The Siege Against Tolkeen

"Gentlemen," said Donald Hartman over the CS radio network. "I need to ask something before the fun begins. A longtime tradition of the Black Dog squadron has been to play a song from olden times during air attacks. We do this to intimidate the enemies of mankind, and to rally our own spirits. Would anyone have any objections to me playing a song during our attack on Tolkeen? I've reserved a special CD for just such an occasion."

"Go for it!" chirped one of the bomber pilots.

"Sounds good," agreed a couple of SAMAS pilots.

"I'm all ears," declared the pilot of the Air Castle in the skies above.

"All right, then," said Hartman happily, using his HUD program to select the audio CD player and external speakers. "Prepare for 'Rollin' Down Rodeo.'" With that, his sound system activated, and strains of rock music filled the skies. At that moment, the ground crews in the forest below realized what was happening, and bursts of antiaircraft fire began to sound.

"And so the game begins," said one pilot, taking out a pillbox with a quick volley of plasma grenades. "Good hunting, everybody."

"It has come to my attention," said Jack Perrin, "That today a massive air raid will be launched against Tolkeen, against this very city, no less." He took a deep breath, and looked out into the inquisitive, trusting eyes of the HFA terrorists. It almost hurts to lie to them, he though.

"I want everyone to help the Coalition succeed in this battle," he said. "If everyone can destroy or simply attack an antiaircraft weapon, the battle will go much better for the forces of humanity. Strike from a distance, aim for the crews, and don't be afraid to go apeshit with the ammunition. If the CS succeeds in this mission, then a major part of the war has been won."

The terrorists still looked at him, wanting details. He could see it in their eyes. The headhunters wanted to know the Coalition's targets, the city rats wanted to know how much of the city would be totaled, the idealists wanted to know how this bombing would advance the cause of humanity. Perrin wished that he had answers for them. "A leader should be better prepared," said a tiny voice inside him. "Lead this scum?" asked his more rational side, his intellect. "I don't even want to know them!"

"What are you waiting for, troops!" he barked. "Get out there and do the work of humankind!" There was a brief pause, and then the HFA terrorists got to their feet, and sprinted away. They were full of eagerness, eagerness to destroy a society. Only Perrin and Possman remained in the beer hall.

"We should be getting out of here, Jack," said the ranger, sipping a hip flask of whiskey. "Don't want to miss that ride."

"Yeah," agreed Jack, as he began to walk out of the dingy building. Still, he couldn't help but feel some regret that this period of his life was over. "Things were starting to get interesting," said the tiny voice inside him. This time, he didn't bother to silence that voice.

"Evasive maneuvers!" yelled a pilot, as walls of glimmering force appeared out of nowhere. A Warbird slammed into one of them, throwing the pilot into the force field at 100 mph. Rifts began to explode in midair, as the defenders of Tolkeen brought their full magical forces into effect.

"Strafe those ground targets!" commanded Hartman to the other PA pilots. "We need to clear the way for the bombers!" With that, he swooped down into the canopy, and opened fire on a rift projection cannon. The weapon warped out of shape like wax as the systems controlling it went haywire and its reality was shattered. He then flew back up above the trees, activated his targeting system, and began picking off snipers and rocket crews.

"I can see the city!" yelled one pilot excitably as the gleaming towers of Tolkeen appeared on the horizon. Just then, a rift opened up in front of his plane, the maniacally shifting G-Forces tearing him to shreds.

"Don't get careless, people!" yelled another of the pilots. "We'll be all right if we can just stay frosty! What the..." He noticed the many advancing blips on his radar screen, and then took a look in his rear window. "Oh, crap," he muttered. "Who wants to fuck with the twenty or so bogies behind us?"

"And we haven't even gotten to the city yet," muttered Hartman through gritted teeth. "Baker, Hetfield, you two are with me. We get to close range, and shred the shit out of those fighters. Tolkeen's planes have got great long range attacks, but we get close and personal and they'll go down." He turned, activated his vibro-blades, and sped into the path of the oncoming jet fighters, flanked by two of his men.

"What the hell is that?" grunted one of the D-Bee pilots, as he tried to get a missile lock on the incoming Super SAMAS. "It sounds sort of like the mating cry of a Glorthian dunerunner." Just then, his lock was complete. His right tentacle depressed the fire button, and a missile containing raw hellfire shot towards the incoming enemy.

"Thanks!" yelled Hartman to his wingmen, as the missile dissolved in a blaze of laser fire. "The punk that fired that is mine!"

The D-Bee pilot tried to pull up, but was already too late. He squealed in panic as the lead SAMAS dove through his jet's wings, and as his engines caught flame. The last thing he saw before he crashed was the malicious, skeletal face of a Coalition robot, glaring at him through the cockpit.

"Air base delta, we need backup!" cried the speakers at the air control base. "Some bogies have detached from the main force, and they're tearing us apart!"

"We can't spare any air forces," said the elven general of the base. "They're all gathered over the city. We'll do the best we can with our ground forces, but try to get your men out of there! Do you copy?!" There was suddenly a harsh squealing noise on the speakers, and they went dead. The general angrily looked at a nearby radar screen, noting the rate at which his side was losing pilots. "Tell the damned ground crews to take down those bogies!" bellowed the elf.

"These damned things are riddling me!" yelled Hartman, as his armor was bitten into by hundreds of tiny flaming darts. "I need these fighters to go down quick! C'mon guys!" He was greatly angered by the fact that the enemy was concentrating their fir e on him. If the Tolkeen jets were designed for close combat and dogfighting, he would have been very dead by now. As it was, he was just in trouble.

Suddenly, rocket fire and bolts of mystical lightning began shooting up from the ground forces below. Baker was struck by several of them and destroyed.

Make that very big trouble, Hartman thought. "Hetfield, you suppress that ground fire! I'm pulling an umbrella maneuver!" He armed his grenade launchers to maximum volleys, raised his arms, and depressed the triggers as he spun. Explosive death began spitting from the launchers. As his remaining wingman took out the ground units one by one, Hartman's barrage of destruction destroyed most of the remaining jets. The survivors fled, back to whatever hidden base had launched them.

"Let's get back to the main force!" yelled Hartman. "They need our help!"

"Are you sure you're okay?" asked his wingman, as they sped towards the distant city at the highest speed their power armor could fly. "You're armor's melting off of you."

"They need us!" insisted Hartman. "Besides, without my music, they'll have bad luck."

"If you say so," said Hetfield skeptically. "It is a kickin' tune."

The Sky Cycle pilot shot through the streets of Tolkeen at incredible speed, his tri-rail guns blaring. The power armor troops were doing a good job of dispersing the Tolkeen fighters and hatchlings in the air, leaving the sky cycles and CS fighters to take out the many, many anti-aircraft facilities on the ground. Missiles were screaming through the air, but few were connecting. In fact, there hadn't been the resistance which anyone had expecting. It seemed almost like something or someone else was destroying lots of the opposition for them...

"Stay down, you son of a bitch!" screamed Rick Freedom as he slammed his foot into the groin of one of the guardsmen. The D-Bee soldier screamed in pain as he fell to the ground. However, his screams turned to those of panic as the Crazy dropped a satchel of grenades onto the nearby mini-missile battery. "Let's get out of here!" Freedom yelled to his two city rat companions, as the three revolutionaries ran from the rooftop. Moments later, the battery, the nearby corpses, and the still-living guardsmen burst into flame as the satchel charge exploded.

The headhunter looked into his scope, aimed carefully, and then fired his particle beam rifle at the rift projector. The powerful energy beam ripped through the evil machine, destroying it instantly. Its crew was thrown roughly twenty feet away by the forthcoming explosion and temporal shifting.

The city rat tossed the homemade gas grenade into the anti-aircraft bunker. There was a muffled boom, and the crew ran out, their uniforms melting and the skin beneath blistering. Even the D-Bees amongst them were affected. The city rat grinned widely. The acidic gas didn't work very well on flesh, but did a number on the polycarbons used in armor. He tossed a satchel charge into the bunker, and then began to run down the street, thankful that the air raid sirens had called all of the citizens into shelters. Looking up into the air, he waved to the beleaguered CS planes flying overhead.

"Your magic had better work," growled the godling to Shaard, as they watched the aerial battle from a rooftop. "We spent so much developing it that we couldn't devise as good an air defense program as I would have liked. If that pyramid goes boom, we can kiss this war good-bye."

"Relax, my friend," said Shaard, temporarily metamorphosed into human form. "The pyramid will not be destroyed by pathetic forces such as these. And after this battle, the Coalition will not dare pull such a blatant maneuver again."

"I pray to all the gods that you are right," said the godling. "Because this maneuver is killing our pilots and our people left and right."

"I see the pyramid!" said one of the remaining pilots. "That's got to be the super-weapon!"

"Sounds right to me!" said another one. "Everyone, let's blow this fucker to hell and go home!" He pressed the fire button, almost in unison with the rest of the CS fighter pilots. Dozens of plasma missiles rocketed in at great speed. There was a tremendous roar as the missiles connected with the huge pyramid, wrapping the mystical structure in flame.

"The target's been designated!" yelled the communications officer of the air castle. "The target's been designated! Release those concussion bombs!" Deep in the belly of the flying fortress, one of the gunners slammed the coordinates into a keyboard, and hit the EXECUTE button. The belly of the steel beast opened up, and huge, guided barrels of explosive fuel began rolling out, rocketing towards their target.

There was a huge roar as the first of the bombs connected. A couple of planes were caught in the blast radius and destroyed. The rest were thrown backwards by the incredible force of the explosion. The others began hitting in rapid succession, one by one. A huge dust cloud was thrown up into the air, shrouding the pyramid in smoke and debris.

The godling felt himself being pushed back by the explosion. He feared for the safety of Tolkeen if such forces could be deployed against it. The dragon, however, was merely angry. "Release the air elementals," he hissed into a wrist communicator."

Donald Hartman kicked in his jets at full power, merely to stabilize himself. His wide grin was masked by the armored faceplate of the SAMAS. "We did it," he whispered proudly. "We did it." He wasn't even angry that his music was being masked by the boom.

Rick Freedom began cheering loudly, cartwheeling and whooping to his wild heart's content.

"Hell," muttered Perrin, with a face full of dust, as he looked at the distant explosion. "They really went all out this time." Possman looked at his watch and frowned.

The last of the bombs detonated. The smoke and the dust began to disperse, showing the true condition of the pyramid.

The pyramid was untouched. Every nearby building for three blocks had been utterly demolished, practically vaporized. But the pyramid was untouched. Shaard smiled. "Told you so," he said flippantly to the godling. "The air elementals have probably destroyed the bomber by now, and they should be on their way to the main force right now. The battle is won, my friend."

There was a whooshing noise from above, and one of the pilots looked up. He saw a cloud in the shape of a man rushing down from the heavens at him, and then his cockpit collapsed. His jet was caught in a tornado, tossed around like a toy.

"No," sobbed Rick Freedom as the unholy armies of the air tore through the last remnants of the CS force. The skies were being torn asunder by savage winds and gales, like an earthquake in the air. Planes were being crushed, ripped apart, thrown into the ground, all at the same time. The horrible cries of the aerial spirits filled the air. The Crazy fell to his knees, and began weeping uncontrollably. Magic had won.

Donald Hartman tried frantically to stabilize his power armor as he was caught up in a maelstrom. Demons of the air were flying all around him, tearing his comrades to bits. The pilot knew he would be next if he didn't escape. He turned off all the safeties on his armor's jets, and tried to fly out at higher than safe speeds. His SAMAS strained against the elemental force of the wind, the flames of his rockets melting the armor plating. He pulled out of the hurricane, and suddenly rocketed thousands of feet, slamming into the side of a building. He fell to the ground, dazed and bleeding inside the armor. The HUD was screaming of damage, total jet failures, internal fires, armor breaches. His speakers were broken, and the very rare and expensive CD in his armor was doubtless shattered.

"Where can I go?" the pilot whispered to himself, pictures of magical torture and nightmare POW camps flying through his head. "Where can I hide?" Then, he though of his secondary objective. Maybe this Perrin guy could hide him. The fallen flyer trudged off through the burning streets of Tolkeen, in hopes of sanctuary. His hopes were not high.

"I tell you, I have high hopes," boasted Shaard, looking over his damaged city. Pillars of smoke and flame were rising up into the air. Sirens were sounding everywhere, and the wounded were just beginning to stagger out from their hiding places.

"How?!" demanded the godling. "Our losses were so..."

"Feh!" sneered the dragon. "Losses are nothing. It's like a game of chess. You sacrifice pawns or bishops or knights so that the king may win the game! We've made the Coalition States afraid to ever attack us again. What is a few weeks of rebuilding and a couple of hundred lives compared to such security?"

"I think that your pawns might answer differently," said the godling angrily.

"That is why they are not kings."

Next Chapter

By David Haendler.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.