Operation: Phoenix: Rainy Night In Georgia by J. FoxGlov, foxglov@ksu.edu "Test. Test. Y'got yer ears on, good buddy?" Hamster sighed as he glided lazily across the landscape. "Yes, Admiral, the connection's still working. It has been ever since we left headquarters." A chuckle replied from the earphone in his headset communicator. "OK, Hamster, just checking." A pause. "You can tell I'm bored. I'll admit it." Hamster rolled his eyes, and nodded unconsciously as he flew in silence. Fifty feet below him, on the ground, Admiral J. FoxGlov was jockeying a TRES Corps-designed small reconnaissance 'mech, commonly known as a WHAPASS. He had elected to use it over the faster Gambit-class cruisers, for no good reason, only his gut feelings. J sighed and replayed in his mind Hamster's questioning of the decision, how even with the WHAPASS's increased auto-walk speed that Owsen had designed, there was a long way to walk between the base and the rendezvous point in Atlanta, Georgia, that the Gambit would be faster, blah blah blah. J had simply held to his feelings, which as he thought on them in retrospect, seemed more and more unlike something he'd want to do. J shook his head as he remembered Hamster's quip: 'Maybe it's what Owsen wants.' Yeah, maybe it was. Maybe there was a real need for J to take the 'mech with him. Still, with Hamster having to pace his flight so it could keep up, it had been two days, and they had only just crossed the Georgia border. "You see anything up there yet? We should be reading something." "Why're you asking me? You're the one with the radar." J sighed again. "I know, and it's not reading anything! Owsen sounded like there was going to be a war zone down here, yet I'm getting nothing." "Chin up Admiral, something's bound to happen soon. Not like we're in any hurry to die." J scowled. "Are dragons always this morbid, or is it just you?" No answer. J knew what the thought was, given Hamster's demeanor. He seemed to actually relish the thought of plunging headlong into whatever hellhole Owsen had found in Atlanta, and had this really reckless, careless air about him over the past day and a half. J was glad Hamster's eyes were on the prize, but half-worried that maybe he'd make a mistake and end up paying for it. "All right, just...tell me if you see anything." More silence, then a brief grunt. Compliance. This was good. J looked up through the WHAPASS's large transparent front shield. A light drizzle had begun to fall, and dark clouds were gathering. Soon it would become too dark to see clearly for most. Thankfully J's night vision was still working as well as ever. J heard another grunt come over the comlink, low and complaining. The rain immediately after reached the ground, a hard, bitter cold downpour, that rolled off green scaled wings fifty feet above in torrents and made the grass glow in the dim moonlight. He shuddered within the waterproof confines of the WHAPASS. "Sorry, Hamster. Wish I could have seen this coming, buddy." More silence followed. -- [The Praetor has been located. His image is here.] The X'hirjq lieutenant stomped over to peer over at the generated image, then slowly nodded its head. [Yes. What is that...] He pointed at another registry on the lifeform scanner. [Is that a ship...no, it is not. There are not supposed to be any lifeforms on this planet that large that can fly. Is not that what the B'Harnii told?] [Perhaps the Jihad has forces unknown to its predators.] The X'hirjq lieutenant considered this, then shook its head. [We cannot be concerned with it. What is the status of the newly acquired units in that region?] [Ten are following previous commands and are en route to the city. The Praetor will have to go through them.] The lieutenant bared its serrated jawline as it pondered. From within the confines of the orbiting ship, they surveyed the entire surface of Earth. The Praetor had been found, and would not run this time. All the better way to test the Praetor's ability to defend in battle before the final crushing blow to the Jihad is dealt. [Turn them around.] -- The rain continued to beat down, and lightning occasionally struck, sending thunder rumbling across the plains. The road leading into the city was in sight, and none too soon. The rain made each step of the WHAPASS seem to last forever, and J knew it had to be longer for Hamster. Even though there wasn't much chance for a dragon to catch cold, being rained on for over five hours had to be annoying. Hamster had been a good soldier, and no further sounds of complaint had been heard since the rain started. *bink...bink...bink...* J stared at his console. Tiny amber dots had appeared on the radar, and were rapidly increasing in numbers. "Hey, I've got..." J stopped at the reply that started halfway through his second word, sounding like someone blowing up a balloon at first, reaching a dull vowel climax, and ending in a very deliberate consonant. "fffffffuuuuuuuuuck." "Talk to me. What is it?" He peered out into the darkness that stretched across the flatland. "I can't see them! Talk to me!" J continued to stare, though the inky blackness made it next to impossible. As if in answer to his frustration, lightning struck from behind, bathing the immediate area in a brief glow. The purple and green hulls of ten enormous hulks gleamed back, slowly lurching towards their targets, swaying their bloated tails behind them, jaws open in a mocking, menacing grin. J gasped. B'Harnii Mech Warriors. The Bimmers were really back, Owsen was really telling the whole truth. And now... "Hamster! Stay in the air, and strafe from above! I'll see if I can burn a path through from down here. I don't know about you, but I don't think we can beat these things by ourselves." A brief pause. "I'm on it." Two plasma streams cut through the darkness joined by a plume of glowing blue flame as Hamster let loose, striking the Bimmers. One shuddered as it took a blast to the head, and collapsed forward on the grass. Still more lost huge chunks of armor plating which clattered all around and against each other. J went about unloading the compact arsenal of the WHAPASS into the crowd of distracted Wyrm-mechs. The PIST missiles seemed to do the most damage, but they were in short supply, and he was uncertain how long he'd last in this fight anyway. The WHAPASS's golden armor plating shook from repeated blasts from percussion missiles, and in places grew too hot to reflect the laser 'dead-eye' beams from above. "Hamster? Talk to me, you still in the air?" "Yeah..." Hamster was still in the air, all right, his near-inpenetrable hide repelling everything fired at it, "...but just the same, I really don't feel like sticking around too much longer. If you haven't noticed, these things can regenerate." "Yes, I can see that," J replied as another BMW slowly staggered to its feet intact, where before its head was nearly destroyed by a plasma blast, "so you see an opening, you take it. I've got you on radar, so I'll follow you out. We need to get to the city above all else, we can pick off these nasties later when we have the firepower. Understood?" "Got it..." Hamster replied. J kept one eye on Hamster's signal on the radar while maneuvering the WHAPASS through the gauntlet. Time was running out. Hamster's shadow crisscrossed the hills, and plasma fire continued to make rubble out of BMWs...the path he cleared for the WHAPASS grew wider... Silence on the comlink. Then..."*HURK*" "Hamster? Talk to me, man...what is it?" J glanced at the radar, which showed Hamster's signal heading in the opposite direction from in front of the WHAPASS. He glanced forward... against the darkness a ten-foot wingspan stretched flat blocking the horizon, flipped onto its edge, plunged straight down, and crashed not ten feet from the front of the WHAPASS. Thunder echoed as farther off, a BMW lowered its long, bloated tail. "HAMSTER!!" J saw black. Then he saw purple. Then he saw red. There was no thought that the dragon was still alive, no contemplation, no words, just a raw impulse from the depth of his being. KILL. In response, his Glov extended 3 razor-tipped Owsenite blades. He snarled, and his fur stood on end. He smelled a trace of sulfur in the air.. Somehow he snapped out of feral rage to realize something. This wasn't just drama, this was... "Uh oh." He fumbled for the emergency eject button, which flung open the front shield, and tossed him out of the WHAPASS. Just after, an electrical surge from the lightning bolt that struck the WHAPASS charged the wet grass, jolting him to his feet and feeding the rage that consumed his entire persona. Drenched as a drowned rat in the rain, he bridged the gap to the BMW that had struck Hamster down in a split second. The other BMWs, focused on the wrecked WHAPASS and the lightning surge, lost their target briefly. It was enough. J dug his claws into the side of the ENEMY...climbing the hulk through a red haze of KILL primal fury, until DEMON he reached the midsection. DIE!! He lunged, and slashed open the BMW's metal belly with his claws, tearing off a chunk of the armor. Staring through the rain, he gasped at the sight. A small pulsating brain sat in an amniotic bath hooked up to various wires, cradled in the middle cavity. The sight didn't last long. Another electric shock, this time from the BMW itself, hit J full force and dislodged his grip, sending him flying off the Bimmer's front, and landing backwards into the mud. J groaned, and lay still. The BMW looked down at itself, and expressionless watched its self-repair. The hole was gone. The brain was protected. And the Praetor was defeated. To be continued... All material copyrighted by the original author.