BEACON- Part of the TORCH Saga

#21

The rain was now a torrential downpour, so thick and heavy that things ten feet away were barely visible. Plumes of black smoke choked the sky- after a moment, Herod realized they were fireballs around the destroyed hovercraft. The air was thick with battle, Gawain-clad legionnaires like airborne shadows as they fought... they fought...

Dragons. No- Neighbors, riding aboard fleshy winged serpents the size of buses. There had to be thousands of riders, and the air was positively thick with rocketfire and bolts of sickly blue plasma. Bodies fell from the sky and slammed into the mesa.

A nightmare. Without hesitation, Herod put on her helmet and turned on her thermal sensors, highlighting the battle. She went to join the fray- but a hand grabbed her shoulder. It was Sheba. "Your job is to protect the legata," she yelled. "Stay by her side, no matter what happens!"

To their credit, the expeditionary force jumped into action. More than half of them were airborne before Sheba finished her sentence. Herod doubled back and found Lucifera, who was watching the scene with a flat look on her face. "Your orders, legata?" Herod asked, keeping her voice steady.

"I need to direct my girls," Lucifera replied. "With me, Herod." Her visor covered her face and she took off, her protection detail half a second behind.

It wasn't hard to stay close to Lucifera. Herod flew beneath her and used her onboard lock-on to keep track of the legata's position relative to herself. The rain made it hard to draw a bead on her enemies with her free-mounted weaponry, but her left wrist rocket was guided. She took a shot at a Neighbor rider aboard one of the flesh-dragons.

There was an explosion and the dragon let out a bloodcurdling shriek- but it didn't fall. Instead, it was blown backwards and left with a garbage can lid-sized hole in its torso... a hole that rapidly began to close. Hyper-accelerated cellular regeneration. Very bad.

The Neighbor shot a bolt at Herod, who flew underneath it. She rushed towards the dragon, dodged a swipe from its flabby unfurled claws, and fired another rocket directly into its underside.

The good news was, this blew the dragon and rider apart. The bad news was the explosion knocked Herod herself backwards, and by the time she righted herself she lost track of Lucifera. Fuck.

Herod looked around, but even with enhanced 360 degree vision she couldn't find the legata. She scanned the ground frantically, looking for the broken body of the legata.

What if the worst had happened? Stupid, stupid, stupid! Getting distracted like that when her sole responsibility was Lucifera's safety.

Mentally she told her onboard computer to tag everything she looked at as either "Lucifera" or "Not Lucifera" based off the signature from the legata's own armor. It didn't seem like Lucifera was anywhere in the battlespace. Legionnaires met the dragons without hesitation, but the monsters had the advantage: they were vastly larger and nearly impossible to hurt. The only advantage the birds had was maneuverability, and that would only take one so far under torrential rain.

Not even something as advanced as the Gawain could fully overcome this rain. Drops the size of Herod's fist pounded away, a rainfall strong enough to wipe away whole cities. Wind speeds were beginning to rise too: if they reached gale force then flight would become ten times harder.

Herod flew low, only to nearly collide with another legionnaire. If Herod had been a half-second slower with her retro thrusters, they would both be dead. The other legionnaire had taken a shot to her jetpack and was flying erratically. "Get it off me!" she screamed. "It's melting, it's melting, get it off!"

Herod hesitated. She had to find Lucifera, not help this girl- what if the time spent here cost the legata her life? No time to further deliberate. She flew in close and slid her hand into the emergency release slot. The girl's jetpack detached to reveal a blackened mass of charred, blasted skin that sizzled as rain drummed against it.

Herod caught the wounded girl, who screamed in incoherent agony. "Medic!" Herod bellowed into the local comm as she went to land-

And was waylaid by two more dragons. One directly below her, its gullet swelling, and one up and to the right preparing to dive bomb. No way to use her rocket launcher or sword with her arms full. Herod peppered the one beneath her with minigun fire from her shoulder.

That didn't stop it. The dragon spat a glob of fire at her, a shocking blue and oily flame. Nowhere to dodge except to the right- where the other dragon was waiting.

Clever.

((AN: Dragons! I regret to inform you that the fire breath is in fact explosive vomit.))