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Age of Dragons and Guns. Chapter 2 |
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This Chapter introduces our main characters. For the next 2-3 chapters most of the story will be development there will be action. I love action.
Chapter 2
A man smiled as he watched the sea below him move along below. He always enjoyed seeing the ground or see from such a high height. One or two ships had their sails out, catching the wind that moved them along at a slower pace than that a dragon could achieve easily.
Thinking about that sent his eyes forward, to the neck and head of the dragon he was flying on. The midnight blue color of her body and neck blended so nicely with the deep red coloring of her head in the sunlight. He leaned over the railing that he was standing on and patted the dragon’s neck lightly.
You keep doing that, Lothar. While the flattery is nice and all, it gets tiring after awhile. The dragon’s voice echoed in Lothar’s mind as she sent her thoughts back towards him, causing him to chuckle some.
But, Loran, its true. It’s becoming of you. He grinned as a snort from the Loran’s head carried back to him. He turned around to watch his crew of his dragon running around on the deck, some keeping an eye out from the inner deck, watching for another dragon coming to close, some were sitting around playing card while others exercised along the deck built along the dragon’s back. Another crew member stepped out from the bedrooms under the inner deck, her male friend following her from their own form of exercise.
You really need to get the underdeck checked out. The wood feels like it’s getting weaker still. The thoughts of his dragon echoed in his mind as he watched his crew. The underdeck, the deck under both the outer and inner deck, was built in a dragon’s “valley”, an area that covered most of the dragon’s back that was lower than the rest of its body and provided the perfect place for storing and transporting objects and people.
Yes, yes. I’ll get it checked out as soon as we reach Uthan. We shouldn’t be more than a day away from there anyways. It can last that long. His thoughts reached out and entered the dragon’s mind.
Actually, we should be reaching it within the next few hours. We have actually been able to make up some of the time we lost dealing with that patrol earlier. Said patrol had been two Kafions from the Empire that had believed they had come across an unarmed transport moving weapons around for their enemies. Unfortunately the “unarmed” transport had in fact been armed, a fact that Lothar and Loran had been quite happen to show them. The fairly brief engagement had cost them a few hours since they had to land and take what supplies they could from the two dragons. Well, they didn’t really have to, but not doing so would have been much less satisfying for their crew.
Impressive, Love. Not even I thought you could fly that fast. Lothar thought to himself and to Loran.
Wasn’t me, we managed to catch a good wind that hasn’t stopped.
Either way, we’ll still have out cargo there on time. Just hope its useful for them. Lothar’s thoughts briefly started to turn to sadder time, when the two of them had been caught in the middle of a raid on one of the rebel cities by the Empire. While they had made it out in time the toll on their crew had hurt them badly, not to mention the damage to Loran herself when she almost got caught but one of the bombs when she was taking off.
Lothar looked back forwarded, watching Loran’s head as she moved it slightly this way and that in the wind.
Uthan as a city was nothing impressive. Just like any other city it spread out from a central point in what seemed to be a mass of buildings that tried to fit as many as could fit into the smallest space they could. In fact, the city itself was sister to three others in design, a spiral pattern out from the center with a road going straight out from the center along each of the compass points. As a completely land locked city the only ways into the city where by the gates along the edge and by dragon, placing hanger for the dragons to sleep in right near the city of town, only a few blocks from the City Hall.
Since dragon’s were so important to the city’s life, being the primary means of shipping, normally the landing line was long and dragon’s would sometimes have to circle the city for hours before being able to land. Which made this day very strange as there were no dragons in the skies. There were no dragons spiraling the city and only four large War dragons in the massive hanger. Loran landed quickly, using the landing spot closest to the unloading docks.
Well, we’re here. And from the looks of it just about on time. They’ve already closed down the skies above the city to everyone pretty much. Loran’s thought back to Lothar as she watched people running around her, attempting to assist her and her crew in getting off.
That is true, Love. Hopefully we won’t be here long ourselves. We have no place in what is going to come to this city soon and they should unload us and send us off as quickly as we can, though a night here may be good. You’ve been flying for close to a week now. I know that dragons can go much longer than us other races without sleep but a full week isn’t going to do you any good. If they don’t object we’re staying the night. Lothar projected his thoughts into Loran’s mind, insuring both the words, the emotions, and the meaning behind them could through.
One of the ropes being tossed around Loran to help her crew get off missed its intended target and landed on her neck. She turned her head, glaring that the man who had thrown it and missed before snorting and standing up, removing the ropes from across her body. She then began heading for the unloading dock, he crew grinning at her actions. Half her crew then walked confidently over to the edges of the deck, hoping of the railing and sliding down Loran’s body and legs to land on the ground. They then rushed head of her, jumping onto the unloading dock and taking the place of the men and women stationed there to connect the dock to a dragon’s deck.
Alright, Lothar. One night. I’m not at all happy though. With a raid on this city coming at an unknown time I want to be here as little as possible. She stepped next to the docks, their crew on the docks quickly getting the ramp across before she stopped moving, and the crew still aboard already beginning to unload as she laid down and allowed them to load their cargo.
You and me both, Love. I’ll tell the crew that they are sleeping aboard tonight.
A woman watched the dragon that had just landed head over to the unloading docks, the crew from the dragon taking over the duties normally assigned to the dock crew. The woman frowned slightly, everything the city needed was now here, however the raid was still going to hurt them, if they could even fight it off. She turned, the sun light dancing across her full length dress, glinting off the golden lining, and walked toward the chair at her desk. She looked down at the stack of papers on her desk and picked the top one up. More reports from the long range scouts, the Empire still hadn’t sent the its dragons the final distance to attack Uthan just yet, however the fires surrounding their small base on this continent had increases yet again.
She tossed the paper aside and leaned back in her chair. She had thought that being a governor would be something she could do, not easy, but something she could do. But she had never been trained for wars or combat. All the reports, all these various numbers and plans she had to keep track of were insane. At least she had her militia captain to help her. While the World Guard, the only true force large enough to oppose the Empire, was unable to spare any more dragons or men they were at least helping out. The dragon that had just landed was carrying a supply of flame tongue, a plant that when breathed when would causing searing pain in one’s lungs.
The door to her private office opened and her secretary stepped through.
“Ma’am, Captain Ranat is here to see you.”
“Send him in please.” The secretary stepped back outside, a taller man following him in.
“Captain Ranat, please, sit.” She waved at one of the two chairs in front of her desk.
Ranat turned and closed the window before walking towards the chairs and sitting in it. His deep blue eyes looked past her at the top of the hanger, reaching up the stroke his chin.
“I see we are getting lost in thought as always, Ranat.” She joked slightly at him. He blinked then looked at her again.
“Ah, sorry Tathia, just, well thinking about the flame tongue again. The dragon carrying it just showed up, as I’m sure you know, ma’am.”
“Yes, I am aware that the dragon carrying it has arrived, however I doubt that would warrant your time to bring to here.” She leaned back in her chair slightly, watching Ratan. Despite his brutish appearance he was actually quite smart behind his blue eyes. While Ratan and her didn’t always see eye to eye on some topics she had come to trust his judgment on military issues and she had even reached the point where she made herself listen to him carefully even when they furiously disagreed on a topic.
“No, no it wouldn’t ma’am. The reason I actually came was some new intelligence that we just got from the World Guard scouts. The Empire is moving its dragons now. Unless they manage to catch an amazing wind on their way they should be here tomorrow night.” His face was grim as he spoke those words.
“I…see. Yes, yes that would warrant you coming here. Thank you. I don’t need to tell you what to do, this is why we put up with you all the time isn’t it?” She tried to smile as she poked fun at him.
“Yes, ma’am it is. I’ll be going now.” He stood up and headed for the door, stopped before he opened it. “Oh, and make sure you are underground when they come, Tathia. I don’t think this city would last long without you leading us.” He looked back at her and smiled before heading out the door.
Tathia stood up and walked back over to the window and looked up at the sky. “So…They finally are coming.”
Lothar leaped off the unloading docks and landed on the ground before looking up at Loran as she stretched her neck muscles out some. I’m going to see about getting our payment for this shipment.
Loran looked down at Lothar and nodded. Okay. Be careful out there.
Lothar walked towards the doors of the hanger and smiled back at Loran. “You know me, I’ll be good.” His answer was a quick snort in his general direction from Loran.
Lothar closed the hanger doors behind him and headed towards the City Hall. The streets were almost completely empty save for a merchant or two along the side of the streets. Most of the people have been evacuated from the city already and sent to nearby towns or other cities. There was one other person walking along the spiral street, an elf with a bag on her back. Alongside her traveled a wolf, almost like it was a pet of the elf.
There’s something you don’t see every day. His brief lapse in attention brought him to the City Hall. The building was nothing if not impressive. It was taller than the other buildings around it, with stain glass windows along the outside. Lothar rolled his eyes a bit, he never could understand the need for such things to express the already impressive building anymore. He shook his head once then headed to the door, pushing it open and walking in.
The entry way of the City Hall was like the outside, over done by Lothar’s standards. Over 15 different paintings hung on the walls of the room, each one showing some “great deed” the city have done in its time. Ignoring them he headed towards the row of desks along the far wall of the room, there was only one clerk behind them, normally each desk would have had a clerk and a line.
As he reached the clerk the young man looked up at him, “Dragon captain with the flame tongue, right?” Lothar nodded. “Door on the right, tell the woman in there to get your money.”
Lothar turned and headed towards the indicated doorway. Well, they haven’t made anything slower just because of the evacuation.
He headed through the door into a room with a row of desks again. A single woman sat behind one and looked up at him as he entered. “What do you want?”
“My payment. Just dropped off the shipment of flame tongue you all wanted.” The woman reached behind the desk and grabbed a single bag and tossed it to him.
“The agreed upon amount I believe.” Lothar lifted the bag a bit in his hands then nodded and put it in one of his pockets. He then turned and headed out the door, and towards the entrance of the building.
“You aren’t at all interested in why they would want so much flame tongue?” The clerk said.
“Nope. My job is only to deliver the stuff. Their application isn’t my concern.” Lothar looked back at the clerk. “And I suggest you stop caring also. Knowing too much at this time could get you in deep trouble.” Lothar turned back towards the entrance and left the building as the clerk watched him leave.
Loran raised her head to stretch her neck, breathing deeply as she did. The setting sun shined on her scales. A smell came across the air, the smell of bombs. She turned her head and looked towards the sun, her inner eye lid covering her eye and allowing her to look at the sun. Four dragons, big ones. The empires fleet was coming, and night was here.
 Morte_Wolf · Thu Nov 06, 2008 @ 05:43pm · 0 Comments |
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Age of Dragons and Guns. Chapter 1 |
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This is a first draft so there may be errors in it. This will be true for the first time a post any chapter.
Chapter One
The guard standing post at the large doors leaned the wall, asleep. Not that it would have mattered; he wouldn’t have spotted the single figure moving slowly through the shadows under the windows. So far there hadn’t been any trouble sneaking through the massive Empire of Adinos’s base. The figure, which looked like he was just entering adulthood, came up next to the guard. He slowly wrapped a hand around the guard’s mouth then pressed a knife against the guard’s throat, slicing it open cleanly, the guard dying quickly and soundlessly.
The figure lowered the guard down to the ground. He then stepped towards the doors. Now completely visible, the man stood about five feet and eleven inches with short dark brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a black outfit with the insignia of a High Captain on the shoulder along with two other marks under it, indicating he was part of the combat special operations division. He pushed one of the large, completely plain, doors open and stepped through it, closing it silently behind him.
The room beyond the doors was massive with window along the ceiling. The floor was covered in dirt and grass and that had been hauled inside to provide this room with what it needed. The man who has walked in never looked at the ceiling, nor at the ground, his only interest was in the massive creature that lay curled up in the middle of the room, a dragon. This dragon easily out sized most other dragons due to it being a Yans. The Yans dragons were specially breed by the Empire from War dragons and Guard dragons, and they were their primary combat dragons. The other breed the Empire used was the Kafion. It was breed from a Guard dragon and a Speed dragon and was their quicker dragon, used for recon and patrols.
The man moved towards the dragon, being careful to not make a sound. He reached out slowly to the dragon, touching its still sleeping mind and caressing it, feeling the drugs still affecting the dragons mind. Once he reached the dragon the man touched its neck, before walking around the dragon to where its tail wrapped around a smaller dragon, this one only about half the size of the man and still very young. In fact the younger dragon had only recently been born, its egg still lay in pieces in one corners of the room. The young dragon opened its eyes slowly, more aware than its parent dragon that lay with its tail curled around the young dragon. The clouds in the sky outside opened up, providing moonlight into the room, showing the young dragons still unformed colors, a deep blue coloring to her body and a purple tone on her face.
The young dragon stood up slowly, about as tall as the man’s thigh, moving closer to the young man and rubbing its head on his legs. The man caressed the young dragon’s head slowly, kneeling and looking into the dragon’s eyes. There was intelligence there, yet unformed, but plenty of intelligence behind those eyes. He ran his hand over the young dragons head again and down its neck, noting the smooth shape of the young dragon’s face and the smooth way its neck met the rest of its body.
“Going to be female, are you? Female dragon, a beautiful female.” The man spoke softly to the young dragon, which responded by make a soft almost purring sound. The man smiled and stood up, looking at the larger dragon which, now that the small light from the moon was drifting into the room, could be seen to have the more angular look of a man dragon.
The man reached out the larger dragon, speaking quietly to it through their link that a captain and its dragon shared. I’m going to take your daughter. I’m going to take her someplace away from here. I will look after her and insure she is safe. I promise.
He then, slowly pulled his mind away from the dragon’s mind, not just away from the link they shared, but completely out, severing the link between them and leaving the larger dragon still asleep.
He walked over and ran his hand over the large dragon’s head once before turning away and beckoning the small dragon over. The small dragon walked over slowly, still somewhat clumsy on her legs. He reached down and picked her up, a heavy load for a creature so young but she was a dragon, her heavy weight meant she was healthy. The man took one of the young dragons claws and rested it on its father’s head for a second before resting her head on his shoulder and holding her body much like he would a cat. He then headed for the door and back to the hallway, using the small door that was locked from this side to exit. He headed the opposite way he had come from, heading towards the landing zone for the dragons. From there he would head east until he reached the mountains.
Morte_Wolf · Thu Nov 06, 2008 @ 05:34pm · 0 Comments |
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So, I got bored and decided to get back to writing. So, I took one of my RPs, Age of Dragons and Guns: War of the Races, and decided to make it into a story since it never seemed to work.
Morte_Wolf · Thu Nov 06, 2008 @ 05:32pm · 0 Comments |
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I don't know where this came from, it jsut did...Short story thing
The doors slide open to the quiet sounds of an efficient bridge, the low hum of computers in the background, and the almost unhearable sound of breathing. The large room was kept at a low light setting and a cooler temperature than elsewhere onboard the vessel that this bridge controlled. No one moved as the captain of the vessel stepped on to the bridge, her uniform barely visible in the subtle lighting of the bridge. She moved quietly to the Master Plot, a three dimensional view of her ship and the area around it. The plot was focused on the star system they were in, the bright sun showing up as a blue dot due to its coloring and the planets orbiting it spinning slowly around it and their axis. Her ship floated near the edge of the solar system, on a similar orbit to the 5th planet but almost directly on the other side of the system’s star.
“Any sign of anything out there?” she spoke quietly, loud enough for her people to hear her but not loud enough for those who didn’t need to be involved in the conversation to be disrupted. Her sensor technician walked over to her, pressing a few buttons on the panel before the Master plot, ordering it to rely information from his work station to the plot.
“No. We haven’t seen anything new. Still just picking up faint traces of something. Whatever it is its watching us. They had to have wiped out the colony on the 2nd planet then stayed here. And there’s been no contact with anyone on the planet, and our drones have picked up nothing that would even support life there anymore. It’s like the planet was just wiped clean of all life. I think we should just write this system off, head back home and report to the higher ups.”
“We’re down to only 5 colonies. 50 to 5, and only in the course of one year. I want these bastards, I want them dead.”
“We’re only a fast cargo vessel, we can’t fight them. We only have military grade sensors of defences because of those bastards out there. There’s nothing we can do.”
“I know. I know. I just hate admitting it. Take us home.”
“GET THOSE SHIELDS BACK UP DAMNIT! WE CAN’T HOLD WITHOUT THEM!” The voice bellowed over the sounds of orbital bombardment, the kinetic weapons streaking out of the sky to pound the last structures on Yatha.
“Shield generators down, backups none functional, power supply dropping.” The lights flickered off, the soft hum of computers being replaced by the louder hum of the backup generator. “s**t! Power supply gone, they got one of the relays, the excess power is going to rip the power station apart sir.”
“TELL THE MEN OVER THERE TO GET TO THE DEEPEST DAMN PART OF THE STATION AND LOCK ALL THE DOORS!”
“Yes sir!” More chatter spread over the airways as commands were past, some to men who had been living less than 1 second ago and who were now just burned corpses. Yatha had been under siege for the last week, the fleet of unknown ships above them has worked quickly to knock out any means of contacting anyone outside the system. Then they had starting working on the planet side structures. Yatha Command was all that remained, and unless something changed in the next 2 hours it would be added to the list of graves. Without their shields they couldn’t defend themselves from the endless bombardment that was raining destruction on so many of them outside the Headquarters.
Whoever was doing this knew what they were doing. They has started on the far side of the planet and where working their way around in a perfect circle to the HQ, making sure nothing was left intact.
“They got the Power station.” The middle aged man who had been bellowing orders less than a minute before looked up at the communication officer. The man who had been their energetic leader now looked like he was old. Very old. “The men didn’t make it.”
The commander closed his eyes. “So, we’re left with backup power then.”
He looked up, the weight of all the dead on this planet from the last 2 months clearly etched onto his face. “Get everyone who can to relay their power here, then get them in this structure.”
The communication officer nodded then ran off, to spread the order that may only save the people who could reach the HQ a few minutes at most.
The unknown fleet turned away from Yatha, the 8th planet in this system, as their pinpoint strike whipped out the last stronghold on the planet. Leaving it without life, just like so many planets before.
“Yatha now too, huh?”
“Yes sir. Things aren’t looking good.”
“No..No it isn’t.
“Same story?”
“Yeah, though the people have already caught on, how are the evac plans coming?”
“They are ready sir. But do you really think that it’ll be needed?”
“They’ve crushed almost all our colonies. Only Loat remains. If they kill Loat will we have a choice? They’ll come here next.”
“But...Sir, doing the evac plan could show them the way straight to Sol. Are you really prepared to risk everything on hoping the defence of Sol hold?”
“It’s our last stronghold if we fail here. And at least Sol is so far away that it should take 1 millennia to get there. If their pace is any indication.”
“Let’s hope your right sir. But their pace hasn’t been constant. I’m sorry sir, I know that it’s not a good thought. But we have to consider it. The survivors may not have that long.”
The bright blue engines of the heavy “colony” ships, formerly heavy cargo ships but turned into evac ships, burned in the depth of space as the 525 ships headed away from the 6 habitual planets of the Utopia system. Each carried close to 1 million people and plenty of supplies to start over, and every single person on them knew exactly why so much money had been invested into these ships. Utopia was going to die. The fleet present in the system was proof of that. The remains of the Space Fleet, all the ships juryrigged and weakened from previous encounters with the enemy, and not one excepting to live.
The captains of the evac ships looked on in fear as the unknown fleet appeared in the system, millions of them, all of them converging on the remains of the Space Fleet.
It took only 5 minutes for the last of the colony ships to leave the system. Just in time to record the final destruction of the Space Fleet, the last wounded, bleeding, lamed battleship managed to collide with one of the unknowns, throwing away its life in hopes of saving the evac fleet. It did nothing for the people still on the planets, whose death was present.
The Sol sun burned brightly as the evac ships headed inward towards it. 16 months. 16 months of fear as they were unable to know if they were followed. 16 months of hell as children cried for their dead parents, friends torn apart by their lose, husbands and wives becoming less and less human.
But they had arrived. There were in Sol, the last stronghold of humanity. Their final hope.
A pair of eyes looked into space, watching a certain star, never blinking. If they were right...
The star of Utopia suddenly flared up, brightened, then blinked out of existence. It had taken so long. But that light had finally caught up. The finally evidence of how Utopia had ended was clear. 200 years. So very long for that single star to blink out. Less than 1 month ago another star has blinked out, not one of the previous colonies. It seemed that the unknown enemy may have found someone else to prey upon, or was just making its way to Sol. At least the enemy hadn’t found their way to Sol yet.
Morte_Wolf · Thu Aug 14, 2008 @ 03:22am · 0 Comments |
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If you haven't guessed... |
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If you haven't guessed I've mostly ditched this.
I may start it back up though unlikely, I will mostly likely use this universe alot.
I may or maynot use the same storyline with different characters some other time.
But this is to just let you know do not look for anymore chapters.
Morte_Wolf · Fri Dec 09, 2005 @ 02:49am · 2 Comments |
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stare This one is just giving me hell okay, I'll TRY to have it up by Monday...
Morte_Wolf · Sat Oct 01, 2005 @ 01:15am · 0 Comments |
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I'm sorry about not updating, I haven't had the time to do any writing, and when I try I get writer's block...
Morte_Wolf · Mon Sep 26, 2005 @ 03:48am · 1 Comments |
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Morte_Wolf · Mon Aug 29, 2005 @ 03:12am · 3 Comments |
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How many people read this,
Please post on this if you read it...
Morte_Wolf · Sat Aug 13, 2005 @ 03:31am · 4 Comments |
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