The Fields of Fire

Chapter 1: Tau Adana

She could see lights coming from the the underside of the Mother Ship, she saw a metal arm lower a small wooden biplane through the hanger doors of the Mothership, before releasing it into the airstream. The Bi-Plane plummeted like a rock before its small engine finally sputtered to life, the plane shook a bit until the pilot found his footing and the plane accelerated upwards.

Upon closer inspection, Tau could see dozens of the small bi-planes circling above the clouds. They were all waiting for the same order.  Tau felt much more confident in the mission now that she finally saw what they were really bringing to the fight. Right below them, beneath the curtain of clouds, was Aetherios, the capital of the capital of Atheria. There were probably 50 planes above the city, and the people below didn't even know it. But it was about more than just scaring people; Underneath Tau's A-21 was a single 1000 pound Type Zero Anti-Infrastructure Warhead, or as the other pilots affectionately called it "God's Paperweight."

Her mission was to drop the lord's desk decoration right onto the Aethenium, the largest library in the known world. It contained thousands of books, from ancient history to spell tomes, the Aethenium was an unrivaled collection of knowledge, and Tau intended to put a bomb right through its fucking roof. She couldn't help but smile at the thought of all that subhuman script burning beneath a heap of shattered concrete.

Destroying the Aethenium was an important part in the Zytrian war effort. Despite the impressive array of weapons humanity had at its disposal, there was one thing that the Aetherians had that they didn't, magic. Magic meant that no matter how well planned their strategies, no matter how well designed their weapons, humanity would always be at a disadvantage. But Tau and her Air Wing had orders to even the odds, and level the Aethenium back into the stone age. Because without knowledge, without their spell tomes to read through and their magical trinkets to aid them in their degenerate sorcery, the Aetherians weren't special. Blood and Steel would win against magic and sorcery. Tau was sure of it.

She leaned casually back into the seat of her A-21 as she and her airwing circled the Mother Ship. Any second now she would receive the order, they would dive beneath the clouds, locate the Aethenium and then her entire wing would bomb it to hell. As if sparked by her thoughts, the radio flickered back to life. The order she thought. But the voice on the radio was panicked and horribly garbled, "Contact!"

Her eyes looked to down and she was horrified by what they saw. The clouds beneath her were opening up, revealing dozens of dragons the size of fighters hurtling up through the sky towards the Air Wing. This was the Aetherian Air defense force.

"They've found us out!" She heard eagle one scream through the radio, "EVASIVE MANEUVERS!" The other Screaming Eagles broke formation. Tau smashed the button for enhanced air compression. Her plane's engine started fuming as its output doubled, and the familiar whistling sound of the Screaming Eagles emanated through the sky. Tau quickly strapped her oxygen mask to her face and then shoved her control stick forward. The plane violently changed direction as her A-21 dove towards the city bellow. She stared down her gun sights at the dragons accelerating up towards her. Her fingers squeezed around the the triggers on her joystick.

The eight inch long muzzles on the front of her aircraft lit up as bullets launched out of her aircraft. She scored a direct hit on one of the dragons, which fell ungracefully back to the ground. Then she pulled up, desperately trying to avoid smashing into the ground below. Her A-21 arced back up towards the Mothership after she narrowly missed clipping a small cobblestone tower. She could see the Mother Ships AA Guns light up as they targeted the dragons. Once the dragons finally reached the Mothership their mouths exploded into orange and they unleashed rivers of flame. They dove and twisted through the sky as they set to work burning the entire underside of the blimp.