Carmody and the Electric Dragon
Chapter 23

In the instant the Rail Gun fired, Fiona knew she could not move out of the way. The super dense bullets it fired moved at hypersonic speeds and at this close a range that was instantaneous.

She had tried anyway and lost her right arm. It was gone before she even realised it, her clone body immediately cutting off pain sensations from the shattered shoulder and stemming the tide of blood that gushed from the wound.

In a kind of slow motion she saw her severed arm flung away from her, the rifle she carried dropping into the deep water at her feet. Her left hand clasped at her right shoulder, an instinctive response that even her enhanced brain could not overcome.

She looked at her enemy and it was preparing to finish her once and for all. Without her rifle she had no ability to stop it and bowed her head in resignation, waiting for the final hammer blow to cease her existence.

An explosion rocked the chamber and her head lifted to see the mechanical dragon lose its lower jaw. The Rail Gun had malfunctioned and the tremendous energy that it fired had instead torn its head open.

She grinned in delight when she saw the young hostage, Miss Angelina, still unharmed on its chest. Miss Carmody and the school teacher were alive and in the air too. The young girl screamed and Fiona felt strangely gratified that the human was concerned for her, a disposable clone soldier.

Fiona activated her earpiece and spoke to the two of them flying in the air.

“Don’t worry about me. Rescue Miss Angelina” she ordered them and slumped to her backside on the blood slicked ledge.

“We’ll come back for you!” Carmody vowed as they raced towards the dragon.

“I’ll be here” Fiona replied calmly and closed her eyes.

=====

The dragon had a brain inside its massive skull. Computer processors from four separate Sentinels and a flying delivery drone were wired together with just a smidge of black goo from the Emissary’s own body to make it work.

It was not self aware, but it was intelligent. Without doubt it knew that the loss of the Rail Gun made it vulnerable in the closed space of the water reservoir. The hostage was still strapped to its chest, meaning the Dracoris were bound to follow it no matter where it went.

That left it only one option – to fly into the sky over the city, where it could dodge attacks and use its own deadly claws and tail on the enemy. It threw power into the stacked ranks of ducted fans and rotors built into its wings then hurled itself at the roof. With a crash it tore through the remaining pieces of the hatch and soared into the night sky.

Wings spread wide it flew upwards on the combined thrust of its engines then levelled off five hundred meters above the ground. Its sensors scanned the sky around itself and detected two enemy targets.

In the distance was a Guard VTOL, closing in fast and targeting the dragon with a turret mounted mini-gun underneath the cockpit. From below came a small, human sized object, the targeting beam of a Rail Gun detected as coming from it.

With machine precision it calculated their flight paths and assigned them a threat level. From that it came to a quick decision and flew at the VTOL, keeping the human hostage as visible as it could to the Guard pilot aboard.

Its prey saw it coming and tried to roll to the side, yet the dragon was quicker. The long spiked tail lashed out as the two passed each other, barely ten meters between them. Sounding like a scream of pain the starboard thrusters of the VTOL were torn off in a rush of sparks, then the aircraft spiralled away to the ground.

When it hit the hard asphalt street below it exploded in a brilliant red and yellow fireball, throwing chunks of burning wreckage into the residential towers that surrounded the street. Fire alarms began to wail and some brave souls dashed onto the vacant street, trying to look for any survivors.

The dragon emitted a warbling scream of victory and turned towards the second target.

=====

“That thing is still dangerous, even without the Rail Gun” Miss Abrams said over the communications link to Carmody, still cradled in her teacher’s arms. “I can try and take a wing off with my own gun” she suggested.

“No, if the dragon drops from this height, Angelina will die” Carmody replied. “I need to get aboard and force it down”

“Okay then Carmody, hold tight. This is going to get real scary!”

Miss Abrams pushed power into her Ability and the raced forwards, meeting the oncoming dragon at a combined speed of nearly two hundred and fifty kilometres per hour. At the last possible instant the Levitator jinked herself sideways, letting the slashing claws of the beast pass them without injury. The deadly tail lashed at them but she had been expecting that and looped through the air in something called a barrel roll.

“This is the part that hurts” Sofia announced before turning mid-air a full one hundred and eighty degrees. The G-forces were incredible and Carmody blacked out for some seconds. When she came to the teacher was racing up from behind the dragon.

“How did you do that turn?” gasped the young girl.

“I’m not an aircraft” she said matter-of-factly. “The things I can do defy the laws of physics anyway”

In moments they were over the dragon’s back. The head was still looking left and right, the creature moving in a broad arc as it tried to work out where they had gone.

“Are you sure about this? Last chance to change your mind!” Sofia asked her student.

“Bombs away, Miss Abrams” was Carmody’s only reply.

“Bombs away” agreed Sofia and dropped her from only three meters up onto the broad back of the flying dragon.

=====

“Bloody hell, she just dropped onto the dragon’s back!” Sarah yelled, partly in horror at her friend’s crazy stunt and mostly in shocked awe. “Come on Stanley, we need to get closer and help her out!”

Stanley flashed through the air like an arrow fired from a bow, the wind sending long trails of steam from his mouth and nose. Sarah could feel the intense heat still inside of her friend, the warmth making her sweat a little but drying her soaked coveralls rather nicely.

As they closed in, the electric powered dragon veered away from them, nearly sending Carmody toppling from its back. The girl could be seen gripping madly to the gaps and joins in the assembled automaton, her presence as yet undetected by its sensors.

“How can a machine see us?” Sarah shouted to her own dragon. “None of the other robots can detect us”

“There is a faint scent of the Emissary on this creature” Stanley answered her as he curved to follow the mechanical beast. “It must be enough to let it sense my existence”

“Sarah, are you up here with the metal dragon?” came Miss Abrams voice over the girl’s earpiece. “I saw the dragon veer away suddenly, so I suspected it was you and Stanley”

“Yeah, Stanley thinks the machine can detect us somehow since it is partly from his world too” Sarah replied. “If it can see both of us, how can be bring it down?”

Miss Abrams was quick to respond.

“We have to let Carmody try what she can. Our job will be to catch her or Angelina if they fall”

“That is a really sucky plan” Sarah answered. “But until we can get Angelina out of there, all we can do is stay out of its way”

Almost on cue the metal dragon banked and rushed at Sarah and Stanley, the huge taloned feet reaching for them as it flew past. The tail whipped viciously sideways at the last second and Stanley roared in pain as it left a long bloody gouge along his left flank. If he had not flinched hard and fast it would have swept Sarah from his back.

Over and over the dragon charged at the pair of Dracoris, forcing them to duck and weave across the sky. Always they kept circling back to the park, trying to keep close to where the others were fighting deep under the ground.

=====

Carmody had never felt such pain in her hands and arms before, clinging to the dragon as it twisted and dove through the air. She caught glimpses of Sarah and Stanley as they wove and dived in the sky, trying to keep the dragon busy while she found a way to cripple it.

Occasionally she could hear the tired cries of Angelina and wished she could just teleport her away from this awful creature. Yet neither of them had that Ability and Carmody did not know how to force this creation to the ground without killing herself or her friend.

“Hey, anybody!” she shouted into her communicator, “How the hell do you kill an electric dragon?”

The beast rolled violently at that moment, chasing her Dracoris friends, and she hung desperately upside down from some handles on a maintenance hatch. She read the lettering on the panel a few times as she hung there, until the words sunk into her terrified brain.

MAIN BATTERY ACCESS the words said, painted in black on the yellow hatch with little lightning bolts to tell you it was dangerous. Like nearly every machine, vehicle and robot in the Pan Oceanic Zone, they all ran off stored electrical power. The dragon had been built using lots of different parts from stolen machines, but that was their common link.

If she could steal away the electricity, the dragon would lose power and hopefully drop slowly to the earth. Or it may just drop like a stone and kill them all. Either way, she knew how to bring it down.

The beast rolled again and she slammed down onto the metal panels of its back. It scraped her hands, the knuckles bloody and raw, but she had a plan now. She gathered her Kinetic Enhancer and focussed it into her right fist. With a battle cry she punched her hand down into the metal panel and it buckled under the blow.

Her attack must have triggered some kind of alert as the beast dove fast then twisted mid-air, trying to fling her off. Carmody’s arms felt like they were being wrenched out of their sockets but she refused to let go. She screamed her defiance all the way down and through the dive, her face wild and angry like a Banshee.

When it righted itself, she dropped down hard and rammed her booted feet into the panel, hurling more power into her Abiltity. With a loud tearing sound the hinges on the panel sheared off and she fell into the middle of racks of linked batteries.

Like a crazed boxer she began throwing punches at the frames holding the batteries in place. Each blow used more of her power and she felt exhaustion threatening to overwhelm her, yet she continued on. Battery after battery was smacked out of place, littering the already cramped interior.

The dragon began to slow, the whine from its flight engines starting to fade, the movement of the creature beginning to freeze up. Carmody looked at her hands, barely visible in the light that crept in through the hatch and gaps in the vast body. Her power had been spent, the last blows making bloody ruin of her small fists.

“Carmody, the dragon is falling to the ground” Miss Abrams called to her over the communicator. “It still has some power but the landing will be hard. Get out of there!”

“Please make sure Angelina is safe” she muttered and fell among the ruins of the batteries. The air was whistling through the body now as it dropped and she lay on her back, looking out of the open hatch above her.

“I beat you, you bastard!” she said to herself with a tired smile. “You shouldn’t have messed with a Dragon Slayer”

She thought she could see an angel flying down towards her from the starry sky beyond the hatch. It was so beautiful she thought and hoped she had done enough good deeds to go to the happy place, not that other one.

“Gotcha!” said the Angel and everything went black for Carmody Brentwood.

=====

Santo Green had been moderately fit for a maintenance worker who spent most of his days underground in tunnels and shafts. He was a decent climber and could walk for hours under the streets of the vast city, chasing down leaks or blockages.

What he had never had to do was run for his life.

Which, ironically, was a skill he wished the human Santo had practiced a lot more before the Emissary had taken over his body.

He threw a panicked glance over his shoulder as he raced down another barely lit tunnel, the sounds of pursuit still close behind him. How it had come to this he still did not comprehend as his robotic forces were easily ten times the number of humans and Guards they had fought.

The initial attack had gone well, forcing the humans and clones to take cover in a corner of the workshop, sheltering behind machinery stands and storage containers. Yet it turned out they had a plan, seeking the cover while their damned Teleporter sent EMP Grenades among his troops.

Each single pulse had permanently fried the computer processors of his machines. The ones left standing had then been methodically shot down by accurate gunfire even his Sentinels could not match.

Santo had thought his final attack would overwhelm the humans, driving them far into the corner, when three more had suddenly appeared. Two of them at least were Adepts, blocking his robot’s gunfire with their Shield spells then carving the mechanicals apart with enchanted blades.

His machines had hurt the flesh and blood attackers, but at the end of the battle they remained standing and all of his army were trash. As a final indignity, the dark skinned woman with the glowing sword had spied him out and ordered him to surrender to the Order of Michael.

Like Hell he would was what Santo had thought. What he had done was to turn tail and run at the best speed he could manage, which was much slower than he had hoped. So far his superior knowledge of the underground world had kept him ahead of his pursuers, but that lead was diminishing with every exhausted step he took.

He was making for a little used supply depot not far from his current location. Amongst other things he had stored there were an armed Sentinel and a fast electric scooter. The former could delay the pursuit while the latter meant he could stop using his own tired legs to escape.

The depot was just around the next corner when a hulking man stepped into his path, an axe and shield in his hands. Santo skidded to a confused stop, panting heavily.

“How?” he managed to get out between breaths.

“You aren’t the only one who knows these tunnels” said Dog and moved forwards, his weapons raised. “Surrender now and I may let you keep all your limbs”

“No way will I surrender to a clone!” Santo wheezed and triggered a waste chute at his side to open with his internal command circuits. Without another glance he threw himself into the chute and dropped down into the darkness.

=====

Angelina imagined she was falling, wind roaring past her and whipping her hair and skirt over her head. With a start, she opened her eyes and saw it was horribly true. Her arms and legs were still bound to the metal dragon, both of them falling towards a grassy expanse somewhere in the city.

“Stanley, tear the straps off!” she could swear she heard Sarah shouting, then something was indeed shearing the straps that bound her away. As the ground rushed up, the last strap parted and strong, unseen arms grabbed her and whisked her into the sky.

“You’re safe, Angelina!” she heard Sarah yelling and there was a momentary glimpse of the mechanical dragon smashing heavily into the earth, clods of grass flying off from the point of impact.

With a gentle bump she felt her feet touch down on the grass some distance from the fallen dragon. The strong arms released her and she nearly toppled before Sarah appeared in front of her, holding her sore arms and lowering her carefully to her knees.

“How are you doing” her friend asked her and Angelina managed a faint “Okay”.

“Let’s rest here for a bit” Sarah suggested and knelt beside her, putting a comforting arm around Angelina’s shoulders. “They are sending a medical team to us right now”

“Kay” she mumbled then looked steadily at Sarah’s face. “Can I ask you something, Sarah?”

“Sure” replied the other girl, wondering what out of all the day’s incredible events she might want to question so urgently.

“Why is your face all yellow?”

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