//------------------------------// // Chapter 19 // Story: Hegira: Option Gamma // by Guardian_Gryphon //------------------------------// If war was chaos, Wrenn reflected, then being a Gryphon was the ultimate in bringing order to chaos. Fighting a roughly equal foe, like a trained Diamond Dog mercenary, was all about one opponent, or a small group, and the skill involved in anticipating your enemies tendencies, weak spots, and rhythm over the long term. Alot like blitz chess, with sharp edges and high octane kinesthetics. Fighting in the chaos of a projectile based firefight was the antithesis; It was about the forest, not the trees. It was easier for Wrenn because it was already his native element, but he had a faster brain, sharper eyes, and very *very* sharp claws. The secret to excelling against overwhelming numbers of enemies who were themselves individually weak, but posessing of deadly weapons, was quick planning and precise targeting. The best way to accrue kills and accomplish an objective, was to think ahead. Plot out a route across the battlefield, mentally marking targets. Because those targets were slow compared to his own reflexes, Wrenn could plan all the kills well in advance, crafting them into a flow; A well connected sequence of high speed events. Wrenn was ‘in command’ of a battalion of Earthgov Special Forces marines. To his mind it was more like he was escorting them and advising their commander, but the overall result was the same. The Gryphons had split up, Carradan travelling with Wrenn’s unit, deciding mutually that they were best used as force multipliers for existing squads rather than a single incredibly destructive unit. An HLF hand-held mortar shell burst overhead, and a new group of the tan armored soldiers came marching through a side alley. Their steps seemed to cease, and the whole world paused as Wrenn inhaled, and his mind took the task head on. Five hostiles. Standard energy diffusion plating, kevlar nanopolymer vest overlay. Heavy armor. Advantage; resilient versus long range projectiles and knives. Disadvantage; bulky and slow. Inflexible. Weapons; KA-Bar survival combat knives, frag grenades, NSK-9 projectile based sidearms, RAC-5 rail rifles, and one enemy with a handheld mortar, single shell expended out of three in a standard clip. Wrenn quickly plotted out the lines of fire, weaving his own maneuvers to take advantage of the positions and sight pictures of the enemy soldiers’ to force the maximum amount of movement and risk to each other in order to put him in their sights. Then he fell to planning the kills. Five hostiles, making avoidance of incoming fire easy. Human compatriots; unable to avoid incoming fire quite as well, therefore kills must be accomplished quickly, and with flare in order to draw fire and attention. First Kill; Close with mortar wielding soldier, seize weapon, twist one hundred and eighty degrees and relieve him of it. Two broken arms, broken collar bone, dislocated shoulder, dazed. Finish with back paw swipe as he falls; Slit jugular, fatal. Second and third Kill; Fire mortar point-blank at vanguard position. Deaths instantaneous by shrapnel and shockwave concussion. Fourth kill; Backflip into rearmost enemy, whose sight picture will be disrupted by nature of being forced to shield herself from incoming shrapnel. Disoriented, easy kill. Snap neck two hundred and twelve degrees to line up sights with last enemy. Final kill; Soldier may have regained some modicum of perception, distance will be too great to prevent him from dispatching a round, which could be easily avoided, but he may target a friendly, so kill must be swift. Throw sword, tight arc, aim for small weakness in neck plating, follow up with final mortar shot if necessary, exhausting clip. Total reckoning; Five kills, three point four seconds, forty six total rounds fired counting initial fire, no friendly casualties. Wrenn exhaled. Execute. Wrenn flipped into the air, splaying his wings for a brief second to draw attention, then snapping them closed to protect them. He corkscrewed down his predetermined path as bullets whizzed around him, many coming close, but none a major risk. All the firing lines fell out exactly as he had known they would. His corkscrew brought him down and right, allowing him to use his momentum to impact the mortar soldier. Before the trooper could even process what had happened, he twisted the weapon end over end, breaking every bone between the man’s fingers and neck on both sides instantly as he, quite literally, twisted his arms into a pretzel. As the soldier fell, Wrenn swiped at his helmet with one back paw, dislodging it, and used the other to impale the enemy’s throat on his claws using gravity. Simultaneously, he raised the mortar, sighted the two vanguard units, and pulled the trigger. The two soldiers were only one quarter of the way through turning around to reestablish line of sight on him, and they didn’t even have time to process what hit them before they went up in a fireball. Before the round was even halfway to target, Wrenn had pushed into a backflip, simultaneously shielding himself from any left over shrapnel with his backplate, and bringing him down towards his fourth kill. He landed directly behind the disoriented soldier, cupping his forelegs around her head in a grim parody of a hug, and snapping hard as soon as he hit the ground. The human spine could be severed with sixty six force pounds of torque. Inside the particular type of armor the HLF were wearing, this was elevated to one hundred and ninety eight force pounds. A Gryphon could produce, with his or her forelegs, according to the measuring devices in the Bureau gym, roughly six hundred and seventy force pounds of instantaneous torque. Under the pressure, the titanium neck plates of the enemy’s armor simply snapped loose as though they were over-cooked ceramic, and flew in all directions like frisbees. The maneuver placed Wrenn’s own sight picture firmly over the last soldier. Or it should have. During his backflip, Wrenn became aware that something was very wrong. The final soldier’s armor configuration had caught his eye as looking odd, at first, but there didn’t seem to be any appreciable external advantage to it, so he dismissed it. But the strange soldier didn’t seem phased by the mortar fire, and he had in fact begun to move towards Wrenn once he had a visual lock. Now he was too close to use the mortar, which meant he was moving with a shocking, essentially impossible, level of speed for a human. Wrenn dropped the mortar, and engaged hand-to-claw, grabbing the man’s weapon as he squeezed the trigger, and avoiding the rounds by combination of twisting the weapon, and his own body, to stay out of the line of fire. To his abject amazement, the man pushed back with nearly equal force, preventing Wrenn from doing much more than throwing off his aim. Wrenn had applied what *should* have been enough force to break every bone above the soldier’s belt line, through to the C3 vertebra. Wrenn thought quickly, not questioning the ‘why,’ or even the ‘how;’ he focused on simply winning. He adapted his strategy, hanging onto the weapon and using his forelegs to vault upwards into another backflip. The soldier followed him, much more quickly than he expected, but it provided enough of an opening to land a punch. Despite the man’s seeming increased strength speed and durability, Wrenn hit quite hard, and he was rewarded with a sickening crunch as armor plates impacted into bones, fracturing them badly, if not breaking them as spectacularly as Wrenn would have liked. He used the half-second of time that bought him to draw his sword. The enemy soldier was fast, but like a Diamond Dog, not fast on a Gryphon’s level. And he had nothing substantial to fend off Wrenn’s sword with. The blade was monomolecular; Even dropping it accidentally produced enough force to cleave through any armor less than three inches thick. Wrenn was putting six hundred odd force pounds into his swing. The blade passed through the soldier’s RAC-5 as though it was a hologram, and buried itself a foot into his neck, ending his life instantaneously via severance of the spinal column at the second vertebra. The entire exchange, from the time Wrenn had first moved, had taken five seconds. For the next five, not a single sound was heard beyond the distant rat-a-tat-tat and occasional thunderous boom of the battles raging around them. Carradan finally spoke, “You know... I’m really glad I brought the high speed camera.” The platoon commander followed up with a simple expletive expounding the consecration of excrement. Wrenn yanked his sword free of the dead soldier, noting that his blood was discolored a sickly shade of burnt orange. An orangish tint he recognized, but had never seen in such intensity. Suddenly, everything made sense. Horrifying, clear, disgusting, mortifying sense. Once, after receiving his implants, Wrenn had taken minor head wounds from an exploding claymore. The cuts had bled more or less normally, but the blood was tinted slightly orange. When he asked the field medic why, the man had informed him that it was a byproduct of implantation. As Carradan and some of the marines came over to examine his handiwork, Wrenn slowly knelt and removed the soldier’s helmet. A second later, he deeply wished he hadn’t. For the first time as a Gryphon, he felt the gag reflex. The man, if he could still be called a man, barely had a recognizable face. Wrenn refused, afterwards, to even try to describe the mutilation the cybernetic implantation had caused. The sight was haunting, and horrifying to the point of eliciting screams. He didn’t even want to know, but from a tactical standpoint, the information was necessary; So Wrenn plunged a talon into the corpse’s arm. It came back covered in sickly orange, tinged with gray/green mechanical lubricant. Wrenn peeled off one gauntlet, and his suspicions were confirmed; A layer of skin came with it, and the piece of armor remained attached by a series of small nanotubes. Carradan stammered, “They.... they melded them with the armor. Grew it right in... I’m going to be sick...” Wrenn glowered, “Unethical, crude, and unfortunately quite effective. He was equivalent to a Diamond Dog, if not slightly better off because of his intelligence.” The platoon commander glowered, “Are you telling me he’s augmented? Cybernetics?” Wrenn nodded, “Very much so. I’d guess, from what I’m seeing, that they replaced almost half his body with biomechanical substitutes, jacked in a whole new positronic nervous system, coated the bones in liquid metal, then grew his armor straight in for added protection. They probably had to irradiate the pain and pleasure centers of his brain to keep him from living in agony twenty four seven.” The marines began to mumble epithets, most of them decrying the legitimacy of the parentage of HLF soldiers and leaders. Wrenn motioned to Carradan, “You want to do a story on implants? Show the world *this.* This is where their pro-humanist crusade has taken them.” He spat the last words, his rage boiling up inside. He may have disliked his implants, but they had been a help to him, making him able to live and fight with a semblance of normality when he would have been otherwise permanently marred. Organs could not be stem-cell regrown after suffering bioplasmic taint. Because of acts like the augmentation of the HLF soldier, humanity was afraid to use the technology for good, and was depriving itself of a great benefit. Because of the fear instilled by a few, many suffered. Wrenn grabbed the man’s neck and snapped it hard repeatedly until it separated, just for good measure. No telling what sort of potential regenerative properties his augmentation gave him. Carradan groaned, “How do you *deal* with days like this?” Wrenn’s ears twitched. He could make out the sounds of two PER troopers trying to ambush them. He growled, “I take out my frustration.” The PER soldiers’ skulls then became intimately acquainted with the stocks of their own particle rifles. Two hours later, Wrenn finally met up with the other Gryphons. The four warriors were, it seemed, the only commanders in the combat zone whose squads hadn’t lost men in the battle. Some squadrons were carrying wounded, others were protecting ponies. Some were soldiers who had been hit by PER weapons, some of whom were HLF; made obvious by their constant pleas for death. Peoples fanaticism could be so great, that even the mind of a Pony couldn’t immediately begin to erode it. General Lantry had informed them that the prisoner transports had escaped safely, and were already turning over custody of the captured Ponies and Humans at the nearest military installation. Medivac still couldn’t enter the area. The Raleigh’s Scythes had managed to take down the HLF’s fighters in a messy close quarters battle, but both had sustained heavy damage because of the overwhelming odds, forcing them back to the ship. The sky was clear, but the HLF had set-up a perimeter, boxing the destroyed remnants of the PER forces, and the dazed but combat worthy Earthgov troops, inside Carrenton. Some of their APCs were packing anti-air flak guns, others jammers, and supporting strike packages were still thirty minutes away. In short; it would be up to the forces inside the town to get themselves out. Wrenn, Carradan, Kephic, Varan, Sildinar, and the commanders of the remaining platoons, were gathered around a large backpack DaTab set up as an impromptu holotable. The Earthgov forces had retreated to the PER command building, and setup makeshift trauma centers, prison cells, a command center, and defensive emplacements inside. Squads were making periodic hit and run attacks to keep the HLF guessing, in hopes that a workable battle plan could be formed before their location was nailed down and pounded with artillery fire. Wrenn had just finished briefing everyone on the new threat of HLF augmented troopers. Lantry’s voice came over the holo-table’s speaker, “Gentlemen, you have three primary tangos. First, one prisoner didn’t quite make it to the APCs. The PER general you bagged has fallen into HLF hands. According to decrypted radio chatter, they’re bugging out with her in twenty minutes. Intercept that APC, take her back. At all costs.” A circular flare pinged on the holotable’s surface, indicating satellite intel’s best guess at where the APC was currently stationed. Lantry continued, “Second problem; one of the F-35s that went down wasn’t completely destroyed. It was carrying a piece of heavy area-denial munitions, we don’t know exactly what, that they have now recovered and setup in the blast crater of the chemical plant. We have no idea what type of device this is, but according to their action plan, it’s going to put an end to the battle in short order. Defuse it, destroy it.” Another icon popped up over the tear in the Earth that Wrenn and Kephic’s C4 had created. “Finally, you need to eliminate anti-air and jamming APCs at these locations;” More indicators came to life in a half-moon shape, “Once you do, we’ll dispatch a Spooky, bring the Raleigh’s railguns into this, and pound these suckers into the dirt until they have to be scraped out with a spatula.” ‘Spooky’ was the colloquial name for the gunship conversion of a large support airship. The spiritual successor to the old AC-130 Specter, it could level six city blocks in as many seconds with its massive 160 millimeter Bofors-made gauss mortars, and high rate of fire precision 15 millimeter LADAR guided railguns. That wasn’t even taking into account the six ATGMs with multi-missile warheads, and the forty five pounds of AI driven vacuum bombs that came standard on every flight. Sildinar nodded curtly to the holotable, despite the lack of visual connection, “We’ll make them regret the day they were born.” Sildinar had become de-facto commander in chief on the ground, given that his military rank would equate to a combination of five star general, and Earthgov councilor, and he had the most combat experience and prowess of any person in the room by far. Wrenn stared at the table, “I’ll take Kephic and Carradan and go for the bomb. We’ve already scoped out the area, and I’m the one of us with the most experience pertaining to human tech.” Sildinar inclined his head, “Take a marine qualified in bomb diffusion.” One of the commanders spoke up, “No one left alive is qualified in heavy munitions disposal.” Sildinar sighed and glanced at Wrenn, “Well then. You’re it.” He turned to Varan, “You and I will split. I will pursue the prisoner, you take a squad and provide... What were they called?” “Beamriders” Wrenn supplied. “Provide beamrider support to the Raleigh. Her guns can demolish those APC positions in short order, then she will have freedom of fire, which will prevent us from being decimated long enough for the gunship and medivac to arrive. If we all succeed, then victory is ours. If any of us fail...” He cast meaningful glances around the room, “...then we suffer a major loss at best, and complete failure at worst. Good hunting.” Carradan’s whispered voice grated in Wrenn’s ear, “Did it ever occur to you that dragging me into this could be classified as torture?” Wrenn hissed, “Shut up. You’re doing fine.” “Was that a compliment?” Wrenn sighed, “Yes.” Carradan snickered, “I made sure to get *that* on record.” Wrenn rolled his eyes and tapped his earpiece, “Kephic. You ready?” From their position hiding under a collapsed rotting porch, Wrenn’s telescopic eyes could easily make out Kephic in his hiding place atop a building opposite the crater. Between them, two APCs and a whole battalion of HLF troops were gathered around a medium sized cylindrical object. Wrenn grunted, “Dammit. It’s a MEADE bioweapon.” Kephic’s voice came back over the speaker almost in synchronization with Carradan’s whispered query, “A what?” “Microwave Emitting Area Denial. Its a radiation bomb. It puts out microwaves so strong they fry any electronics, and boil any liquid, within a two mile radius, including and especially water and blood. Its a slow, painful, gory way to die, and it's a big favorite of the HLF when they want to kill everyone rather than administer Pony-only biotoxins.” Carradan turned green, “They do that?!” Wrenn nodded, “Psyops. The toxins kill Ponies, slowly and with as much pain as could be engineered, but don’t even slightly affect humans. They leave the humans alive to, literally, go insane from what they’ve seen and spread fear and demoralization. It’s unthinkable” Kephic’s voice crackled due to jammer interference, “But effective. Sadly.” Carradan began furiously scribbling on a notepad, but Wrenn laid a claw on his arm, stopping him, “Hey... I can give you an interview and explain all this... *After* we get out of the soup. Ok?” Carradan raised an eyebrow, “You? You’d do that?” Wrenn shrugged, “You’re not as bad as I thought. You’ve held it together. You even bagged an assist today. That's worth a lot of respect in my book.” Carradan grinned, Wrenn frowned, “Don’t let it go to your head Stan. I can still make a piñata out of you if you cross us.” “Right.” Wrenn passed him an SMG, “Stay here, film, and if anyone gets too close... You’re already acquainted with your little friend. Bag some kills.” Carradan gulped, and accepted the weapon tentatively, “You just... Come out in one piece ok?” Wrenn smirked, “Developing a soft spot for your combat buddy?” “Oh shuddup.” Sildinar swooped low over the flatlands. The APC carrying General Piety had left five minutes previous, according to Lantry, and the Gryphon’s dead reckoning based on his understanding of the terrain, warrior’s instincts, and the average speed of a Mole Rat APC, which Wrenn had mentioned was sixty eight miles per hour; Led him to the spot. Sure enough, his acute golden eyes spied a column of dust swiftly approaching from the south. A moment later, he could see the APC in all its ugly detail, including the eyes of the pilot through the tiny slit that served as a reinforced front windshield. Sildinar beat his wings in strong, steady, paced fashion, rising high above the ground, and out of sight range of the oncoming APC. He was going to do what predatory avians did best; stoop, swoop, and smash. “ATTENTION ASSHOLES!” Wrenn shouted at the top of his lungs. He stood at the rim of the crater, framed by the setting sun, cutting an imposing figure with his sword in one claw, and an SMG in the other. Within half a second, every weapon in the crater, including the APC turrets, were trained on him. He grinned, “SURRENDER NOW, IF YOU PLEASE. OTHERWISE, I WILL COME DOWN THERE, AND STUFF EVERY ONE OF YOUR WEAPONS THROUGH RANDOM ORIFICES IN YOUR BODIES, UNTIL YOU BEG TO DIE. THEN I WILL TOSS YOU INTO THE RUINS OF YOUR FANCY TRUCKS, AND SET YOUR PANTS ON FIRE.” A single soldier, one of the three augmented ones in the group, fired one shot at Wrenn, which he easily dodged. “NO? OK THEN.” From deep in Wrenn’s chest, a battle cry, somewhere between the screech of an eagle and the roar of a lion, burst forth and echoed across the town. Twin explosions rocked the crater, instantly immolating both APCs, killing nearly half the soldiers, and throwing the MEADE up against the crater wall. While Wrenn had drawn attention, Kephic had swooped in from directly above, and attached six C4 blocks, each meant for demolishing a small building on their own, to both APCs. By the time the remaining soldiers picked themselves up, Wrenn and Kephic were already among them, and it was far too late for niceties, or escape. Wrenn grabbed the first soldier he came across, “Sorry about this... Well no not really.” He picked up the wriggling soldier’s rifle, causing the man’s eyes to go wide with horror. At this range, Wrenn could see right through his reflective faceplate. There was a loud squishing noise, followed by a scream. Scratch one soldier. Scratch one rifle. Next. Varan swooped low, did a barrel roll to avoid tracer fire, and skidded to an unceremonious halt behind cover, popping up to squeeze off three grenades from his launcher before turning to the soldiers cowering behind the overturned VTOL. “Ready?” The marines chorused, “Yes sir!” Varan glanced over the wreck, “I’ll provide cover fire, you tag the targets. Do not flinch. I have no desire to return home with a steel rod in my head. Clear?” Without waiting for a response, the Gryphon simply stood up and began firing, screeching a blood chilling battle cry. The marines, in unison, pivoted over the VTOL and aimed their beamrider attachments at various pre-chosen APCs. The platoon commander tapped his headset, “Raleigh, Raleigh, do you copy? We have targets in the crosshairs, beamriders in two hundred frequency range. Bring the heavy thunder.” “Understood, Tactical ship to shore railguns armed, targets designated bogey sierra one through sierra thirty. Authenticate for broadside.” “Authentication Lambda seven five three seven. Let loose, no prisoners.” “Authenticated, bringing the heavy thunder. Advise you stand *well* back.” A railgun on an Earthgov Carolina class destroyer was capable of launching, from each gun, four projectiles a second. Each projectile was a 1.2 metric ton tungsten-steel-carbide spike, with a nickel jacket. The muzzle velocity for the shells was over 45,000 meters per second. That meant that each round impacted with the kinetic force of a tactical nuclear device, concentrated precisely onto a point the size of a shoebox. Known as ‘heavy thunder,’ a single broadside from a ship could lay waste to an entire defended facility in seconds if it chose to do so. In this case, the strike was more precise, and slightly ‘reserved.’ But no less effective. Miles away on the Mississippi, five massive weapons turned west, and elevated their firing angle with the whirr of hydraulic machinery. The weapons looked like traditional battleship guns, but with tine-like fins on either side that played host to the accelerator coils. With no action, no spent casing, and no launch gasses to worry about, the guns could fire often without cleaning. With no expensive components in the shells, they were relatively cheap to fire, excepting the fact that more than five successive broadsides in a row could drain an entire fusion reactor. The Raleigh’s guns produced a roar so loud, that windows as far as five miles away shattered. For each of the thirty targets, five shells flew straight and true. One hundred and fifty ‘ballistic missiles from God.’ The impact shockwave picked up nearby untargeted APCs and hurled them hundreds of yards in every direction, as if some manic beast the size of the sky itself had reached down and swatted them away. The sound shattered the eardrums of half the beings in Carrenton, and left the other half deaf for ten full seconds. Every single window in the town atomized, and blew away as dust. The light flashes temporarily blinded everyone looking directly at the impact points, save for Varan, whose eyes could stand direct contact with the sun if he desired. To his high speed, high tolerance optic nerves, the bombardment was a beautiful symphony of destruction. He could actually see the APCs breaking apart, their surfaces phase changing from solid to gas, as the kinetic energy of the rounds instantly dissolved their atomic bonds in order to dissipate. The attack registered as a level two seismic event for the state of Kansas. The HLF took more casualties, in men and tech, in two seconds than it had for the entire year combined. When the marines with Varan finally opened their eyes, they beheld nothing but a twenty foot deep, seven hundred yard long crescent shaped smoking tear in the Earth’s surface. Husks of vehicles, and the shredded corpses of enemies littered the edge of the depression, which had pushed up into a sort of embankment as the ground had liquefied for several microseconds. Varan smiled, his expression almost as terrifying as the weapons he was saluting, When Sildinar hit the top of the HLF APC, the driver instantly swerved, trying to dislodge him. It did little good. His talons had already dug directly into the metal. He screeched, and ripped the gunner’s hatch completely off, tossing a flash-bang grenade into the aperture. The sound and light did very little to disorient him, but it knock the driver clear into unconsciousness. His feet slammed, reflexively, into two of the vehicle’s poorly designed six pedals, causing it to enter an untenable turn, and begin to roll. Sildinar disengaged, hovering, and watched, impassively, as the vehicle rolled a total of twelve times before coming to a stop upside down. When the APC was finally stable, he ambled over to the rear hatch, readied his sword, and dug in his talons. In the distance, a thunderous explosion attested to the destruction of the HLF blockade. Sildinar allowed himself a single instant of triumph, then turned to the task at claw. The railgun bombardment left most of the remaining HLF soldiers in the reactor crater so dazed they couldn’t even stand. Their condition got them no mercy from Wrenn and Kephic, who fell to efficiently and quickly sniping them with their RACs. As the last enemies fell, Wrenn turned to the MEADE. Kephic scratched his head, “Is it armed?” Wrenn knelt down and examined the weapon’s controls. It was designed to be dropped as a bomb from an F-35, but it had an auxiliary control panel under the release clamps for improvisational situations. The display was counting down from one minute. “Ahhhh. Yeah. It's armed. High yield. Everyone within two or three miles.” He didn’t have to say anything more. Kephic lapsed into silence, allowing him to concentrate. The control panel had a simple five digit code, but even five digits, from a ten digit keypad, with repetitions, could yield over ten thousand possible codes. And the device would likely auto-detonate after even one incorrect entry. It took Wrenn a good twenty seconds to remove the entire mounting assembly, thus accessing the detonation controls proper. He scowled, “Oooooh... Hell no,” and launched into a stream of expletives, mostly admonishing some nameless person to do biologically untenable things to themselves. Kephic cocked his head, “What’s the trouble?” Wrenn jerked a talon at the tangle of wires and circuits, “Red wire, green wire, and purple wire. Heck if I know which to snip.” The timer beeped a thirty second warning. Wrenn inhaled, accelerated his brain, and tried to think critically. He could visually trace all the wires, and even the circuit paths. That was easy. The problem was, he had no experience with WMD munitions like a MEADE, and the device was exclusive to the HLF, meaning even an experienced H-EoD tech wouldn’t fully understand it. Wrenn was just an amateur at best, his primary explosives training revolved around creating or disarming improvised munitions of the type special forces, or terrorist operatives might use. He tried every line of reasoning he could imagine, but in the end, there was nothing for it. He would have to take a chance. Wrenn said a quick prayer, steeled himself, and made an instant purely gut decision; trusting to God, destiny, and Gryphon instinct. Snip. Sildinar tore the entire back door off of the APC. Inside, the pilot was dead, having busted his head open when the vehicle rolled. He hadn’t been wearing a safety harness. General Piety was bound and gagged between four HLF soldiers, three of whom were conscious and just beginning to collect themselves. Sildinar didn’t wait for them to finish. With three quick connected strokes, he beheaded them all, stabbing the unconscious one non-lethally to sever his spinal nerve at the base of the neck for good measure. He didn't need anything below his mouth to be useful anymore. The more prisoners the better. He was about to administer another blow to General Piety in order to transport her back to the landing zone, when he heard a loud click. Piety slowly raised both hands, revealing she had managed to work them free sometime during her incarceration. One hand was empty, but the other held a small silver cylinder with blinking purple lights. She smiled, and threw the device to the floor between herself and Sildinar. “Be reborn in light, filthy monster.” Sildinar rolled his eyes, as the device began to whine, building up to Potion dispersion. “You know, perhaps the Ponies are right. Perhaps problems can be solved with a little love. Would you like a hug?” Without waiting for an answer, Sildinar smothered General piety in his wings, administering a knockout blow by headbutting her with his beak in the same smooth motion. When the Spooky and medivacs arrived, they found Earthgov forces triumphantly preparing to pull out of the battered, burning, shattered husk of Carrenton. Wrenn, Kephic, and Varan were all lying draped over various parts of an idling tank, soaking up heat from the engine and radiator, nursing a plethora of bruises, cuts, and sprains. Carradan lounged in the gunner’s turret, examining footage on his camera. Sildinar alighted in front of the vehicle, his back and wings still caked in potion, which had also accrued a great deal of dust and dirt, and tossed two limp human forms to the ground, one of which was recognizable as General Piety. Wrenn smirked, “What took you so long?” Sildinar raised an eyebrow, “I take it you were successful?” Kephic guffawed, “Only by providence. He had to guess.” Sildinar and Varan both perked up, “Guess?” Wrenn nodded, “Three wires, twenty seconds, no H-EoD experience. I went with my gut.” Carradan shook his head, “I swear, you guys are gonna be the death of me yet.” Sildinar chuckled, “I just spoke with Lantry and Skye, transports will be here within the hour.” Wrenn smiled, “Good! I need a shower. Carrenton dirt is nasty.” Kephic snorted, “Agreed. Shower and coffee.” Varan chipped in, “Shower, coffee, and something freshly killed with fat on the bones.” Wrenn laughed, “Amen to that.” He laid his head on his foreclaws and allowed the heat from the tank’s idling engine to soak into his sore muscles. It was over. Battle was satisfying, and Victory tasted ever so sweet.