Chapter 63
"Doctor Pascal, is that you?" Blue asked the darkness.
"Yes; hello Blue... um... is it safe to come out?"
"Of course it is... oh... you mean the dragons; don't worry, they won't hurt you."
"They didn't do that guard much good" Willow Pascal said as she stepped into the light.
"Oh they only attack when we tell them too" Calla waved off her concern "so the Terrors won't attack you unless ordered... plus he had a gun and the dragons don't like guns."
"Dragons... I-I don't believe it... DeGroot wasn't crazy after all."
"Nope... well to be truthful, I still think he is... just a bit" Calla admitted.
Blue noticed the deck guards as they wandered up to shore, so he and Calla took their dragons out to the beach and used fear to herd the men back inside the tanker, while taking their unconscious friend with them. Once they were tied up, Blue and Speedy fetched their rifles from the deck where they had been dropped, leaving all three weapons with Willow Pascal as she oversaw their first prisoners.
"Should we enter through the door at the back of the main deck, or sneak inside from here?" Calla asked.
"Neither; follow me" Blue replied.
Soon Windstorm and Speedy were winging their way along the port side of the ship, just above the water. They were so far below the ships railing that nobody could see them unless they had their head out over the side. After banking around the stern, the two riders pulled back on the reins, bringing their dragons up into a short vertical climb before landing on the helipad at the rear of the superstructure. Little did they know that on the observation deck below them, resting in a hammock with a good book, ten year old Saffron Hikaru Dias had just seen two fast moving blurs flash past her and land with a dull thud.
"Whoa... was that a Nadder?" she asked herself as she dropped to the ground and ran up the steps.
As her head popped up above the stairwell, she took in the sight before her and smiled broadly.
"Far out, it is a Nadder... a female one... AND A NIGHT FURY TOO!"
All eyes turned to the excited young girl as she ran up the stairs and over to the dragons.
"Blue, Calla... you're back" she excitedly stated the obvious "Where did you find the dragons?"
"H-how did you know about the dragons?" Blue asked, quite stunned.
"From your book silly; the Book of Gothi. Did you find the Vision Cave too?
"You know about the Vision Cave?" Calla gasped.
"Oh that's right, you hadn't translated that far yet" Saffron smiled proudly "I used your notes to teach myself how to read Berkian runes and continued your work; there was precious little else to do around here once Sage took over the complex."
"Saffy, you are brilliant" Blue grinned proudly.
"Yes I am" she agreed.
"Okay you stay here with Speedy and Windstorm while Calla and I take Firefly and Daisy to disarm the last of the guards."
"Wow, you've got Terrible Terrors too?" Saffron gasped as she saw the smaller dragons drop down from where they were perched n the larger dragon's saddles.
"Wait till you see the rest of the team" Calla smirked "Back soon."
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"I swear General, we were doing everything you wanted us to" Sarah Spencer tried to speak clearly, even though Sage's arm was pressing on her throat.
"You didn't tell me there was another vessel out there" Sage hissed.
"You only wanted the MTV and supplies for the journey to Mars" April interjected "And you've got everything you've asked for."
Sage pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at April's head. All the technicians leapt to their feet but Sage's men kept them covered with their rifles.
"I want that space station, and I want it immediately" he growled, finger lightly touching the trigger of his pistol.
"Anything we have, we'll gladly give you, but Deimos doesn't belong to us and that's why we never mentioned it; because we knew you'd want it, and we knew it would be impossible for us to get it for you" April begged.
"So who does have it?"
"There are about twenty people from the Mars Colony out there building it" Sarah continued "They've been working on it since they left Mars, but it's nowhere near being ready to handle the number of people you want to take back. The only reason they moved it here was so we could supply them with food and other essentials. In the long run it will become a vessel for transporting large numbers of people out to new colonies."
The look on Sage's face showed mix of confusion and anger. How could anything of this magnitude have been done without his knowledge? He thought for a moment about what projects were underway on Mars before he left. Most effort had been poured into Base One expansion and the continued construction of Base Two. But there had been a few small teams working on expanding back into space in the long term, so if priorities had changed after the overthrow of the Deep Council, then what he saw was indeed possible.
"The ion thrusters used on the MTV would not be able to move something with the mass of Deimos to Earth orbit in such a short amount of time... therefore it must have nuclear thermal propulsion. And the only place they could have sourced parts for rocket motors like that... would be..."
The look of confusion changed to one of realisation.
"...from you" Sage growled.
There was an audible gulp as Sarah nervously swallowed.
"Listen very closely Spencer, I have absolutely no reason to believe anything you tell me right now, but it is an outside possibility, so this is what we are going to do. You will make contact with Deimos, and tell them I will execute one of your people every hour until they agree to dock with the MTV and allow me complete access to their station; your time starts now."
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On the outside of the complex, word of Sage's wrath had not yet become known. So the guards at the main entrance still just stood around looking particularly bored, unaware they were being watched by both humans and dragons; while back inside, a lady named Sue was walking casually about causing trouble.
"Hey... come here" she quietly called some of her colleagues.
Sue beckoned them to an empty room to tell them her secret message.
"We all know Sage and his goons are leaving today, but signs are pointing to possible trouble. It is very important that we get the word to everyone without letting any of the enemy know what I'm about to tell you. If you hear anyone call out the code word, get down on the floor, hide behind something, anything but stand in the open and get shot; is that clear?"
"Sure but what's the code word?" one asked.
"Dragons" Sue replied.
"Why Dragons?" another wondered.
"Why not?" everyone was asking the same question "It had to be something we don't normally shout out, and Dragons was what was chosen. Now stop being a pain in the butt and pass it on... carefully"
"Sorry Sue" the first one said as they walked off.
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Not far away, Speedy and Windstorm flew in so low, the tips of their claws were brushing the tops of some trees while Haley and the rest of the riders kept their important vigil.
"Hey, who rides this little spud?" Shifty asked about the Gronkle in his usual annoying way.
"He hasn't got a rider yet; now be quiet" Haley whispered angrily.
"Can I have him?"
"NO!" Abigail and Haley both quietly yelled.
"What's his name anyway?"
"He hasn't got a name Shifty, and if you don't shut up..."
"Okay, okay, I get the message" he finally resigned himself.
Although Haley had told Shifty to be silent, she hadn't told him to leave the Gronckle alone so he continued to pet the creature and scratch its chin.
"Hey everybody, how's it going?" Blue asked as he, Calla and Saffron snuck up to be with the rest of the riders.
"Not much happening here; how'd thing go at the ship?" Haley asked.
"The first three were a slight problem but as for the second three, we just stole their rifles while they slept and locked 'em in their cabins. Doctor Pascal and the other Techs on board have got everything under control."
Taking a pair of binoculars offered by Haley, Blue studied the situation at the entrance while Saffron shuffled over to her sister.
"Hey Abby, which dragon is yours?" she asked quietly
"That one" Abigail pointed to Lucy and Ricky as they did their best to keep low.
"Ah the Zippleback" Saffron nodded "It can be difficult to get the two heads to co-operate sometimes."
"How does she know so much about Zipplebacks?" Abigail asked.
"Saffy knows some things even I don't know" Blue replied "Okay this is how we're gonna proceed."
Giving the Binoculars back to Haley, Blue gathered the Dragon Rider in a circle to lay out the plan.
"Haley, you and Boris go down the main trunk tunnel with Lucy, Ricky and the Gronkle. Use your Terrors to disarm raiders in the side passages while the big dragons take control sector by sector. Each time you clear a section, try to lock as many raiders as you can in storerooms or anything else you can find, and give any undamaged weapons to railgun personnel, assuming they don't all just run away from the dragons. Calla takes the left passage and I will take right; and then we'll just keep pushing through to the railgun staging area. Once we're there, we'll turn back doing a more careful sweep of every room. Once the raiders have seen the dragons, I'm hoping most of them will panic and run for the entrance so we'll only have to clean up what's left."
"Don't you think we should wait first?" Haley disagreed "Some of the raiders have already gone off to space and the others may leave with Sage soon enough."
"Waiting is not an option" Abigail insisted "Sage is a real hothead so if Mom thought she should get Rose out, then my guess is she needs us; they all need us."
"Anything you want me to do?" Saffron checked.
"Yes please; once we've cleared the way, you and Shifty move in closer to the entrance and grab any of the railgun personnel you see come running out. Try to explain that the dragons are on our side and try to get them to go back in and help. We have always outnumbered the raiders so once they're disarmed, our people should have no trouble retaking the base."
"But I wanted to go with you" Shifty protested.
"Sorry Shifty, experienced dragon riders only" Haley shook her head.
"Precisely" Blue agreed "Any more questions?"
"Yeah; why does the little spud have a saddle if no one is gonna ride him?" Shifty moaned.
"Then if there are no genuine questions..." Blue looked around at everyone "...right, let's go."
"I thought my question was genuine" Shifty grumbled.
The Dragon Riders started prepping their flying steeds for battle by removing saddlebags to reduce weight and shortening stirrup straps for a less relaxed and more purposeful ride. Calla removed her axe from its scabbard, but kept its leather blade guard in place; she wanted to beat the raiders, not decapitate them.
Then they all moved further back into the undergrowth, mounted up and took to the air, still flying away from the tunnel entrance. Only Saffron saw the extra rider when Shifty followed the others and jumped onto the Gronckles saddle just before he left the ground.
"Okay everyone, count to five and then follow us in" Blue ordered "let's go Calla."
Speedy and Windstorm pulled back and flew straight up before turning over at the apex of their climb and diving back down. They then flew straight at the railgun entrance at very high speed.
"Hey... what's that noise?" one of the gate guards asked the other when he heard a distinct whine growing rapidly in pitch and volume.
The two men's eyes almost popped out of their skulls when a pair of dragons appeared over the trees and shot fireballs at them. The weaponised projectiles struck the sand in front of the men with explosive force, temporarily blinding them and knocking them backwards several meters before both dragons disappeared into the tunnel.
Before the dust and sand had even settled, Saffron burst from her hiding place and sprinted across the road, grabbing one fallen rifle before running to the get the other on. Just then, three more large dragons flew in behind the vanguard.
"DAMN YOU SHIFTY, A TEN YEAR OLD GIRL SHOULD NOT BE LEFT TO DO THIS ALONE!" Saffron called out as the Gronckle flew by. She doubted he heard everything she said, but shouting made her feel better.
At the bottom of the tunnel, Calla and Blue encountered a number of Sage's guards in the main vehicle holding area. A well placed spine shot from Windstorm disarmed the nearest one, who was then knocked onto his back by Speedy's wing draught. The gaze of the remaining guards followed the black dragon as he flew overhead, meaning they did not see the young man who had leapt off the Night Fury and knocked a second raider to the ground with a knee to his back.
The remaining three quickly turned back, intending to train their weapons on Blue but they were far too slow. The first two firearms were deflected and sent spinning away by Blue's fast moving rapier, while the last man standing was hit in the chest by the tail of a Nadder and sent flying back against the wall.
"Good job Calla; I'll see you soon" Blue waved as he, Firefly and Speedy made for the right side passage.
"Be careful Babe" Calla called out.
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Tensions were more than high in the control room where Sage was still fuming over what he considered to be the worst double cross since the Mars Deep Council had allowed an attempt on his life to go ahead.
"I hope you understand Dias that if you fail to cooperate, there is a one in six chance that the first person to die will be your wife" Sage barked into the microphone.
"We're doing what you want Sage, it just takes time" Luis's voice came back over the radio.
"Time is one thing you don't have" Sage fumed "You know I don't like being lied to."
"Nobody lied to you; you demanded the MTV, but you never insisted I should remain on board."
"I lie of omission is still a lie" Sage growled "NOW GET THAT STATION DOCKED TO THE MTV."
"Deimos is over twelve kilometers across, something of that mass doesn't move quickly."
"Then take the MTV to Deimos" Sage barked.
"But your people are starting their docking manoeuvres. Did you want me to abandon them?"
Sage was fully aware the guards in the room had both friends and family inside the three capsules moving towards the MTV, and they would not be happy if he did leave them drifting in space to fend for themselves. One thing was becoming quite clear to Sage; what he had demanded was impossible, but he did not want to appear weak by giving any concessions. He had almost decided to keep pushing Dias while carrying out his threatened executions, when he suddenly realised the noise he had barely noticed on the other side of the door, was steadily growing louder and more urgent.
"Five minutes till the first person dies Dias!" Sage sneered before dropping the microphone.
The guards and the people they held at gunpoint were all starting to feel nervous about all the screaming coming from outside the door, and even Sage wondered if he was doing the right thing when he stormed over and flung it open."
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT HERE?" he barked, but the guards he had left outside the door were no longer there.
Instead he saw several people running in fear down the corridor with many more of them further down at the main passageway. On the floor he noticed the twin barrels of a shotgun with the stock and other small pieces scattered not far away. He wanted answers and he wanted them now, so he grabbed one of the technicians rushing passed and shook him violently.
"I said... what the hell is going on?" he repeated through clenched teeth.
"LET ME GO, DRAGONS!" the frightened man replied before breaking free and running off.
"Oh I don't need this crap" Sage fumed as he made his way towards the main passageway, sidearm in his hand.
As both technicians and raiders ran in the opposite direction, Sage marched with determination towards whatever trouble was ahead. Rounding the corner, the self proclaimed general found himself only a few meters from a massive red dragon.
"AAAARGH" he screamed in terror, firing his pistol at the beast.
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After lunch today, I decided to have a short nap of 15 to 20 minutes. Instead I lay down for 2 hours as ideas flooded my head about what to put in the next story. This means I'll start working on it as soon as the last chapter of this one goes out, and you'll hopefully see some of it before Christmas... or should I say Snoggletog? ;D
Hope you are all well and I'll see you soon.
Marty.