Initially hesitant in the face of the fresh assault, the Stalker soon resumed his advance. Disintegrating JAM rounds deflected in all directions, kicking up plumes from the surrounding drifts, while hazy distortions rippled across the barriers as the wards quavered under the hail of antimagic munitions.
A loud crack echoed off the buildings and the Ned recoiled from the shock of an ATR round smacking the side of his head. The round failed to penetrate his wards and disintegrated in a shower of molten sparks, but the impact was enough to stun the creature for a moment. Seconds later, another round hit him in the flank, nearly buckling his leg. He staggered back a few steps and started scanning the area for the source of this new threat.
The cable gunners took advantage of the opening, firing their Pilus rifles at the Stalker in an attempt to pin him down. Two of the harpoons deflected off of the barriers but the other two managed to get through, one in the dragon's right hip and the other lodging in the armor on the back of his shoulder.
The Stalker roared in pain and fury as he clutched at the wire imbedded in his hip. Private Carter, crouched behind the rusted shell of an old civilian vehicle, was focused on reloading his weapon and didn’t see the dragon yank the cable, which was secured to an old light post a few mets behind him.
The reinforced cable held strong, but the post's foundation was another story. It ripped free from the ground, uprooting a large chunk of concrete with it. The massive bludgeon struck the unsuspecting Carter from behind with the force of a wrecking ball, crushing him nearly halfway into the rusty hulk. The impact tore away his helmet and sent his weapon skittering across the hood. Without uttering a sound, he crumpled to the ground and lay motionless in the snow.
***
Shaeffer slipped on the icy ground, nearly falling down as he turned and threw himself behind the blackened hull of a brewed up troop carrier. Without thinking, he punched the armored hull in frustration, and then cursed out loud as pain shot through his frozen fingers. At least it helped diffuse his anger a little.
He'd just watched four of his men drop in less than a minute. He hadn't been prepared for that. Sure, he'd seen plenty of combat, and lost people under his command before, but this was the first time he could recall ever feeling so fragging helpless.
His adrenaline surged at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. He glanced around the corner of the vehicle to see private Esters running toward him as though there was a whole legion on his tail. Shaeffer reached out and grabbed the man as he ran by and pulled him behind the cover of the wreck.
Esters was nearly hyperventilating from exertion and fear.
"Holy fraggin' Eorelli!!" he choked out between gasps, "What 'n the hell just happened?!"
Shaeffer didn't really have an answer. His only knowledge of Netherdragons came from that tactical briefing back in basic training. They'd gone so far as to throw up a life-size holo of one just to make the troops appreciate the scale. Sure, it looked pretty intimidating and all, but a holo doesn’t stomp you into the ground or burn your guts out from the inside. Training was all well and good, but facing one of these monsters for real seemed to toss theory out the window real fast.
Still, there had to be something in that briefing he could use, if he could just remember. He was just starting to form a plan when three more of his men joined him and Esters behind the carrier.
"Where's Collins?" Shaeffer asked, noting the absence of the young rifleman.
The combination of blank and downcast expressions he got back was all the answer he needed. He nodded, took a deep breath, and leaned around the end of the vehicle to assess the situation.
Lieutenant Lanis's Shiv team was now fully engaged with the Stalker roughly seventy-five mets away. They had several wires on him but seemed to be having a tough time pinning him down. Shaeffer was no expert, but he didn't think that this was going quite to plan. Shouldn't the Lieutenant have dropped that thing's magic defenses by now? He turned back to the other members of his team that were crouched behind him.
“Okay, we gotta get back in this thing," he said. "We’ll head for his left flank and lay down some fire from that direction.
“Keep moving like you’ve got bees up your ass! If he targets you, you won't see it coming. Stand still too long and you’re dead!”
Most of the men nodded grimly but a few cracked smiles his colorful description.
“Miers, you still packing those zappers?” Shaeffer asked the young Corporal.
“Yes Sergeant!” Miers shuffled over and brandished two palm-sized metal cylinders. Each was covered with runes and had a short arming handle secured with a pin, very similar to a standard fragmentation grenade.
Null grenades, commonly called zappers by the troops, were enchantech devices that generated a temporary anti-magic burst about ten mets in radius. This burst could disrupt runic matrices and short out maintained magical techniqs--kind of a poor man's spellbreaker. Netherdragons were known to be pretty sensitive to Zapper bursts, which were like magical concussion grenades to their highly sensitive Vimsense.
Shaeffer took one of the Zappers, leaving Miers with the other.
“Good. You’re with me. Let’s see if we can distract our scaly friend.”
He secured the Zapper to his belt, hefted his rifle and, pausing for another quick glance around the corner, led his team back out into the street.
***
Lanis crouched behind a large pile of rubble and ejected the burnt out 'stone cartridges from her Booster. She gave the smoldering cartridges a disappointed frown, then tossed them aside as she reached for a fresh set.
A few mets away, Gray was braced over the rubble, firing short bursts at the dragon, who was struggling against the remaining wires some eighty mets away. As Lanis reloaded, she tapped Gray on the leg, prompting him to slither back down behind the cover so he could hear over the noise of the battle.
“We can’t take him down this way!” Lanis yelled, “I think he’s amped!”
Gray’s shot her an incredulous look. “Aw, shatter me!" he exclaimed, "Are you sure?”
“Not positive," she admitted, "but his wards are too strong, especially for being in a DZ!”
Lanis cursed her luck. Amps, or whatever the Imps called them, were a fairly new addition to the Imperium’s arsenal. Similar to, and most likely copied from, Coalition BoosterTech; amps were implanted directly into a Stalker’s body to boost their already impressive channeling prowess. Apparently, they also allowed the Stalker to function more comfortably in areas of low or disrupted ambient Vim, which normally had adverse effects on dragons' biomagical physiology.
Much like a Stalkers’ other cybernetic enhancements, the precise functioning of amps was a mystery to Coalition magitechs. Such creatures were quite rare and had not been studied in detail, which was probably a blessing. In any case, this was no ordinary Stalker, and that presented a major problem.
“Great!” Gray said, slapping a full magazine into his rifle, “So you can’t break his barriers?”
Lanis shook her head, somewhat dejectedly.
Her Booster could amplify techniqs to adequately affect typical dragon-level magic, but these reinforced wards would be almost impossible for her to break with a single spellbreaker. It would require several channelers working together to overwhelm weaves of that magnitude. Perhaps, with more firepower, they might be able to weaken the wards enough for her to finish them off. It would take a sizeable volley of HEV or SCAM artillery, which, with all the interference, she couldn't call in even if it were available.
There was one other option, but it was a long shot. If she could delve the dragon's wards she might be able to find an exploitable weakness. The catch was that delving required physical contact, and it was pretty unlikely that the Ned was going to stand there and let her scan his defenses.
Lanis was beginning to concede that she might have bitten off more than her team could chew. Reluctantly, she began to seriously consider pulling out.
But before she could issue the order
to do so, a sudden and abrupt screeching noise filled the air, quickly followed by an pained roar from the Stalker.
Gray shot Lanis a questioning look. “Was that...?”
“Zapper,” she concluded his thought.
Gray looked around the edge of the rubble while Lanis pulled down her EVI's and scrambled to the top of the pile. She instantly spotted the dissipating etheric disruption caused by the null grenade on the far side of the Stalker's position. The dragon had stopped struggling against the wires and appeared to have been slightly stunned by the blast. Whoever had thrown the zapper must have aimed pretty well.
She quickly scanned the area, trying to spot the source of the attack. Her team was to her left, spread out behind cover, laying down a sporadic fire as they maneuvered amongst the debris in the street, attempting to avoid giving the dragon a clear target.
To her right, several forms moved toward the Ned in a fairly tight formation. It had to be the remaining Rangers of 3rd Squad.
It was a bold tactic, using null grenades at close range, but the Rangers' lack of experience with anti-dragon combat was apparent. They were too bunched up, and once the Ned regained his senses he’d spot them easily, taking them out with a single spell.
"Shaeffer, spread out!" Lanis yelled into the EComm, but all she got back was a burst of static.
“Shards!” she yelled as she slid back down the rubble, pulled out her EP rifle and rushed out into the street, leaving a confused Gray behind.
“What the...? What are you doing?” he yelled after her.
Lanis didn’t have time to answer. If she didn't do something quickly, those men were doomed.
Over fifty mets away, the Stalker seemed to loom over her, still apparently too stunned to notice her approach. She could remedy that. She began channeling a charge into the EP rifle as she closed the range.
At that moment, a second zapper arched through the air and landed near the dragon's feet. Lanis gritted her teeth and kept running as the distinctive, abrupt wailing filled her ears, followed by an etheric shock that hit her like a smack to the face. She was still outside the range of the grenade's nullifying field, but the distraction was enough to disrupt her mental link to the EP rifle. The Vim she'd channeled into the core flickered out as her concentration faltered. Undaunted, she kept running and prepared another charge.
The dragon stumbled back away from the blast and was immediately engulfed by concentrated fire from the Rangers. They were obviously hoping that the zappers had weakened the Ned’s barrier. It was a reasonable plan, and one that might have worked if the Stalker hadn’t been amped.
The dragon turned toward the incoming fire, holding up his armored left arm to shield him from the occasional round that penetrated his wards. He glanced back at Lanis and almost seemed to smirk as he began to channel a powerful weave.
“NO!” Lanis screamed as she fired a quick and ineffective burst from the Banshee, but she could already sense the Stalker's spellweave beginning to manifest. She tossed the rifle aside and began to channel a barrier techniq instead, folding it into her booster as rapidly as she could. Distraction had failed. Her only recourse now was defense.
The Rangers must have realized that something was wrong because they began retreating from their position, frantically looking for cover, not realizing that it would do them no good.
The Stalker growled and unleashed his spellweave.
Lanis was so focused on her own channeling that she stumbled, staggering a few more steps before collapsing to her knees in a spray of snow. In desperation, she triggered the barrier, wrapping the Rangers in a sphere of compressed etheric force just as the area around them erupted in an inferno of magical flames.
Lanis couldn’t see through the roiling cloud of fire but she sensed that her barrier was intact so she had to assume that the men were inside. She only needed to hold the shield up long enough.
The heat from the inferno flash-melted the surrounding snow, then quickly evaporated the resulting water, creating a dense cloud of steam that billowed up into the sky. The flames groaned and rumbled, like some ravenous, living thing trying to devour the men trapped inside.
Even from Lanis's distance, the heat was intense and sweat flowed down her face as she struggled to maintain the barrier. Despite her efforts, she could feel the shield withering under the relentless assault of the flames. Her vision blurred and her breathing became ragged as she pushed more and more Vim into the booster, desperately attempting to keep the techniq's matrix intact. The harmonics of the matrix began to discord as the booster's ‘stones neared their limit.
“No, not yet...” she gasped, trying not to think of the unbelievable terror faced by the men trapped inside that terrible conflagration. Their only chance of survival now lay solely with her and she was losing the battle.
The Stalker watched the situation with amused interest. This little human Chiriiweaver’s determination was intriguing. She had some skill, more than most he'd encountered, despite being heavily reliant on her mechanical talisman. But regardless, she had no chance against an Imperial Talon such as himself. The insolent pests with their Chi’rii rending bombs would die. But first he would savor the tragedy of this little mage's futile efforts to save them. He could sense the desperation in her aura as her shielding weave began to collapse. He admired her determination, but he wondered how far she was willing to go.
Would she sacrifice herself in the attempt to save her fellow vermin? Curious, he pushed additional power into his weave and observed.
Lanis’s booster was at its absolute limit. The Vimstone cores blasted her mind with a grating, discordant tone, signaling impending burnout. If she did not sever the link, she would be flooded with backlash as the matrix collapsed. With the amount of Vim she was pushing into the array, the backlash could be lethal.
But the only alternative was to drop the barrier and let those men inside die a horrible death. She could not do that, not even to save herself. She'd ordered those men into this fight--a fight that she now knew they could never have won. She would fight to the end, even though she realized that there was no way she could succeed. She glared at the Stalker, closed her eyes, and screamed in defiance as she pushed everything she had into the techniq as she felt the ‘stones flicker and shatter.
Her howl of rage turned to one of anguish as the barrier collapsed. With nowhere to go, the uncontrolled shock of backlash wracked her body, knocking her to the ground. Her vision blurred, becoming a bright white haze as raw ambient Vim ravaged her nervous system like liquid fire burning through her veins. The shock lasted only an instant but felt like an eternity. Delirious with pain, she managed to raise her head enough to witness the dragon's inferno weave finish off her barrier and engulf the men inside.
Their shadowy forms writhed within the flames, desperately looking for a way out, but there was no escape. The roaring cloud of fire consumed the air, smothering and immolating those within. Even their enhanced body armor did little more than prolong the torture.
Lanis collapsed in the snow, struggling for each labored breath as consciousness quickly faded. She saw the dragon snap free of the last wire and take a step toward her. Through the distorted haze of her overwhelmed Vimsense, she vaguely felt the sensation of his channeling. She squeezed her eyes tight, attempting to stem the welling tears and hoped that death would just come quickly.
But instead of the expected burning of magical flame, the sound of heavy caliber gunfire filled the air and the ground shook as the Ned roared in pained fury.
Lanis forced her eyes open enough to see the dragon reeling backward under a barrage of high-velocity impacts. The sound of enchantech magines drew her attention upward as a pair of LAV gunships passed overhead, the bright muzzle flashes of their chin-mounted autocannons lighting up the swirling snow as they ravaged the Stalker with near-constant streams of hypersonic shells. The gunships circled around, maintaining the suppression fire along with punishing shots from pylon-mounted anti-tank guns. The unenchant
ed rounds shattered on the dragon's wards like water on a rock, peppering the street with ricocheting fragments of searing tungsten.
Lanis's muscles finally gave way and she collapsed into the snow. Barely conscious, she watched the rain of hot metal hit the frozen ground and splatter into tiny balls of lead that danced for a few seconds on the tiny cushions of steam they created before finally cooling. She barely flinched as a deflected round smacked the ground a couple of mets away, spraying her with flecks of ice and concrete. She grimly wondered if a stray round would take her out before the backlash finished her off.
Suddenly Gray appeared over her, panic clearly evident on his face as he checked her vitals. Getting no response, he finally just huddled over her, using the wards of his own REBAr as a shield against the shower of molten shell fragments. He winced as searing sparks burned through un-warded gaps in the armor, and, several times, he yelled to someone outside of her field of view. All around, the world seemed to descend into chaos.
Lanis laid there--staring blankly up at him--trapped in the delirium of Vim saturation. In her mind, she watched those men burn over and over again, each time yearning to maintain the barrier just a bit longer, and each time failing, with the same horrible results. Gradually, even that torturous vision faded and darkness crept in. The last thing she saw was Gray yelling frantically for her to hang on.
FOUR
Sherry Lanis sat in her father’s lap with tears streaming down her cheeks. Her long, black, hair was tangled and stuck to her face in matted clumps. Her father slowly rocked her back and forth as they sat on the porch of their little house at Fort Belden.
“Better now?” he asked, gently wiping the hair away from her face.
She nodded and forced a slight smile. He lightly tweaked her nose and she recoiled, contorting her face in annoyance but giggling, despite herself.
“Good,” he said, “You’re a big girl now.
“And big girls don’t cry, right?”
Sherry wiped her eyes and, with a little sniff, compressed her lips and put on her best stolid face. Her father chuckled and smiled proudly.
Big Girls Don't Cry: Shadowdragon War Diaries Vol. 1 Page 5