An alert rang directly to his phone.

  “I need you down here for close air support,” Ranger Captain Muttley grumbled like an angry bulldog.

  “I don’t have a gunner. I’m here to train a rookie.” He ignored Spitfire’s hurt look.

  “I need her in the air too. Her drake’s fire breath is useful against undead.”

  Yes, that was true, fire was one of the surer ways to deal with undead.

  “Is that an order?”

  “What else would it be, Captain Valentine?” Captain Muttley growled. “Look, I get it. She’s a rook, but she’s a full ranger. Passed all the tests. She’s earned it. If her parents don’t have any objections, then why would I? Why would you?”

  Valentine tried not the break his teeth.

  “We’ll be in the air waiting for targets.”

  “Good hunting to the both of you.”

  Spitfire’s big eyes grew even bigger.

  “Don’t look at me like a scared rabbit. You’re a drake rider. A hunter of rabbits. C’mon. Let’s gear up.”

  When they reached the hangar, they found Maverick already in the process of being armed and armored by Wake.

  The ranger had an unfortunate battle with a mouthy tentacle monster.

  It had cost her both arms up to the elbow and both legs up to the knee.

  She was still in the middle of rehab and calibration for her magitech replacement limbs, which meant a back line role.

  Maverick stood calmly allowing Wake to affix armor plates over her chest and other vital areas to join the thin, flexible armor mesh elsewhere.

  “You’re going to have to armor up your little bitch.” Wake waved her left arm toward Spitfire with a feral grin. “She got snappy.” The metal was scratched and slightly dented with a young drake’s teeth marks.

  Spitfire went to do just that while Valentine helped Wake.

  Metal claws went over natural ones.

  Bladed vambraces went over all four lower limbs.

  A slicing quad blade sheath slid over the end of her long tale.

  A helmet went on in two parts. One over her draconic head and one below. Both had plenty of spikes and cutting edges.

  Enchanted items slotted into her armor and in her collar.

  Attack and defense.

  The last bit they put on were the mini missile pods and bomb packs.

  Everything went much quicker these days with the use of automated arms and hands that emerged from the walls of Maverick’s stall.

  All they had to do was roll the weapons and ordinance over from their racks.

  Getting Volcarna ready took much longer because she wouldn’t calm down and kept snapping at anyone who wasn’t Spitfire.

  “Gear check,” Valentine said as he poked and prodded Spitfire’s flight suit.

  He had already gone through his checklist with practiced efficiency.

  “Alright, kid,” Wake glance from her tablet to Spitfire. “Seals? Green?”

  “Seals are green,” Spitfire squeaked.

  “Oxygen?”

  “Oxygen is green.”

  “Emergency thrusters?”

  “Emergency thrusters are green.”

  “Parachute?”

  “Parachute is green.”

  “Featherfall spell?”

  “Featherfall spell is green.”

  One by one they went through the system that would allow her to operate at altitude and survive a fall in the worst case scenario.

  “All checks are green.” Wake bumped fists with Spitfire. “Good luck out there, kid. Show them what bad bitches can do! Break a wing!” She keyed in her comms to the bridge. “Valentine and Spitfire are go for launch.”

  “Understood. Descending to launch altitude.”

  He kept one ear on the comms chatter.

  Their other aerial assets had already deployed.

  It was a paltry number.

  One wyvern, one skyfury, four human fighter jets and an eagle knight and eagle warrior on something like a loan from their allies down south.

  A squadron of Threnosh interceptors would’ve been nice.

  Those guys knew how to fight while flying.

  He triple-checked the straps and chains securing Spitfire to motorcycle seat-like saddle on Volcarna’s back.

  Both the drake and the rider looked way too small to be sortieing.

  “Deep breaths. Relax your body. Tension equals fatigue. You’ve drilled constantly for this. Muscle memory will take over, so don’t over think this. Thinking too much leads to hesitation, which kills in a battle. It’s dark out. Volcarna’s mostly black. You’ll be hard to spot.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. You’ll have to keep her in check. She’ll want to attack, which is good, but controlled aggression is always better than unthinking aggression.”

  “I got this.”

  “Don’t stray too far from the bases. We’re ground support. Do not dogfight with the harpies. Do not descend under 1000 meters if you find yourself over the ocean. What’ll you do if the worst case scenario happens?”

  “Land in one of the bases. Point Loma, Coronado and the airport. In that order. If none are safe then I’m to go north as far as I can, staying as close to the 5 as possible. Get to a safehouse and wait for extraction.”

  “Depending on your altitude when you have to bail you might get pretty close to UCSD, so you won’t have to wait long.” He grinned. “Alright, great! You’ve got it down. Just follow my lead and listen, okay?”

  “I will.” She swallowed a lump in her throat.

  “Deep breaths.”

  He eyed Volcarna.

  The drake’s tail lashed, leaving scratches in the floor with her blade tail cap. She opened and closed her jaw, a mixture of saliva and flammable liquid leaked.

  “Your calm, she’s calm.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Valentine and Spitfire, you are clear for launch.”

  The voice in her helmet almost made her jump.

  “Opening bay doors!” Wake called from behind the protected control area.

  “Do it!” Valentine dashed over to Maverick. “You ready, girl?”

  Maverick raised her head and screeched.

  Well, it didn’t sound like she had been thinking about hanging her claws up as much as he had been.

  Warning lights in the hanger flashed red as the klaxon rang.

  Valentine strapped himself into the saddle and took his own advice.

  Two deep breaths and the doors slid open, letting cold night air rush in.

  He waited a beat for things to equalize before urging Maverick into the void.

  Their bond was so strong that he no longer required reins or any other control aids.

  His thoughts were hers.

  She dived through the air, tucking her wings and holding straight as an arrow.

  He leaned forward as low in the saddle as possible.

  “Comms check. Do you hear me, Spitfire?”

  “C— copy.”

  He glanced at her vitals in his HUD.

  Elevated heart rate and oxygen consumption.

  The latter wouldn’t be a big problem since they’d be operating at low altitude.

  He opened a small window to view through the eye of the camera set into the back of his saddle, pointing to their six.

  Straight visuals made him feel better.

  Volcarna’s black scales blended well with the dark sky.

  “Level out at 1000 meters.”

  “Copy.”

  He picked out the tiny golden portals in the distance.

  The HUD said that the closest ones were roughly 2 kilometers east from the walls around the airport.

  He zoomed in, opting to save his Skills.

  That was one drawback of favoring active over passive Skills.

  Each use accrued a cost for the former, which meant there was downtime for their use.

  Harpies were already winging their way through the dark sky.

  The Raynapocalypse had already disappeared into the clouds.

  They’d begin raining fire on the harpies at any moment.

  “They’re not shooting at the harpies?”

  He tracked the guns protecting the airport through their tracers.

  “Huh? Undead artillery fire. It’s been awhile. Keep an eye on your threat detector. Dumb fire isn’t too hard to avoid. Just watch out for enemy fliers.”

  “Yessir!”

  A location pinged in his HUD.

  “Valentine, got a target for you. Danger close. Traps and ghouls.”

  “Copy that.” Right outside the airport’s Terminal 2 West. “Stay on my six, Spitfire. 100 meters. I’ll drop bombs, then you blanket them with fire.”

  “Understood, captain, sir!”

  Ah.

  Fear mingled with excitement.

  Which was better than sheer terror.

  He remembered his first combat both he and Maverick pissed themselves.

  The suits back then didn’t have automatic cleaning features.

  Spitfire was a lucky one in many ways.

  He urged Maverick into a dive.

  She spread her wings abruptly as they reached the release point.

  Skills handled the strain of the G-forces for both of them.

  He released the apple-sized bombs with a cybernetic thought and urged Maverick to climb.

  It all happened in a split-second.

  Enhanced perceptions were the only things that had allowed him to take in the people protected by the blue dome of magic under assault from several packs of ghouls and a handful of traps.

  He’d have to go back to the undead war long ago for a time when that many together were outside the spawn zone.

  Hell, they had locked up the spawn zone so well that it was rare to encounter its undead monsters topside.

  He craned his neck back as Maverick flapped against gravity in a steep climb.

  Spitfire and Volcarna did just what expected them too, drenching what he didn’t kill in liquid, sticky fire before joining him in the steep climb.

  “Great job, Spitfire, Volcarna! Let’s take a breath until new orders come in.”

  “Yessir! Thank you, sir!”

  There were multiple pings in his HUD.

  He bit back a curse.

  It appeared that they were the only aerial assets tasked with ground support.

  “Tactical. I need target prioritization.”

  Static.

  “Jamming!” Spitfire cried.

  “We’re fine as long as we stay in sight of each other.”

  “Where are we helping next?”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He scanned the battlefield, flicking Eyes of the Drake on and off to zoom into trouble spots.

  “Holy shit! That’s Sgt. Velasco!”

  The old woman had transformed and was tearing fleshy chunks out of some kind of amalgamated flesh monster the size of a big rig as it slowly crawled across the runway. Her scary familiar was rumbling back and forth goring and tearing the smaller flesh monsters that kept spilling out of the large one’s multiple sphincters.

  “That’s gross!” Spitfire gagged.

  “You’ve seen it before, rookie.”

  “Only in vids and pics.”

  “Just be happy you can’t smell it.”

  A ranger with golems was closer to the terminal adding projectile fire to the barrage spitting out of the terminal itself.

  Rooftop guns and missile launchers split theirs between the undead that had managed to land inside the walls to the north and the growing aerial threat from the harpies.

  The wall itself appeared to be doing well at taking out the undead masses well before they got close.

  He said a silent thanks to the automated defenses.

  They were a blessing to an undermanned force.

  “I want you to get your eyes on escape routes. Look for ambushes, traps and barricades. Take the east, I’ll do the west half.”

  The wall was an easy rifle shot away from the freeway.

  He was pleased to note that he didn’t spot any intentional attempts to impede the streets leading to the on ramp.

  “The bridge is clear.”

  “San Diego-Coronado Bridge is also clear.”

  Not that they’d use that one to evac since it’d put them south of the undead spawn zone.

  It would’ve been safer to take the road south even if it was uncomfortably close to the water on both sides.

  Nope.

  If the rangers on Coronado had to bail they’d do it through the sky.

  He assessed the threats.

  The sergeant had things under control at Terminal 2 West.

  She was also drawing most of the attention away from Terminal 1 to the east.

  The independents had a fight on their hands at the parking structure, but they looked to be doing alright.

  The living area to the west near the water wasn’t under threat since everyone should be already in defense locations.

  “Let’s make our way east. I want to get a look at downtown.”

  “Copy that, captain.”

  A single beat of Maverick’s wings carried them nearly to the eastern end of the runway.

  They stayed within the protection of the wall defenses while he focused his vision to the southeast.

  “Where are the patrols?”

  There should’ve been three, but his HUD wasn’t showing any.

  Even if they were dead—

  Nope.

  They might’ve descended into the spawn zone through one of the many entrances all over downtown.

  Every block had a building or three that held an entrance.

  That’s what had made the war such a nightmare.

  Undead popping out everywhere.

  A flicker caught his drake-like eyes.

  Maverick let a low rumble loose from deep in her broad chest.

  She caught it too.

  A flash of movement.

  Light color in the shadow of an old gas lamp.

  White?

  No.

  Ivory.

  “Evasive!”

  A sickly green lance shot out from beneath the many-colored neon lights of bars and clubs disgorging, not happy, drunk revelers, but slavering undead of all kinds.

  He tracked the spell’s trajectory in a fraction of a second thanks to his Skills.

  To their six, Spitfire’s scream was drowned out by Volcarna’s shriek.

  Valentine had his micromissile launcher in his hands in a flash.

  Target sighted and locked a split-second after.

  Trigger squeezed.

  Multiple micromissiles streaked downward like meteor swarm.

  He didn’t know what level the priest or other faith-based class blessed the munitions, but he hoped they were high enough otherwise they were in trouble.

  Holy explosions blanketed the block with holy flame and holy shrapnel.

  He had only caught a glimpse of that desiccated, ivory-skinned face that somehow looked human, as in an Earthian.

  Always bothered him how the spawn zone spat out undead that appeared to have been like him once.

  Where had they come from?

  It had never been made clear, but the simplest explanation was that they had been among those millions who had died in the early days of the spires apocalypse.

  What sometimes gave him nightmares was the thought that those people could’ve been and were still being somehow recycled body and soul to keep creating monsters.

  He looked through the smoke with Skills and helmet tech, but found nothing.

  The lich and dozens of undead were dead or gone.

  “Calm down, Spitfire. Damage assessment.”

  The girl was sobbing, which meant she wasn’t falling to the ground, which meant Volcarna wasn’t dead.

  “Feel it through your bond. Is the damage spreading? Venom? Necrotic?”

  He wanted to get a visual, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the ground.

  “N— no. I don’t think so.”

  “Alright. It hurts. That’s okay. If it doesn’t hurt, then that’s a bad sign. Do a visual check.”

  Volcarna had a magic shield charm.

  It should’ve blunted the total damage from the lich’s spell like ablative armor.

  Necrotic effects would’ve been nullified first, which left the physical damage.

  “Um— she’s got a hole in her right wing. As big as two hands, maybe two and a half.”

  “Alright, that’s not so bad. How’s her shield?”

  “It’s broken.”

  “Okay. Let’s land in Coronado for healing and a new unit. You lead. We’ll watch your six.” He fired another barrage in a wider spread to discourage potential shots as they retreated.

  Spitfire urged the panicked Volcarna higher since they needed to cross over water.

  His HUD flashed red and beeped a shrill warning.

  “Enemy inbound! Fly faster and don’t look back!”

  Camera zoomed on a squadron of harpies.

  Their lightweight enchanted armor seemed to suck in what little light was available to help them blend into the night sky.

  “1300 meters… 500 meters!”

  He cursed.

  They had activated a speed boost, getting within shooting distance in a two breaths.

  “Chaff out!”

  The magic dispersing cloud of particles fired from the small launcher on Maverick’s back.

  Scintillating beams of magic lanced from the magic gem set in the middle of the harpies’ chestplates and helmets.

  “C’mon, Mav! Let’s take them skyward!”

  Instant vertical climb combined with mach boost shot them 1000 meters in a little under 3 seconds.

  Skills allowed the both of them to withstand the G’s as if they were on a lazy weekend joyflight.

  A huge shadow disturbed the clouds like a shark cutting through murky water.

  That could only be one thing, so he fired minimissiles from both pods and took Maverick back toward the ground in a vertical dive.

  They closed with the pursuing harpies with frightening speed.

  Shields ate the barrage of razor feathers.

  Then they were close enough to reach.

  Whirlwind blender!

  Maverick slowed impossibly in her descent, suddenly spinning like a top.

  Like a tornado, she sucked the harpies in.

  Magic shields flashed and shattered as cutting wind and the slicing blades on Maverick’s body turned them into crimson chunks of meat and feathers.

  Acting and reacting well-beyond baseline human reflexes, Valentine couldn’t help but see the look of terror in the harpies’ eyes.

  He couldn’t help but see one desperately trying to push another out of the blender in a doomed attempt to save at least one life.

  The Skill ended and they resumed their plunge toward the surface of the dark bay.

  Maverick’s huge wings beat once then tucked as tight as possible. Her body as straight and rigid as a javelin.

  Then a flying behemoth dived out of the clouds with a screech filled with pain and vengeance.

  Harpies showed great variability in size.

  From human-sized to comparable to a small house.

  The latter were their leaders and champions.

  Deadly for their sheer physical strength combined with equally powerful Skills and spells.

  Indeed, they wouldn’t have been able to fly without their wind magic, much like a drake in that regard.

  Although, the latter’s use was instinctive.

  The giant harpy fired spells from multiple gems.

  A slow field sapped their velocity.

  Lightning arrows filled the air like rain.

  Maverick’s screech was cut as her muscles contracted uncontrollably.

  “Mach boost!” he said through grit teeth as the magic lightning affected him even through an insulated flight suit.

  They shot forward out of both the field and the rain.

  He cut the Skill.

  Twice in quick succession meant tears in the Maverick’s muscles and fractures in her bones.

  He slapped the healing spell in his saddle.

  The blind boost had them directly over downtown and dangerously close to ground level.

  “Climb, Mav!”

  His cameras were fried, so he had his head on a swivel, desperately trying to locate the harpy.

  Proximity threat detectors blared in his helmet.

  Undead birds shrieked from out of a building to swarm them.

  He fumbled for his spellgun as the monsters pecked and clawed at his fingers and head.

  One snapped the spellgun out of his hand and sent it tumbling away.

  They could’ve really used a backsaddle gunner.

  Maverick roared, lashing her tail blades through pursuing undead birds. She barrel rolled, slicing with the blades on her limbs.

  Clawed forelimbs struck out like serpents, ripping undead by the handful.

  “Do not bite! Remember what that’s like!”

  He felt her mental snort.

  As if to say there was no way she’d ever forget that.

  Despite her efforts the cloud of undead thickened as more flew up from street level.

  Salvation came from an unexpected source.

  Magic fire bloomed from above.

  The giant harpy hadn’t abandoned pursuit.

  The undead birds went up like kindling, while Maverick burst forward with a mighty beat of her wings.

  Singed, but not blackened nor crisped, they sped forward.

  “Raynapocalypse, do you copy? This is Valentine. Big bird on my tail. Could use backup.”

  Silence.

  He hoped they had already seen the harpy.

  The big ones got priority targeting.

  They sped ever eastward away from relative safety.

  Couldn’t climb or turn because the harpy kept flying just above them like an oppressive blanket, firing spells the whole while.

  They couldn’t lose any airspeed lest they take another hit, which they weren’t equipped to survive.

  “Copy that!”

  The high-pitched voice wasn’t the one he wanted to hear.

  “Spitfire and Volcarna on big bird’s six! Coming in for an attack run, now!”

  He stayed his tongue.

  An attack run wasn’t the right time to distract anyone, let alone a rookie.

  He craned his neck to watch the black-scaled drake come out of the dark sky spitting fire.

  Bright orange bloomed in a line across the harpy’s broad wings and back.

  The telltale flash of magic shields dampened his hopes.

  “Nice try, kid, now follow my orders and get back to base, now!” he snapped.

  “Er… sorry, captain! There’s harpies on our six!”

  His stomach dropped.

  “Attacking again!”

  Volcarna spat six times.

  On the seventh nothing came out except for a wheeze.

  “Switching to spellgun!”

  Spitfire’s voice had somehow climbed a few octaves.

  The harpy was content to ignore her in favor of continued pursuit.

  Farther back the squadron of harpies gained on Spitfire and Volcarna.

  He glanced forward and above.

  The sky appeared to be growing more crowded the farther they strayed from the bases’ anti-air defenses.

  Harpies and flying monsters under their control.

  An old fighter jet screamed in, out of place amid the throng.

  Missiles fired.

  Only to be shot out of the sky by a streaking needle.

  The skyfury flew through the sky like it was in a vacuum.

  It splashed the fighter jet in the next moment and turned toward Valentine, eating up the distance faster than he and Maverick could ever hope to even with all their Skills.

  “Alien, do you copy?”

  “… copy,” Ranger Alien said as she closed enough to pierce through enemy jamming.

  “We could use a hand.”

  “Can’t scratch big bird with what I have, but I can clear the flock on your rookie’s tail.”

  “That’ll do. Thanks.”

  “No problem. I’ll head back to the Raynapocalypse after I do that to let them know you’ve got a problem. They’ll handle big bird. Just don’t die until then.”

  Seconds passed as Alien shredded harpies and shot skyward.

  Valentine counted five heartbeats.

  A gigantic shape descended from the clouds besieged by what must have been hundreds of tiny shapes.

  Harpies like flies on a tiger.

  Magic electricity burst out of the skyship’s emitters, sending arcs of bright light bouncing between the harpies.

  Tiny shapes, blackened to a crisp fell.

  “Monsters!” the giant harpy roared as she suddenly launched herself at the Raynapocalypse. “For my sisters!”

  The dark dagger in the sky cut the giant winged-armed woman into pieces with a withering barrage.

  “Back to Coronado. This time you will follow orders.” Valentine tried to keep the anger out of his voice as he kept an eye on the skyship moving to engage with the remaining enemy that continued to pour out of the golden portals. “Tactical. This is Valentine. Tell me you can hear me this time?”

  “Copy. Make it quick while you’re still in range.”

  “Lich on the streets. I repeat. Lich on the streets. Undead appear to be swarming.”

  “Understood. We have visual. Will clear skies first. Report to base.”

  “Copy that.” He eyed his rookie. “Spitfire. We’re heading to Coronado. This time you will land. If you don’t I’ll ground you until you’re 18.”

  “… yessir…”

  They landed amidst a flurry of activity.

  Gun and spell fire sounded too close to the main command building.

  “Patch her up.” He tried to keep his voice calm as Spitfire flinched. “Healing. Water. A little bit of food. Then rub her down to keep her loose. If things go to shit here, take off and head to Point Loma for orders.”

  He strode into the building, passing a strange group loitering in the front lobby.

  Fancy armor.

  Dark gray matte.

  Full Threnium, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  Not the bits and pieces all, but the most elite of the rangers got.

  Probably, fully powered from the tiny lights in the armor.

  He couldn’t see faces through their faceplates, but a couple had weird bodies.

  One had those backwards knees while another was huge, too stout and thick for a normal human body.

  The latter clearly needed to turn sideways to go through a regular doorway.

  The creepiest one was a waif of a woman, sitting on the counter and ignoring the pointed looks from the people manning it. She was wearing what looked like a black panther’s head and skin as a hooded cloak. He guessed it covered all the way down to her mouth, but he couldn’t be sure because of the inky shadows that seemed to suck in the light. The dead panther’s eyes seemed to be looking around—

  Nope.

  He didn’t have time to waste.

  He strode through the halls and barely slowed as he pushed his way past the guards outside the command room.

  “Scout here to report. It’s urgent.”

  The bulldog-like Captain Muttley growled.

  “Valentine. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, which wouldn’t be so bad considering what else could be out there. What do you have for me?”

  “A lich. Estimate low 30’s threat level. I probably got it.” He gave them the location. “Undead are swarming from… well… all over downtown.”

  Captain Muttley barked a curse.

  “That might be why we haven’t heard anything from any of the patrols,” one of the command staff said.

  Another coughed. “That might just be the enemy jamming comms.”

  “If they got caught out and overwhelmed—”

  “They should have the mobility advantage. They’ll have gotten out. And if not, worse case scenario they descended into the zone, which would also explain the complete loss of contact.”

  “There’s some fuckery going on with the spawn zone, like I’ve been saying.”

  “Damn it! Is this why they’re here?”

  Captain Muttley silenced the room with a simple clearing of his throat.

  “The commander did give me a warning as vague as it was.” He turned to one of his staff. “Give them the go ahead. Offer whatever support they need and we can provide.” He turned to Valentine. “Good work, Captain Valentine. Take care of your partner and remain on standby. Since the comms are sketchy right now, I’ll send someone if I need you.”

  “Understood, captain.”

  He left the command room and breathed for what felt like the first time since he had heard Spitfire scream.