by Джеффри Лорд
Blade sank to his knees, bracing himself with the rifle, for a moment not sure that he could stand. He could with ease have dealt with a human opponent at the inn, or a monster like the dragon in a wilderness of mountain or jungle. To have it come out of nightmare into the sane and normal world that was Englor left him confused. And he had known about the dragons, and expected them! What would it be like for people to whom the dragons would be a total, deadly surprise? What would they do? How many of them would die or go mad tonight?
By the time he’d run these questions through his mind, Blade found that he could stand again. He rose to his feet and walked toward the dragon. He chambered another round in his rifle and held it ready. He didn’t see how the dragon could still be alive, but Rilla had told him how they’d been designed to be enormously tough, almost indestructible.
As if his thoughts had brought her out, Rilla came trotting toward him, holding her overcoat around her with one hand and carrying his pants in the other. Blade looked at the pants, then looked down at himself and laughed. In his haste he’d leaped out the window and fought the dragon without putting on a stitch of clothing!
Blade put down the rifle, took the pants, and managed to pull them on just before people started swarming out of the inn to crowd around him in hysterical joy and relief.
Chapter 20
Thanks to Blade’s quick action, nobody at the inn except the unfortunate gardener was dead. A dozen or so people had minor burns or doses of smoke. One man had broken a leg falling down the stairs. The landlord was a sensible man who promptly brought out a barrel of beer and a case of good whiskey. Both vanished in record time, and after that even the injured felt a good deal better.
The only people who weren’t feeling better were Blade and Rilla. They were alive, the dragon was dead, the inn was safe for the moment. But how many other dragons had come down on Englor this night? How many people had died from the fury of the dragons of the Red Flames? How much destruction had they left behind them?
The telephone lines were down, Blade’s car was a burned-out wreck in the garage, and there were no buses or trains for miles around. Blade and Rilla had chosen an isolated country inn for their vacation-too isolated, it seemed now.
Eventually Blade borrowed the landlord’s bicycle and set off in search of some way to get back in touch with the world. He was barely out of the inn yard when an Imperial Air Force helicopter came swooping in low overhead. It hovered as it passed over the inn and caught sight of the dead dragon, then landed. Blade dashed back, just in time to greet the pilot as he climbed down from the helicopter, camera in hand.
Blade identified himself and gave the pilot an account of the night’s events. The pilot congratulated Blade on killing the dragon, noted down Rilla’s comments, but could tell them little about the night’s events.
It was certain that an enormous number of dragons had swooped down on Englor. The pilot was on a mission to search the countryside for them, alive or dead. He’d already found several live ones in the area. People were advised to stay put until further notice. No, he couldn’t take Blade and Rilla back to his base. His helicopter couldn’t handle the load. But he would radio his base and see if they would help.
As the helicopter vanished into the sunrise, three Imperial Air Force jet fighters flew overhead a thousand feet up. Blade noticed they all carried pods of air-to-ground rockets slung under their wings.
The landlord grinned. «That’ll fix those damned monsters if they get a sight of them. You can bet on that.»
Blade nodded, wishing he could share the landlord’s optimism. In the open countryside, a rocket salvo from the air could indeed blow a dragon to bits. But most of the dragons should have landed in heavily populated areas. They would be far deadlier there, also less vulnerable to heavy weapons.
Just before noon a larger helicopter landed near the inn. This one had not only room but orders to take Blade and Rilla aboard. As it carried them across the countryside toward its base, Blade was finally able to get from its crew a rough account of what had happened last night.
An enormous force of dragons had swarmed down on Englor-many hundreds, perhaps a thousand. Many of them were already dead and only a few would survive more than another day or two. The armed forces of Englor were hard at work.
Meanwhile, however, thousands of people were dead, and tens of thousands made homeless or driven into panic-stricken flight. Hundreds of buildings and even whole villages lay in ruin. Power and telephone lines, railroads, bridges were cut or blocked all up and down the whole eastern half of Englor. It was impossible to say more, for reports from areas heavily attacked by the dragons were few and seldom accurate.
Blade saw there was no point in pressing matters. The helicopter crew were able to do their duty, but they were obviously badly shaken by the night’s events. The coming of the dragons seemed to have spread panic across the land. In the long run, that panic could be more deadly to Englor and to her war effort than the mere physical damage.
Blade’s mind was filled with these thoughts and even grimmer ones all the way to the base.
At Special Operations Headquarters things were comparatively quiet. The area hadn’t yet been attacked by any dragons. A number of the Independent Operations people and other combat-trained personnel were out reinforcing the local garrisons. No orders of any kind had come through.
That didn’t bother R. He was not a man to wait for orders before starting to prepare for what might have to be done later. He started by giving Blade and Rilla a thorough briefing on the attack. He painted the same grim picture Blade had from the helicopter crew-death, destruction, panic. There was one photograph that summed up for Blade the whole nightmarish quality of the dragons’ attack.
It showed Big Ben-the same in Englor as in England, spire for spire and window for window. It also showed a dragon perched high on the great tower, its claws firmly sunk into the roof, tail hanging down, head peering out over the street below and jetting flame. It was ghastly and grotesque. Blade could only feel that it was totally abominable that any of this should have happened at all, and that none of it should happen again.
«Unfortunately I think it will happen again, and soon,» said Rilla. «They have used no more than a thousand dragons in this attack. There should be at least three times that many in the bases in the Nordsbergen mountains. There will also be twice as many again in the breeding pens in Russland. The production rate will be over a thousand a month.»
Blade grimaced. He knew all this already, but it took on new and horrible dimensions in the wake of the night’s attack. «So-we are planning on the basis of further attacks?»
R nodded. «I am going to set up a series of briefings on dragon-fighting tactics, starring you and Rilla. We haven’t been asked for them yet, but I’m quite sure we will be after the next attack. I am also going to organize a mobile defense for this Headquarters. Your promotion to lieutenant colonel has come through, so I’d like to put you in charge of it.»
«Very good, sir.»
A second attack came two days later, only a few hundred dragons but concentrated almost entirely on London. What the first attack hadn’t done to touch off a national panic, the second did. At least two-hundred thousand people left London the next day, or tried to. Roads and railroad stations were packed, and the traffic jams brought all military movements to a complete halt. Thousands of troops had to be called in to get traffic moving again, keep order, and prevent looting and fires. A whole infantry division that was about to sail for Gallia had its orders canceled.
R never looked really worried, but he looked rather ill-at-ease after reading the reports of the second dragon attack. «I begin to suspect what the Red Flames are planning. They want to force us to tie down troops for the defense of Englor instead of sending them to the Eighth Army in Gallia. Those defense troops in turn will have to be dispersed all over the country, to guard against the dragons.
«That makes no sense, of course. But all the average man can
see is that he has to have a squad of soldiers camped on the vicar’s lawn, in case the dragons come again. If he can’t get that he’ll panic. That will make a thorough shambles of the war effort.»
Blade and Rilla held their first briefing two days later. Rilla spoke from behind a screen, through a microphone fitted with a scrambler to disguise her voice. R was taking no avoidable chances on the Red Flames’ being able to trace their prize defector.
Blade led off the briefing. He strode up to the speaker’s stand, turned on the microphone, and stared down at the audience. A hundred high-ranking officers and civilians stared back at him. He cleared his throat and began.
«The Empire of Englor is under attack by artificially mutated dragons, produced by mass cloning methods at a facility in Russland. They are then transported to bases high in the mountains of Nordsbergen and launched across the Nord Sea. Their glide ratio is sufficient to bring them across the sea to the shores of Englor. After that, they seek targets of opportunity, using against such targets teeth, claws, tails, and the exhalation of burning methane from their gastrointestinal tracts.
«They are animals in appearance, but in another sense they are not animals. They are military machines, constructed of biological materials by biological methods, in much the same way as a tank is built in a factory out of steel and rubber. We face-«
And so on. Each briefing lasted two hours, and there were three of them that day. By the end of the third, Blade felt as weary and dry as if he’d fought in a pitched battle. He and Rilla each drained a pitcher of beer and emptied a plate of sausages before they felt like speaking again.
After the meal, R drew Blade aside.
«I think you’ve done as much as you can expect to do in the briefings. What I want you to do now is take command of a group of about fifty of our combat people. We’re going to send you down to Norfolk.
«We are going to try using our shadow headquarters as bait in an experiment, to see if the dragons can be drawn to specific points where we’re ready to meet them. Your old friend Elva Thompson is going to have a role in this experiment, although she won’t realize it.»
«We are going to ‘activate’ the Norfolk facility, sending down a contingent of staff people and an assortment of files that will look important. I will add to this window-dressing by going down there myself.
«Your men will be stationed at various points in the general area, to move in against the dragons by helicopter or by fast boat. I’ll have a small squad of combat men to hold down things at the headquarters itself. I think we can see to it that Elva Thompson won’t know this. I also think we can see to it that she doesn’t survive the night’s fighting.»
That was the essence of the plan, and the details followed in swift and precise succession. As Blade left to join Rilla, it struck him what a bold, original, and flexible plan R had developed.
In fact, it was just the sort of plan that Blade would have expected from J.
Chapter 21
Elva Thompson showed her identification to the sentry at the gate. He scanned it by the faint light of a hooded flashlight. Elva had to fight to keep a smile off her lips. The blackout would not save the Special Operations compound when the dragons came. It would make it easier for her to slip out into the countryside and call the dragons down out of the sky.
«Sure you want to go out tonight, Miss Thompson? The weather’s making up for a storm.»
«Thank you, corporal. But I’ve spent just a few too many hours at my desk. I need to take a walk and unwind.»
«All right, miss. I’ll log you out. Don’t go too far down the path to the left. The river’s up a bit and the ground’s gone bad.»
«Thank you. I’ll be careful.» The corporal opened the gate for her and she strode out of the compound. The gravel of the parking lot crunched under her feet.
Elva crossed the parking lot at a leisurely walk. By the time she’d reached the far side of the lot, she was out of sight from the gate. She swung to the right and broke into a steady lope that was almost a run.
Her goal was a field two miles to the north, a field bordered on the east by a long thin strip of woods. In those woods she’d concealed the equipment for tonight’s work.
Each dragon landing tonight had a small radio receiver surgically implanted in its skull. In the woods Elva had a portable transmitter, broadcasting on a selection of wavelengths that the dragons’ receivers could pick up. On some of those wavelengths she could activate the pleasure centers of the dragons’ brains, to draw them irresistably toward her. On other wavelengths she would work on the pain centers, driving the dragons into a fury.
Tonight she would use pleasure to bring the dragons out of the sky, practically on top of the compound, then use pain to drive them mad. They would rampage about the area, smashing and slaying everything in their paths. Then she would turn on the pleasure again. The dragons would become as harmless as lambs while she moved about freely, gathering up files and films from the ruins of the headquarters.
Then there would be pain again, and the dragons on the loose to spread terror and destruction across the countryside. As the dragons cleared a path for her, she would at last make her way to the river to wait for her rescuers.
She hoped she would not have to wait long. She had done well for the Red Flames. So she felt she deserved all the rewards they’d promised her. She wouldn’t say that out loud, of course. General Golovin had a reputation for dealing harshly with those he thought were getting greedy. But General Golovin was not the only man with power in Russland. If necessary, she could earn the gratitude and support of some of the others.
After a while she had to leave the path and cut across country. The long grass was already wet with the night’s dew and quickly dampened her slacks up to the knee, while brambles jabbed their thorns into her.
The mile of cross-country walking slowed her, but she still had plenty of time when she reached the field. It stretched before her, dark and empty and agreeably silent. On the far side the trees rose in a forbidding wall. She lay down, watching for any sign of ambush.
The darkness and the silence remained unbroken. Crouching low, she made her way across the field. With a sigh of relief she grasped the handles of the transmitter and dragged it out of its hiding place. It weighed less than thirty pounds, so it had been easy for her to carry it to the woods. Now it was easy for her to carry it back out again.
On top of the transmitter was a small balloon. Elva pulled the cord to inflate it, and watched while it swelled into a six-foot sphere of dark plastic. Then she carried it out into the open and released it. It rose into the night, the antenna wire trailing behind it. She waited until the antenna was fully unreeled, activated the transmitter, and set the frequency selector to one of the pleasure wavelengths.
Then she leaned back against the moss-grown trunk of an elm. Her work was done for the moment. She looked at her watch. The signals pouring out into the night should be reaching the dragons now. The leading wave of tonight’s attack should be no more than twenty miles offshore.
Richard Blade stood on the bridge of the motor torpedo boat, staring up into the sky and listening to the reports as they came in over the radio. He knew there was no good reason for staring at the sky yet. The nearest dragons would still be well out of sight. Watching the sky merely eased the strain of waiting.
With every minute, a new report of dragons came in from the radar stations along the coast or from the patrol planes offshore. The young lieutenant in command of the torpedo boat was beginning to fidget.
«Damn it,» he finally muttered. «Why can’t the planes hit the dragons before they land? It makes more sense to get them in the air.»
Blade hesitated, not wanting to reveal information that was not yet in general circulation. But he happened to know that the lieutenant came from an East Coast town. His wife and baby daughter were there now, where the dragons might land tonight. The man had a right to know at least some of the truth.
«They aren’t a
good target for missiles,» said Blade. «If a plane slows down enough to hit them with its guns, it’s likely to stall out and crash. Antiaircraft guns can pick them off while they’re in the air, but there aren’t enough antiaircraft guns.» The lieutenant nodded, obviously wishing that things were otherwise, but was silent.
Blade’s eyes swept forward and aft along the boat’s deck. The sailors were at the bow and stern cannon, in their helmets and flak vests. His own men sat on the torpedo tubes or leaned against the superstructure. Each man carried an Uzi and a light antitank rocket launcher. The decks were piled with extra rocket rounds and ammunition cans. Blade hoped no dragon would get a good breath of flame onto that deck. The fireworks would be spectacular and deadly.
He checked his own weapons. Blade carried his Enfield 7 rifle, now fitted with infrared telescopic sights, a heavy revolver, hand grenades, and a flare pistol.
More minutes, more reports. Then suddenly the lieutenant pointed a shaking hand upward into the darkness. Blade raised his eyes from the man’s pale face and also stared upward.
Dim but unmistakable in the night, three dragons were gliding in across the river. They came and went so fast that they might have seemed ghosts if the radar operator hadn’t called in.
«Sir, it looks like they’re heading upriver. Estimate landing point about ten miles west.»
«Very good. Keep tracking them until they go off the screen.»
Before the first three dragons went off the screen more swept in from the sea, three, six, ten at a time. All were following nearly the same path as the first three.
The lieutenant smiled shakily. «The buggers are going to be landing right on top of each other if they aren’t careful.» It was a weak joke delivered in a weak voice. Blade said nothing.
Still more minutes, more reports, and more dragons. Blade found himself coming alert at the slightest noise. His reason told him that the dragons could not attack the boat from a thousand feet up. His instincts told him that it would be death to attract the notice of a single one of those monsters gliding eerily overhead.
