Garret
Only the vision of Tristan and Madison dying, scorched and mawed to death by soulless gray clones with empty white eyes, made me able to leave Ember's side. And as I clung to Riley's neck I played our brief meeting over and over in my head. Ember was so pale and wan... and then she fainted. She was clearly unwell, she looked small and vulnerable surrounded by Talon's executives. But there was will of steel in her threat. She never wished to see me again. I felt like I could just as well die now if so. Was this because of Madison? This was a stupid move of me, now I could see how I have antagonised half a dozen people with one hookup. Madison ended up getting hurt and I couldn't accept Ember believing that another have taken her place in my heart!
I almost asked Riley to turn around when everything blurred and suddenly we were circling the western chapterhouse. A bunch of smaller vessels swarmed the top of the armory, but it looked like they were not advancing.
An adult vessel was threatening a small group of soldiers, and as we circled lower I saw, that they were led by Lieutenant Ward. The men reached armory's backdoor, and Josh stayed behind holding the vessel off as the others climbed down the trapdoor. Soon he was alone and the vessel was advancing on him. Riley swooped down leaving vicious slashes on the surprised adult's head.
Josh fled and we landed using vessel's confusion to get to the doors. I shot it, bullets were deflected by its thick scales, but it gave me time to back into the tunnel and close the trapdoor.
I followed Riley through the narrow tunnel into the armory, where we closed and sealed massive cast iron trap door.
I did what I could to steel my heart znd not worry about Ember, when I faced Commander Knight, Lieutenant Ward and the men, who just escaped the adult vessel. This was not good.
I nodded to Commander Knight before he could recover. "Report" I said.
If the command stung, he didn't let it on. He filled me in starting with the current situation. I interrupted him after few sentences. "Where is Lieutenant St Anthony?" I couldn't see Tristan anywhere and the dread of losing him, because of Ember shook me fully awake from worrying about her.
"He is off with a dragon Stealth. They went out to deter approaching enemies and got stalled themselves..." Knight answered and Riley cursed nastily even for him. I looked at him and he said "Stealth is a viper, a ruthless killer, this could be Talon's ruse!". I nodded but dismissed his reservations. Tristan trusted Stealth and he was no fool.
"I guess I need to hear it all from the beginning" I adressed Commander Knight again. "Quickly." I added as we were interrupted by loud screeching coming from upstairs. Lieutenant Ward hurried up the stairs and I trusted him to lead best at the moment. When killing dragons was on the agenda only I was better than him really. Or he was better at planning and leading a coordinated attack, while I was just good at execution of the part of the plan, where the dragon finally died... Bitter thoughts like this wouldn't help, I needed to focus!

Situation was grave. More than fifteen small vessels were heroically held off by our men in a maze of concrete barriers set up upstairs. An adult vessel have digged into the "back door" tunnel and were now working the iron trapdoor alternately heating it up with its fire and pounding at it with its head. Tristan has been gone for hours with Stealth. And two of our dragonkiller guns were lost too. One buried under a dead adult clone and the other gone with Joseph, who haven't been heard from since the beginning of the battle. All communication was jammed, Madison's idea, that I'd better remember to praise her for. Even though I hated talking to her. Mix of guilt and anger made it hard to look into her green eyes. But I needed to take care of my people and she was one of them now.
Men were injured. Building was slowly taking damage. We needed to finish this quickly or perish, once our defences are destroyed by unyielding attack of the clones. I needed a plan. I directed my steps to our tech-room, where Lieutenant Mitchell and Madison looked tense and worried.
"Mitchell, I need you to free some frequencies." I started. "Try to reach St Anthony and Stealth, we could use their help. Also make us able to communicate with each other again, and give me and Riley a wire." He nodded and I turned to Knight, "Things seem to work fine upstairs, but if we don't stop the adult, it may soon leave us open to attack from below." I told him my plan, there was no time to wait for answer from Tristan and Stealth, they could be dead for all we knew. Madison soon approached us and helped me with the wire. Seeing her there, with broken nails and sunken spirits, made me even more worried, and guilty. There was no way I would let this go badly. She would get out of here alive and so would the rest of us. Go time.

"Are you ready for the last stand, St George?" Riley asked quietly as we've reached the top of the stairs where Lieutenant Ward lead his men with impressive effectiveness. Basically the downstairs were turned into bunker without windows and with triple reinforced concrete walls. Upstairs was a maze of walls, some left of the rooms that previously were there, but most put up by us last month. There were numerous narrow holes in the outer walls, that one could shoot through, and every now and then one were forced to squeeze through a narrow opening in the wall, if they wanted to move around the floor. All this converged around a staircase in the middle of the floor, with only two openings leading into the maze from there. Right now vessels were stalled in a small area, where they managed to make a hole in the wall, that were thinner upstairs for that exact reason. They got men to retreat a couple of "holes", by blowing fire from sn angle, that left most of their body out of line of shot, then when soldiers were forced to pause shooting to back down from raging inferno, other vessels jumped in in human form, shifted and breathed fire forcing the men to retreat behind another bottleneck. Somehow the vessels managed to only take minor flesh wounds, and had this advantage of not caring about them, that our troops couldn't afford.
We crept through a narrow passage on the other side of the landing, to where one of the soldiers, Archie held small shooting post by himself. The opening was just too small for anybody to crawl through but the wall was of bricks here, as it was one of the original windows, that was made smaller recently. With his help we soon made a hole just large enough for me and Riley to push through legs first. Riley went first, then I pushed my legs out through the hole holding my riffle in outstretched hands.
I pushed myself free and dropped to the ground rolling to the side with my rifle close to my chest as I landed. "Like a potato." Riley snorted. Just as we hoped vessels concentrated their efforts around the hole, they've managed to punch through the wall on the other side of the building. The adult was just around the corner but with its head stuck in the tunnel and blowing fire at the trapdoor, we hoped we could sneak away unnoticed.
We started towards a building nearby, where we hoped to find Joseph's dragonkiller. I couldn't get myself to think about Joseph and what it meant, if he was dead. The other gun was buried under enormous adult vessel's dead corpse and way too close to his very alive clone, head in the tunnel or not.
We reached the wall without being disturbed and I took in the armory. The walls were full of shallow holes where vessels tried to get in before they discovered the "easier" way in. Upstairs walls were cracked in many spots, there was no way we could weather more attacks here.
But I couldn't think about it yet, we had more pressing issues.
We crept around the building and saw the gaping hole, where the window, that was Joseph's post used to be. It was shattered but there was no sign of anybody, no sound, no movement as far as we could see. Riley signalled to me, that he was going to look, he grabbed the edge of the window and slowly pulled himself up to peer in and then quickly stretched his arms again hanging out of sight of anyone inside. "It's clear" He said to me and crawled up to straddle the sill this time. "This doesn't look good though." He said looking at something inside. I quickly climbed up behind him.
Inside it was a soldiers quarter, one of many that now stood empty. Turned over bed and deep slashes on the linoleum floor indicated recent fight. A small headset lied by the door. Riley was already at the doors, gun by his chin taking a look at the corridor, with his other hand he showed me to follow him.
We slowly passed a couple of doors only finding empty rooms behind them, when Riley stopped by another open door. He peered carefully into the room behind them and then stepped inside, I followed him and saw a gray scaly shape lying on the floor. I quickly aimed my rifle at it but it didn't move and I noticed blood pooled on the other side of it. Few steps from it, in another puddle of blood, lied another hatchling vessel with the upper body of Joseph sticking out from under it. The dragonkiller lied beside him and he was gripping an M4 in his hands. Riley nudged the vessel with his foot, but it was dead.
I quickly squatted beside Joseph's head and touched his throat searching for pulse, when his eyes shot open.
"Sebastian?" He rasped. "It fell on me when I shot it down... I think my leg is broken... I cannot get free."
"Shit." I heard Riley beside me. But I was so relieved I could cry. If Joseph was alive, that meant, no death casualty on our side. It meant, that Ember could still be redeemed. I felt, that I still could save her, however stupid it sounded. "Help me lift it." I asked Riley and together we pushed the vessel off Joseph. It was harder, than expected to lift four hundred pounds of slippery dead weight, and the soldier grunted a couple of times.
His leg was broken. "There's no time for that." Riley hissed at me. "That's fine." Joseph rasped. "Just put me there" he pointed to the corner next to the doors. Riley went out and came back with a mattress, that we carefully lifted Joseph onto. We tried not to move his leg, but circumstances were far from ideal and I admired him for not fainting in the process. At last he was seated on the mattress with his broken leg outstretched in front of him and we dragged him into the corner, back first.
"We'll come back for you as soon as we can." I promised handing him his wire and my water bottle. "I'll be fine." He said, adjusting his back against the wall and placing his rifle beside his good leg. "Go now."
I took the dragonkiller and called the armory. "We have it, any changes outside?"
"Everything as before." Came Madison's grave voice. "Joseph has been injured but he is alive. Needs a rescue." I added in case I was about to walk into my own death before we could help him. "Any word of St Anthony?" I asked though had little hope. "We cannot get through to them." She answered tiredly. This was too much for her, I understood that. I was younger than her, but this was my normal life. She was seeing a battle for the first time, caught in the middle of it, with not the best odds. I felt sad for both of us, but I needed to move, if we were ever to get a chance for something better. Window in the room faced away from the armory, so we decided to exit through it.

Outside the afternoon sun made the landscape look unreal. Yesterday I walked by here with Tristan leaving him instructions for the time of my absence. Now most buildings showed new damage, from vessels and our own booby traps.
We skirted the building to where we could see the adult vessel. It has reportedly been shot but seemed to be in good shape still... or again. No reason to think, that my father wouldn't equip his creations with augmented dragon regeneration skills. The thought of the man, who was the cause of all this made my stomach clench. Without him none of this would have happened. Night of Fang and Fire, destruction of the Order of St George and Ember... How odd that he should have made her, in some strange way we were almost siblings. I felt my thoughts losing clarity and forced myself to focus.
The adult vessel have managed to completely collapse the short tunnel and now had free way to pound the foundation of the building with its shoulder, trying to make it crack. It was made of steel and concrete, how strong exactly was this... creature?
Other question was how much autonomy it had. The smaller vessels have reportedly not changed their activity since the communication was jammed. But the adult moved from the front doors, to attack approaching men, to now work on another door... Were it's order just to get in? How creative would it be if I wasn't able to kill it with one shot? I was not accustomed with the weapon and I wasn't a sniper. Josh have repeatedly failed to shoot it to death, and he had sniper training...
Slowly, I laid down and aimed the dragonkiller at vessel's side, arm's length behind its front leg. Waiting for my breath to calm I familiarised myself with the movement of it's body as it hit its shoulder against the foundation of the armory.
As I pulled the trigger the vessel suddenly backed and turned to look in our direction. Riley cursed as the round hit it in the back instead, taking out a large chunk of flesh, which the clone didn't seem to notice as it lurched towards us. I was already recharging the cumbersome rifle and Riley flew up at vessel's head trying to catch its attention, but got complete ignored by it. The monster avoided Riley's attacks but didn't even try to swat him away as it run toward me. In the end Riley landed beside me spreading his wing over me and screeching a challenge, with the adult only feet away. "Move or I can't see!" I shouted at him. "It's going to breath fire!" Riley answered, covering me with his other wing as scorching flames engulfed us sucking the air out from my lungs. I wasn't wearing my combat gear and quickly come to feel discomfort, even shielded by Riley's fireproof wings.
The fire stopped as abruptly as it started and Riley first lifted his head to look and then opened his wings showing an enormous black dragon her jaws closed around the nape of the vessel's neck. As I watched, she shook her head violently snapping vessel's spine with a nasty crack. Gray body went limp and the black dragon dropped it to the ground and crouched.
"You better get off now Lieutenant." She said and I saw Tristan sitting astride her shoulders holding on to large spikes arming her spine.
He swang his leg over the spikes and slid down her side, but his movements were stiff and he almost fell, when his feet hit the ground.
"Hypoxia." The dragon said shifting into a woman a long black plait. Black viper suit hugged her slender body and her black eyes shone brightly. "He couldn't breath for a moment when a vessel breathed fire into a tunnel he was hiding in. He was out for no more than a minute." She added looking at Riley who was still in his dragon form. "Cobalt. Long time." She smiled prettily, but the blue dragon only narrowed golden eyes.
"I'm Garret, Commander of the Order of St George. Thank you for your help." I adressed her before Riley did something stupid. "Oh, I'm not done." She said and gestured at my M4 now lying on the ground where Riley shifted, when the adult vessel spotted us. I nodded and she let go of Tristan and picked it up swiftly. "Take care of him." She said as she run towards the armory. Tristan just stood there looking impassive, and I decided to take him back to where we left Joseph. There they could wait until the fighting was over.