The Great War - Part 8
#8 of The Great War
Sorry for the delay folks. I've been planning this thing for the past two years, nearly, now, but this chapter has given me more need for thought than any of the previous ones. As always, if you're under 18 you shouldn't be on yiffstar at all. All the rest, enjoy the read.
"This is our first report about the war between the noble dragons and a previously unknown race called humans, that has any video. But, as you can see, the attack launched by Draconic General Shale was ambushed on it's way into the atmosphere of Earth about twenty minutes from it's objective point. The daring raid, as it was called by the general, was blunted and destroyed before it reached the human city of Washington. It is estimated that none of the raiders survived. This counter to a bold and arrogantly conceived attack has shown that while primative, the humans are not out yet."
Shale growls, smashing the viewer brought down by the Raptor news crews when they arrived with the royal family. Arrogantly concieved. The news reporter had said some worse things, but this cut him deep. She completely ignored the fact that raids across the rest of the broad country had gone off without a hitch, killing many humans, although most were the weaker bodied females rather than the males, or the soldiers. He shakes his head. A bad report on him right when the king arrived. He shakes his head and snaps at his officer. "How long until we are at the human city?" He asks. The officer snaps out of his stupor from seeing the viewer crushed and gives the answer the general wants to hear. Twenty three hours from then they would launch an attack on the human cities of El Paso and Juarez, agreeably located together, along what is the US border with Mexico, the two cities together having about three million people in it. Just the sort of thing he needs to both bolster his presence with such a large number of humans killed, and also, in concentrating his forces there, eliminate Fort Bliss, giving him the ability to funnel his army into the flat area of America, which they could sweep across with impunity. They would be able to split the entire country in half. He looks at the king as he stands there and tells him his plan, first to split the feeble human country, then to eliminate it.
On the other end, the humans knew just how desperate the situation was. With their radars retrofitted, E2 AWACs and E8 STARS aircraft have detected the concentrating draconic forces in startling numbers, and figured out, with the use of computers and recorders, where they came from, and where they are headed to. The information was routed over to Washington, who then started issuing orders.
Operation Grand Stand
Davis looks around. The breifing room at Biggs Army airfeild was packed. The airbase had been upgraded recently to have two squadrons but now it looked like the entire Air Force was there. "Men..." The base commander starts up. "This is Operation Grand Stand." He says, the map display on the wall lighting up, showing a sattelite picture of the Earth zooming into where El Paso is on the map, then showing a positioning of forces. This draws a whistle. "Pretty much the entire force of the United States military is concentrated here, in response to intelligence that the dragon army is massing nearby." He points along the map with a laser pointer. "Tanks hold the front lines near the border here..." He motions along the border. "And have choke points set up at the bridges crossing from downtown Juarez." A hand comes up. "Yes?"
A captain stands up. "Sir, why aren't we defending in Juarez?" He asks. The commander nods.
"A good question." he says. "Juarez has been completely evacuated to the US side of the border." he says. "We will let the enemy advance thru Juarez, then hit them as they try to cross the Rio Grande. Their main avenues of advance for their ground forces are predicted to be along the bridges, to bypass the river entirely. When they see these avenues are closed off by direct fire, they'll try crossing the river itself. It won't slow them down, but our infantry and tanks will have a nice broad kill zone to mow them down." He looks around. "The main threat, therefore, will be their air power. You will take your squadrons and attempt to keep the swarm of dragons off our ground forces. We will attack in two waves, Rogue squadron will lead in the first wave, then peel off as the second wave, lead by the Black Knights, comes in after them. Once all your radar guided missiles are expended, form up and fire all your heat seeking missiles from a single broad line..." The map goes thru the graphics showing all this happening. "If you do it right, there won't be any friendlies for the missiles to accidentally track in on. After that, close and engage." He says, then looks around the room. "We're betting everything here." He says. "All of you know what is expected. If we are defeated here, they can cut the country in half. The terrain after this point is perfect for them to rape our ground air defenses." He checks his watch. "The attack is expected in five hours from now. Get your squadrons briefed, get to your planes, and get up into the air. Dismissed."
With that, all the pilots get up to go brief their squadrons. Davis briefs the rogues on what's going to happen. They take it silently and cooly, tho every man wonders if he will live to see the sun rise tomorrow. "Alright." Davis says, the briefing done. "Get to your planes." They all get up and head to the lockers, getting their clothes on, the song "faith of the heart" playing for them, their customary song before a mission.
McLintock was already out there, setting up his positions in the streets of downtown El Paso, which they knew they'd probably have to fall back to. They set up heavy machine guns, fifty caliber weapons that would make even the armored Terra dragons notice they were being shot at. The engineers can't set up much on the ground, so they are up on the tops of buildings, getting anti air guns set up, and SAM launchers, tho few of those are left that aren't tracked. The dragons have targeted those in particular the last couple of skirmishes. "Hope you boys can take care of those little bastards." A familiar voice comes from nearby. "I'll have my tanks be gunnin' for those green dragons." Colonel Wallace comes walking over, his new Abrams tank set up in its first firing position over the rio grande.
"Yes sir, we'll keep em off ya." McLintock says, grinning, shaking the general's hand.
"See that ya do. And stay close. We'll only survive this damned furball if we stick together and work together."
McLintock nods. "You bet sir." He says, and both men go off to finish preparing their firing positions. Two hours later both are back nearby the tanks at the Grande, waiting for the battle to start.
Saphyra snorts at the camera that hovers nearby her. But, part of being royalty is knowing how to treat the press. She looks down at the little Raptor reporter. "So, you really think the humans won't shoot your cameras during the battle?" The raptor shrugs.
"The general seems to think they'll have bigger things to shoot at. And we have about twenty cameras." She says. "This is camera 7. It'll follow you throughout the entire thing."
Saphyra nods. "Very well. If it gets in my way tho, I'll bat it out of the sky myself." She says. The reporter grins and shakes her head. Saphyra snorts again, but looks out at the horizon. A half hour's flight from here would be the human cities they were attacking. The humans had at least wisened up about throwing bombers at them after the first flight earlier that day was knocked out before it even got close. She knew they were desperate. She was a little desperate. She knew that general would be after her once the humans were defeated, but it made her scales itch to think of being bonded to that, what was the human term, jackass? Yes, jackass. She calms herself with an effort, listening to a song she had commited to memory, one she heard from the human's mental defenses. "Every body wants to rule the world..." she mutters, to get the song started in her head. She's soon bobbing her head a little bit in time with the beat as she walks around, surveying her people. Diamond had been given over to their ground attackers. Not much to do in the air. Cynder was still with her, Gharna was leading the Gryphons, who would help to take out the tanks the humans like so much.
Saphyra catches herself pacing again as she listens to her song in her head, and forces herself to lay down. The only way she can think of heading off the general was to capture that human of hers. Only then would she be able to stay busy long enough to come up with a plan, while pretending to be breaking the human's mind. Damn Shale for being friends with her father.
Two hours later, Davis was in his F22 taking into the air with his squadron, news cameras were all over the ground, recording their takeoffs and giving their reports, as best as the reporters could do. On the other side of the horizon, the raptors were doing the exact same thing, reports going out to their homeworld, and to the dragons who were not there, as well as anyone else watching the broadcasts. Both forces starting to converge on each other.
"This is Silvia Heartclaw of Raptor News Center." A young raptor female reports. "Coming to you live from Earth, were the dragons are taking to the air. We will be bringing you this report live, with no interruptions. As you can see..." The view shifts over to a view from one of their many drones, showing dragons taking flight into the air. "...the dragons are heading towards the human city in full force. We haven't seen a gathering of this many dragons since the swarm that defeated the Dremora armada." The reporter is standing nearby, making her report, relying on the technology to merge her head into the field of view on the broadcast. The camera then swivels out, showing dots on the horizon.
Davis watches out ahead of his craft with wide eyes. "Holy shit." He says, as the sky before them seems filled with dragons. He takes a deep breath, and pushes the button to fire his missiles, keeping his aircraft straight as the weapons seperate.
From the ground where the raptor are watching the action, the fighters are suddenly shrouded in smoke as they launch four radar guided missiles a piece, the sky hidden in smoke trails as the missiles fire in, flying at mach two to their targets, the dragons barely having time to react as the missiles bore in. The celestials fire off their attack, the sky criss crossing missile smoke trails with quick beam blasts, and explosions start rippling amongst the draconic ranks as missiles find their marks, the first wave of fighters pulling up and clear as the second wave fires off their missiles, the dragons pulling up clear of the smoke just in time to see more missiles rushing in at them, beginning to manuever desperately to avoid the missiles, but most still find their marks, dragons who had taken too many hits, or hits at the right spots, starting to fall from the sky, as more of them come in, only to meet a third wave of missiles coming in, these ones more numerous than the ones fired already. In all, half of the draconic air forces were injured, half of those downed entirely, the rest beating on towards the fighters who are loitering over El Paso, firing off their attacks, explosions in the distance marking the chance hits they score as they close in.
The reporters on the ground find themselves locked on the sight of the battle, as do the viewers at the homes the report is being broadcast to. Typically, these kinds of fights are seen in space, but never with so much. The cameras close in with the dragons, even with the forces on the ground as they advance thru the city. The dragons close rapidly on their human foes, the aerial forces closing in on each other in walls, firing at each other as they merge, aircraft exploding from hits, dragons wheeling to the side or just falling as shots from fighter cannons find marks, one dragon even turning to grab a fighter as it banks, ripping it apart as it flies, the pilot ejecting, the dragon detatching from the doomed craft to chase him. The addition of the lower flying inferno dragons and gryphons adds to the carnage as human anti-air emplacements on the buildings and in the streets fill the sky above the city with explosions, tracers, and smoke trails, as anti air guns and SAM batteries breifed to go after low flying targets start engaging.
On the ground, McLintock is as nervous as he can ever remember. Just looking up reveals two layers of fighting going on, one way overhead as dragons and fighters engage each other, explosions going off like in one of those sci fi movie battles, and lower, gryphons trying to close in on them are getting shot down, along with inferno dragons trying to get close enough to bathe fire on them. How long would it last? "Enemy in sight!" Comes the call on the radio, and he focuses forward, seeing hybrids coming towards the bridge. "Splash, over." Comes another call, and the distant rumble of artillery is heard, as the franklin mountaintop is covered in flashes. The sound of ripping linen and whistling comes overhead, and across the rio grande, and along the bridges, explosions start blooming up, tearing hybrids apart as artillery falls on predetermined target zones. "FIRE!"
The view on the cameras suddenly switch as the ground battle starts, alternating between snippets of the air battle seen from a distance to the images of ground fighting. The switch comes just in time, as the opposite bank of the river dividing the cities lights up, tanks that were disguised amongst the buildings and under debries start firing on the troops already being hit by explosives launched from the nearby mountain. The dragons and hybrids roar, starting to charge across the river itself, even as the bridges spanning the river collapse under the sustained artillery fire, tracers racing across the river to bury into their targets, a tank firing a shot that slams into a Terra dragon leading a charge, hitting its neck and dropping the dragon.
General Shale growls at this. Human artillery was slaughtering his attack wave, and their anti air guns, placed on rooftops, were keeping his gryphons from helping out. He reaches out with his mind towards the celestials in the air, telling them to fire upon the human buildings. Only a few are able to get free, however, and he can't even find Saphyra. Saphyra is having the time of her life, wheeling in the air, keeping herself closed off. She fires a blast, hitting a plane in the wing, sending it spinning to its death as it crashes into Juarez, cutting in half a large flag pole. Already the battle had spread out, and the sky was starting to fill with black smoke as inferno dragons start torching things. Occassional bullets fly up into the air battle, hitting at random, but she has been lucky so far. Then, she feels something, a familiar something, and whirls, a fighter that was coming after her shooting past. She rushes towards the feeling in time to see an F22 she remembers shoot down a celestial with a burst of well aimed cannon fire. She had found him, at last! With a roar, she barrels after him, but the pilot notices her, and puts on a burst of speed, banking straight up, so she overshoots him.
Davis looks up out of the top of his cockpit at the blue dragoness he had just pulled clear of as he loops over her. "There she is." He says, bringing his fighter out of the main dogfight. He knew that he will need all the space he can get to manuever clear of this celestial's attacks. She was a good flier, after all. He gets about a mile away from the battle, it now looking like random explosions and small pricks of light, then turns around and flies at his target, he and saphyra passing within feet of each other as the duel in the air, a small camera tracking them the entire time.
"Back track and fire as we move!" Wallace calls as the dragons get to the pull back point in the river. They were using the corpses of the larger dragons as shields to cover their advance, the bastards. He backs up into the city, just in time to hear an explosion behind him, as a celestial cuts the top half of the wells fargo building off at an angle, the roof sliding off and crashing down to the ground, crushing some of their defensive positions, and killing the anti air battery that was on top of the building. A screach from above alerts him to a more pressing danger, and he aims his M2 up as a gryphon swoops down at his tank, firing the machine gun, the fifty caliber rounds ripping into and straight thru the gryphon, the hybrid creature ramming into the ground just behind and to the right of his tank, already dead. The gunner fires off another shot, missing a Terra dragon wide to the right. He looks around to see McLintock and his squad pulling back with his tank, firing their machine guns at the hybrids who have come up the bank, throwing fire at them the entire way.
In Dallas, a five star general watches his readouts about the battle happening in El Paso. His forces were pulling back a little bit, and his air force was mixed up and completely in it. Their missile volleys had gone off without a hitch, but now, up close and personal with the dragons it was a whole different story. Add to it that half the downtown area was burning, and that Juarez was a mess, and it didn't look good. Meanwhile, the raptor and human journalists were eating the footage up. At homes all across the Earth, and at homes all across a planet light years away, people were glued to those broadcasts, watching men and dragons fight a desperate battle against each other, some with popcorn, others praying.
Davis growls as he takes his raptor into a tight high G turn, having turned off the fighter's onboard flight assistance program to maneuver better, with the risk of stalling. The advantage was that unlike how Saphyra could fly, he could actually drift in the air, allowing him to make a tight horseshoe type turn. He grins as this turn brings him in at an oblique angle to the dragon's front. He squeezing the trigger, and a long burst of cannon fire erupts from his plane's nose, sprinkling railgun shots along Saphyra's back. Saphyra roars in pain like she had never felt before and fires at where she thinks Davis will pull to, forcing him to remain straight, and rakes the bottom of his fighter with her claws. As she glides to the ground, she sees his cockpit canopy fly away from his fighter, then watches Davis eject, seconds later the fighter explodes.
McLintock hates this. He hates the whole thing. Half the city's buildings were now on the streets. This gave him better places to set up at, but makes it all but impossible to use those machine guns. He pops up from behind some rubble and fires at a group of hybrids hiding behind their own rubble just across an intersection. "Grenade!" he calls out, and one of his men pulls out one and throws it, the throw good, sailing over the cover the hybrids were hiding behind before detonating, showering the abominations with lethal shrapnel. "Fall back to the tank!" He calls out, running back to where Wallace's tank was firing it's machine guns at hybrids advancing on it while it backs up. The tank stops, and a loud crack comes out as the main gun fires, the heat round soaring out and exploding against the side of a market shop, fragments ripping thru the beasts inside. McLintock stops and goes prone as he sees movement, a hybrid jumping on top of the tank, and fires a single burst, catching the creature in the chest and knocking it off and into a parking meter. The tank keeps backing up.
Wallace is on his radio, locked up in the turret of his tank. "We're being overrun!" He calls over the radio. "I've lost half my armor in the downtown area! They're doing fine where there's open ground and your warthogs can get in close, but can't you get anything into the streets downtown?!" The radio squawks at him. "Alright, confirmed." He says, then looks out the commander's viewing sight. "Target, dragon, 1 o'clock!" He calls out. "SABOT up!" comes the reply, and "ON THE WAY!", then the loud crack of the main gun firing.
From behind the mountain, two squadrons of Apache attack helicopters come into the action. The helicopters keep low to the ground and come in around the downtown area, the dragons only realizing they are there when they get to the Rio Grande and start firing, a Terra dragon and a grounded Inferno never know what hit them as two missiles hit each of them. An Apache explodes as another Inferno passes by over head, and another is brought down by a gryphon who rams into it from the side. An Apache pulls up next to it, the gryphon that was going after it going just underneath it, the attack chopper turning to chase it, the 30mm gun firing, taking the gryphon in the back.
From across the river, Shale watches as the helicopters enter the fray. He is already angry that this fight isn't going well. The humans were supposed to have broken by now, but the air battle is still going on, and the ground war is a pure stalemate. The fighting in the city now has clearly determined lines. He turns to his subordinate. "Get all the reserves in there!" He orders. A few seconds later, all the forces he had in standby to await the breaking of the human lines rush forward. An E-8 fifty miles back from the battle takes note of the sudden movement and warns the ground commander. "Colonel Wallace, they've got their reserves moving." He switches frequency. "All MLRS batteries, fire on the riverfront." A quick acknowledgement comes over the radio.
Davis lands hard, grunting as he faceplants into the dirt, and rolls over, slapping his chest to release the parachute, letting it fly away. Missiles are once again filling the sky as the MLRS batteries open up on their targets. He gets up, drawing his pistol, and runs, trying to remember which way it was to the rally point if you had to eject, when a growl stops him. "I've found you..." Comes a distinctly female voice. "Shit..." He says, and ducks behind a large rock. Saphyra looks around the area he had just run away from, blood trickling down her back. "Where are you?" She asks, her voice deceptively calm and light. Davis crawls to the next boulder nearby, trying to keep under cover and get away from her, trying to get to the top of the hill. If he can get on the other side, he might could run and escape...
In the city, it was starting to turn more ugly. Despite the bombardment on the other side of the river, the dragons were rushing over in their hundreds. McLintock looks up as an Apache flies over, firing off a full salvo of rockets and banking off to the right, dodging one fireball sent at it only to be struck broadside by another and exploded, the firey remains crashing into a nearby building. The sky was still full of smoke and explosions from anti air guns, tracers flying everywhere from mobile AA guns, the zipper sound of one firing nearby easily heard. The M163 appears seconds later, running for the Abrams Wallace is in as it pulls out of the downtown area, going up Mesa street, stopping at it's seventh firing position outside a Papa Johns, across the street from the Sun Bowl. Wallace stops his tank, it takes aim, and fires, the shot heading straight over the gatling gun on the M163 and striking the side of a Terra dragon who was chasing it. The dragon screams in pain and charges, only to be hit by a missile as an A10 flies overhead. The A10 banks, coming around and realigns with another target, it's nose hidden in fire and smoke as it fires its antitank gatling gun, strafing down a street flooded with hybrids.
McLintock gets behind cover nearby the tank, aiming and firing down the street as the dragons just keep coming. It's a good thing he has plenty of ammo. He had just gotten more from the cache set up near the tank's firing position. "Alright boys! Hold here! Give it everything you've got!" He calls out, then sights down his rifle and fires, ignoring the burning buildings downtown and the smoke in the air. "Dragon!" Comes the call, and a white Diamond dragon comes souring down, casting a spell, the Terra dragon getting up, its wounds partially healed. "Dammit!" McLintock calls out, firing at the hybrids near the big lug. "I HATE those white ones!" He says. A javeline missile fires from his lines, taking it's pop up attack, coming down at the dragon, only for it to dodge by jumping to the side, the missile exploding harmlessly in the street.
"All units report!" Wallace calls over his command circuit on his radio. Very few units report in. He looks up thru his hatch, the air battle was pretty much over, and the remaining celestial dragons were swooping down to assist the ground forces, tho it looked like there were only ten dragons left. That was ten more than the number of fighters he had over his head. "Command, Broken Arrow! I repeat, Broken Arrow! We are falling back!" he puts his radio down as his tank fires again. "Running low on ammo!" His loader calls out. A beam from a celestial slices by his tank, just barely missing, the vulcan behind him opening up with a loud zipper sound, tracers raking across the celestial's side. "Dammit!" He yells out, the tank firing again, hitting the terra dragon everyone was trying to kill. The white dragon comes back, and he suddenly sees himself back in England, his wife and daughter laughing during a picnic they had taken last summer...
McLintock fires his weapon down the road again, taking the last hybrid that was nearby the now dead Terra down, just in time to see the white dragon swoop down and land before them, drawing breath to get rid of the tank. There's a blinding white light, and he sees himself back at home, his wife in his arms, watching Titanic with her, feeling her kiss his neck, her telling him she loves him, and that she would never let him go...
Davis had just gotten to the peak of the hill and was starting to get up when he hears what he had hoped to not hear. "AHA!" Saphyra calls out, jumping and landing next to him. He looks at her in dread, aiming his pistol...
General Shale is in gloat mode. His decision to commit the reserves had been a good one. The human lines were completely collapsing, the king was smiling next to him, and soon, he'd have the king's blue daughter as his own bond mate. He looks back at the city he had just ruined, in time to see a blinding flash come from the river front just off to his right side, and then nothing more...
The raptor reporter is smiling. "It looks like the fighting is starting to slacken off." She says, her camera swaying over the ruined cityscape, tho they can't pick out specifics thanks to all the smoke and ruined buildings. "The dragons should start to..." Suddenly all the lights, all the camera links shut off. "What happened?!" She calls out. The director looks at everything, the screens were all static. The director is in panic mode. "What happened? Do we have any feeds at all?!" He cries out. "I've got nothing...wait! We've got camera seven!" Calls a tech. "Putting it up now!" The screen pops up to live shot from camera seven, a dragon and a human that had been squared off to fight, human with a hand gun, dragon with her claws, and both looking towards the downtown area. Except it's not downtown. They are looking at an enormous orange mushroom cloud, the sky behind it black in contrast to it, no details visible of either the human or the dragon. There's movement on the ground, dust being kicked up the as a massive shockwave heads towards them. The dragon jumps at the human, then the shockwave hits, knocking the dragon flying, and the camera cuts out.
McLintock looks around, his memory of his time with his wife having faded back into memory, and the first thing he notices is a white dragon in front of him and Wallace's tank, standing on its hind legs, wings spread out, and a circle around his squad, the dragon, and the tank, and the ruins of the M163, where the dust swirling around outside doesn't come in. Wallace opens his hatch and looks around outside, seeing the same thing, and then the dome collapses, dust swirling around them as the white dragon collapses down onto its belly, completely exhausted. His job rushes back to him and McLintock rushes over to the dragon, aiming his gun at its head. He holds his fire tho. "I think we're still alive!" Wallace yells to him. McLintock nods, grinning, aiming his gun at the dragon, who looks up at him with exhausted eyes, seeing him laugh in joy about having his life still, his men cheering. The dragon shifts its head, looking back at the dark mushroom cloud rising over what used to be Juarez and downtown El Paso.
Davis groans and looks around, not sure of what to think yet. What really brings him around is a sharp pain in his right arm. He knows it is broken, he can't really move it at all without pain, so he tucks his arm up against his chest. That's when he notices that he's tucked up against a chest, and looks up to see Saphyra on her side, looking out at the horizon as she holds him. He follows her gaze, seeing the mushroom cloud rising. He sighs and lays his head down, not caring right then that he was resting in a dragon's paw.
The raptor news crew was still in shock over what they had seen. They had only ever seen that kind of a blast from the elves. But their eyes don't deceive them as they look out at the city and see the enormous mushroom cloud rising up. "It can't be." One of the raptors says. "They were..."
"Almost space faring." the director finishes for his crewman. He looks to his team. "Get more drones out there, I want what's left of this to be recorded and broadcast. There are a couple of billion souls wanting to see what has happened here."
In the palace in England, where the dragons had transported down their castle, the queen lays on her side, looking at her servants who swarm around her, wanting to know what's wrong. She knows. "Tell Saphyra, if she is alive...that She is Queen now..." She says, her breath coming in pants. "My mate has died..." She says, the dragoness servants looking somber. "And I am no longer able to lead." She closes her eyes, and lets herself pass away, to follow her husband into the afterlife, rather than fighting and hanging on, and going on living without her heart.
Saphyra slowly gets up, moving in exaggerated motions so she can keep her balance, keep her wits, and, finally, get in the air, flying towards downtown, landing where a tank is sitting with its turret aimed at a white dragon. "Diamond..." She says, panting. "Are you alright?" She sets Davis down near the tank. Now is not the time for more killing.
Diamond looks up and nods, then goes wide eyed seeing the blood. She casts a quick spell with some of the last bits of her strength, stopping the bleeding. "I'm sorry...Saphyra..." She says, laying her head down. "I can't...heal them...all the way. You'll have some scars."
Saphyra smiles and nuzzles her softly. "Don't worry about it my friend." She says. "Males love scars." That gets a grin from her at least. McLintock comes out of the Papa Johns, which was spared destruction, as well as everything in that block, by the shield Diamond had put up. "I found food!" He says, bringing out chicken wings to cook and some toppings. "I couldn't get the oven working tho. Probably because gas and electricity are out." That doesn't stop them from using a microwave from a store nearby to cook them up. Davis is being tended to by the medic they had with them. Gharna lands nearby, missing a leg, and Cynder limps up from behind, her side bleeding, not badly, but enough. Both of them have their bleeding stopped by Diamond, using up the last her her magic. She promptly falls asleep after that, needing it. The dragons all watch as the humans cook up food, knowing whichever side's forces get here first will take the other side's people prisoner. Everyone is in too much shock to do anymore fighting. Overhead, a single F22 is still in the air.
Four hours later.
Davis looks around, his arm no longer broken thanks to that nice white dragon, and once again does a count of the remains of both sides that had been fighting. They had, one and all, seen where the others were gathering up at and had descended upon the location, no one fighting, the dragons in shock over their near brush with death, the humans too elated by the fact that they are alive to push their luck farther. All things considered, Davis considers himself lucky to be alive as well. He looks at Saphyra, who the other dragons are treating as a leader, and smiles to her. She had saved his life by grabbing him. Saphyra looks back at him, able to feel his mind, but not trying to take it over for once. Wallace clears his throat nearby, causing Saphyra to look at him. "If ya are who I think ya are..." Wallace says. "Why don't we call a cease fire for the whole damned war right here and now?" He asks, gambling that in her state she won't want to fight anymore. Saphyra nods, not even thinking about it, and looks back to Davis. She has him now, but what will she do with him? She doesn't want to break him, not after seeing what she did. It reminded her too much of that dream she had.
Wallace is all grins now. "He turns and sees the crew of his tank coming out of the PJ's with a pizza. "We got the oven working with that generator them engineers brought!" he says, and puts out a pepperoni. The humans quickly come over to grab a slice, and some unlucky privates are detailed to make more.
"That's not the only good news." Wallace says, his voice loud. "That dragon there, I think she's their leader, has agreed to a cease fire!" The humans stare at him. "Well, dunna stand there like a kid staring at his new puppy." He says, which gets the crews cheering! Wallace grins, and goes to get on their one working radio to send the good news to HQ.
Two days later.
McLintock is still in shock when he's on the airplane, a 737 that was stuck on the ground at El Paso International. He looks out the window, seeing the F22 that was flying on this side of the plane. There were two, one on either side the jet he was in with all the other surviving Army men. Those two were the best pilots in the USAF, the only two who survived the battle at El Paso. He kept his eyes on that one fighter the entire way to Holloman. It never ceased to amaze him how those fighters could land at the same time as each other, for he watches them as they land with his jet. He gets up with the others and heads towards the exit of the aircraft, greeted as he steps out into the sun by the Star Spangled banner being played, he looks down at the crowd, and what he sees is even better. As he gets off the staircase he sees his wife running towards him. He drops his bag and runs to her, tears blurring his vision as he wraps her in a hug, the men coming off after him doing the same with their spouses, MPs not even trying to keep them back. There had been so little hope for either husband or wife to see the other again, and now, they were able to. The tears fall from his eyes as he holds his wife, his daughter hugging to his leg, none of them wanting to let go, none of them wanting to think about what the future might hold. Right then, they alive and they were together, and that's all that mattered.
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This concludes the Great War. The Great War is only the opening part in a series of stories I will be writing about these characters, or their offspring. I will begin on the next part of this story series just as soon as I can get my thoughts together about it, but thanks for reading! Feedback, comments, and suggestions are always welcome.