Chapter 3
#4 of Mage's Cold War
More work on the Mage's Cold War retelling of The Black Gryphon. I'm still up in the air if I shouldn't just make this an original story at this point, what do you think?
We now get to see a bit of what was happening from Zhaneel's perspective on the day the first US mainland invasion had taken place.
Zhaneel found herself getting lost more often than not on the massive sprawling base just trying to get to where her hearing was. The gryphonoess having to stop at various guide maps and at least twice musted up the courage to ask someone for directions on where to go. Gryphons weren't allowed to fly over 100ft off the ground in certain areas on base without contacting the air traffic control tower. This was true around any airport for the flying beasts.
It was standard kit to at least have some sort of radio on their body, Zhaneel chose to have a small portable unit that attached to the satchel she wore around her neck. The entire ensemble comprised of a series of buttons that went over her talon hand like a partial glove that let the user select frequencies and gave them a push-to-talk button. However, her short low flights didn't bring up any need to talk to the otherwise foreign controllers. Finally, she ended up at the base command post and stepped inside. She was directed to a conference room where conversation immediately died when she entered the room.
She was the single object of attention for gryphons and humans alike. Skandranon Raskae was at the front of the room along with other humans all wearing various degrees of medals and rank insignia. "Sergent Zhaneel" Skandranon's voice led the discussion "please take a seat... We're all very interested to hear first-hand what you experienced in what we all hope won't be the beginning of World War Three" The black gryphon got some sharp looks from the front of the room, the black bird openly defying others who had been trying to downplay the events that had recently unfolded. "Start from the beginning and tell us all you know"
Zhaneel nodded meekly "um..." the falcon gryphon bobbing her head slightly as she looked down at the woodgrain of the giant desk she was sitting in front of. If nothing else this base was certainly purposely built to accommodate gryphons, tables, benches, desks, busses, you name it, it all had capacity for gryphons to find them useful.
Zhaneel kept her head down, as she recalled the events of that day. It had started like most did in the winter. The PAVE-PAWS radar operators changed shifts as she finished her breakfast. The gryphoness making some fun conversation with one of the operators that was just coming back from a vacation in the tropics, including several cliché jokes about how she must miss the climate and so forth. It had been quiet for a while, but not abnormally long, they hadn't been receiving many exercises lately they figured it would be happening any day now. At one point one of the operators looked to Zhaneel and asked her to do her thing outside. Which meant she needed to brave the elements and knock the rime ice off the radar dishes, they were starting to loose a clear picture for the radio radar over the horizon. These northern PAVE-PAWS radar stations were equipped with wild batwing looking mage energy tracking radars. In an attempt to be able to track where magical things were either by the presence of mage energy, or detecting where it sharply was absent, or 'too perfect' if shielded.
Zhaneel groaned and the gryfalcon clambered out into the frozen wind... mallet in talon and was busy beating away at the ice on the sensors. "Goddamn it it's windy today.... Good Lord" she cursed as she held onto the array with a talon and beat with the other and clawed at some of the ice with her foot.
Back in the building one of the operators took a sip of his coffee, flipping the page in the newspaper he was reading. Alarms blared in the building, he quickly sat the cup down and sat up in his chair with a squeak "Mage energy event, confidence reporting" All the other operators started flipping switches and changing zoom levels on their screens "SSCO No malfunction!" came a voice from another station confirming the sensors were fully operational as the main operator lifted a red phone off the hook "Missile warning this is DEW Twelve standby confidence reporting... want to confirm, is this an exercise?" There was a pause "Roger copy, THIS IS NOT AN EXERCISE" the male practically yelled to the room as he stared at his screen showing tracks of mage energy practically right on top of the station "Missile Warning this is DEW Twelve no malfunction three mage energy targets bearing 250, confidence is high repeat confidence is high."
Meanwhile Zhaneel was unaware of what was transpiring inside as she just finished beating the ice of the sensor for who knows how long- Something big just flew by a distant snowbank, she almost paid it no mind until she swore she saw a second one... the falcon sliding off the antenna and quickly using the wind to her advantage and gaining altitude... once she was high high in the sky she saw three Makkar... THREE... right on top of the station, apparently they had been low enough to the ground they hadn't been detected earlier, if even at all. She almost turned back to the station but looked to the mallet in her hand and tightened her grip and tucked her wings in and stooped on them. Completely catching the first one off guard her mallet did a death blow to his head, she quickly shot back skyward as the other two started to flee in various directions. They gained altitude causing other DEW stations to suddenly all start popping into alarm.
Word of this possible attack was slow to make it through the Air Force bureaucracy, up to the SAC command post, then SAC ordered the bombers, gryphons and fighters launched. Then it went back down to the units, who sounded klaxons, and finally planes were airborne...
"It was all too late, I had all three of them down at least 15 or more minutes before the first plane was overhead, and" she scoffed "I think that was a tanker, or a bomber... definitely wasn't a Herc with gryphons on it" she looked up from the table finally. While the humans were listening it was clear the Black Gryphon was enraptured by her story, she had to avert her gaze from him as she felt like she almost owed him more of a story with the way he was looking.
"well... Sergent you went well and I mean well above the call of duty. It is of my opinion to field promote you to the rank of Gryphon Sergent first class, give you three commendations for each makkar kill, formally log three kills on your record which you may display on your flightpack if you wish, and grant you 10 days leave... this committee is adjourned" the wing commander said as he and everyone else stood from their seats.
Zhaneel attempted to take full advantage of the opportunity and get outside the building as quickly as possible. The gryphoness would have run for the door if it wouldn't have looked so bad. She made her way outside and quickly tried to put as much distance between this building and herself as possible.