Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Water drums upon my helmet, makes a low hissing as it streams over the audio pickups, and fills the air with splashing sounds as it cascades from my armour to fall inside and outside my impromptu shelter.
There’s a rhythm to this. It’s complex, but my sis used to be a drummer. I can pick it out – or trick myself into the comfortable illusion. Either is good: my breathing has slowed and heartbeat is steady.
Refuge this isn’t. It’s a hide. Beyond the deadening provided by the water, I can still hear comrades and strangers dying while our armoured offensive burns amidst the ruins of what used to be a capitol city.
Am I going to venture out? Only if the water stops. I think I glimpsed a fire blanket on a wall further down the hallway: should have thought to grab it. In my defence, I was moving as fast as possible in near-mindless terror at the time.
General Astaren said it better than I ever could:
“The rumours you’ve heard about the Ressen using giant flying creatures are nothing but- Jezuz fucking Christ! A dragon!”
His transmission crackled and stopped a few seconds later; seconds we spent listening to several hundred soldiers suffering fiery deaths.
While we stared at each other in a mix of disbelief and panic, what came for them crossed the intervening kilometre and hit us. The minutes after that arrival will disfigure my dreams forever.
The water trails off to a trickle that thuds down on my left shoulder.
“Fuck my life.”
I chose it, but still. The posters had promised a short, glorious war followed by victory parades and eternal partying. So far, the only accurate words from that description have been ‘short’ and ‘war’.
These things look like dragons: four legs, two wings, long tail, long neck, wide head. Their scales are mirror-bright and impervious to everything we’ve thrown at them. Their ‘firebreathing’ seems to be some form of plasma. Whatever the science involved, the effect is bright and devastating.
Their flying is as far from clumsy as nobody expects from two-hundred-metre-long reptiles. They can manage bursts of Mach 2, can hover briefly, and combine the two abilities in dazzling displays that remind me of the gravity well antics my grandfather used to do for a living at the family fairground.
“Bingo One? That you, Greg?”
The f-!
“Bingo Med? Charlie, you made it?”
“Most of me. Lost an arm, but the MedOp backpack I always complained about turned out to be quicker than death. I feel great, but tomorrow’s going to be no fun.”
“I like your optimism. Where are you?”
“Huddled in a shower in flat 218. You?”
I chuckle.
“You remembered that old joke too? I’m in same, somewhere on the third floor. Did your water just stop?”
“A few minutes ago. I’m thinking we need to move.”
An idea occurs: I run a quick allies scan.
“Just got scanned. Tell me it was you.”
“Yup. You’re right below me.”
I point my ‘urban entry facilitator’ at the floor and fire the last round, then tumble through the hole.
Charlie gives me a thumbs up.
“Tidy landing. Shall we get down to fucking off?”
After pulling her to her feet, I take a moment to run an extra tensioner round her torso to secure the MedOp pack against her ruined upper right side.
“I didn’t even feel that.”
“Another pain for tomorrow.”
“Down to the sewers and go left?”
“Good plan.”
She thumps my chestplate.
“Let’s move.”
Hope those scaly fuckers can’t dig as well as they can fly.