The first sign that something wasn't right was when the drop-ship lurched to port, its starboard side dipping.
"What was that pilot?" Silvar was out of his tiny seat in the corner of the cockpit and behind the pilot in two of his long strides.
"Unknown, sir, but we've lost contact with drop-ship nine." The copilot flipped several switched and a wave of static filled the compartment, punctuated by high-pitched cries of alarm.
"We've lost nine!
"By the seven moons, what is that thing?!"
"It's coming straight at us!"
"Dive you fools, it's right on top of you!" The shrieking of metal, then a muffled explosion dominated the sound feed, until another voice cut in.
"That thing ripped drop-ships nine apart. How could something that small do something like that?"
From where he stood Silvar could see spread out before him, drop-ships two, four and seven. They were in step down formation, each lander at a slightly different altitude so the formation could stay packed together.
Out of the corner of his eye, Silvar watched a tiny red dot streak into his view from port to starboard. At first, he thought nothing of it until the pilot gasped.
"Sir, that thing is putting off more energy than every drop-ship in this formation, combined."
Silvar watched it with more precision after that. It dropped onto the hull of four, but distance was such that none of them in the cockpit could make out what it was doing. A few buttons were pushed by the copilot, and the entire front view screen magnified to show Malachi standing on the hull of lander four.
"It's human?" Silvar breathed. Then watched as a blood red sword formed from the tiny human hand.
Malachi slashed once, twice, then three times, each stroke accompanied by an outpouring of blazing red energy. The energy pulses cut deep into the lander, severing control surfaces, fuel lines, engineering spaces. For a few seconds, black smoke began to pour out of the rents in the hull until the highly volatile fuel began to oxidize into the atmosphere. The explosion that erupted when that fuel air mixture reached the heavily damaged engineering spaces blew the entire port side of the drop-ship apart, and sent the rest falling end over end towards the ground like a leaf falling from a tree.
"Whatever that thing is, it can't be human. No human can do that." Silvar backed towards the passageway, back to his troops as he spoke. Then, to his horror he watched the things head turn an instant before lander four was blown into scraps, its flaming eyes seemed to fix their gaze on him and him alone.
For a few seconds, those eyes held him in place. He couldn't look away. He was pinioned in place. Then they were gone, and the tiny figure bounding out of the debris field and onto drop-ship seven. The red blade carved a small circle in the metal of the hull and the figure disappeared inside.
"It's on your hull, get your troops ready!" Silvar faintly heard his pilot screaming into the inner ship channel, trying to warn lander seven's crew. He knew it was too late. Within seconds of the figure disappearing, the drop-ship belched greasy black smoke out of what seemed like every port or seam it had. Its running lights faded, flickered, relit for an instant, then the huge saucer shaped craft tilted onto its port side and followed its brother in a lazy end over end roll towards the ground.
It was then that Silvar saw the tiny dot leap off drop-ship seven. It took him a second to realize the figure was growing larger. Reaching over the pilot, he shoved the control yoke to the forward stops, and an instant later found his back slammed against the overhead. When he'd pushed the controls fully forward, he'd sent the drop-ship into free fall, but it'd had the desired effect. With a roar they could hear through the hull, Malachi flew within inches over the lander.
With a mighty effort, the pilot and co pilot managed to bring the lander back into controlled flight and Silvar dropped back to the deck.
"Get us within a standard mile of the surface then open the bay doors. We'll drop from there, and send a message to the rest of the remaining ships. Tell them to get their troops out as soon as they can. If they don't, they might not get them out at all." The pilot nodded without a word and Silvar turned back towards the drop bay.
Within seconds, he was in with his troops. Every soldier in the drop bay knew something was going horribly wrong outside their ship, but military training kept them from voicing their concerns.
"We drop in." Silvar looked at his wrist console. "One minute, check your gear and your ammo. This is going to be a very high altitude jump, so be very careful to follow your training and trust your gear. Once on the ground, spread out and form a perimeter. Once we've dealt with whatever it is, that's attacking, we'll begin our search." The seconds seemed to crawl by as the counted on his left wrist counted down the time till the floor would drop out from under them and they'd be freed from this metal prison.
"Drop in five, four," he held up three fingers, then dropped one at a time until he held above his head a closed fist, and the floor dropped out from under his feet.
The rush of ice cold air took his breath away for several seconds before he brought his breathing under control. Once he orientated himself into decent position he looked around to a scene he'd never thought he'd see. Debris fell all around him, huge hunks of twisted, smoking wreckage dropped in the same direction he did, the smoke produced obscured his vision in very direction, making it seem like he was falling through a tunnel.
Only four landers remained, then as one of them began to dump its soldiers out of its hold, it too exploded, leaving only three intact. Silvar hoped whatever it was that was attacking them would continue to vent its fury on the ships while he and his men made the surface. At least on the ground, they had a chance to fight back.
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What was he doing now? Tamar's mind was a whirl of discordant thoughts and emotions.
What was he going to do against fourteen Rougarian landers? Sure, she'd seen him do some pretty amazing things, but even he couldn't take out that many, no one could.
He'd asked her to stay inside the hotel until he got back. Okay, he'd told her to, but that cut way too far into her own self respect to call it that. So she, at least to herself, called it a request. Now she was pacing from window pane to window pane, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on outside.
She wanted to go out and see from there, but a part of her would not let her walk past the door ways broken frame. Every time she came close, a growl would tear from between her fangs and she'd march back towards the far wall. Tamar knew why she wouldn't go outside. It was something she'd never tell Malachi about. All of her life she'd been conditioned to obey orders, any orders given to her. When she'd escaped, it had taken every ounce of will she possessed to go against the General's orders to stay where she was. Now, with the situation different, and coming from someone she at least partially trusted, it was so much easier to just follow orders. It was something she knew she was good at and she didn't have to fight her instincts to do it. So there she walked, back and forth in front of a non existent barrier she had no compunction to cross, yet wanted to with everything she had.
Tamar was trying to distract herself by hunting mice when an explosion from outside sent rumbles through the floor. Sprinting to the window, she watched a fire ball rise into the air.
"What the hell was that?" Her eyes continued to rise from the fire ball and her mouth dropped open. The sky was filled with falling Rougarian drop-ships, all in various states of destruction. She watched one falling like a giant leaf, its starboard side descent thrusters firing, but without the port side two to off set the thrust all the starboard side ones did was pitch it side over side until its crazy flight was ended as it plowed into the ground and shattered, spreading fire in its massive destructive path.
Tamar ran to the north facing a set of windows and watched a similar scene play out. Huge chunks of wreckage fell from the sky. They crushed entire blocks of buildings flat with huge gout's of flames springing out of the destruction.
"Forget this," she spat. Spinning towards the doors, she sprinted straight at them. She had to see what was going on.
With a shout of resignation and joy, she broke out into the sun and again looked towards the clouds. Her heart beat sky rocketed when out of the smoke and debris she saw tiny dots, dots that were growing larger. Tamar had seen them before. On one of the first missions she'd been sent on, she watched as a Rougarian drop-ship had disgorged its cargo. It had dropped its payload a lot closer to the ground, but these dots could only be one thing, Saltek, and lots of them.
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