Starship Armstrong - Season 1

Part 68 - Dragon Slayers (XVII)

Mitzner and Gul kept off the roads to avoid any potential Cairnian patrols. Mitzner wasn't sure she bought any of the noise about humans being in league with the Dragon, but it never hurt to be cautious. They kept watch on the roads as best they could while staying out of sight.

This turned out to be a meaningless exercise; the two saw no signs of any patrols the whole trip there. In fact, they saw none of the usual foot traffic that they would have expected to find on the road. Even truly primitive societies should have a few scattered travelers.

Mitzner knew something was up when she noticed that, but all her suspicions were confirmed when they reached the top of a nearby hill and saw the city-state for the first time.

All that was left of the city was its skeleton. It had been stripped bare; all that remained were jagged sections of rotten foundations and piles of dust and broken stones. Everything of value was gone. The city was a hole in the ground. It was too barren to even be considered a garbage dump.

Rising from the dirt of this pit was a gigantic cannon aimed straight up at the sky. The scale of it was so immense that Mitzner could only guess at what kind of weapon it was, although based on the discharge she assumed it had to be an ion weapon of some kind. Even starship weapons weren't made to this scale. At a certain point the diminishing returns of scaled-up weaponry made further size increases prohibitively resource intensive. Whoever built this thing apparently missed that meeting.

"There's just no way the Dragon built that itself," said Gul "In that amount of time?'

"It might have," said Mitzner "But I'm coming around to your way of thinking. Something huge happened here, and we don't have nearly the whole story."

While they were talking, a group of men also riding spider-wolves emerged from the city. Both sides spotted the other immediately.

"Oh blood, guts and whores," said Gul "In that order."

"Lovely," said Mitzner "I'll do the talking."

She waved at the men.

"Greetings! My name is-"

An arrow struck Mitzner straight in the chest, burying itself halfway and violently knocking her from her spider-wolf. The riding arachnid bolted.

The response from Gul was eerily quiet. The operation of his coilgun involved none of the explosions or energy discharges that characterized the operation of other weapons. There was just a low, satisfying "snik" sound as the projectiles slid along the barrel of the weapon. Snik snik snik snik snik followed by the explosion of the first projectile hitting its target.

The men were blown into an assortment of parts.

Gul ran as fast as he could to where Mitzner fell, and kneeled down.

"Lieutenant-Commander!" he practically yelled "Can you hear me?"

"I'm fine, Ensign," said Mitzner, sounding more annoyed that pained.

"Fine? There's an arrow straight through you!"

Mitzner stood up. The head of the arrow had been stuck in the ground, and was now sticking out her back.

"I said fine I mean fine," said Mitzner "Didn't hit any organs I don't have more of. I'll grow back whatever got damaged."

She snapped the back end of the arrow off, almost at the point of entry. She did the same to the arrow head sticking out of her back.

"That doesn't hurt?" asked Gul.

"I imagine so," replied Mitzner "I reflexively turned off the pain the second it hit me. It would probably hurt like a bitch if I let it."

All the commotion had attracted attention. More riders were emerging from the dust bowl of the city. Gul aimed his weapon at them.

"Don't," said Mitzner, pushing down the barrel of the coilgun "What if they are brainwashed? We're the ones who shot down the Dragon over their lands. This could all be our fault."

"Lieutenant-Commander, with all due respect, they're hostiles."

"You're not a soldier anymore, Ensign," said Mitzner "You have to be better than that. We have to be better than that. We'll fall back for now, report what we've learned, and try to think of some way to disable that weapon without violence."

Gul gave Mitzner the exact same look she would have given a superior officer who said the same thing to her.