Madison
"Thirty two hatchling vessels are probably on the way to you now, fifteen minutes away. We have neutralised three adults from this convoy. We will see what we can do about the others, out." Dragon's voice was unclear due to the distance but even though I could clearly understand the words, they meant nothing to me until I saw Peter's expression. Peter was this calm and steady man, who always had a solution to any problem we've encountered and then the next problem and the next. So seeing him unable to hide worry as he called out to my dad made all this feel unreal.
Soon dad entered the room and his gaze lingered on me for a splitsecond before he turned to Peter who connected him with the soldiers on their posts. Thirty two vessels. It was almost twice as many as them. The last to get orders were my mother, they were to come immediately into armory. My mom protested, it was our fall back base, she couldn't help anyone from here as there were very little medical equipment here. But for once my father pulled ranks with her and she was forced to obey.
I was supposed to keep an eye on our radar readings and security cameras, that showed every square meter of the base and its surroundings.
I saw tinted glass window of a low building, where Josh must have been manning dragonkiller gun covered by Bill and Paul. His orders were only to engage if an adult appeared. Their position was well hidden but once they've given it away they wouldn't be able to hold it for long if dragons swarmed them.
Lieutenant Ward and his men were positioned in a long building that normally roomed officer's quarters and prison. It run on the northern side of the base and gave them opportunity to move around within it and shoot to both sides. There was a basement underneath, that was a risky place to play hide and seek with fire-breathing dragons but they couldn't swarm the soldiers in narrow halls.
Few soldiers were assigned to one more dragonkiller and several lone sniper posts, that were supposed to retreat to armory after they've done what they could without being swarmed. The rest was here manning turrets and few top windows that haven't been replaced with thick reinforced walls.
Peter and me have placed several surprises around the base but now it all seemed flimsy and I suddenly doubted our chances. I have never seen a fight. Suddenly I recalled the state we've found Chris in, trapped for days under the collapsed wall after he's defended northern chapterhouse from the same monsters that were on their way now.
I reached to my hip to check if my gun was still there. My nails catched on the fabric of my dress. Oh my God! I haven't got time to cut them or to change! I stood up.
"I need to fetch something". I said running out and only running faster, when I heard Peter shouting after me.
"What are you doing Madison? Come back, we are seven minutes from impact!" I heard him in my ear and answered gasping as I sped towards the appartement, I shared with my parents. "I will be right back!" I run into my room grabbed long sleeved t-shirt, camouflage pants and jacket, boots and my manicure set. "Madison! This is suicide, come here now! The radar has just detected them." Peter was insisting into my ear as he now had his hands full with coordinating communication, readying soldiers fot the battle. I ran towards the armory, that was being sealed by two of Lieutenant Ward's men. I shouted out to them and their brows shot up at seeing me running through the middle of the base with an armload of clothes. I reached them in no time and as I passed them by to get inside the head of one of them turned to look at something behind me. I turned and saw a little speck that looked like a bird flying towards us. The doors slammed an inch from my nose and I turned to join Peter, but stopped seeing my father approaching fast. "Madison!" He embraced me and then held me at arms length scowling. "Fear can make you lose your wit and your life in the battle. You have no experience, follow orders and you might survive." He said gave my arms a slight shake and followed me back to the tech room, where Peter shot me worried look. "Stay with Peter. Do not disobey orders again." My father said sternly and sat down on an extra chair to apparently lead the effort from here.
I went to the bathroom and quickly changed, cut my silicone nails with scissors, the result was ugly but that was all I could do now. I tied up my hair and went back to the room where my father rattled out orders to Peter and soldiers Peter connected him with. I slid into my seat and looked at the view from the many cameras visible on numerous screens that filled the entire wall in front of me.
The first vessels seemed to wait outside for the slower ones to catch up. "They are regrouping." I said, but my dad was already talking to Lieutenant Ward. "Don't give them time! Take out as many as possible..." Before he was finished four of the vessels hovering just above the base's edge jerked and tumbled down. Remaining vessels started to climb higher. "They're getting away!" Peter hissed." Few more sniper riffle rounds sounded but only one more vessel fell.
"They're too high up now, shoot anything within range..." My dad paused as the vessels apparently decided they were enough now and turned to swoop down towards the building, Lieutenant Ward and his men were shooting at them from.
I counted the airborne vessels and the ones down and reported to Peter their actions and position. It seemed to be going well. One vessel activated one of booby traps on the roof and was blown apart in an explosion, that shook entire building. Many vessels got hit, but even severely wounded they still kept on attacking, they converged on the armory and defenders here had their hands full, while the soldiers outside were free to harass them, which they did.
I have lost track of time. Lieutenant Ward and his men were cornered down in the basement of the office building. They held the vessels at bay but couldn't do much to help. In the armory one man got scorched when a vessel blown fire into the small opening, he was shooting through. My mother was seeing to his burned cheek as the paramedic took over his post. Two other soldiers went silent after vessels swarmed their posts.
At least fifteen vessels were down. They weren't hard to kill actually, they tore down couple of cameras and were slowly but surely tearing the armory apart, but did little to avoid being hit.
I was so concentrated that almost missed blinking of the rarely used communicator. "Stan?" I asked as my dad and Peter were busy discussing best course of action to get Lieutenant Ward out.
"Two adult vessels incoming from south in ten minutes. We are stalled by the rest of them, out." I heard his voice and felt a stab of fear. I automatically reported to my dad and he switched to talk to Josh.
My insides clenched, if Josh died...
This was the longest ten minutes or actually seven, that ended when radar showed two large objects approaching and parting to attack us from opposite directions.
Peter forwarded their position to Josh and pointed out, that from his position, he will get best shot at the one incoming from east.
Soon I could also see them on screens. They were something completely different from the smaller clones. Huge shapes converging over our base aiming for the armory and... the building where Lieutenant Ward was holding the basement. They could probably just bury them under wrecked building. I saw hatchlings clones crawling out and knew.
"Peter. The western one is going to bury Lieutenant Ward, the small ones have already left!" I shouted and he looked at my father.
"It's a bad angle for Sergeant anyways. Ward, get out of there and scatter, impact in three minutes!" My father ordered and then switched to Josh "after you get the objective get moving to aid Ward, the other adult is about to smash his hiding place to pieces." He looked at Peter and I knew him well enough to know, this wasn't the best orders he has ever given. Our whole strategy was built on our men being behind a cover at all times, no staking human flesh against fire-breathing scaly dragons was Garret's reason for us to remain in the base, and not disperse and hide somewhere else. Now we were forced to abandon this strategy and it looked like no one had better one ready...
I watched the adult incoming from east it was almost over the armory and my body instinctively braced for impact, when a jolt run through it, it trashed and fell making the ground and the building shake. But it wasn't dead... Josh must have missed it's heart because it lifted its head, turned it to the reinforced door and blew fire at it. It was a steady stream like from a flamethrower and it didn't seem to weaken. Peter and my father muttered to each other and suddenly I knew. The door would melt and we would be overrun by nimble gray vessels. My father was ordering someone to pull it away but I couldn't hear exact words through the roaring of my blood in my ears. I saw Josh and his unit running to the building opposite of the one they've started in, to get a better shot at the other adult that landed in the middle of the building, that Lieutenant Ward and his men left seconds before the impact. Panic was settling in, I felt weak and useless and we were going to get mawed and scorched to death by a bunch of mindless clones!
Mindless, mindless, mindless my own mind latched onto the word and would not let it go. They were mindless. They didn't think, they followed orders! How? Suddenly I had an idea.
"Peter! Their orders! We must jam their communication!" I shouted and they looked at me surprised, but Peter understood right away.
"We don't have time to seek their frequency!" I insisted "we jam this entire damn area and then we finish them off!"
My father thought for what felt like an eternity before he asked Peter. "Can we do this?" Peter nodded. "Yes we have a jamming device, we can use it to jam every frequency within three hundred feet, might get a but of headache later" he joked.
"Okay. Be ready to do this in five minutes." Was all dad said before he started rattling orders to the others. "Fall back! All of you, be at backdoor in five minutes!" He said and looked at the creens again.
Josh shot the other adult vessel's left wing. It was now following them as they run back to the armory keeping close to the walls. A small vessel spotted them and ducked towards them but got shot from the sky by Lieutenant Ward, that bellowed something at the others and gave his men a sign to run through to the next building, as he turned back and shot at the adult vessels head, his aim was impressive, he hit every time and the huge dragon stopped for a splitsecond to shake its head. Josh, Paul and Bill used this moment to join Ward's men and continue alongside the wall toward us. Too slow, they wouldn't get here before communication stopped.
Lieutenant Ward had better overview of the situation than me, because as soon as the adult vessel resumed its pursuit, a large explosion made it sway. He led his men past the remaining booby traps.
But it wasn't enough to stop the huge gray dragon clone and soon it was looming over them and made to breathe fire, that from that angle would probably have engulfed their entire group. As it opened its jaws slightly it was hit in its mouth with another round from Lieutenant Ward's riffle. It shook its head again and the men increased distance darting to another building where their way was blocked by three small vessels their pale eyes expressionless as they spread to surround them in half circle. Two of the Ward's men opened fire, while Lieutenant and two others turned their back to them to keep an eye on the adult approaching again, if a bit more carefully from behind. I saw Josh settling the heave dragonkiller on the ground and aiming it at the adult vessel. He shot it through chest this time, but must have missed the heart again because the monster swayed slightly before it leaped onto him. It was done toying with them and could easily overwhelm them by sheer bulk.
Josh shot again as the other man scattered to avoid being crushed. This time Josh must have hit something vital or the sum of injuries added up to a bigger number because as he rose and darted to the side the adult's leap changed into fall and soon its huge body laid crumpled in a cloud of dust. It's claw caught Josh on leg and he fell too. The other men avoided being caught in the adult's fall but turned their back to two small vessels that now engulfed two of Lieutenant Ward's men and Paul in storm of dragonfire.
This looked bad. Lieutenant Ward was caught on the other side of the carcass and they turned to run while temporarily protected by their thick combat gear.
At this moment Peter must have activated signal jamming because both our men and the vessels hesitated as horrible scratching noise flowed from my headset.
But our men reacted faster tearing their wires our from their ears and turning to shoot stunned vessels. If we expected the vessels would stopped we were wrong, they continued with their last order. The remaining adult still melted the door to armory with its fire, the small ones have seceeded tearing into armory top floor and were now kept at bay by its defenders and fireblocking barricades Garret had made us build there. Josh dragonkiller was now buried under the dead adult clone and Joseph manning the other one have gone silent at the very beginning of the battle.
Cut off their command center vessels were finally acting rigid and stupid. After the three were down no one bothered Lieutenant Ward's small group as they fell back to the secret entrance to the armory. They supported Josh between them, but the only other way into the armory led through a trap door behind a pile of bricks and narrow ten meter tunnel from there, to make sure the enemy wouldn't use it, the tunnel was too narrow for vessels ti pass in dragon form.
The others were already inside when Lieutenant Ward's group reached the trap door. Josh stayed back when the others jumped in and Lieutenant Ward followed them giving Josh some sign. Josh sat with his weapon at the ready but as he made to shoulder his riffle and follow the others, the large vessel stopped burning the doors and crawled around the building to where Josh was sitting on the floor snd dragging his injured leg behind him as he used his hands and the other leg to get to the opening in the ground.
Vessel's instructions must have mentioned any entrance or it had more agency than its small versions because it bellowed and lunged at defenceless Josh. I must have cried out because Peter winced but said nothing. My father have already left to lead directly now that his entire forces were in one place and any remote communication was impossible.
Tears wetted my face as the huge dragon was about to tear apart the man I have admired and pined for since I was fifteen or so.
Only that the jaws never reached him, because they got intercepted by a smaller blue dragon that came at its head claws first. Josh crawled over the opening and dropped first his legs and then the rest into the darkness within.
Small blue dragon landed and a human jumped off, Garret! He looked ten years older than when he's left, his jaws clenched he shot at the adult temporarily blinded by blood running into its eyes from vicious scratches on its head, when the blue dragon shifted into the most handsome man I've ever seen and disappeared inside the doors Garret following right behind and closing the trap door behind him. I hoped they sealed it from inside so that vessels would have harder time getting in. Our Commander was back in impossibly short time, and he had a dragon with him!