Dragons Of Englor

Chapter 23

Six hundred soldiers have to learn only so much in order to carry out even the most complicated operation. Even training for fifteen hours a day, six days a week, comes to an end sooner or later. Then there's nothing left to do but load the men aboard whatever is taking them to battle.

The night before Strike Force Blade took off, R took Blade out to dinner. It was a hasty dinner-too hasty, for the food and the wine both deserved a leisurely appreciation that neither man could afford to give them. Like the rest of the Strike Force, Blade had forty-eight hours' leave, and from the restaurant he would be joining Rilla. R obviously knew this, but was so much a gentleman about Blade's personal affairs that it was impossible to tell if he approved or disapproved. That was one more quality that R shared with J.

The dinner lasted long enough for R to become more talkative than usual. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the frustration at having to leave the rest of the fight against the dragons to younger men who would go where he no longer could. Whatever was working inside him, R said a great deal, almost certainly much more than he'd intended.

Blade did not remember much of it. He had an excellent memory, but he could also forget things when it seemed wise. One thing he didn't forget, and he knew afterward that he couldn't have forgotten it if he'd wanted to.

«You know something, Richard?» said R. «I had a son.»

That was a surprise to Blade. He sensed that R was not expecting any reply, just continued attention.

«Yes, I had a son. He was an Independent, like you, like me. He went off to Rodzmania on an assignment, like you. Only he didn't come back. That was ten years ago. If he'd lived, he would have been about your age, I think.»

R reached inside his coat with a hand that trembled slightly and drew out a small flat leather case. Blade looked down. It was his own face that stared back at him from the picture in the case-his own face, a few years younger.

«I see,» he said, and nodded. Perhaps there were more profound words, but none of them came to mind now. There was still some wine in Blade's glass. He picked it up and sipped.

One thought did pop into his mind. Should he take the chance to ask what R really knew about the man called Colonel Richard Blade? Might R now let slip what he knew about Blade's origins-if he knew anything at all?

Then the thought sank back out of Blade's mind. The answer to that question was the same as always. R might reveal some of his own past, some of his own motives. He would never reveal any of his professional secrets. He would never reveal whether or not he knew that Richard Blade had come to Englor from another Dimension.

Blade sighed, picked up the wine bottle, and poured until both his glass and R's were full again.

With Strike Force Blade aboard, the assault transports flew south to a base in West Africa. They flew across the continent to another base on the east coast. They flew those two legs of their journey at high altitude, to save fuel.

They flew north from the coastal base in darkness, keeping low. At seven hundred miles an hour they raced across the dark sea toward the secret island base off the southern coast of Russland. Once a circle of ships appeared on the radar, then dropped astern. The Imperial carrier and her escorts were on station, ready to launch the attack planes on schedule.

The island came out of the night at them. The transports shifted from horizontal to vertical flight and sank down through a thousand feet of air to safe landings on the rocky top of the island. The fuel was waiting for them in great flexible bladders, towed submerged across the sea by Imperial submarines and anchored to the rocks offshore. Pumps whined in the darkness, fuel lines stiffened, gauges registered the hundreds and thousands of gallons pouring into the tanks. One by one each transport reported «Full Up.» One by one they lifted into the darkness with an ear-cracking howl of jets and orange flares of exhaust. As Blade watched, the jet flares reminded him strangely of the flaming breath of the dragons.

Then his own transport rose to join the others. They burned navigation lights until the formation was complete. Then they shifted power back from vertical lift to horizontal thrust and headed toward the coast of Russland. A few minutes later the two tankers made rendezvous and swung into place at the rear of the formation. Now there were eleven of the metal giants on their way to Russland.

The coast passed below as the eastern sky began to pale. As the sky showed pink, the transports began to climb slowly. They kept a thousand feet above the ground as it rose into the rugged tableland that made up the heart of South Russland.

The land below showed few colors even as daylight spread across it. Browns and tans, grays, and an occasional flash of red or black that came and went so fast it was hard to believe it had ever been there. Small ranges of jagged peaks, like giant boulders set on end. Dry canyons and some with faint silver trickles of water in the bottom. Scarred and fissured cliffs plunging down five hundred feet. No vegetation, no sign of human life. A harsh, ugly, unnatural landscape, one that seemed to Blade an entirely appropriate setting for the dragons. They also were harsh, ugly, and unnatural.

An isolated mountain loomed on the horizon-an immense, rugged volcanic cone, its upper slopes snow covered. The troop carriers swung to the west of the mountain, the tankers to the east, heading for their fueling rendezvous with the carrier strike. Blade looked at the clock. The attack planes should be only a few minutes from their target now.

The volcanic mountain sank below the horizon again. Now the nine troop carriers split into two groups on diverging courses. The dragon base was still out of sight, ten minutes away. The transports would pass around it to the east and the west, swinging well clear of its antiaircraft defenses, then come in from the north.

The maneuver was carried out with professional smoothness, in complete radio silence. One minute Blade looked out the cockpit windows and saw eight transports in a line stretching off to the east. The next minute he saw only four. Seven minutes to go. He checked his weapons, then, wished the pilots good luck and climbed down to the cargo deck.

The men were already mounted up and ready, forty on motorcycles, the rest in the vehicles of the Command Section-two armored cars, a jeep, and a radio truck. Blade passed quickly along the deck. Some of the cycle troops had already released their tie-downs. They weren't supposed to do that until the transport went on vertical flight. But if being able to save a few seconds in getting out after touchdown made them feel better-

The cargo deck was a dark, windowless metal tube. Blade had to follow the last stages of the approach to the target over the intercom. At five minutes the pilot reported the base in sight. At four minutes he reported that the two transports carrying the Demolition Group were going to vertical flight. No sign of enemy resistance yet.

Silence for two more minutes, as the three remaining transports of the western group swung around to the north of the base. Blade would have liked to hear something, but the pilot was a busy man.

Two minutes, and now Blade needed no words over the intercom to know what was happening. The note of the engines changed as the transport went to vertical flight. The floor began to roll and pitch gently, like the deck of a ship in a storm, as the transport started settling toward the ground, its two hundred tons balanced on the thrust of its lifters.

A new burst of sound came from aft, a hissing like a million snakes and a ripping noise like immense bedsheets being torn in half. The tail gunner was salvoing the pods of air-to-ground rockets, laying down a wall of explosions and flying metal and smoke between the transports and waiting enemy gunners. Blade scrambled into the front seat of his command jeep and tapped the driver on the shoulder. The man released the tie-downs and went through the correct motions for starting the engine, but Blade couldn't hear or feel a thing. The roar and vibration all around were too intense.

Suddenly there was a solid thunk from below as the landing gear hit the ground. Instantly the roar of the engines began to die as the pilots cut their throttles. Silence did not come. As the plane's engines faded, the motorcycles and vehicles began to roar and growl and belch smoke, and the tail gunner opened up with his twin 30mm cannon. Light poured in as the rear door swung open and down to the ground, forming a ramp. The first of the cycle troops were off the mark so fast they hit the end of the ramp before it hit the ground. They sailed off into the air, landing with thuds and squeals of tires. Somehow none of them were spilled into the path of their comrades. Four at a time, the rest of the cyclists thundered out after the first ones. For a moment Blade had the feeling of being caught up in a film about motorcycle gangs instead of a military operation. Then the deck ahead was clear. Without waiting for orders Blade's driver sent the jeep hurtling forward. It rolled down the deck, bounced wildly as it came off the ramp onto the ground, straightened out, and raced away from the transport.

Overhead the tail gunner was still firing random bursts.

As he ceased fire, Blade stood up in the jeep and looked around him. To the right and left the other transports were safely landed and pouring out their troops. Half a mile ahead lay the railroad yards, where organic raw material and food were brought in to build and feed the dragons and the matured dragons were taken out. Blade saw a train of the high-roofed dragon-carrying cars directly in his path. At the head, the locomotive was enveloped in the thick smoke of burning diesel fuel. Some of the cyclists were already working their way along the cars. Blade saw the flash of grenade and rocket explosions, doors flying off, and dying or wounded dragons lurching out to meet more grenades.

One dragon fell directly in the path of a cyclist who was moving too fast to stop. Man and machine flew high in the air, turning end over end. Blade's jeep bumped and rattled across the tracks of the railroad yard, leaving behind a rising pillar of smoke from the smashed and burning motorcycle.

The heavier armored cars and radio truck crossed the tracks faster and caught up with the jeep on the other side of the yard. The four vehicles rolled forward side by side.

A quick scan from left to right showed Blade four enemy-gun positions, none of them firing, all of them giving off thick clouds of smoke. In the nearest one the two guns pointed blackened and twisted barrels at the empty sky, while dismounted cyclists checked through the tents of the gunners to make sure that all the dead stayed that way. The rocket salvos had done good work.

The objective of Blade's Command Section was the base radio station. It was a substantial building, with two tall radio towers that would make good observation posts. Blade would set up his command post there. He didn't expect the strike force to need that much commanding, but it was always a good idea for the commanding officer to find a place where he could easily be found if necessary.

The jeep's radio remained silent as the Command Section rolled toward the station. No news was good news, in this case. Standard Operating Procedure for the raid called for radio silence from all units during the first fifteen minutes, unless something happened that called for a major change of plans.

They rolled past a long row of cylindrical concrete towers, like immense grain elevators. Those were the culture vats where the dragons were brought to viable size in tanks of nutrient fluid. From the top of one of them a machine gun sent bullets to kick up dust across the path of the Command Section. The turrets on the armored cars swiveled around, and two streams of tracer converged on the offending gun. The puffs of dust stopped abruptly. One of the cars swung out of line and fired a rocket at the base of the tower. It shivered, leaned almost elegantly to one side, shedding large slabs of concrete, then toppled in an explosion of dust. It cracked open as it fell, spewing out ruptured steel vats and piping, half-formed dragons, and a small lake of nutrient fluid. Blade ordered the car back in line. The culture vats were assigned to the demolition men of Company B. There was no point in wasting on them rockets that might be needed elsewhere.

The armored cars took the lead as the Command Section approached the radio station, with the radio truck behind them and the jeep in the rear. Three sections of motorcyclists moved into position on each flank to help clear the radio station and then form a headquarters reserve.

As the cyclists moved into position, two small helicopters skimmed in from the left, only a few feet above the ground. Both were armed, both were highly polished, and both carried Red Flame Security Administration markings. The machine gun in the door of the rear helicopter flickered, drawing another line of dust puffs across the ground toward the approaching vehicles. The radio truck lurched and started to skid as a tire blew. But the driver got it back under control, and all the vehicles in the strike force had wire-reinforced tires that could run deflated.

Both armored cars returned the fire of the helicopters. One of them dipped, struck the ground at full speed, and went cartwheeling along for a hundred yards, disintegrating into flaming pieces as it went. The other shivered, smoked, but kept on going and auto-rotated down out of sight behind the radio station.

The armored cars pulled up in front of the station door, training their guns on it and screening the radio truck and the jeep. The motorcyclists kept on, stopping and dismounting on either side of the building. A brief rattle of gunfire and smoke boiling up told Blade that they'd finished off the second helicopter.

Blade scrambled out of the jeep. The observation team climbed out the back of the radio truck and started toward one of the radio towers.

Suddenly a machine gun opened up from inside the radio station, followed by the sharp thumps of a grenade launcher. One grenade landed among the observation party, cutting down all four men. Blade threw himself flat on the ground as another grenade arched clear over the armored cars and exploded in his jeep. Fragments of the grenade, the jeep, and the driver showered down in all directions as the armored cars opened fire.

Blade saw windows and sections of wall disintegrate under the cars' point-blank machine-gun fire. Then two of the motorcyclists fired rockets through side windows. The blast blew off most of the roof from one end of the radio station and dropped the rest on top of the Russlanders inside. A wall of smoke boiled up from the wreckage. The dismounted motorcyclists moved toward it with fixed bayonets.

As they vanished into the smoke the radio finally came to life.

«Argus One to Nimrod. Argus One to Nimrod.» That was a call from the commander of Company A, assaulting the garrison's barracks on the left flank.

«Nimrod to Argus One. Go ahead.»

«We've got the ground opposition pretty thoroughly in hand. But there were six helicopters parked about a mile beyond the camp. One of them was an armed fire-support ship. It got our armored cars and mortar truck before we could get it. We're going to try getting a machine gun in range under cover of smoke.»

«Acknowledged, Argus One. Execute. Nimrod out.»

As Blade turned from the radio one of the cyclists ran out of the smoke. He was coughing and holding out a Russland helmet in one hand. He stopped and saluted. «Sir, I thought you ought to see this.»

Blade took the helmet. It was a standard Russland issue steel helmet, but freshly painted, varnished, waxed, and bearing the badge of the Fifth Guards Rifle Regiment. The Fifth Guards, Blade knew, was an elite Security unit. Its duties included providing troops for ceremonial occasions and bodyguards for traveling VIPs. From the amount of noise that was coming out of the radio station, it seemed the Fifth Guards also knew how to fight.

Blade was just about to call for reinforcements to help with the radio station when Argus One came back on the air.

«Nimrod, the other five helicopters have started their engines. They've also deployed a mortar platoon. Request permission to cancel moving the machine gun against the position without heavy-weapons support.»

Blade decided to give it. There was no point in pushing a company across open ground into the teeth of mortar fire simply to pick off a few more helicopters. «Argus One, this is Nimrod. Permission-«

Blade was interrupted by a growing whistle from high above. Then the ground shivered as a salvo of mortar shells burst fifty yards from the radio station. In seconds, white smoke swallowed half an acre of ground.

«Argus One to Nimrod. The mortars have opened fire. We-«

«This is Nimrod. We know. I think we're the target.» Another salvo, closer to the radio station, and more white smoke blotting out more of the landscape. «They appear to be laying down a smoke barrage around the radio station. Give me a mark when the helicopters take off, and also a direction.»

«They're taking off now, leaving the mortars behind.» A moment's silence. Then: «Nimrod, they seem to be headed your way, minimum altitude, slow speed.»

«Thank you, Areas One.»

As surely as if he'd overheard the enemy's orders, Blade knew what was happening here. Somewhere on the other side of the radio station was a Red Flame VIP and his bodyguards from Security's crack regiment. Over near Company A were the helicopters that had brought the man in. Now they were coming to try to bring him out, under cover of the smoke screen laid down by the mortars.

The Russlanders in the radio station would report all the enemy movements they could see. But the smoke that would screen the helicopters could also screen the armored cars. If he was willing to gamble-

Why not? One of the objectives of the raid was prisoners, and a Red Flame general would be a nice addition to the bag. Admittedly, this wasn't the sort of job a colonel should try to handle. He should delegate it to the man on the spot.

In this case, though, Colonel Richard Blade was the man on the spot.

He had no radio contact with the cyclists fighting inside the building. He could only hope they would keep their heads down, and that the Russlanders wouldn't use high-explosive mortar rounds so close to their own generals.

Quickly he briefed the armored car crews on his plan, then looked at his watch. The helicopters had about three miles to cover. That meant not more than five minutes' total traveling, and two minutes were already gone.

Blade climbed into the turret of the first car, watching the second hand clip away the seconds, listening to the endless thud of the smoke shells bursting on the far side of the radio station. He waited until he heard in the interval between two salvos the sound of the approaching helicopters. He raised his rifle in one hand and gave the signal.

Both drivers gunned their engines and the armored cars leaped forward. If Blade hadn't clamped one hand on the rim of the turret hatch, the sudden start would have thrown him clear. He crouched in the hatch as the cars roared around the building, squarely into what he hoped would be the path of the incoming helicopters. If there were five of them, they might outgun the cars. But the car, could take a great deal more punishment.

The first helicopter swept out of the murk so low that one landing skid nearly took off Blade's head. The gunner in the second car held his fire just long enough for the helicopter to pass over Blade, then fired. One burst did the job. At thirty yards the bullets must have gone right through the helicopter. The crash of its landing was lost in the roar of its exploding fuel. Blade ducked, knowing that a disintegrating rotor could lash about with enough force to slice a man in half.

His own car opened up on the second helicopter and he heard its engines die. But the third passed behind the second. As it came clear, its door gunner killed the second armored car's gunner with a well-placed burst. Then it landed, its rotors just clearing the shadowy wall of the radio station. Blade saw a door open in that wall and several running figures burst out. One of them wore a general officer's greatcoat and peaked hat and towered head and shoulders above the others. He must have been at least six feet eight.

The gunner of Blade's car opened up again at the helicopter. Blade saw the glass in the cockpit window shatter and the door gunner knocked backward into the cabin. He raised his rifle and sighted in on the running figures. He aimed low, wishing he had the marvelously precise Enfield 7. He wanted to disable, not kill. To have a prize like this snatched away by one misdirected bullet-

The running men went down, all of them still moving, still alive. Blade was changing magazines when he saw movement in the door of the helicopter. A dark egg shape flew out and rolled on the ground. Blade shot the man in the door, but the grenade had already rolled within reach of the tall general. He gripped it firmly, twisted the pin free, then heaved himself over to rest squarely on top of it. The explosion sounded just as the helicopter's fuel tanks gushed flame.

Blade sighed. General Golovin's habit of personally conducting key investigations had finally stretched his luck to the breaking point. It was unfortunate that he couldn't have been taken alive, but Blade could hardly blame Golovin for taking the same way out he himself might have used in similar circumstances.

In any case, Golovin was dead. A raid that cost the Red Flames their most brilliant counterespionage man could hardly be called unsuccessful, regardless of what else happened.

Quite a lot had happened while Blade was otherwise occupied, as he discovered when he was able to go back to commanding the strike force. While mopping up operations continued inside the radio station, Blade got on the command radio and took reports from each unit under his command.

The Demolition Group was in position. Three of the four tunnels from the dragon caves were blown, the fourth was rigged, and the main charges were ready for lowering into place at the dam. They'd had a little bit of trouble with two dozen dragons already on the surface ready for shipment, but that was over now.

The Blocking Group was also in position, and very bored. The two bridges were blown and there was no sign of an enemy within miles. Did they have permission to come up to join the fighting?

Permission denied. As much as Blade appreciated their kind of fighting spirit, he wasn't going to leave his back door unguarded. The Blocking Force would go on blocking.

It was harder to get a clear picture of the Battle Force. They'd struck hard and done their work thoroughly. In the process they'd become scattered all over the base, and were only just now regrouping to mop up and start collecting prisoners and wrecking facilities.

Casualties appeared to be light. One company had lost the better part of a platoon to an undetected gun position. Blade's own reserve had lost twelve men. Otherwise the casualty reports only trickled in by twos and threes.

Argus One came back on the air, reporting the overrunning of the mortar position. A few minutes later, Blade felt the ground start to shake at intervals as the Battle Group's demolition teams went to work. The thud of explosions came through the smoke, followed by the rumble and crashing of collapsing buildings and the crackle and roar of flames.

A captured enemy truck rolled past, two of the raiders in the cab and two more sitting in back. The rest of the back was filled with limp bodies in civilian clothes. The first load of prisoners was on its way back to the transports.

By now the smoke from the mortar barrage and the crashed helicopters was drifting away. Two demolitions men came up to Blade and asked for permission to set charges on the radio masts. Blade gave the permission, scrambled up on top of the radio truck, and sat on the roof.

Now the attack planes came roaring in low overhead, ten of them. Blade tuned in on their frequency, listening to their cheerful comments on the shambles unfolding below. After a minute he got their report.

Their job was also done. Two planes had gone down over the target, but the only first-class enemy airfield within five hundred miles would be out of action for at least a couple of days. They'd shot down five enemy fighters over the field, and on the way here they'd added four light-attack planes, a transport, and two helicopters to the score.

Blade gave them a «Well Done,» but he couldn't give them any targets. The dragon base was disintegrating so rapidly under the hands of the strike force that there was nothing left for the pilots to do except fly air cover until the job was done.

Blade signaled to the driver of the radio truck, and it headed for the pilots' planned drop zone near the canyon of the dragon caves. Rounding up the pilots was something Blade wanted to supervise himself. Everything else seemed to be well under control.

The biggest explosion yet shook the ground so violently that the driver nearly lost control of the truck. For a moment Blade wondered if the Demolition Group had blown the dam prematurely. Then he saw flames and smoke mounting toward the sky from the fuel dump. The smoke rose to join the vast cloud that already hung over the base, casting its shadow on the ruins. The only thing that seemed to be intact anywhere on the landscape was one of the breeding vats. As Blade watched, smoke puffed up from its base and it split apart. Most of it fell to the ground and the rest stuck up like a solitary jagged tooth.

The roar of assault transports lifting off sounded overhead. Blade looked up to see the transports of the Demolition Group pass, shifting as he watched from vertical to horizontal flight. That meant the charges on the dam were set and fused. Blade checked the left breast pocket of his battledress. On a slip of paper, there was the code to detonate the fuses by radio command if the timers didn't work.

As Blade's truck rolled into the drop area the pilots started abandoning their planes. One by one they swung low and slow over the area, pulled up, and ejected. The ejection seats kicked them up and clear, then their white and yellow parachutes streamed out behind them and they began drifting down all over the area. The cyclists roared off to pick them up. Blade sensed an urgency in their speed, a desire to get the job done and follow the Demolition Group out of here!

Blade's truck pulled up at the very edge of the canyon. As he climbed out, the transport of the Blocking Group roared overhead, its wings swinging back to the high speed position. Its engines flamed brightly as the pilot cut in the afterburners in his eagerness to get away.

One by one the pilotless attack planes plunged to the ground and exploded. Blade saw one strike the edge of the canyon, bounce, and tumble down onto the dragons far below. Blade watched as the monsters charged about in mounting panic, trampling and attacking one another, battering themselves against the rock, trying vainly to climb the canyon walls.

The pilot of the last plane nearly followed it into the canyon. Blade saw him drifting down toward the edge, shouted at him, but knew that his words were lost in the roars of the dragons.

At the last moment the pilot spilled air from his parachute. It collapsed, dropping him twenty feet to the ground. He landed no more than inches from the edge. Blade and two other men sprinted to grab the pilot before his chute dragged him into the canyon. They caught him with no more than seconds to spare. As Blade knelt, with both hands clamped on one of the pilot's boots, he saw the lake behind the dam heave up into a monstrous white dome of water.

All three charges must have gone off together. The damn did not crumble, it was blown away by the combined force of the explosions and the water they drove before them. A section of dam three hundred feet wide and two hundred feet high was gone before the shock or sound of the explosion reached Blade. Then the roar of the water followed, and after that the roar of the dragons.

Blade forced himself to watch as the flood thundered down the canyon, a wall of water a hundred feet high. It tossed live dragons, dead dragons, boulders the size of a house like chips of wood. It swept along at a mile a minute, throwing up a curtain of spray so thick it seemed the canyon was filling with smoke. By the time the flood passed below where Blade was standing, the spray rose halfway to the canyon's edge. It was thick enough to blot out the view of what was happening below, but the roar of the water was not loud enough to drown out the dying roars of the dragons.

If the dragons had been natural creatures, however dangerous, Blade could have taken no pleasure in such wholesale slaughter. But their origins were unnatural, so there was nothing he could regret in the way they'd died.

He led the others away from the canyon's rim until the roar of the water began to fade. Then he stopped and said to everyone within earshot:

«Well done, gentlemen. Now-let's go home.»