Two weeks later

September 2nd

Moving through the forest on an open road with a convoy was not what he had in mind, but for Saino, a tall dark red coloured dragon, it was just not up to him and he had to go along with it no matter how much he loathed it. As he sat on the top of one of the oval shaped trucks with a small kind of circular metallic barricade placed on the top, scanning the scenery around him, he could not help but feel a little nervous about where they were at the moment, especially with such a big convoy.

There were eight vehicles in this convoy including about four oval shaped trucks, two of the large heavy gun tanks (the same that had been ambushed in Afghanistan by the joint NATO and Taliban forces), one of the Sankiar vehicles and a buggy-like vehicle, though it had a large centre that was shaped like some kind of oversized cushion, which the back rose up a little and had a clearly visible door on the front of it, and two large triangle sections sticking off the sides, one on each side, where a dragon was sitting on them. On the top of the vehicle was a metallic panel and attached to the top of it was a long dark purple-like rifle with two half quarter circle, pink coloured parts sticking off the side of it. On the top these two pink coloured parts were hundreds of tiny ball shaped objects no bigger than a pencil point. Small they were and harmless they looked, but they could really do damage if they were fired at someone and they hit them. A heavily built light red coloured dragon was manning the turret at the moment, gazing out at the surrounding nature with suspicion as if he felt they were being watched.

The convoy made another turning down the road they were driving on, the noise of the engines of the vehicles and the rumbling they made along the ground filling the quiet air penetrated occasionally by the noise of a bird singing as it flew overhead. What they were doing was a patrol in the outskirts around the city called Portlandin the western part of Oregon. Believable or not, even though the Kyzua had defeated the armed forces of America and virtually driven them back everywhere, their so called Blitzkrieg tactics in wiping out Humanity's defences had left many small parts of the country under the control of so called guerrillas now and, as with any army wishing to fully control a country, they had to get rid of them, but such a thing was easier said than done.

For a start, Portland had been taken by chance only about fifteen days ago in August when the Kyzua just rode up here and marched into the mostly abandoned city, bringing with them several hundred Humans from the surrounding countryside, and just claimed it. Now, however, they were trying to consolidate their power by building a ring of small outposts and bases around the city in order to prevent any attacks from the resistance come undetected. It was kind of a resemblance to the situation the British Royal Irish soldiers faced in the summer of 2008 in Musa Qala in Helmand, Afghanistan in their war against the Taliban. Now, it was the turn of these extra-terrestrials to have to put with rebels on a planet they now seemingly occupied.

As they drove on, the dragons in the back of the oval that Saino was sitting on top of were chatting amongst themselves in their own language.

"What has actually happened here in the past few weeks?" one, a newcomer whose patrol here was his first, asked.

"Not much," another with a raspy voice replied. "Except that there have been stories from the others about a large flying creature sighted to the east of here and then further to the west-" ( the way in which the convoy was going) "-there's been talk of a Human convoy seen moving north from somewhere around that great big city co the south of here,"

"Isn't that the same that was responsible for what happened with one of the harvesters?" a third dragon asked.

"I think so," a fourth replied. "In fact, I am certain it is. I flew over this encampment they set up in this hill in one of our patrol ships a few weeks ago and they were definitely there the same day we lost it to an attack,"

"Wasn't Shona's brother on that harvester?" the dragon with the raspy voice asked.

The third nodded sadly. "I felt so sorry for him," he told the others glumly. "You should have seen him when he returned. I led him away and asked him what was wrong and…he just broke down and told me what happened,"

The other dragons exchanged sad looks. They had all heard what had happened to their friend at the harvester incident a few weeks ago and it was hard for them to even imagine how he was going through this grief. What was worse was that they knew their friends' brother had a partner and now he was going to have to tell them he was dead. It was hard to think about and they tried not to.

Meanwhile, on the top of the truck, Saino sighed and rested his head on his folded arms as he leaned against the top of the barricade, watching the trees of the forest in front of them whizz past as they went. Even though this was a patrol, it was unlikely they would see action out here, making it quite boring for him. He was one of the few in the Kyzua regular army at the moment who wanted to actually do some fighting rather than hope to hope that there would be none out here and they would all go back without any incident.

Please something come along he mentally begged, wishing desperately for someone to attack them so he could see a bit of action.

Unfortunately, they say you should never wish your life away and Saino's mental wish was about to come true.

Further on down the road in the trees, a figure moved, keeping low so as not to draw attention to himself from the dragons in the convoy. It was a young soldier of about twenty nine with short brown hair, green eyes and was holding a small radio in one hand and a camera in the other. He was scouting ahead for the other groups dotted along the trail to tell them to get into position as soon as he sighted any enemy craft. Now, coming up the road, was a vulnerable convoy. Eyeing it up, he saw that leading the convoy was the buggy like vehicle, which the army had given the nickname 'Raider Buggy', then behind that was one of the large tanks, which was known as a 'Predator' and then the Sankiar vehicle, known as a 'Land Carrier', then the four oval trucks, nicknamed 'Ovals' and then the second predator tank at the back of the convoy.

The soldier held the radio up to his lips and whispered: "Alright, guys, we got a convoy heading down the road: one buggy, two predators, a carrier and four ovals. All of 'em choc-a-block with aliens,"

"Roger that," another voice replied. "Get into position and we'll give the word when to attack,"

"Roger," the soldier replied and crept back into the shadows of the trees, placing the radio back onto his belt and picking up his assault rifle. Three other soldiers moved out from behind the trees and bushes behind him and crept forward alongside him, crouching down at they reached him so as not to give away their position.

Further down the road, another pair of eyes with antennae behind them peered out from a bush and looked down the road at the approaching convoy. It was Dr Cockroach. With him were two other soldiers. One was a medium height with black hair and blue eyes and the other was slightly taller with blonde hair and brown eyes. Both were armed with assault rifles and were crouching alongside the doctor, watching the convoy anxiously as it neared them. Just across the road was the third group, made up of Susan and two other soldiers. They too were hiding, waiting for the Kyzua to come near so they could spring their ambush.

It had been a hard few weeks for them. Ever since they had arrived in Oregon from California, they had had a rough time in trying to find a good place to stop off at. They were hoping to get to Mt Rainer near Seattle but the problem was that the Kyzua had control of all the major roads and now they were constructing outposts around major population centres, therefore making it more difficult to get to their destination quickly. What was making this even harder was that the vehicles of the convoy they had been riding in when they left California were now running out of fuel, having used up the little reserves they could get in the towns along the way here. Soon they would have to make the journey on foot and even though that was a kind of blessing in disguise as they could now hide from the Kyzua patrols and drones and such with relative ease and save them the trouble of having to hide vehicles as well, they knew that if they were to run into a patrol of something head on, then they were as good as dead, even with the monsters here with them.

Across the road, Susan's large blue eyes watched the raider buggy approach them, the dragon on the large turret on the back of the vehicle scanning the scene around him with two weapons, the turret and his eyes. One would do the looking and the other the firing. She crouched down, hoping to hide as much of herself as possible in the bush.

"You better get ready to transform, Susan," a soldier with brown hair next to her whispered.

She nodded. "Right, gimme a sec," she replied, also whispering, and she crept off as quickly as she could into the trees where a few large boulders were located.

Closer and closer the convoy came. It had some kind of effect on the squad because their hearts were beating madly like drums being played against their chests. Even their guns were beginning to shake in their hands. If they were spotted or if something went wrong in this ambush, then they were all as good as dead. The convoy passed the first group, who kept low and watched as the raider buggy passed first, then the large predator tank and then the ovals.

"YURAK!" a voice suddenly roared out from the convoy, the word in the Kyzuakan language meaning halt and, as if they were under some kind of mechanical control to the one who shouted out the order, the vehicles abruptly stopped where they were.

A tall but thin dragon in the front oval truck climbed down from the back of the truck, holding a weapon that was much like the normal rifles the Kyzua used, but was instead connected between two silver coloured spheres, the furthest one from him having a small silo-like hole on the front of it and the other sphere having a tiny trigger-like mechanism on the bottom of it. Two curved, dark green coloured metallic sections stuck out from the sides of the back sphere and connected to the front sphere's side. This was the Kyzua automatic plasma rifle, and it was a dangerous weapon indeed as it fired ionized balls of plasma that seemed to burn through anything on a living creature, whether it be clothes, body armour and even skin itself. Even though the squad had only had one encounter with a Kyzua holding this weapon, which had been when they were on their way up here and had literally only just escaped a single patrolling dragon, it was enough to show them how dangerous it was as it burned right through the metal of their Abrams tank when the incident happened.

As the convoy stopped and several of the other dragons got out of the vehicles and began to search chatter amongst themselves in their native language, some of them wondering why they had stopped, the soldier with black hair in the doctor's group took out his radio and held it up to his lips.

"Everyone ready?" he inquired.

"Yeah,"

"We're all set,"

"Alright, on three," he ordered. The other soldier readied himself for a fight but Doctor Cockroach ducked down near the bush and stepped back a few paces. He did not really want to get involved directly in the actual attack on the Kyzua. "Alright," the black haired soldier continued. "One…"

Across the road, one of the soldiers looked over his shoulder and whispered:" Get ready, Susan,"

"Two…

Dr Cockroach held his breath, his heart rate going so fast it was almost as if he was going to have a heart attack. Thank God he was not taking part for he did not like using weapons. He never had done in the war back when he was Human and, unless it really called for it, he would not be now.

At the convoy, one of the Sankiar dragons, who was heavily built, medium height and had a dark blue coloured metal-like object fused onto his arm, climbed down from the front of the carrier.

"Dronar!" he shouted to the regular Kyzua dragon captain that had halted the convoy. He walked over, a little annoyed, not having been actually been shouted for, but that he had been shouted for by one of the Sankiar. "What's going on? Why have we stopped?" the Sankiar dragon asked in his native tongue.

The captain went to reply when…

"THREE!"

All of a sudden, the trees next to the rock were blown aside as a huge boulder came flying out like a bowling ball being thrown down a bowling alley. The dragons on the raider buggy barely had time to even blink before it struck the side of their vehicle and sent it over the side of the road with a great crash amid a chorus of screams from those on board it. A hail of gunfire followed from the trees. Instinctively, the other dragons in the convoy either dived for cover or got out of the vehicles to see what was going on.

The Sankiar dragon and Dronar (the regular Kyzua captain he was with) hid behind the back of the predator tank.

"Where is that coming from?" Dronar shouted over the noise of the gunfire, bullets ricocheting off the ground and side of the tank near them. The sounds of blasts behind them indicated their soldiers were returning fire.

"The trees!" the Sankiar dragon shouted back, quickly rising up and firing a few blasts into the trees before ducking down again. "We have driven right into an ambush!"

"WATCH OUT!"

one of the regular army dragons that had just climbed out of the second oval truck down the convoy screamed.

CRASH! Another boulder had been thrown out of the trees and smashed into the side of the first oval truck down the convoy, the one directly behind the first predator tank where the two dragons were hiding, and tumbled off the side of the road into a ditch next to the trees, breaking in two. The driver and two of the dragons in the back were killed instantly. The rest, who had been rushing to get out of the truck, were injured by the fall from the truck, or being thrown from it, or had been in the way of the boulder.

In the trees, Dr Cockroach lay down as flat as he could and covered his ears as the two soldiers next to him fired away at the dragons. One of them fired a burst that hit a dragon on the top of the third oval truck down the convoy, the one directly behind the Sankiar truck, killing him instantly, his body sprawling out across the barricade.

"Hey doc!" one of them shouted and he turned his head to look up at them. "Are you gonna help?"

"Not in firing, I'm not!" he shouted back. "Guns have never been my sort of thing," he muttered to himself, ducking his head again and covering his ears as another burst of ammo was fired at the convoy.

Dronar quickly fired a shot from his plasma rifle and then jumped onto the predator tank, one of the dragons inside firing madly through a small gun hole on the side of the bulge on the back left of the tank, and rushed over to the back of the main cannon and pulled open the hatch.

"Is the main cannon still operational?" he shouted into it.

"Yes, sir,"

the driver dragon, who was sitting behind another dragon that was manning the main turret, replied.

"Then fire on the trees!" Dronar ordered.

Just then, a searing pain struck him in the back and he cried out, rolling off the tank to the ground. One of the soldiers from the second oval truck saw his commander fall and rushed over, grabbed him and pulled him behind the second oval truck.

"Are you alright, sir?" he asked worryingly. "Is it bad?"

"Well it hurts, idiot!" Dronar replied, gritting his teeth tightly as he tried to move his arm to his back but it hurt in doing so. "Where the-ARGH! Where is that Sankiar captain that was with me?"

"Alright, return fire!"

a voice shouted from the carrier truck and the dragon who had saved Dronar looked over to see the Sankiar dragon that had been with his commander moments earlier directing his Sankiar troops, who returned fire en masse on the trees with blasts, lasers etc.

"Damn typical!" Dronar, who had turned himself on his side and was watching the Sankiar, growled, both out of anger and from the pain flaring up from his back. "He can be so useless sometimes!"

As the battle raged, Susan, now at her fifty foot height, pushed the branches of the trees aside, holding another large boulder in her hand. The two soldiers with her, along with the others across the road and further down the road, cheered. Her size would scare the dragons into running, unless they were completely fanatical.

"Go get 'em, Susan!" the blonde haired soldier crouched down in front of her cheered her on.

She nodded and brought back her arm with the boulder, taking aim as if she was about to thrown a baseball. Then, with an almighty grunt, she threw the boulder into the road, it bouncing off the dirt and heading straight for the carrier. The Sankiar swore and dived out of the way as the rock hit the vehicle and flattened it, sending it off the road along with an unfortunate dragon that had been kneeling down on the back of the truck and had not gotten off it in time.

"Who is throwing…those…things!" the Sankiar dragon who had been hiding with Dronar was shouting, only for him to stop and go wide-eyed, along with virtually all the other dragons in the convoy, as Susan emerged from the trees, hands on hips and a smug look on her face as she stared down at the dragons from her great height as if to say: "Not so tough now, are you?"

For a moment, the gunfire stopped as all eyes in the convoy fell on Susan. It was not hard to tell that the dragons were completely dumbfounded by the sight of this fifty foot tall woman standing in front of them. It was a very shocking thing for them to see this! One gulped. Another began to shake with fear.

However, the Sankiar dragon's expression quickly changed from shock to a glare and he fired a barrage of blasts at Susan. To her utmost surprise, when these blasts hit her, they hurt.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" she cried as she raised her arm to try and cover herself from the blasts that hit her body. Even though they did not penetrate her clothes or skin, they stung as if she had been bitten by an insect.

Upon hearing her cries, Dr Cockroach jumped up, his mind filling with fear. "Susan!" he shouted, rushing out to see if she was okay, only to halt where he was.

His shouting had caused the dragons in the predator tank, which the hatch into was still wide open, along with pretty much the entire convoy, to hear him and look towards him. Upon realising his mistake, he gulped as all eyes, and then guns, turned on him.

"REI ILON!" one of the regular Kyzua dragons roared. Fire on him! Dr Cockroach ran back into the bushes as a wave of blasts followed him. The soldiers ducked and pulled him into the bushes.

"What's the Hell's the matter with ya, doc?" the black haired soldier shouted at him. "You wanna get yourself killed!"

"Uh, guys?" the blonde haired soldier said in a shaky voice.

The two looked up at him and he nodded out to the road where the battle was still raging between the other groups. They looked out of the bush and went wide-eyed.

The predator tank's main cannon…it was turning…towards them! The end hole opened up slightly and a green light began to glow inside it.

"Oh shit! RUN!" the blonde haired soldier almost screamed, grabbing his friends and pulling them away.

A second later, the ground seemed to lift up from under their feet and the bushes and bark of the trees around them exploded. Dr Cockroach was thrown through the air and landed a good ten feet from where he was, having been stopped by the side of another tree. Groaning as he lifted his head up, rubbing the side of it, he gasped when he saw a huge gap in the edge of the forest. Literally, the trees that had been there, along with the bush, were gone. It was completely gone. In fact, all that was left was a huge hole about seven feet deep and probably just under three times across. Flames began to burn on the surrounding vegetation and began licking at the bases of the trees surrounding where the group had been.

It was then Dr Cockroach noticed the remains of an assault rifle lying near him. Only the tip of it remained, the rest having been completely destroyed by the blast. He picked up what was left of it, but quickly dropped it with a gasp as it burned his hand. Bloody Hell! What did these creatures have that was not powerful?

BOOM! The ground shook again and Dr Cockroach rushed to the edge of the road to see the trees near where Susan's group was hiding, she herself having ran back into them to get away from the blasts that had virtually torn apart the tree branches around her, be blown into smithereens. Large branches and bush fell, followed by a chorus of screams as several of the trees that had not been blown apart collapsed onto the ground. Susan, who had been revealed by the blast from the predator tank, quickly ducked down, grabbed the two soldiers with her, both of who had been hurt by the falling debris from above, and ran off.

"Retreat! Run for it!" a voice from further down the road shouted out, it being one of the two remaining soldiers from the first group, the others having been killed.

Dr Cockroach mentally agreed with the order and took off down the road as fast as his legs would carry him, hoping to escape from the Kyzua, who began to notice the fleeing the Humans and cheered.

"They're retreating!" one shouted ecstatically.

"That is why you do not mess with the Sankiar!" the Sankiar leader exclaimed, thrusting his gun into the air in triumph.

Nearby, Dronar, who was helped onto his feet by the dragon that had saved him, gazed about at the destruction of the convoy and up onto the third oval truck where a dead dragon was being carried down by his comrades. He sighed sadly, knowing that he had lost many good men here.

"Aristokra help me," he muttered under his breath as he limped away to be given some medical attention.

Meanwhile, the dragons that had been in the oval truck below where Saino had been sitting carefully lowered his body down onto a thin, stretcher and two of them carried him to the back of the truck.

"Cannot believe they killed him," one of them said in a low, but sad voice.

The others nodded in agreement. That was another friend of theirs gone, having been killed in this war that definitely showed signs of going on longer than they had anticipated.

On the other hand, though, Saino had gotten his wish to see some action after all, only it had cost him his life as well as many others.