On Distant Shores

by Mark Harritt

  Chapter Fifteen – Mayhem

  Mike spent his downtime trying to keep his mind off of Jo. It was hard. Every moment of every day, he thought about her and the baby. Worry ate at him. He would think about her, and tears would well into his eyes. He wiped the moisture away, hoping that nobody saw the tears. He couldn’t afford to show weakness. They had to view him as an unemotional, capable leader. He knew, wherever Jo was, he couldn’t help her right now, and these people needed him. Still, he prayed constantly for her and the baby.

  Matki Awrani’s prediction came true all too soon. As the team stood guard, they worked with the AI on their suits to identify threats. The mech AI was identifying anything that might meet the danger threshold. As the large herd animals came through, eating vegetation, the picture would flash to a secondary laptop that was monitored by Lenny Reitch. Matki Awrani and Lenny Reitch were becoming fast friends. Every time a new creature came into view, Matki Awrani would look at the beast, and give a thumbs up or down, and the beast would be tagged accordingly. Now the AI was doing most of the threat analysis.

  Rob was on duty when the first large threat showed up. The overhead for the valley zoomed to a large size on his display, and blinked red, as the threat entered the valley. Rob kicked up his radio and PA system for broadcast, “All personnel, this is not a drill, possible hostile incoming. I say again, possible hostile incoming.”

  As the threat moved, the AI painted the view of the valley floor with a green dot where the facility was located. There was a red square imposed around the body of the threat, with a kilometer count down of how far away the threat was. Right now it was tracking eighteen kilometers out.

  Mike spoke next on the radio, “All team personnel, all team personnel, move to mech and suit up. I say again, this is not a drill, all team personnel, move to mech and suit up. Lieutenant Pang, Over.”

  Mike and his team sprinted to the mech armor. They swarmed up the sides of the armor and tucked their personal weapons into the storage area. The opaque helmets went on their heads, switches were hit, and the inside lit up so that they could see the display. Four doors on the back of the mech armor closed smoothly as the team suited up for battle.

  Mike keyed his mike again, “Lieutenant Pang, are you there, over?”

  Jondreau replied instead, “Mike, Lieutenant Pang is in her sleep cycle. What do you need? Over.”

  Mike responded, “Lieutenant Jondreau, I need your security team up to back up my team. We have a hostile inbound. I need all security personnel to man weapons. Over.”

  Jondreau replied, “Roger Mike, I’m sending up reinforcements now. I’m going to wake up all personnel to ensure that the backups for security are in place.”

  Mike finished the conversation, “Roger, out.”

  Mike called for a team SITREP. Everett started the chorus of “Mech 2, Green, Green, Green,” as ammunition, his physical condition, and physical condition of the armor was relayed to Mike. This was repeated three more times as the rest of the team sounded off with the number of their armor and their status.

  Mike finished with, “Roger team this is Mech 1, team leader, and I say Green, Green, Green, ready for deployment.” It had been a long three days, filled with practice, guard duty, and time spent improving their living conditions. The team practiced their quick reaction drills, firing up the mech armor, combat drills for the team, combat drills for the security detachment, and combat drills for the techs.

  There was now a team of two techs on standby in the cave at all times to ensure that the mech armor was in peak condition. They did preventive maintenance checks on the mech armor daily. This was new ground for the techs. Mike and his team were used to it, subjected to it for their entire professional military careers. For every mission, they had pre-mission checks, mission checks, and post mission checks, as well as daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly preventive maintenance checks on their equipment.

  At this point, failure was not an option. Failure meant that everybody in the facility would die. Everybody downstairs was now fully on board with Mike’s leadership. Even Mitchem came around to his way of thinking, though Mike could tell that Mitchem still hated his guts.

  Mitchem lost authority after his precipitous departure from the battle with the bear pack, something that Matki Awrani called talgit. The security team passed that story, plus the nickname, Ditch ‘em Mitchem, around to everybody in the facility. There were a lot of military veterans, many of them combat veterans, and their attitude about Mitchem leaving the security team to fend for themselves percolated through the rest of the tech, security, and administration teams. Murph, the lead security sergeant, was pretty vocal about his opinion of Jamison and Mitchem after the big battle with the talgit. Jondreau cautioned Murph about his disrespect, but finally gave up as he noticed the shift in attitude among the civilians and airmen around him.

  Jamison had a full on break with reality. Mike couldn’t stay upset with the guy. There was definitely something physically wrong with him. He was found lying in a hallway up on the first floor, and was having major problems with his motor skills. His body seemed to be failing him. Major Nosstrand and Dr. Humphreys were taking care of him, but they couldn’t diagnose his condition. Jamison was on one of the cots in the play room. Periodically he would start yelling, and then they would give him some meds to knock him out. The doctors didn’t know if it was physiological or psychological. They were beginning to lean towards physiological. They thought he may have had a stroke.

  Mike tracked the threat. The beast was not tracking directly towards them. That didn’t decrease Mike’s anxiety, however.

  “What do you think?” Everett asked.

  “It is just one threat, and as long as it remains just one threat, I don’t think we’ll have a problem,” Mike replied. “I was able to stop one of them with just one set of mech armor, so I don’t anticipate too much of a problem with it.”

  Mickey spoke up, “don’t jinx us boss. If you say something like that, you’re just pissing off Murphy.” Mickey meant Murphy, of Murphy’s Law, not Murphy, security.

  Sure enough, right after Mickey said that about Murphy, their head’s-up displays started blinking red again as two more hostile squares appeared on the map of the valley.

  The entire team started cursing.

  “Jesus Mike, what were you thinking? You went and pissed off Murphy.”

  Everett was poking fun at Mike. Every soldier was a little bit superstitious. The team realized that eventually, they would probably have to contend with multiple targets. They felt it was inevitable. They were fully prepared for this scenario. They had been practicing for such an eventuality, and they felt comfortable with their mechs. The AIs in the suit were becoming more focused and able to allow the team to do things in their armor that would have been impossible just five days ago. Mickey had been doing karate katas to explore the range of movement. Mike and his team had been practicing gymnastic moves as well, such as barrel rolls.

  The hostiles moved closer to the facility.

  Mike gave the orders, “Okay, team, light up your camouflage.”

  The camouflage capability was a wonder to Mike, and it would have been totally impossible without the AI, the quantum computer, and the carbon fiber electronics cables that the electrical system in the mech armor was wired with. The entire mech was dotted with camera lenses. This allowed three things. First was the head’s up display that showed everything in the area around the mech, to give the men in the mech three hundred and sixty degrees of situational awareness. They could see everything around them, up and down. Second, the full body construction, with no windows to weaken the integrity of the armor, ensured that the body of the suit possessed no weak points that could be exploited. No windows meant a stray shot couldn’t compromise the integrity of the armor. No windows meant a laser couldn’t penetrate to kill or blind the soldier inside. Third, and this was the thing that Mike thought
was amazing, was that it allowed the mech armor to display an adaptive pattern of camouflage on its exterior.

  The cameras filmed the area around it, and the armor, with the help of an adaptive electric capability, using pixels on the body of the armor, was able to display the area directly behind the armor onto the skin. While not completely perfect when the suit was moving, it allowed a near perfect camouflage when the suit was motionless.

  As the camouflage engaged, to the security team and civilians in the cave, it looked as if the mech armor had just disappeared. Joseph and Stein were standing close to each other, and they both muttered, “Awesome,” at the same time. Other members of security laughed when they heard them say it in unison.

  Mike and his team fanned out in a defensive perimeter. As they moved, the armor camouflage distorted until it moved back into a stationary position. Then the hard part began. They waited.

  The hostiles were identified as dragons. The first hostile target wandered around the valley. It was not moving directly towards the cave. Over time, it drifted closer to their location. The other hostiles were moving with more intent. Each of the secondary hostiles seemed to be moving towards the first target, but they were being wary towards each other. The secondary targets seemed to be testing each other out.

  Tom spoke up, “Gents, I think I know what is going on with these critters.”

  Mike asked, “What’s that, Tom.”

  “Remember, this is just a theory, but I think the first one is a female, and the other two are males. You notice that the secondary hostiles seem to be moving around each other, but they’re both definitely moving towards the first target.”

  “Yeah, I see that.”

  “I’ve seen the same kind of thing among rutting males during deer season.”

  “Okay Tom, any pattern to the movement of the first hostile?”

  “Yeah, I think she’s smelling the areas that the previous owner of this valley spent time in, finding the scent patches, and trying to figure out the threat.”

  Mike relied on Tom’s instincts. He was the master hunter.

  Rob spoke up, “Tom, are you sure that’s a theory? Sounds more like a hypothesis to me.”

  Even in the face of danger, Mike’s crew couldn’t resist ribbing each other.

  “Team Mech leader, this is Security Leader Actual, over.”

  Actual meant that it was Pang talking, the leader of the security team. Mike had placed Pang in charge of Security. Jondreau wasn’t too happy about this, but Mike trusted Jen a lot more than he trusted Jondreau.

  “Roger, Sec leader, this is Mech leader, over.”

  “Mike, the security team is in place.”

  The security team had pulled two SAWs, Squad Automatic Weapons, out of storage. These weapons were previously only used when the security police traveled out to the range. Now they were employed at the edges of the cave mouth to ensure that nothing slipped past the mech team. There were no more weapons that were locked away. Everybody that could be trusted with a weapon had a weapon. Still, Mike wished they had something with a larger caliber. The SAWs shot 5.56mm bullets. He would have preferred the M240B in 7.62mm, or the Browning M2 in .50 caliber. Hell, even the old M60 in 7.62mm would have been great. But beggars can’t be choosers. The SAWs would have to do.

  The first hostile was moving closer. It was now within 2 kilometers of the cave mouth. The secondary hostiles moved within a kilometer of the first hostile, though they were still being wary of each other.

  It had been three days since the first dragon was killed. Since that time, the carcasses had been plundered of all the meat available. There was nothing there that would attract the notice of a predator now. This included the carcasses of the grasnigs, and the talgits. The team pulled the carcasses further away from the cave mouth once they understood how big the scavengers in this new world were. The average size of the scavengers had plummeted with the decrease in available flesh. They kept the skulls of the big beasts though. Bragging rights were bragging rights, no matter what world they were in.

  Now, Mike wasn’t worried about the smell of rotting meat pulling the animals towards them. There was one problem, though. The people that Mike and his team were protecting had to defecate and urinate. That was a powerful smell for any animal, indicating that there was potentially a large presence of prey animals for them to target.

  The first hostile was now within a kilometer of the cave, and the two other targets were still trailing her, both within a kilometer of her position. Mike transmitted over the radio, “All security teams, be alert, the hostiles are within a kilometer. Mech team, I want a wedge formation.”

  The problem that soldiers faced in combat was fields of fire. Everybody had their own field of fire, and they had to stick to this to ensure that they didn’t accidently engage members of their own team. In infantry practice, a team of five men would move into a v shape, called a wedge, point towards the enemy, with the leader of the team at the point of the v. This shape ensured that the team didn’t accidently shoot each other, and would ensure the maximum amount of fire power that they could inflict on the hostiles. At least in theory. Friendly fire wasn’t too friendly.

  What Mike, his team, and the security team didn’t know, was that a large group of people were watching the potential engagement down in the play room. They relocated a large screen TV from the offices on the second floor, hooked up the drone feed, and now they watched the drone and armor feeds. They could see everything that was transpiring. Below the screen was information on the AI, and the various systems that kept the mech armor going. The screen zoomed in as the threats came closer to the friendlies.

  Dr. Randall was in charge of this. She wanted to ensure that the mech armor was functioning within all of the engineered tolerances. She and her team would go back later and analyze all of the data to ensure peak performance. After her visit to the surface, she was more willing to work with the team. Mike still didn’t trust her, though. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  The hostile that had been labeled as target one, possibly a female dragon, stopped at the edge of the clearing. She smelled the fragrance of death, of prey animals, and the scent of her old rival. She knew that her rival was dead due to a miasma of scents that lingered from previous carnage. She looked out on the meadow. She could see movement inside the cave. Prey was present, and soon she would eat. She screamed a hunting call. The coughing scream silenced everything in the valley.

  Tom was looking at his head’s up display, “Holy hell, did everybody see that?”

  Mike took his eyes off of the edge of the meadow, trying to see what Tom was talking about. The secondary figures were moving differently now. They were no longer maintaining a triangle figure based on the female in front of them. Now they moved forward, one on the left side of the possible female, and the other to the right.

  “Roger Tom, I think they’re putting aside their differences for hunting.”

  Mike could feel his emotions cool, his focus increase. His body knew it was going into combat, and was preparing for that action. The rest of the team reacted in pretty much the same way. This team was special, and the reason was, when the rubber met the road, the team didn’t get hyped up on adrenaline. Instead, they become cool as ice, focused on the mission in front of them. Now, with the hostile animals so much closer to the cave mouth, the AI displayed information about the size and approximate weight of the beasts. Mike took it all in at a glance, but it was causing consternation in the room below.

  “Damn, look at the size of the first one. It’s about six tons of dragon.” More of the voices started talking as the other threat information was displayed. People were amazed at the size of these animals. In the secondary threats, the possible males, one was eleven tons, and the other was twelve tons, approximately.

  The female felt the presence of the two males. She had been aware of them the entire time that she was moving a
cross the valley floor. She was waiting for them to challenge, to kill or maim each other. Once the battle was over, she would challenge the males, to kill them if they were weak. She was not the largest female, but she, like the rest of the females in her species, would not suffer an inferior male to impregnate her.

  With the bellow of the hunting call, she was no longer interested in killing them. Instead, her focus was on the prey in front of her. She waited as their posture changed from rutting, to hunting. The males were intrigued by her proposition. They moved up to smell the death in the meadow. They smelled prey that was not familiar to them. This excited them, almost as much as the idea of battle with each other and the mating with the female would have produced. As the males tasted the flavor of the air on their tongues, their curiosity overcame their other instincts.

  As vicious as they were to each other, the prospect of tasting another animal, different than others they tasted before, overcame their previous instincts. They could challenge each other after the hunt. One male roared his hunting call, then the other did so, both calls echoing through the valley. This communicated to the female that they were willing to hunt with her. She added her voice to the cacophony, and then all three moved forward, out of the tree cover, slouching forward into a hunter’s stalk.

  Mike watched all three. Mike gave another order, “All teams, weapons hot, I say again, weapons are now hot.”

  All weapons systems were ready to fire at that moment.

  “Sniper, are you ready?”

  “Roger, I’m ready.”

  The sniper in question was a civilian. Joe Oaks was a hunter, and a damn good shot. He volunteered to work with the security police, or, as he put it, “not sit around on my ass while other people are doing their damned best to protect it.”

  When the team talked to him, they found out that he was the civilian version of Tom, a guy that went hunting as much as he possibly could. He rattled off ballistic statistics to Tom, then walked him through several different weapons systems. Tom was impressed, so he put Joe on the .338 Lapua. They hadn’t had time to get somebody ready on the BMG .50 caliber. They moved that weapon into the cave tunnel to be used as a last resort in case something tried to slither through. It would be very hard to miss at the point blank range in the tunnel.

  Plus, there was a lot more .338 ammunition than there was .50 caliber.

  “Okay, Joe, you see the smaller animal in the middle?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I want you to shoot it. Try for the chest or the shoulder, but if you can’t get those, then take a head shot.”

  Joe lined up the shot, and then pulled the trigger.

  Because of her stance, he couldn’t get a good shot at the chest or shoulders, so he aimed for the eye. She jerked at the last moment, and the shot went above the eye, creasing the top of the head.

  “Roger, shot out.”

  This short sentence was drowned out by the bellow she unleased, rage surging through the monster. She felt the impact of the bullet and pain seared through her head. The shot itself was deflected by the thickness of her skull. Still, the impact ripped skin and cracked bone. Her hunting companions smelled the blood in the air and felt her rage. The short stalk was finished. She leaped forward to kill the thing in the cave that hurt her, and the males leaped forward to join her.

  Mike gave the order to the teams, “All mech and sec teams, you’re free to engage.”

  The burr of high speed projectiles announced their launch from the rail guns. They hit the three animals like a chainsaw. The tough hide was hard to penetrate. These animals, even with the advanced capabilities of the mech armor, were difficult to kill.

  Mike called out, “I’m taking the small one in the middle, Mech two and four take the one on the right, Mech three and five take the one on the left.”

  With that statement, his AI painted the smaller dragon as his primary target in red, and the secondary targets in orange. Reality blurred as Mike slammed into the body of the dragon closing in on his position. The beast howled as the hard ridge of the cutting fists of the mech armor slammed into her body. She didn’t understand what was happening, not seeing her enemy before it attacked. Mike activated his pulse laser, cutting into flesh. Gore dripped and splattered across the armor. He could feel small arms fire plinking around his armor as the security team tried to aid him.

  The dragon twisted her body, and Mike felt his armor lifted from the ground, rotating around her body, and then slamming into the ground on his back. He felt the protective foam collapse and re-inflate as it took the majority of the energy of the impact and dissipated it. He was underneath the dragon as she hammered him down with her paws and mouth. He punched from underneath, trying to cause as much damage as possible to what could be a softer underbelly. His pulse laser cycled as he tried to cut into flesh.

  He felt his world shift again as she laid over to use her back legs to rake his mech armor. When this didn’t bring the results that she hoped for, she rolled until he was on top, then set her legs against his armor, and kicked him into the air, away from her. His mech armor slammed against something and then he landed on the ground, the foam cushioning his impact once again.

  He rolled to his feet, whatever he landed against moving away from him. He found his target circling him, about to launch into him. Since she was a good hundred feet away from him, he triggered his rail gun and the projectiles cut into her front leg, spoiling the jump. He was able to side step and punch out with his hands, driving them into her shoulder. He grabbed a handful of the writhing tentacles and used them to launch onto her back. As he gained the back of the dragon, he aimed his laser at the base of her neck. The movement of her body underneath him spoiled his aim, and he only succeeded in cutting off tentacles.

  She rolled again, trying to dislodge him from her back, and she succeeded, though he was able to retain his hold on the tentacles. Gravity slammed him back up against the damaged leg. He tore into the leg. The hide along the leg was ripped and bloodied from the damage he inflicted, so he rammed his arm against the leg, and then shot the elbow of the leg with his rail gun. The elbow collapsed.

  He followed the body of the female to the ground. He used his grip on her tentacles to position himself so he could pound her face with the gauntlet. The gauntlet pounded continuously until he felt the orbit of the eye socket collapse. The dragon screamed in pain, rearing up and shaking her head, tossing him away from her. His armor sped toward the ground. He tucked and rolled the armor, his AI helping to move through the maneuver, coming back on his feet as he prepared to hit her again.

  Then he heard the warning, far too late. The huge paw of one of the heavier males hit him and sent him tumbling across the ground. As he righted himself, he could see the big male launch on top of him. The male grabbed the arm of the mech armor and started shaking him like a rag doll. If he had been in metal armor, this wouldn’t have been possible. Since the armor he was in was mostly graphene and titanium, it was much lighter. Still, the armor didn’t crack or crumple. The engineers had designed well.

  The big beast didn’t realize the mistake it had made. Mike’s rail gun was inside the large male dragon’s mouth. He triggered the rail gun. The side of the dragon’s mouth exploded as the rail gun ripped into it. Gore dripped from the side of the dragon’s head. He grabbed a handful of the tentacles and used that leverage to shift his rail gun deeper into the beast’s throat. As the beast choked on his hand, he triggered the rail gun again. The projectiles tore through the beast, into the back of the neck, into the chest cavity, causing maximum destruction as they went.

  A torrent of blood dripped, and then gushed out of the mouth of the great beast, and it collapsed. “Must have cut its spinal column,” Mike thought. Mike pulled his hand out of the great dragon’s mouth and stood up. He looked around for his original target and saw it lying, unmoving on the meadow, twitching as it died.

  The final
hostile was fatally damaged. Its spine was broken. It had been clawed from head to toe by small arms fire, pulse lasers, and rail guns. There was no give in it, though. The desire to kill was so deeply rooted, that it tried to pull itself forward to kill. Mike watched as his team moved forward and, saving ammunition, hacked it apart with pulse lasers. A final quiver and it went still.

  Mike walked over to the female on the ground. He noticed the rapid shallow breaths. He assumed it was in shock. It didn’t seem to be able to move anymore, so he walked around to the eye of the dragon, which was open. The great beast tracked him with the one good eye. He saw the hate in its soul. He triggered his pulse laser, piercing the brain of the beast. The breathing stopped.

  He stood up, “ACE report. Over.”

  His team reported in, green across the board.

  Then he called Pang, “Lieutenant Pang, ACE report, over.”

  She replied, “Green across the board, they didn’t even come close to us.” Pang looked at the team. They were no longer camouflaged. They looked like the denizens of some demonic charnel house, covered in gore, dripping blood across the grass and sand of the churned up meadow, gods of slaughter and death.

  The valley map expanded across Mike’s vision again, the boarders flashing red. Another hostile was on the way.

  --------------------------------------

  Lenny talked to Matki Awrani using the AI software. He had been working long hours to create a program and AI that would learn Matki Awrani’s language. Matki Awrani was no fool, and quickly figured out that Lenny was trying to learn his language. Matki Awrani was taken aback the first time that he heard Lenny say something, and then hear the computer say a phrase in his own language. As for Lenny, he was delighted to see how the AI was beginning to respond to the new program. It learned very quickly, and was able to access a lot of the stored internet translation programs to learn how different languages worked and intersected from Earth. It was able to use these programs to create a new algorithm to understand Matki Awrani’s language, and then translate it into English, and from English back into Matki Awrani’s language. With this comprehension, Lenny was able to understand one thing about the hostile dragons that just tried to kill everybody.

  “She’s in heat,” Lenny conveyed this to the Mike and his team.

  “Damn it, can’t we get a break here?” Rob complained.

  Mickey retorted, “That’s not going to happen, evidently Mike really pissed off Murphy.”

  Mike replied, “Not my fault, I blame it all on Everett.”

  “How the hell is it my fault?”

  “You asked the question, I answered it. If you hadn’t asked the question, then I wouldn’t have answered. Then I wouldn’t have pissed off Murphy. Ergo, your fault.”

  “Oh, I have to call B.S. on that, Mike.”

  “Of course you’re going to call B.S., because you know it’s your fault, therefore, you want to blame me.”

  “It’s not my fault. You’re the one that made the inference that we would be okay if nothing else showed up.” Another red hostile was indicated on the map as soon as the words escaped Everett’s mouth.

  “See, you did it again. So, your fault.”

  Mike made a decision, “Okay guys, before they get here let’s drag these carcasses out of the way. Pull them to the edge of the tree line so that we keep our dojo open for combat.”

  The team followed Mike’s lead, and started dragging each carcass back to the tree line.

  Downstairs, as the group watched the combat, somebody said, “Jeez, they sound like an old, married couple.”

  Major Nosstrand and Dr. Humpreys found it fascinating. They were looking at the physical readouts of the soldiers as they were bickering about who was at fault. The banter back and forth among the team was actually reducing their stress levels. The more they bantered, the lower their physical stress became.

  Dr. Humphreys said, “God, I wish I was able to do a dissertation on this.”

  Major Nosstrand laughed, “What would you call it? The ‘Jackie Gleason and Art Carney effect on combat stress levels?’”

  Dr. Humphreys smiled, “You better watch it, Major Nosstrand. That show is from my era. These kids around here will start to call you,” he paused for dramatic effect, “old.”

  Her eyes twinkled, “I’ll just tell them I watched it on TV land.”

  Dr. Humphreys looked back at the physical readouts, “Still, I wish we had time to get some blood samples so that I could check cortisol levels.”

  In the meadow, they were prepping for the two new hostiles. This time, the camouflage wouldn’t be as useful as it was previously. The mech armor suits were covered with gore, and no amount of camouflage would be able to hide them.

  The beasts were using the same strategy that the previous males used, though one of the males seemed to be more aggressive.

  “Man, would you look at the stats on that one. Forty feet long and sixteen tons of meat and gristle.”

  “Yeah, bigger than the previous ones. Still, the second hostile seems to be about the same size as the other two.”

  Mike painted the larger one as target one, and the smaller one as target two.

  “Alright, mechs two and four on me. We’re now team one, and we’ll engage the larger of the two hostiles. Mechs three and five, you’re now on the secondary target. Please reply that you understand.”

  Four replies indicated that they understood the order.

  Downstairs, the people watched as the next battle was about to occur.

  “Man, after that last fight, I’d figure they’d want to get the hell out of here.”

  “Be glad they aren’t hightailing it out. If they did, we’d all be snacks for those dragons.”

  “Dude, did you see when Mike jumped on top of that small one and rode it like it was a bucking bronco. Man. That takes some major cojones.”

  “I thought the part where Mickey slammed into the Dragon and brought it to a dead stop was amazing.”

  “What I find amazing is that our security team is up there ready to fight if these things get through. And they don’t have any mech armor. Seems to me that takes more guts than being inside the mechs. Mike and his team are impervious to the physical danger. If Pang and her team have to mix it up, they’re hosed.”

  “Yeah, Pang and Jondreau have some big huevos to back up the mech team. Of course, Pang was one of the few people that helped to kill the first one that was going to carve us up.”

  The pattern of the two dragons changed. They stopped, and then Mike could hear the hunting cry of the dragon. He didn’t know which was which, but his money was on the big one.

  “Alright, we have incoming hostiles. Let’s go ahead and get back into wedge formation. Sniper, Over.”

  “Roger, sniper. Over.”

  “This time, don’t wait for me to tell you, just shoot one of them. The big one if you can. I’d like to slow him down before we engage. Hopefully the three of us can get him down and then help with junior. Over.”

  “Roger, I’ll engage as soon as I see him. Over.”

  “Sniper, this is Mech team leader. Over.”

  “Mech team leader, this is Sniper. Over.”

  “Great kid. Don’t get cocky.”

  “Mech team leader, this is Sniper. Err, what?”

  Mike and his team cracked up. “Sniper, this is Mech team leader. Sorry. Just kidding you. We need to break out some movies when this is over, then you’ll understand what I’m talking about.”

  “Mech team leader, Roger.”

  Rob started talking, “In a g . . . “

  “Whoops, sorry Rob, I hate to interrupt, but the big guy and junior are coming in pretty quick. We need to get ready.”

  Once again the five mech armor suits were standing in line so that they could engage the different hostiles. They didn’t have long to wait. The large male was the first to emerge from the tree line. Then the smaller male broke
through the trees. The bodies of both males were slightly hidden behind the carcasses of the other three dragons.

  The large male moved forward to smell the carcass of one of the dead males, and then sniffed the dead female.

  He lifted his head and roared. The second male answered him with his hunting scream. Both of the males started pawing the ground, in anticipation of the kill.

  “Sniper, do you have a target?

  “That is a negative, mech leader. Can you shift position? Maybe they’ll move so that I can get a shot.”

  “Roger sniper, your bait is moving.”

  In the cave, Oaks started sweating, “Jeez, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Pang was crouched right beside him. She was there so that he didn’t tunnel vision on the main threat and get compromised if another threat suddenly appeared.

  “Don’t worry, that’s just Mike’s way.”

  Mike moved to the left, using the big dragon as a pivot. He didn’t get any closer. He and his team shifted as one unit. He looked at the enormous bulk of the beast. It watched him, but it didn’t move. Mike could see on the display that junior was shifting position as the other team moved.

  “Sniper, I think you’re going to have to engage the smaller one. The big one is cannier than the others before him.”

  “Roger, I have the small one sighted. Give me more movement, and I think I have a shot.”

  Everett was the team leader for the second mech team, “Roger, we’ll move more and see if we can’t pull him out so that you get the shot.”

  Mike spoke next, “If you can’t get a shot into the joints, put some lead into the body and see if you can do some damage.”

  “Roger.”

  A few seconds seemed to be an eternity, and then the shot rang out. Mike could see dust fly off the hide of the smaller dragon as the bullet hit. The smaller dragon stood straight up and bellowed a challenge, then jumped over the carcass in front of it to attack Everett and Tom.

  Mike looked forward at the big beast. It wasn’t moving. It watched to see what was happening.

  As chaos engulfed the other team, Mike had a thought, “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  "Rob, Mickey, you two move around to the left, I’m going to move to the right. I’m going to start moving straight for the creature. Maybe it will take me as bait.”

  The team started walking forward. Mike could tell that they were getting well past the big dragon’s comfort zone. Its tail was twitching furiously as he watched it. As Mike separated more from Mickey and Rob, he could tell that he was drawing more attention.

  The great beast could take no more. It wasn’t used to having prey challenge him. He bellowed a challenge and leaped, running forward towards Mike. Mike rolled as the great dragon tried to take him down. Mike didn’t escape the full force of the blow, however. The extended claw glanced against the armor, driving Mike off balance. Mike took the armor into a shoulder roll and then came back up to engage with the dragon.

  Rob hit the side of the dragon running and slammed his fist into the beast to cut the tough hide, hoping to get his pulse laser or rail gun inside to vital organs. Mickey tried to take out the beast’s mobility by concentrating his pulse laser and rail gun on one of the back legs. Mike decided to play the option he knew best, and went for the head as it whipped towards him.

  The dragon drove Mike down to the ground, and started biting. The speed of the monster surprised Mike. It wrapped both arms around Mike and chewed on the mech, seeking vitals to kill, not knowing that the mech wasn’t alive. It was startled when the bite didn’t break the armor. Mike grabbed a handful of the nest of wildly whipping tentacles around the neck and slammed his gauntlet blades against the side of the head. As he slammed his hand in, he triggered the pulse laser, which sliced into the neck. Blood and fluids flashed into steam as the laser cut and cauterized the deep wound. The pain drove a bellowing cry of agony from the great dragon. The beast stood straight up and came crashing back down directly on top of Mike. Mike’s mech slammed into the ground, causing his head to bounce around. His helmet pinged against the armor from side to side.

  “Thank God for helmets,” he thought. Without the helmet, even inside the mech, he would have had a concussion. The beast had him on the ground and both giant paws bore down on the shoulders of the mech armor. Mike had no leverage, he was pinned. The dragon repeatedly bit down on the armor. The pressure of the dragon’s jaws was no match for the mech armor.

  Mike couldn’t see it happening, but he knew his team was killing the beast as it attempted to rend him to pieces. In his position, Mike couldn’t do much, with the entire weight of the beast on top of him. He could only do one thing; he aimed his pulse laser and rail gun up into the vitals of the beast. As the beast slammed its weight into him, he triggered both weapons. Both the pulse laser and the rail gun projectiles impacted and cut into the chest and neck, gobbets of flesh, bone, and blood exploding from the wounds.

  The dragon’s rage grew as its efforts to kill the mech armor did no damage. Pain ravaged its body, driving its fury. The mech armor wouldn’t bleed, wouldn’t shatter, wouldn’t die, no matter how many times the dragon bit it, no matter how many times he clawed it, no matter how many times he slammed his full weight down on top of it. It would not die. Still, the dragon tried to kill, frustration increasing as the pain mounted. The damage was too great to continue. The great dragon raised its head to heaven and roared its defiance, even as it died. The ground shuddered as the legs failed, and the body slammed into the ground. Right on top of Mike. Mike heard the network erupt as the great beast died.

  “Christ, where’s Mike?”

  “I don’t know, last I saw, it was slamming him into the ground, trying to crack him like an egg.”

  “Yeah, but where is he now?”

  Mike replied, “I’m down here.”

  “Down where.”

  “Underneath it. It fell right on top of me.”

  “Underneath?”

  “Yeah, Underneath.”

  “What, you decided to take a nap?”

  Mickey was enjoying this. Rob jumped into the exchange.

  “Mike, if you’re tired, we can get you a cot. You don’t have to sleep in your mech armor. I mean, I know the foam is pretty comfortable.”

  Mike replied, “Wow, you’re two funny guys. Maybe you should take your standup on the road. Hey, here’s a question. What about the other dragon? You think maybe Everett and Tom might need some help?”

  Everett spoke, “No, Mike, while you were taking your nap, we were taking care of business. Junior is down and done.”

  “So, since every hostile up there is dead, you guys think you might stop the comedy routine and roll this big bastard off of my mech armor so that I can stand up?”

  “Well, Mike, you have to understand, this type of situation, doesn’t come along every day. So, we do need to savor the moment.”

  “When you’re done savoring, you might want to get me out of here. Not for my sake, God knows. But we might want the techs to take a look at the mech armor before another wave of these things hits.”

  “Weellll, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  Another voice clicked on. It was Bob, “Don’t worry boys, we have everything saved on video. You can watch and re-watch to your heart’s desire.”

  “Thanks Bob, you’re a great help,” Mike replied. “Comedians, surrounded by comedians,” he thought.

  The team got busy. It didn’t take them too long. Another twenty minutes and Mike was freed from his prison. Much longer and he would have tunneled out through the dragon.

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