Tyro's POV
"And Alex turned out to be Lung?", Shadow asked.
Nolan shook his head, "to be honest, I'm not sure, Alex had orange scales, not green. Plus...it's the wrong personality."
"Wrong personality?", I asked tilting my head.
Nolan sighed, "It was a mission in Vietnam. Alex took a shotgun blast at the point blank range and it nearly killed him. I scrubbed the mission because of that ambush and we hauled ass back to a MASH station. Alex went in Orange and came out green. The Vets there explained it to me that the antiseptic and the morphine changed his scale color, but that wasn't all it did. Alex had this skittish, shy personality before surgery, but after it he was hyper aware and alert to every little detail, he also seemed to out right forget a lot of things we'd been through together."
"Like what?", Syralth asked.
"There was one time at the drag strip when my Dad ran his brand new 45 Impala with a 300 horsepower V8 against a Rat Rod and smoked it after the Rat popped a camshaft. It was one of the funniest things we'd ever seen to the point where the mere mention of it had Alex choking on his own laughter", Nolan said, "but after the surgery, it was like he forgot all about it, he wasn't the same dragon after that mission."
Faline sighed, "I'm no stranger to Draco higher ups pulling shady shit, so do you think that they maybe just killed Alex and replaced him with Lung?"
Nolan buried his head in his hands, "please don't say that Faline. I've tried to forget that thought for nearly a century now, I've never been able to dismiss it because....I believe it."
I swear Nolan had to fight his gag reflex just to get those words out. He seemed like he was two seconds away from losing his mind and crying.
"Something doesn't quite make sense", Shadow said, "Lung told me that he was the one, and only, Eastern dragon in the project, ever."
"Not true", Hudson said, "Emelia was."
"You were?", Shadow asked.
"For a couple of days yeah", she answered, "I jumped ship after John died...for reasons other than that which I'd really rather not discuss."
No one spoke for an uncomfortably long time after that. There wasn't really anything to say that hadn't already been said.
"Go back to your barracks guys", Nolan said, "I just...I need some time alone, there's something I need to do."
Without words we stood and walked back to the barracks. The sky had darkened and the rain was ready to pour. Once we entered the barracks, Ace and the kids ran to the Xbox to play Minecraft while, Danny, Alex, Adelind and I went to our bedroom.
"He seemed really out of it", Danny said, "I've seen my share of people in grief in my 50 years, but General Nolan takes the cake."
"Give the man a break", Alex said, "he lost his little brother almost a hundred years ago."
"Is there a possibility that the surgery really did change him?", Adelind asked, "and that Lung really is Alex?"
"You seriously believe that?", Danny asked, "it's just like the Draco Brass to kill off siblings and friends and then say something like "Oh the drugs changed his scale color", to cover their asses."
"I was just saying that it was a possibility", Adelind said.
"It's also a possibility that they locked him in a cell somewhere", I said staring out the window, "I doubt Faline even remembers how long she sat in that cell."
"You really think that he sat in a cell for almost a hundred years?", Danny asked, "seems like he'd be dead by then."
"An Eastern Dragon can live for 10 thousand years", I said, "Certain breeds can live even longer. Nolan said his brother had orange scales, if he was an Eastern dragon, then the breed strikes me as Plateau, they can live about as long as a Feral of the same breed, which means that it's very likely if they had him locked up that he's kicking around."
"Blaze has some experience with the Draco Prison system", Danny said, "at least with the way they treat them. If he's been locked up these past 80 years then there's still a decent chance that they've killed him."
I sighed, "doesn't matter if he is or was alive, we can't go after him because Lung is almost certainly operating under the assumption that were coming and is gonna be waiting with a kill squad."
"You know Nolan's going to try", Adelind said, "if he even gets a whiff of where Alex may be he'll go in."
"I know", I sighed, "I hope he comes to his senses before he gets himself killed."
"Maybe we can bring him to his senses", Issac said as he stepped in.
"How so?", Adelind asked.
"I still have friends inside the Draco project", Danny said, "so does Frost, some of them owe us favors, I'll call them in and see what kind of intel I can get on Lung."
"Jackie and I can head on down to the ISA building and see what we can find out about that transmission, see where it came from, what was used to encode it and so on. In the mean time boss, you should talk to Nolan and see what the two of you can do intel wise."
"That's good", I said, "this could work, let's get to it."
With that, we headed out. The four of them headed for the ISA building while I walked back down to the command tent. When I entered, I found it had been vacated expect for Nolan, he was hovering around a cluster of holograms and documents.
"All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", Nolan said as he turned to face me.
"Truer words were never spoken", I answered.
"I've been doing some digging", he said, "found something scary about Project Draco."
"What?", I asked.
"There expanding, getting ready for a war, with us", Nolan said.
I swear I felt my heart skip a beat and my brain click off.
"But you said that they were crippled beyond saving?", I asked.
"I know what I said Major", Nolan answered, "that was before reports from double agents within the project started coming in by the thousands. The reports were ten, twenty pages long, but once I got into them, they all told me the same thing. Draco has called up every single dragon from the Preserves and every single human reservist they have. The US Government is grabbing anyone they can find that has compatibility with the mutation formula and moving massive amounts of troops, tanks and ammunition, all to one location."
"Where?", I asked.
"San Francisco", Nolan said, "remember all the fear behind Jade Helm 2015 and the US Army training for "Civil unrest?"
"My Dad was worried Draco was gonna call him because of that", I answered.
"They were getting ready for us to storm their borders", Nolan said, "after I was done reading the reports, I gave the order for all of our double agents to jump ship and then got into US Government servers. Every single one of the Draco servers was at a new address, but we managed to get in through a back door that we'd hidden in the code of their hardware, what we found was that Draco is headquartered in CA, and that's where the main labs and prisons are. According to double agents, Lung is already there and he warned his fellow Draco soldiers about the pending Romanian invasion."
"So what are we waiting for?", I asked, "roll a battle ship into the harbor and shell the living daylights out of the city."
"Patience Major", Nolan said, "there's a reason I didn't give the order to go the second I found out. San Francisco has been secretly converted into an urban fortress. There are missile launchers on the tops of buildings, M4 Skyhawks on the runway at CA International loaded with Napalm and even Humvee and tanks hidden at a scrapyard ready to roll out at a seconds notice. We're going to need a massive invasion force."
"How massive?", I asked.
He sighed, "at least 300 ships and 30,000 troops, not to mention tanks, air power and Power Armor."
I sighed, "in other words were going to have to level the city to kill one dragon and some corrupt humans?"
"If it comes to that", Nolan said, "we have the advantage though. They know were coming, but they don't know our numbers, our skill or our armament. I'm to get the Army and the Marines together and call up the ISA and tell them to get every man they got combat ready. I'm gonna talk to Artimus as well as Admiral Chen and see if the new Cruisers and Battleships I ordered are combat ready, when I'm done with that, I'll call you. Get your team ready for combat, any changes you need to make, make them now."
"Won't they be surprised when ships they declared "obsolete" start pounding their shores", I snickered as I turned for the exit.
"Now's not the time for that General", Nolan said, "now's the time for war."
I stopped and turned to face him.
"Did you just call me "General?", I asked.
"I did", Nolan said, "don't make me regret the promotion."
"I won't", I said as I left the tent, "you can count on that....it's payback time."