A Dragon's Tale #Watty's2015

Going In Hot

“It's...Thirty three degrees, West Latitude, 119 North East Longitude, on a South South West bearing”, I said, “somebody pull up a map.”

I pulled up my map database and ran a search three times, coming up empty.

“I got zip”, Ator said.

“Same here”, I replied.

“I found it”, Rolland said, “but it's the middle of the Arctic Pacific line.”

“Shadow!”, I yelled into the coms, “what's you status!”

“Multiple nuclear warheads in the basement of the vault”, Shadow replied, “his voice shaking, “Tyro what's going on over there?”

Everything suddenly clicked. How did I not see it sooner?

“Get out now Shadow, it's a trap!”, I yelled, “Jackson sent us to die! GET OUT NOW!”

No sooner had my words tumbled past my muzzle than our radios died and mortars began raining down on us like hail from hell.

“GET TO COVER!”, I shouted, “AMBUSH!”

The mortars, landing two or three at a time, suggested multiple teams.

“Rolland, Val Wyatt!”, I shouted over the explosions, “can you see the mortar teams! Were pinned!”

“There right on top of us”, Rolland whispered, I could barely hear him, “if we move we are going home in boxes.”

“We're all gonna go home as chewed meat if those mortars aren't shutdown!”, I shouted back.

“I got your back brother”, Wyatt called.

Four shots rang over the mortars, a Shy Tech Intervention.

“Mortars down”, Wyatt called.

The smoke and dust began to settle. As it did, it pulled back the curtain on a scene I'll never forget. Ator had been impaled. A 20 foot long wooden beam about as thick as my tail had gone straight through his vest, him, out and stuck into the ground. His blood was running down the beam and the way it had entered had kept him from falling over. I could see his own weight was slowly but surely pushing him down the spike. Ator was going white as his blood drained out and he was crying like Ace did the day he broke one of his paws.

“Take it out of me”, he rasped through his tears, “take it out of me.”

I hauled myself up and felt my experience take over.

“Trent, Morphine, Vez, find him something to bite down on, Hudson, help me, the rest, cover our six!”

Trent gave Ator the shot of painkiller and Vez found another big beam for him to bite on as Hudson and I took hold of the log. Just by holding it, I could tell we were going to have to be extremely rough if we wanted to get it out, strike 2 against our injured friend.

“Hang on brother”, Hudson said, “we'll get it out.”

Hudson and I began to pull. Ator sank his fangs into the log and Vez held him still as Hudson channeled all of his rage into his super human strength and I put everything I had to give into my neck. Bit by bit, the log lost out and we managed to pull it out. Ator tried to collapse, but Hudson and I caught him. We gently carried him to a small, windowless room behind the stair case.

“Vez, cover the front, if it moves and it's not a dragon in a ghille suit, kill it. Logan and Issac, East side, put down anything that doesn't go on four legs. Hudson, grab one of these belt feds laying around and make all that rage useful on the West side, I'll join you in a minute.”