Chapter 16 and so close to being done.
When I first started putting up chapters, I figured I was about two months away from being done. That would mean eight chapters. Yeah. Now I’m putting up chapter 16. But the Jesse version is almost done and hopefully the Dirk version won’t take much longer. (Should I laugh at my own optimism?) Anyway, here is 16.
Dirk sat atop Khan, crouched low in his seat to avoid the barrage of gunfire. He cursed the stupidity of it all. What had his father hoped to accomplish, hitting the nation’s premier Air Force base in broad daylight? The dragon couldn’t be detected on radar, but at fifty tons, he was easy enough to pick out by eye, even with fog shrouding everything. Those sorts of facts apparently didn’t matter to his father. He’d ordered Dirk to hit the place with EMP then drop off a dozen men, each with a man-portable missile strapped on his back.
The men were now running around the base blowing up hangars like a dozen idiots with short life expectancies. It was amazing his father had convinced them to sign up for this mission. Supposedly, inside men were waiting by the main gate with an escape vehicle, but judging by the number of angry MPs swarming the area, his father’s men had a hard fight ahead of them.
Dirk hadn’t used any of the Stingers strapped on the side of the saddle chair. His first priority was keeping Khan safe, not hanging out at the base to demolish more jets.
Khan winged upward, sending out another EMP blast in the process. Hopefully, it would disable any vehicles the military had pulled out of the hangers since the last blast. No matter the damage it did, the two of them weren’t safe. After the first attacks, the bases must have stationed some EMP-proof jets and copters at every base. His father’s men couldn’t destroy them all. Some might come after him.
Dirk pushed Khan higher into the air, lying as low as he could against the dragon’s back. Dirk wore his bullet-proof gear, but a missile could take him out. He needed to present as small a target as possible. He didn’t dare look over Khan’s side to check if anything was coming. Right now, the dragon’s body acted as a shield. Instead, Dirk counted. Thirty more seconds. That’s how long it would take for him to be out of range.
Without radar, the men wouldn’t be able to shoot with enough accuracy to immobilize him. And if the EMP hadn’t knocked out their radar, it would still take them at least a few seconds to realize the dragon wasn’t showing up on their screens. Then they would try to hit him manually. He and Khan had to be out of sight by then.
Thirty seconds passed, then sixty. The base shrunk below him until the runways looked like ribbons among dark boxes. Then the fog erased it all. Maybe in the confusion on the ground, Khan had slipped past the military’s defenses.
An angry buzz from below deflated this hope. Jet engines spooling for takeoff. The sound grew into a controlled thunder and moments later two jets lifted into the air. They were either coming for him or heading to Capitol Hill to fight his father. Either way, they would find him easily enough–a black dragon plastered against the white sky. The fog was too thin to blot out a dark color, and he was still too low to hide in the clouds.
Khan he said Another EMP. The dragon screeched, letting out a high-pitched sound like ripping metal. The jets kept coming, streaking across the sky.
Weapons it was, then. Dirk swiveled in his seat and aimed the Stinger. He tried not to think about the pilots or whether they had families waiting for them at home. They had ejector seats, and Dirk was defending himself.
Before he could shoot, missiles screamed by on either side of Khan, both going wide. Hard to aim without computer guidance.
Dirk fired the Stinger and jolted from the kickback. The smell of sulfur filled the air. A trail of smoke headed toward the plane. The next moment, a flash of orange bloomed against the left wing and the jet spun away, pinwheeling across the sky. One down.
Another set of missiles tore by Khan, so close that their wind pushed into Dirk. He loaded the next Stinger, put the jet in his sites, and fired. Another trail of smoke and flash of orange. The shot hit where he’d intended. The spot where the right wing connected. It was a blow that would take down the plane but wouldn’t destroy the cockpit.
Higher, he told Khan. He needed to get into the clouds before the next set of jets spotted him. He still had to fulfill more of his father’s orders. While Dirk flew, he took his phone out of its Faraday case and sent his father a message. I delivered your men. Expect jets your way. Already took down two that shot at me.
The message was Dirk’s way of letting his father know that his plan sucked. Perhaps if his father realized his men couldn’t neutralize all the jets, he’d call an early exit.
A few moments later, a return message showed up. Don’t worry about the jets. I have sleeper agents launching from nearby bases. Soon the military won’t be able to tell friend from foe.
Don’t worry about the jets? Dirk had already been shot at twice. If the pilots had better aim, nothing of Dirk would have been left for a funeral. He didn’t point this out to his father. In his father’s mind, there were only two kinds of men: strong and weak. Complaining meant you were weak.
Dirk just needed to get this over with so he could go back home.
