AUTHOR: THANKS FOR READING. Please leave a review to help motivate me. I am also seeking a co-writer so please PM me.
The Fall of Valdin[before events of chapter 1]
Her royal highness, Queen Enola Carmeleon, was playing pollo in the castle gardens. Five of her many trusted generals, who also lived in the castle with her, were her rivals in polo. However, Enola was a master of polo, having been playing since childhood.
She saw many Corvette-class airships breaking through the clouds in the far distance and approaching Valdin, some heading directly to the castle.
"That's very strange," she said. "Get my general, Fowl, to my ear at once!"
"Your Majesty, General Fowl is still on Dreadwing Island. We have tried to reach him many times. It seems we've lost contact with him, as well as every airship that was meant to be there."
"Then what are those?!" she growled as she pointed to the three dozen airships.
Meanwhile, in one of the traffic control towers, the technicians were trying—to no avail—to reach the many airships by radio.
"To any of the approaching Corvette class airships: Your arrival was not scheduled. Please explain."
They were responded to with nothing but a very deep and static backward drivel.
One of those many ships was going full throttle towards that very same tower. It's IFF[identify friend or foe] on the radar was "VCC[Valdish combat corvette] Hog"
"TOWER TO HOG: YOU ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE. PULL UP!"
However, the airship seemed to get faster as it almost stalled in its descent towards the tower. Everybody inside started screaming and scurried down the spiral stairs.
Most, however, didn't make it to the safety of the stairs before the airship crashed and thundered through the tower, becoming stuck halfway inside. And then many undead trolls with fiery rib cages and large hanging jaws tripped out of the doors and fired their SMGs at the surviving staff killing all of them.
The queen made her way to her personal combat ship, Frigate, which was golden-colored and had many more guns than any other ship in its class. She contacted Grand Admiral Durahn of the Dreadnaught Perrywinkle. She instructed him to evacuate as many civilians from the outer towns as he could.
"The infected corvettes are landing and dropping enemies all over Valdin City. They seemed focused on our city for now. I and the rest of our fleet will fight. Because for us, Admiral...there may be no tomorrow.
Before she could even amass enough ships to be useful, almost all of Valdin City was consumed by a firestorm.
One by one, the queen managed to shoot down the infected corvettes. However, they had already delivered their deadly burden before they were shot down. The large towering structures the trolls were so proud to have built were rammed through by the infected kamikaze airships. Many armed demons and infected troll soldiers began to swarm the now-burning Valdin City. And were heading towards the outer towns.
Then, seemingly from nowhere, a large earth gollum hurled an asteroid of lava at the queen's frigate. Her captain screamed at the sight of it coming towards them out the starboard window and then screamed, "Evasive action! Full port-" he was knocked off his feet on the impact of the asteroid. WURP! WURP! the alarms blared. Eventually the fire spread across the airship, breaking it in two.
The queen just sat on her throne as her crew scurried futilely to the lifeboats. She shed a tear, and her last words to her species on the radio were, "We just weren't strong enough. Fight on, my people."
and the two pieces of frigate plummeted and joined the fiery ruins of Valdin City.
And then several destroyer-class airships broke through the clouds. Among them was Prince Zakan Carmeleon's Courageous Minge. "I have rallied the last of our great fleet," he announced. "We're trolls. WE FIGHT. WE WIN! Victory or DEATH!"
But then, a swarm of fiery wyverns surrounded the airships like a thousand hornets.
Try as they might, their canon rounds were too big, obvious, and slow to do any harm to the nimble wyverns. Only the machine guns of their swiveling ball turrets could combat them. But they barely made a dent in their numbers before their balloons were covered in the creatures, which filled them full of flaming leaks. All the destroyers were plummeting. Only the Courageous Minge remained, but was soon destroyed by two lava asteroids hurled by from the Gollum.
As his airships burned around him, Zakan wept. "I failed my species." and took out his golden revolver and shot himself in the head.
The Perrywinkle hindered the infected numbers by raining down incendiary missiles. However, it only seemed to slow the advancing enemy to buy more time for the smaller towns to evacuate. They were loosing 4 vessels every hours of ever kind; corvettes, frigates, destroyers. Only the dreadnoughts had the armor and firepower to survive...and not indefinitely either.
Before everyone knew it, only five large vessels remained: the hospital frigate Archangel, three destroyers, and the dreadnought Perrywinkle.
Grand Admiral Durahn played an orchestra over the intercom of the Perrywinkle and announced, "Sing my people! This enemy won't be the end of us."
He broke into song, and every troll aboard slowly joined in. "In the swamp, there stands a lit-tle flower fine. BOOM BOOM BOOM. And she's called. BOOM BOOM BOOM. ERIKA. Hot from a hundred thousand little bees. BOOM BOOM BOOM. Swarming round. BOOM BOOM BOOM. ERIKA. And it's like it spoke to me aloud. Are you thinking of your fiance?"
And that song gave the whole crew of the Perrywinkle the morale they needed to to evacuate the remaining civilians from the outer towns. It was clearly hopeless to evac' Valdin city at this point, as it may as well be hell itself.
The megaphones of the Perrywinkle echoed the voice of Admiral[soon to be Grand-admiral] Sammy Durahn.
"People of Gutstone. A great enemy has consumed our beloved Capitol Valdin City. It will soon do the same here. Gather your essentials, friends and loved ones. Board the rescue airships with haste. Your houses are THINGS. They can be replaced."
The Perrywinkle dreadnought could not possibly land anywhere near the towns. Therefore, many corvettes were dispatched from it to extract the civilians. The Perrywinkle was a mothership with 100 docking bays all over its two gondolas, one above its balloon upside down and one below.
Each bay was the repairing and refueling bay of five Corvette-class airships and two Frigates. And some were dedicated to one destroyer-class airship each as they are second largest craft ever built.
However, in this situation, only corvettes could land in the towns to extract what remains of their people. When all was said and done...out of the 100 thousand Valdish...just over 10 thousand survived...including military...Their royalty was dead...their home was merely glass and char. Their homes were now their airships.
There was only one threat the trolls had not seen yet...because it was microscopic.
Chapter 3.1 SWAVID 20
24 hours later.
Conditions were barely livable for the Valdish trolls aboard the remaining airships. They slept in every room aboard imaginable-barring the bridge and officers quarters-on the floor with a pillow and blanket if they were lucky. Complete strangers had to snuggle for warmth sometimes. But even this wouldn't be so bad...were it not for the disease that floats in the air among them.
Victor Fowl and Skipper were carefully treading between the sleeping citizens. Whispering considerately to each other.
"Skip' the Valkyrie's upgrades are going smoothly. We can take off tomorrow morning if not tonight, for our scouting mission."
"What we looking for again, Vic'?"
"Hunting grounds, so we can feed our people."
"Aren't they building farming frigates? Like floating farms?"
"Yeah, skip'. But they wont be done for another two weeks and we need to capture animals to breed anyway."
Ahead of them, in their path, an old male started coughing uncontrollably. he leaned forward on his blanket and then vomited almost strait blood on his chest. Those around him screamed and got away from. One woman screaming, "FETCH A DOCTOR! SOMEONE JUST PUKED BLOOD!"
When the doctors got to him, he had no pulse or life whatsoever. He was shrouded and dragged away to the lab. The doctor approached Fowl and asked him to see him in the morgue in 20 minutes.
"Skip', you better get back to the Valkyrie."
Skipper nodded and made haste back to their vessel.
Fowl made it to the morgue, and he was greeted by a nurse who demanded he wear a full respirator before seeing the doctor behind the curtain. "Fowl, it's good to see you...and how terrible you are here to see this."
The doctor activated a tape recorder that spun to life. He began a thorough examination of the wide-open-gutted troll.
"Commencing autopsy 1. Time: 21.04...time of death 20.35...36-year-old male. Earlier, he complained to the doctor about severe chest pain, persistent cough and diarrhea. Unknown pathogen. Designation from blood samples confirmed as...VIRUS. CODE NAME is Swamp Viral Disease 20 strain B. Cause of death: catastrophic organ failure."
He turned to Fowl and said, "Commander, his symptoms match those of thousands we've gotten in the infirmaries. This is only the front face of a very serious plague. There are two strains. A, which is airborne and kills only 3% of infected people. And B, which is bloodborne and has almost 100 percent fatalities."
"Is there a cure?" His voice became louder, as if he had a megaphone at the back of his throat. "TELL ME THERE'S A BLOODY CURE!"
We need someone immune to the virus to formulate a cure. Trolls are obviously vulnerable to both strains. Cheetahs, moles, gem cutters, and most other species are immune to the airborne strain only. Only dragons have complete immunity."
"Well, then we are extinct now, aren't we?! There is no way the dragons will ever help us after all the cruel things Enola made us do to them."
The doctor raised his index finger. "Unless, we prove we are deserving of the help."
Grand Admiral Durahn presented himself through the door behind the doctor. Fowl saluted him and said, "Grand Admiral, what a surprise."
Admiral Durahn didn't hesitate to say, "We are going to help the dragon kingdoms, Fowl. Only then will they see fit to help us cure this disease. Meanwhile I must alert our people to take caution." He turned to the doctor "How do we combat this plague?"
"There is no known way to avoid the airborne strain A. Strain B however is sexually transmitted. I can prepare a small speech for you, Admiral. You better tell the people."
Durahn ordered Fowl to accompany him to the flight deck of Perrywinkle so he could give him orders after he gave his speech to every troll on every ship via the intercom.
"People of the Valdish fleet,...i come to you with grave news...the biggest threat to our people is not the new enemy who burned our home...or even the people of the dragon kingdoms...but a new virus the doctors have labeled SWAVID 20 strain B. It is a bloodborne disease that is transmitted through blood and unprotected sex."
Trolls on all airships started crying and shouting among themselves "We'd be better off burning back on Valdin"
"WE'RE DOOOMED!"
"THERE AREN'T ENOUGH CONDOMS FOR EVERYONE?"
"What?! Do they want us to be celibate?"
"We have to fuck each other to rebuild our species...but if we fuck each other we can die of this plague?"
"CATCH 22!"
Durahn continued over them "We've had over 500 deaths in the past 4 days: that is the crew capacity of a frigate airship. The doctors suggest that you only have one safe partner or always use condoms. A cure for this virus is already underway. We should have a cure very soon."
The doctor and Fowl were flabbergasted by the fib the Grand Admiral just told his whole species. "Admiral," said the doctor "We are nowhere near a cure for this disease. Why would you say such-"
"I DIDN'T HAVE THE HEART TO TELL THEM!" he shouted "What was I meant to say? 'WE'RE ALL DOOMED?!"
The commander, Fowl, and the doctor looked at each other and then realized Durahn made a very good point. "I understand," said Fowl. "Do you have any further orders for me?"
"Yes, Fowl. I've assigned another crew to look for food and fauna for our new farming frigates. I have a more grander mission for you. The closest dragon realm to us right now is Magic Crafters. And even that is over 500 kilometers away. If they are anywhere near as unlucky as us, they will be the next place this new enemy will hit. And by the way, commander, we have code named this new enemy...The Mortis. I want you take as many spec ops soldiers and ammunition as you can fit in the Valkyrie and make contact the residents of Magic Crafters. The Perrywinkle uses far too much fuel and we haven't set up a refinery yet. So the rest of the fleet...and the remainder" He sniffled in sadness "Of our people will stay here."
Commander Fowl took a bow "It will be done, Admiral."
When the Commander returned to the bay where his airship-among many others-was kept, he saw dead bodies tightly wrapped in bed sheets and yarn neatly lines up like rows of laying soldiers near the edge of the wide open bay door.
Tearful men in yellow masks lined with the extracted oils of flowers and goggles hurled them overboard after a priestess sprinkled them with holy water.
Fowl almost didn't notice and little troll girl twirling slowly behind the men. Her voice almost didn't sound real, but rather like she was in a cave, as she sang "Ring around the rosey...pocket full of posies...ashes...ashes...we all fall down."
"Little girl," cried out fowl "it's too dangerous to be in here with the airships!"
But his cries of concern fell on deaf ears and the little...evaporated into smoke.
"I must be going mad," Fowl whispered to himself.
CHAPTER 3.2 Rescuing Magic Crafters
And so Fowl loaded his newly upgraded airship with as many troops as would fit—a whopping 200 soldiers for his corvette-class airship, which's the 2nd smallest ever made, after gunboats. And they set out for the many-hour flight to Magic Crafters. All they had at their disposal was everything and everyone they could cram aboard.
Since the Valdinian trolls had no refineries now, they must conserve their collective fuel supply obsessively. But High Speed Combat Corvettes and similar airships could get over 100 miles per gallon at cruising speed...But at combat speeds, they're lucky to get 10mpg.
Worries of dread and death filled the occupants of the whole airship. Not because of the recent destruction of their homeland or even the plague...but of how dragons would react to them.
This was especially true for the flight crew. But the commander somehow knew better.
The captain gave his commander the 'come hither' finger and asked him, "Commander, how do we know the dragons of Magic Crafters won't just kill us for being trolls?"
Fowl let out a few wheezy laughs at his captain's drama. "Because Dragons aren't specieist, Skipper. Only trolls are specieist. So we have to be nice and prove that most of us aren't...at least not anymore."
This feeling went on and on through the early morning darkness as the Valkyrie broke through the clouds to gain altitude to the floating isles of Magic Crafters.
But by daybreak, they could see floating islands as tiny rocks in the distance with heavenly light shining upon them.
This bomboozled the whole flight crew as well as anyone on deck who could see.
"They should have sent a poet," giggled Skipper on the captain's throne in amazement. "Its beautiful."
However, as they got closer, they could see, in addition to a few dozen dragons flying about, large red and white bi-pyramid-shaped flying machines. They were covered in skulls of many kinds, framed with bones, and walled with what seemed to be flesh. They were firing flaming asteroids out of the jaws of large skeletal faces on each side of the machine. These asteroids were slowly chipping away at the Dragon Islands in the sky.
The Jaws of the pilots hung in fear "WHAT IS THAT THING?!"
"LOOK AT THE SIZE OF IT!"
"Cut the chatter," ordered the captain. "Line us up for a shot and fire two torpedoes!"
"Roger, Skipper," obliged the pilot.
So the pilots lined up and launched two high explosive torpedoes which screamed through the air and burst upon the flying fortress of death. However it seemed to merely chip and scratch its surface.
"It's no use," cried the pilots at once.
"It must have a weak point...EVERYTHING DOES!" shouted the captain.
Victor Fowl notices a large opening in the literal jaws of the flying machine when it is firing. "Captain...I have an idea. Aim into the open mouths of those skulls with the mini gun."
"Roger!" the pilots read their minds and circled back to line up the mini guns with the jaws of skeletal faces upon the flying machines. And when it fired an asteroid its mouth was full of exploding rounds. Bright lights hisses from the cracks now formed in the flying machine and it soon exploded in a mushroom cloud.
The shock wave caused the many dragons to spin out and they barely recovered their flight. Even the Valkyrie was pushed sideways by the shock wave.
Fowl Cheered with his fists in the air and the whole flight crew joined him. The pilots as well as Skipper and Fowl high fived. But Fowl was the first to snap back to reality and declared, "We must tell the dragons! They can help us take out the Death Fortresses. Skip', bring us close to the dragons but try not to intimidate them."
As Valkyrie approached, the many dragons of every kind hovered in confusion as to why a troll airships was helping them. Valkyrie came to a still hover before them.
Fowl activated the forward facing megaphones and took the mouthpiece to his lips, "Hail, dragons, and take heed. This is the Corvette Valkyrie. We share an enemy and wish to help...believe it or not. Please don't hurt our troops who will drop soon because they will clear your buildings of enemy foot soldiers. The flying death machines weak point is their open mouths! We hope you we can work together and bring this new enemy to justice. WE FIGHT! WE WIN!"
The dragons fly towards and then past the Valkyrie on every side of it, frightening the flight crew.
The pilot panicked and flicked several switches and grasped his joystick eagerly "Locking rear and side turrets!"
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" screamed Fowl "THEY MUST BE FRIENDLY! Otherwise they could have set us alight by now."
And when one of the many dragons flew alongside the flight deck window and gave them a smile and a hearty nod, Fowl his gamble paid off.
The many dragons overtook the Valkyrie and launched their Earth, Ice and fire projectiles into the flying machine jaws as they opened and it exploded into two pieces, which the Valkyrie banked to just barely avoid. The whole crew laughed in triumph.
The captain remarked that several enemy creatures were pouring forth from a large golden building on the largest floating isle. It was time to drop the troops.
Valkyrie faced the building and the miniguns took out as many as they could to make a relatively safe LZ[landing zone] for the troops. The stomach bay of Valkyrie whined downward and 50 soldiers, 10 being spec op, charged with a mighty roar.
The spec ops had the most advanced SMGs ever made, with tactical scopes, a fire rate of 700rpm, and a single shot, 4-burst or full auto setting. They also had the best armor made from plates of thick steel, sheets of Kevlar and chain mail.
The normal soldiers however only had the most cheapest, simplest bolt action rifles as well as their swords, and not a single piece of armor. They didn't even have proper 9mm rifle ammo and instead had to use pistol ammo as an additional disadvantage. But that didn't stop them.
The Mortis soldiers and undead trolls controlled by them hadn't a hope as they flooded into the building killing all in their path...save for dragons of course...not because of the sudden peace treaty, but because there were none inside. There were only a handful of dead ones. And once they got the foyer, they froze in shock at what saw.
In the very center, between the trolls and the stairs, was an archway made from bones, flesh and the saddened faces of the deceased. A screaming void of fear and fire within it.
One of the spec ops radioed in to the Commander, "Sir we found the source of the Mortis foot soldiers." He was interrupted by his comrades shooting the many enemies that were still being spawned by the archway and screamed, "ITS A LARGE PORTAL OF SOME KIND! SHOULD THE COMBAT ENGINEERS BREAK OUT THE BOMBS?"
"...No they should start a teat party. OF COURSE THEY SHOULD! Clear the building by any means necessary, minimize civilian casualties and rendezvous back at the LZ for extraction."
"Roger." He hung up and ordered "CEs, We'll cover you while you plant two bombs on that thing!"
And so the many soldiers formed what trolls like to call the bullet wall. A row of soldiers standing and a row in the middle kneeling, and some at the very front crawling for maximum visibility and clearance. The CEs did their best to focus on planting their high yield bombs on the portal. This took an excruciating 45 seconds of combat.
But after the floors was lined with corpses[thankfully none of their own] the CEs gave each other a thumbs up and they counted from 5 with their hands so they armed their bombs roughly at once. When they did, they scampered and tripped over the many corpses to their comrades and waved their arms to signal the bombs were armed. They had a mere 15 seconds to evacuate. But most of them got out of the blast radius entirely but some leaped through the doorway and the shock wave three them through the air. They were bruises and sore...but it was worth it.
They cheered with their rifles in the air. They began to sing in victory "IN the swamp there bloom a little flower fine...and she's called...Erika...Hot from a hundred thousand little bees...swarming 'round...Erika."
They couldn't finish their song, because the dragons and the Valkyrie had cleared the skies of seemingly every enemy they could find. And trolls were terrified when the dragons strategically landed all around them. Even 50 armed trolls however had a slim chance against a dozen dragons of Ice, Electricity, Fire And Earth. They dropped their guns and raised their hands. The only Electric dragon among them stepped forward and said, "Why, this is horrible, horrendous, a calamity, a cataclysm. You trolls have much to explain."
One of the spec ops said "Hold on now, dragon," as calmly as he could "Commander Fowl aboard the Valkyrie can explain it better than we can."
One sad soldier hesitated before saying, "Great dragon," as he limped forward from the crowd. "These creatures...destroyed our homeland, great dragon. We are homeless...hungry...few...and all we have is airships, guns, and each other."
The dragon bowed "I am so sorry for intimidating you." He signals to the other dragons to back up and give the trolls some space "You may pick up your guns."
"Great dragon," continued the spec ops "What is your name?"
"Volteer."
"Thank you so much for NOT incinerating us, Volteer. The Valkyrie will pick us up soon and the commander can you give the full story."
AUTHOR: THANKS FOR READING. Please leave a review to help motivate me. I am also seeking a co-writer so please PM me.