by Max Jager
Alerius watched in stone silence as it moved away from his position. It still bobbed its head as it moved. Still trying to hunt Alerius down with its ears. Alerius moved his right hand up a little way and grabbed onto the mesh of the cage. He pulled his body up and grabbed on with his other hand as well. He began to climb up the mesh to the top.
He was about to the top when he saw the nebron heading back! He froze! He didn't know what to do? If he moved down then it would most definitely see him! If he moved on top, it would see him and he would be in even more trouble! He already had his left arm mostly on the top and he wasn't sure that it would see it.
As it approached, Alerius saw that it still had its eyes closed. He noticed that it would twitch every time one of those random fireballs would hit the ground. Even the ones in the distance. It would pause for a brief moment and then continue on course. Its eyes still shut off to the world around it.
It became increasingly clear why this nebron was keeping it eyes shut. This nebron was blind! That's why it was acting the way it was. It was relying on its other senses. That's why its eyes were closed. Alerius could tell it wasn't born blind. It had probably been made that way because of the war. Some battle in the past had stricken it of sight.
It now stood over Alerius like some lumbering behemoth. It twisted its head sniffing the air like an intelligent and concocting Korzen. It was trying to smell him. He only hoped he was down wind. On such a discombobulated and utterly desolate battlefield Alerius couldn't be sure of such a thing though. He was hanging on to a demonic structure which housed mad and imprisoned dragons with nasty tempers, ready to annihilate their captors and a young, blind, maniacal, sinister, and totally evil demon that would undoubtedly sense him out of his obviously discernible hiding spot. The last thing on his mind was the direction of the wind.
Suddenly, the nebron looked straight down at him. He knew he had been found! The demon snarled at him. Alerius had been made! With his left hand gripping the top of the cage, his arm and wrist relaxing on top as well, he let go of the steel mesh with his right hand freeing it. He reached for one of his pistols and pointed it right up at the demon's face.
The demon reacted though like he saw everything that Alerius had done! It grabbed the gun in a crushing grip with one hand and threw the gun into the gray sky. Alerius heard it bounce off something like a small rock in the distance but he couldn't be sure. 'He heard me pull that gun from the holster? He's good.' Alerius thought to himself.
The demon gave Alerius no time to go on the counter-offensive either grabbing him by his coat collar with both hands. Alerius was hoisted right into the air. It then threw him down on the roof of the cage and he bounced twice landing with a painful buoyancy on the steel mesh. Alerius quickly got to his feet and stood wobbly on the mesh trying to keep his balance.
The nebron had no problem walking on the steel surface. He walked just as fine as he would have on dirt surface. It steadily came closer to Alerius as Alerius tried to think of something else to do. He ripped the other gun from its holster, who's twin had been lost to oblivion, and aimed it right at the monster. The monster reacted though, swiftly forming a quick fireball in its hand and sending it careening for Alerius. Alerius bent back and barely dodged the on coming flaming projectile. It went straight over his head and almost singed the top of his nose. Alerius believed that it must have heard him again remove the gun from its leather container. Alerius fell on his back but still tried to get the beast back in his sights.
The nebron began to head for Alerius again when it stopped almost two feet in front of him. Both the nebron and Alerius had an atrocious sound split their eardrums. The sound of loud metal clanking. The dragons below them were rattling their shackles and banging the cage. They were creating all sorts of loud racket. Alerius and the nebron both covered their ears. Alerius wondered what had set them off but it wasn't what had set them off; it was the reason of why they were doing it.
Alerius then stopped covering his ears as the rambunctious noise continued. He saw a chance to kill the nebron. He didn't know if the dragons had indeed been spooked by something or if, in fact, they had come up with a primitive plan to help him out. The racket that the dragons were making made it impossible for the nebron to hear anything. It already knew where he was but it would be unable to hear him move from that spot. Alerius decided to seize the moment.
He swiftly put back the small handgun and ripped both small AKs from their holdings and blasted the nebron. It convulsed at the impact of the bullets. It was pushed right off the top of the cage and landed with a sickening splat on the ground surface.
Alerius lowered the guns and calmly walked over to the end of the cage. The ruckus of noise from below stopped and the dragons kind of went into a silent pause. The explosions around the planet stopped and all that could be heard was a low hum from the sky. Almost as if the forces of evil up there knew that their time was growing short.
Alerius hopped off the cage and went over to the nebron's carcass. There, he looked all over the dead body for some sort of key and put the two guns away. He found a big ring of keys on the ankle of the beast. It was hanging off of a bolt that was embedded into the skin of the demon that he had not seen before.
He removed the dungeon-like ring of keys and slid back under the cage. He tried to open the cage door under the chaise with the first key. He tried three more keys before he found the one that fit. The lock made a loud sort of rusty, metal snap and he felt the door mechanism release. Alerius pushed up on the floor gate and went inside the cage. There, with the first key on the ring, he released all seventy of the dragons from their metal shackles which some had marks from.
He then slid back from under the chaise, through the door, and got right back on his feet. He then watched as the dragons imprisoned got in a single file line and left the steel confines. They slithered out like winged snakes. All seventy of them were out and they shot into the sky leaving the transport an empty shell.
Planet Reign: Impending Doom
Alerius stood on the gray dusted landscape somewhat proud with himself. He heard the battle cries of the dragons above as now they ripped through the skies with vibrant new life. The enemy was on the run.
Alerius was going to start treading onward but something stopped him. He wondered where the young dragon he had encountered earlier was. He scanned the battlefield and it didn't take him long to find the poor creature. He saw it about twenty yards away. He approached it and as he did; the gruesome tragedy it had suffered became all to clear. He saw its intestines laid out across the ground. Dispersed vastly as if an explosion had happened inside the dragon's belly. Alerius, by the observation of things, determined that the guts must have exploded outward because it seemed that the belly of the beast had been filleted wide open. Fresh slashes on the carcass were abound and part of the tail and right wing were missing. Probably lost somewhere yards away from the body.
Alerius knelt down near the young dragon's head and touched it by the upper forehead. He felt sorry that he lead this dragon to such an untimely demise. In war though everything evolving death is untimely. Alerius made sure though that the death of the young soldier did not go in vain. He had freed the enslaved comrades of this fallen fighter and in doing so probably changed the tide of battle on this world. Hopefully.
Alerius got up from bent knee and began to walk off. He was going to head for the pick-up point which wasn't too far off now. He had cleared a path and all that was left now was the decimated grey landscape that laid before him. He had to return to the small building though and retrieve Jack Company. He slightly grinned to himself knowing they were probably still in there quivering with fear. Not that he blamed them but it still put a slight smirk on his face.
Before he was able to turn back for the bunker though, a noise filled his ears. As he was only ten feet from the empty transport now. A rumbling of earthquake proportions! It rocked the very foundations of the planet! Almost as if it was an armada of ships landing in th
e distance but it wasn't that.
Alerius distinguished exactly what it was. He could hear the rolling of tread. The soft sound of clanging metal under the heavy rolling. The slight sound of grumbling from an uncountable number of demons.
Alerius's suspicions were proven positive. He could finally see what was making the terrible noise. It was coming over the horizon about half-a-mile away. Deneks, thousands of them! It was a whole army of them! Leading the way in front were about two hundred or so flying creatures. They were massive winged animals that looked similar to the dragons above only twice as big! The only differences were that these creatures had huge tusk incisors the curved upwards on their jowls and they were a pure coal black with bright red eyes. They also had better equipment for death then the dragons. They were sinoreans.
Sinoreans are from a planet called Sinor. A distant planet that had sided with Hell because of their aggressive nature and their need for chaos. Humans had tried to make a pact with these flying creatures but they were too brutal and many people were killed during the process of peace negotiations. It was then ruled that the planet Sinor had to be destroyed and so it was but most sinoreans had escaped to a world known as Rynstar. One of the main worlds of operations for Hell's assault against the universe. Sinoreans became important tools in missions involving aerial bombardment and air-to-air combat. Plus, they are immune to the death inducing effects of outer space making them also able to carry out multiple missions on several different worlds without having to deviate for air, food, or water. Not to mention, missions that involved outer space attacks.
These sinoreans were different from others though. These had huge metal riding armor. It covered their faces and extended all the way to their tails. Under the wings were big missile launchers. Alerius then saw a sort of railway that extended out of the riding gear from the back all the way to the ground. Then, he saw a few number of deneks begin to board these armored sinoreans.
Alerius had a shutter of fear go down his spine. His eyes widen with realization! He knew what was going on now. The deneks were boarding these sinoreans and were going to go turn the tide of war in their favor once again! Alerius had never seeing this maneuver before! He had to get back to Jack Company and fast. If they were allowed to get up into the sky then the dragons in the skies would have no chance of survival. The main forces in the sky would be wiped out while the stragglers would be mowed down by the remaining ground forces. It would be a bloodbath!
Alerius turned and began to run for the other way towards the team but what he didn't notice was that a few of the deneks had seen him going across the field. About fifty of them fell out of formation and began to roll after him!
Alerius didn't notice the brigade on his tail until he was half way to the small building where he hoped the team had remained. He looked back and saw the rolling armada chasing him and they were only about fifteen feet from catching up to him! Alerius began to run faster but it was no use. The deneks were in hot pursuit and they were not going to stop until they got blood! Until Alerius would be a quivering pile of meat beneath their thundering tracks!
Alerius ran his heart out. He ran through the clouded smoke and debris. Past the small craters in the ground. Past the feeling of not making it. Past the feeling and dread of death and dismemberment by a blaze of bullets. He could already hear the guns on the deneks being unloaded close to him. The loud pattering that the bullets made on the ground. That heavy machine sound of the rolling treads mixed in with the loud roar of the screaming Gatlin cannons.
Soon, he could see the small building coming into perfect view. He charged for it and ran with unmatchable speed. He knew though that once he got in that building that they wouldn't give up the pursuit. They would just turn the small building into a hole riddled foundation. He had to do something to distract the small army while the captain made a call for reinforcements! There had to be a way to get them off his back for at least a couple of minutes.
He then thought of something. It was a long shot but it was the only way. He drew out one of the small AKs and aimed it high in the air not really aiming at anything. He then began firing up at the clouds. He knew that the gun was not powerful enough to hurt any of the creatures above but that was not his intentions anyway. He was trying to get the platoon's attention to come outside.
He saw one man peak through the door and he went running towards him. He was still firing the gun as he ran. He didn't realize how close the army of deneks was to him. Alerius rushed in the door and the machine demons crashed outside. They blasted into the door without stopping. Luckily, the building was a lot more sturdier then it looked. Alerius found the captain behind his men almost waiting for him to show up. He rushed over to him, past a few men, and began to tell him the situation. The captain took the radio and began to talk into it, calling for support. "This is Jack Company on Planet Reign do you copy, over?"
Fuzz.
"Jack Company calling the lead frigate battleship Osiris, over?"
More fuzz.
"Calling the lead flagship Osiris of the 2877th star born battle armada do you copy, over?"
The fuzz continued. It was like the captain was hoping the better description he threw in, the better the frequency would get. He knew why the radio wasn't having a good reception. He wasn't about to tell Alerius though. The reason was that the Osiris was still too far away from the planet. The ship probably was receiving something but it was static. The captain continued his false call for help.
Alerius was by the metal door of the small concrete building as the storm of bullets began. Holes began to rapidly puncture the walls around the men. Thousands of them appeared as smoke from the outside began to fill the small building. Alerius and the rest of the men were ducked down while the building was dismembered by the hail of bullets! The captain still screaming into the radio and pulling off a pretty good job of not knowing why he couldn't get the lead ship on the radio. "Goddamn it! What the hell is wrong with this thing?"
Alerius watched as the captain dragged the radio over to him and began screaming over the thundering roar of the guns outside. "I can't reach them!"
Alerius looked at the captain with a loose disbelieve. "Well of course you can't! They're probably still too far away."
A few bullets whizzed by and the concrete walls were starting to vanish! The men were now able to see the ground outside and it was becoming more clear by the second!
The captain couldn't believe it! He knew! He wanted to keep it a secret from him hoping that Alerius and his team could bunker down in the bunker but that was quickly becoming an ugly pipe dream.
Alerius began to lose hope of making it off Reign alive. More importantly, he was worried about the mission. The mission was everything to him. He was not about to fail it just because of a few minutes. The mission had to be accomplished no matter what! He was ready to do anything to succeed. Anything! The mission was to save the dragons and save the dragons he would!
One of the soldiers came over to the two and heard the whole thing. He shouted at the captain. "Sir, we have to get to that EVAC point! Maybe by then the Osiris will be close enough to the planet!"
The captain looked at the soldier with pondering eyes. It was the only way. It would leave Jack Company out in the open but they had to call in reinforcements to the planet. It was the only way to save themselves and the dragons.
Again, the soldier said, "Sir? We're going to die if we don't get out of here?"
Three bullet nearly missed Alerius's head and the soldier's! The bullets were now hitting the floor inside the building! The walls were almost gone and the only remnants of them left were small chunks of cement that were barely clinging onto a small amount of floor.
The captain looked at Alerius and asked, "Firius? You think you can get us there?"
Alerius looked at the captain with an edge of determination to his eyes. They were of stone and were fiercely fired up with courage. "That's also part of the mission. I never fail a mission. Never!"
Alerius looked over the men and the captain. He didn't know what to do? He didn't want to fail but running across open ground certainly was a good start. If they made a break for it that far over open ground, they would never make it. If they stood and fought, all of them would be killed! He looked across the field of gray covered dust. He could not hear a thing except the loud roar of the guns. He had this subtle worried look on his face. Almost as if he was deep in thought. Everything got real quiet. The loud roar of the guns had been toned down to a reasonably auditable tone. He was deep in concentration as a plan formulated.
Suddenly, he heard this strange double zip right by his ear. He turned his head and saw two soldiers with their heads snap back over their necks because of bullets that drilled right into their skull base. Alerius yelled out as he was horribly flung back into this vicious reality, "Alright! Captain you head for the EVAC point. The rest of us will stay here and draw their fire off of you!"
The captain shouted back, "Are you nuts? I will not abandon my men!"