced along the rough track, heading for adventure. Or what looked like an adventure for the people who thought they would live forever.
* * *
General Jossianli Melisardra looked down from on high where he could get a good view of the entire valley. He had felt some consternation at first. The enemy machines had been too efficient at knocking objects from the sky. But he had not seen many of their missiles the last couple of minutes, and the cannon that specialized in taking out aerial objects were also mostly silent. Silent because they were burning pyres on the valley floor. Tracers still reached into the air, from the vehicles that were not specifically built to deal with the threat from above.
Of the three hundred and forty dragons that had entered the valley, over two hundred and fifty were still in the air. He had contacted those who remained outside the valley, fighting against the flying machines of the strangers. At least he knew where those were, and the Ellala in charge of that flight of dragons had assured him they would take care of those machines within the next couple of minutes, and then come into the valley to lend their fire to the destruction of the enemy.
“Get that bastard,” he mumbled under his breath as he watched one of the small missiles fired from a handheld launcher hit one of his middle aged beasts. The missile was not enough to kill the dragon, or even knock it from the sky. The creature roared its displeasure as it dropped lower and released a stream of fire into the tree that hid the human who had tormented it. Suddenly the rider jerked in his armor, along with the Mage and warrior who were sharing his saddle, as several lines of the red projectiles played over the back of the dragon. The Ellala slumped in the saddle as the dragon swung in a circle, seeking out those who had killed his riders.
The missile, this one of the larger ones fired by the strangers’ vehicles in ground combat, came streaking out of nowhere, curving to follow the dragon. Before the beast knew it had been targeted it had been hit by the fast flying missile, a perfect strike to the belly as the missile curved up at the last instant. The monster bellowed its pain and rage as it flapped heavily, lowering its feet and coming to a landing among snapping trees. As its head came around, looking for the launch vehicle, three more missiles came from cover and struck the beast, one to the lower neck and two to its back. The dragon roared in agony as its rear legs gave out, its broken back no longer allowing it control of the rear limbs.
The General directed more of his dragons to attack the woods and hollows, to flush out the enemy, while the crippled red lay screeching on the ground.
* * *
“All of the antiair batteries have been taken out, sir,” said the com tech, handing a message to Taylor.
Taylor swore under his breath and looked out over the valley from the sandbag emplacement, wondering what he could do to salvage the situation. Dozens of smoky columns reaching into the sky showed just how bad the situation was becoming. Add to that the constant presence of dots in the sky, dots that grew to dinosaur sized flying beasts at a moment’s notice, and the situation looked downright out of hand. There must be something else we can do, he thought, running all of his assets through his mind. If he had another nuke he would have contemplated a high air burst over the valley, after everyone took cover in armored vehicles, caves or bunkers. He might have lost some people out in the open, but the damned monsters would have been swept from the sky. But he didn’t have another nuke at his disposal, so that was a moot point.
His dedicated antiair assets had been his best card, after his helicopters. The attack birds had kept a good number of the dragons occupied outside of the valley. Now most of the antiair assets were gone, destroyed by the creatures they were meant to fight. His improvised antiair, auto weapons, hand held weapons, tanks and APCs, were still causing some damage to this swift moving enemy. But not enough. The monstrous beasts were destroying too much of his infrastructure and needed vehicles.
“Well, there must be some outliers still working,” he said, watching as a swerving missile reached into the sky and exploded next to the head of one of the smaller dragons, knocking the limp beast from the air.
Fireballs rose from the ground near a truck park. One juvenile dragon was hit and turned into a flying torch, falling from the sky. A flashing bolt of electrical energy came up and linked ground to another dragon. The rider smoked from the hit, obviously dead, and the dragon spasmed, but it continued on. The dragon flight turned around and sent a cluster of fireballs into the ground where the mages were. Taylor cringed as he thought of those assets being killed before he could use them in ground combat. But as the dragons swerved off another fireball and a bolt of lightning came after them, showing that the mages were still in the battle.
“Maybe we need to retreat the troops into the caves and bunkers,” said Sergeant Major Cliff Jackson, coming out of the bunker complex, swinging his glasses to his eyes.
“I don’t want to give up too much to these bastards,” growled the General, scowling at his Top Sergeant. “Who knows what they might take out if we don’t keep them on their toes?”
“It would help if we had more of those dragons and birds from our allies,” said Jackson, grimacing as he watched a truck park go up under the flames of a quartet of dragons, then clenching a fist as artillery rounds came down in the same area, one striking the back of a monster and blasting it from the sky.
“They’re still up there,” said the General, pointing to where several dots were swirling around each other, fireballs flying through the air in paths that the creatures were expertly avoiding. “Just not enough of them to make a difference.”
“And if we had our copters here?” asked the Sergeant Major, looking over at his Commander.
“We’d have another hundred dragons to contend with,” answered Taylor with conviction in his voice. He knew he had done the right thing there. How many helicopters might have been accidentally locked up by antiair radar and knocked from the sky? Better to have them off on their own, keeping the odds in the valley at a more reasonable level.
A fifty caliber started chattering from a nearby firing pit, followed by the buzzing burst of a German G1. A dragon flew low, coming toward the bunker and spitting fire.
“Down,” yelled Jackson, grabbing his General by the shoulder and pulling him to the dirt. A whooshing sounded over the bunker, then a crisp explosion, and the air became hot around the men. Taylor rode out the fire, sitting up as the air cooled. Jackson lay on his side, his shirt sleeve on fire as the NCO screwed his eyes up in pain. Taylor beat out the fire, cursing that they hadn’t got under cover in time.
“Get him in the bunker,” he yelled to a couple of officers who poked their heads out to see what was happening. “Get him to a doctor.”
“What the hell’s happening over there?” yelled out another voice.
Taylor patted his friend on the unburned shoulder as soldiers picked him up, then turned to see what the yelling was about. His mouth dropped open when he saw the dark clouds in the sky, bolts of lightning playing from them. And he wondered what new trial the enemy was sending their way.
* * *
“I hear the voice of the Gods in my mind,” shouted Katherine Heidle, her voice booming like thunder over the rising wind, her arms raised the sky. That sky was becoming very dark as clouds flew inward to gather around the circling mass in the center of the valley. A lightning bolt flared, then another, the second striking a tree by the river, splintering it as it split down the middle in an explosion of boiling sap.
She’s like a superhero, thought James Drake as he watched the beautiful German woman call upon the elements of this strange world. Like one of the mutants from a famous movi
e franchise, her hair out from the discharge of electricity, while the winds swirled through it. He could hear her God in her voice, even as he heard the voice of another God in his head. It was clear, focused with power. It made sense, unlike the voices he had heard on his own world, which had been the voices of madness.
The clouds continued to swirl overhead, cyclonic and mesmerizing. The dragons were fighting the winds, going about their various missions, struggling as gusts blew them off course, or slammed them downward. Their screeches sounded faint in the rising wind. James watched them, wondering when they would take note of the Elemental Weathermage who was working magic to their detriment. They have to notice, he thought, wondering how he would face their fury when it was turned toward him and his partner.
A dragon flew nearer, it or its rider curious about what was happening. It was one of the medium sized beasts, twenty tons of flying death. A bolt of lightning speared from the heavens, missing the dragon by twenty meters and striking the ground. A second bolt came down, closer. The third hit the dragon. The beast arched its back as its wings flew out, its mouth clamping shut. Something dropped from the rider’s hand to plummet to earth, erupting into flame as it hit. Sparks flew from the beast as it shuddered in the air.
Another bolt struck, then another. Smoke began to curl from the cooking beast, to be swirled away into the air. The beast fell, arching from the air to hit with a heavy thud into the ground by the river. Dust and smoke rose into the air, caught by the gusting winds and dispersed.
James cheered at the top of his lungs while the bolts continued to drop from the clouds. Another dragon was struck, flying off before it could become like the first. Others began to dodge and weave through the sky, distracted from their targets. The sky grew ever darker, and the air became heavy with moisture. Then came the freight train sound that James had only heard of in documentaries, and the first funnel cloud dropped from the sky.
Refuge: The Arrival: Book 2 Page 30
