Chapter 30

EARTH

FOUR KILOMETERS WEST OF WICHITA

The convoy of three large Heavy Lifters and half a dozen armored Lifters moved slowly along the transit path. This early in the morning and in this part of the country, other Lifter traffic was almost non-existent. Even though the reconstruction of Earth was proceeding better than anyone had expected, they had yet to reach out into the Wastes yet, mainly concentrating on rebuilding the many cities that had sprouted up, as well as building the defensive platforms and the main station in orbit. Two armored Lifters led the convoy, two more traveling between the three transport vehicles and then two more guarding the rear. The insignia on the sides of the Lifters designated them as belonging to Eden City's 3^rd Transport Battalion. It was a unit that Martin had formed shortly after establishing Eden City and changing its old name from Junction City, Utah.

The men operating the vehicles were anything but part of that unit.

The armored Lifters carried two men in the front and a dozen in the rear, all of them armed and wearing long cloaks and hoods to protect against the blowing sand. The storms in The Wastes were famous for their power and ability to strip the flesh from bones and even from the air it would not look odd for the troops to be wearing protective cloaks. The passenger in the first armored Lifter allowed his red eyes to search the terrain that surrounded them. This section of Lifter path had been improved just a few months ago, natural obstacles removed from the transit path to allow ease of travel. The hills to his left were covered in dark green pine and oak trees and rested perhaps only fifty meters away. The area to his right was mostly plains and wide open with nothing but high grass. It allowed him to see for hundreds of meters across the landscape and that was why he kept looking towards the treeline. The path curved sharply up ahead and once past it, then they would have a straight shot into the dead city of Wichita only ten kilometers ahead.

His name was Talied.

He was Hurcan's oldest son and was the only one his father trusted enough for this mission. He had chosen his men carefully, all of them experienced in combat and keeping their true nature hidden from prying eyes. The normal elf drivers provided by Anlain they would kill upon reaching their destination and then they would feast on their flesh in celebration of their victory over the female elves and wolf dogs that had so tortured his father's existence. They would finally have their revenge on Black Hair and those that followed him for butchering his father's brother in the tunnel two years before, and they could begin to establish themselves as the rulers of this world. They would be able to...

"Talied?" The voice brought him out of his thoughts and he turned to his elf driver.

"What is it?" He hissed out.

"Up ahead. Look."

Talied turned his head quickly to look where the driver was motioning and his red eyes immediately narrowed. Stretched across the transit path haphazardly at the sharp turn in the path were the wrecked and broken remains of nearly two dozen rusted hulks of ancient wheeled cars and trucks.

"Stop!" He barked out.

The elf driver brought the armored Lifter smoothly to a halt, the vehicles behind them also slowing and stopping. Talied quickly extracted himself from the Lifter, his eyes searching all around them nervously. He looked at the elf driver.

"Was this here before?" He demanded.

The elf shook his head. "I don't know." He answered honestly. "I wasn't the one who scouted this route. The reconstruction teams are beginning to spread into The Wastes Talied. This is one of the first things they do ... they drag these old vehicles out of the city streets and leave them on the edges for disposal at a later time."

Talied eyed the area in front of them. They could not go around to the left of the path; the Heavy Transport Lifters were too large to fit between the scattered hulks and the small gap between the last few and the line of timber. Going around to the right would require that they spread out across the high grass of the plains and pick their way around the wrecks which were much more spaced out. His eyes could detect the bend in the path that would lead them directly to their destination sitting on the far side of this pile. He lifted his hand and brought the communications set up.

"Have two men move up to the wreckage and check it!" He barked making his first mistake. "Now!"

He watched then as two cloaked figures jumped from the back of the second armored Lifter and began to bound quickly forward passing him as they made their way toward the pile of derelict vehicles. Talied was not a military commander and he had no formal training in tactics. Much of what he had done over the years had been against helpless men, women and children.

"Should we spread out the vehicles?" The elf driver asked.

Talied glared at him. "And delay ourselves more?" Talied barked. "Keep the men in their vehicles. Once this is checked we will move around it to the right across the plains!" He ordered, making his second, final and most fatal mistake.

The black ringed sapphire eyes watched intently the movements of the two men and the convoy from the darkness of the timber. The eyes held no emotion but cold death, and the fangs protruding from her gums were just the indication anyone needed.

Tarifa had insisted on only fast moving scouts for this mission. It had taken them only four hours to have three reconstruction crews bring as many of the burnt out vehicles to this location as they could. Once that was accomplished, dozens of engineers and scouts had gone through the wreckage insuring that no vehicle would pass through the piles of twisted metal, and making sure that no sign of being placed here purposely would be visible. She had forty Spartan scouts with her, as well as a dozen half vampire half Drow infiltrators from Lynwe's command. Leland and his small team were hidden within the patchwork of twisted vehicles on the road waiting for the signal to begin their attack.

She wore the special lightweight dark gray fatigues that all their scouts wore. The fabric of the material was such that it blended to whatever background the person wearing the uniform was in. While not making them invisible, it went a long way to making them infinitely harder to detect. Especially in the darkness of the timber all around them. The Spartan P190 was resting in its holder diagonally across her back, her long midnight black hair pulled and tied into a long pony tail and secured with Drow silk in Aihola's chosen colors. It signified to all that she was Aihola's lover and Tarifa had worn such silk in her hair happily for two years now, and would do so many years into the future. They had a future to live out ... together and with the man who had taken them both as his mates and cemented that future for them.

Tarifa had been worried at first that Isra would not accept her Nya Istel for who she was, a half elf half vampire Drow. That he would not be able to accept their love of each other and what that entailed. Those worries had been brushed aside when he had swept Aihola into his arms on his ship that first time. They had been swept aside every time since when he took her in their bed with as much passion and vigor that he showed to Tarifa. Their trysts could go on for hours she thought playfully, as they never seemed to tire of each other. And the one gift that both she and Aihola never thought would come about was now theirs Tarifa thought as her hand dropped slowly to her abdomen.

Doctor Olyne had told her because of Dekton's diluted blood, the wolf change within her was taking far longer to complete. Though she had come into phase twice in the last year, the changes were still occurring inside her body at the molecular level. The moment Isra had bitten her that first night here on Earth, the pureness of his blood and the virus within that blood had raced through her like a firestorm, instantly completing all the changes within her and allowing her to have what she had always desired. Tarifa could almost feel the child growing within her womb now, and to know that her Nya Istel had also miraculously conceived was a sign they could not ignore. Isra was meant for them ... whether ordained by some higher power or fate itself ... they had the man that they would go into the future with.

"They are reaching the first line of wreckage Tarifa." The voice whispered softly next to her.

Tarifa turned and looked at the single Durcunusaan Spartan that had been assigned to her. The Durcunusaan was a grizzled older man born and raised on Apo Prime with white just touching the edges of his dark hair; one of his fangs had the tip broken off, the black ring surrounding bright gray eyes. Tarifa had discovered from her father that he had requested from General Vengal to be assigned to her. He had lost a daughter when she was Tarifa's age who had looked amazingly very much like her, without the elven ears of course.

"How closely did Isra tell you to watch me Diantar?" Tarifa asked with a small smile.

Diantar matched her smile with a glint in his eyes. "He told me you were bull headed and as stubborn as a female Rektolian Jungle Cat. He said I would never be able to make you do something you didn't want to do. He also told me you are one of the most dedicated and fearless fighters he had ever known." Tarifa's eyes grew a little wider at this as Diantar continued. "And considering Isra has fought beside King Leonidas and Queen Aricia ... that puts you in elite company."

"Isra said all that?" Tarifa asked just a little shocked.

Diantar grinned. "I had an opportunity to sit with him the night after we arrived here. I don't believe in all my six thousand four hundred years I have ever seen a man ... an Alpha as powerful as Isra ... go on so much about the skills and intelligence of his mates." He told her. "He worships you both Tarifa ... in the same manner as the King worships the Queens. You carry his child ... you should..."

Tarifa gasped. "How ... how do you know that?"

Diantar chuckled softly and shifted on the ground next to her. "I am an old wolf and I have been around quite a long time. There are things I can detect that the younger ones can not. He knows that you and Aihola carry his children ... yet his only words to me were to make sure you did nothing exceedingly reckless. He knows he will not change you Tarifa ... and he has no intention of trying."

"I ... I know why you requested to be assigned to me Diantar." Tarifa spoke softly. "I hope ... I hope in the years to come that I give you reason to never regret that decision."

His gray eyes met hers. "You are so like my daughter that it is scary sometimes." He spoke softly. "And you already do her memory proud Tarifa. It is my honor to be able to serve you."

Tarifa turned back to the transit path. "I have not heard from Roluth yet." She said. "We can not hit them until..."

Tarifa my bonded one ... now!

Tarifa's eyes widened fully and she winced at the power of the shouted command within her head from Roluth, but it sent every portion of her senses into overdrive and she reached back to pull the 190 from its scabbard. "Now!" She hissed reaching up and tapping her jaw where her implant was. "Missile Teams! Execute now! Steven ... you are free to engage!" Tarifa looked into the sky through the trees.

Isra! Nya Istel! Act now!

Talied may not have been a military commander in any sense of the word but he was far from being a fool. His eyes were watching his two men carefully as they moved among the row of rusted hulks and they grew wide when from their side he saw three figures step from behind a paneled vehicle. He opened his mouth to scream out a warning but it was far too late as Leland and his two scouts open fire before they were fully in the open with unerring accuracy.

As his two men went down under a hail of rounds his eyes detected figures rising from within the high grass to his right. Many figures. And all of them held portable missile launchers on their shoulders.

"NO!" Talied screamed as he threw himself to the side of the transit path just as six two man missile teams fired their weapons.

The members of the True people species in the rear of the armored Lifters would never know what happened to them. Six 40mm rockets streaked across the ground toward the armored Lifters and all of them hit exactly where they had been aimed. The cockpit portions of the lifters were instantly shredded by the lethal shrapnel from the missiles as they struck. The elf drivers and the True People soldiers riding next to them were ripped apart as hundreds of small deadly pellets punched through their bodies before their minds had the time to register what the small smoke trails heading towards them were. As the occupants of the cockpits were slaughtered, many of the pellets pierced into the rear of the armored Lifters, punching through metal and flesh as the handful of True People closest to the cockpits were also mangled. The small explosions lifted the front of the Lifters off the ground, suddenly filling the air with flame and smoke.

As the fronts of the armored lifters fell back to the ground, Talied looked up from where he had buried his face in the dirt. His eyes grew wide as he saw dozens of Spartans break from the timber fifty meters away moving almost faster than his eyes could follow. Many of them were firing as they ran; their controlled bursts of weapons fire as accurate and deadly as if they were standing still. Talied heard the deafening roar and rolled over to see the huge RAPTOR II flying craft dropping from the sky above as if it was about to crash. He watched as the ship stopped only six meters off the ground, its engines whining in protest, and the nose of the ship twisted around to face the two armored Lifters that were first in the convoy. As his eyes took all of this in, he saw the huge chain cannon under the nose of the ship twist around and lock into position on the first of his two armored Lifters in the front of the column. He winced as the buzzing sound pierced the sky and then the nose of the RAPTOR II belched a two meter long tongue of flame and the armored Lifter that he had been inside only moments before began to crumble and break apart. Five seconds was all it took for the huge 30mm cannon to turn his vehicle into a mass of burning junk and he could only watch as it then turned to the second Lifter in the Line and while still hovering, the cannon belched another lethal delivery of 30mm projectiles. Talied's eyes shifted and that is when he saw the night black hair of Tarifa as she sprinted toward the first heavy transport in the line.

Talied surged off the ground then and burst into a run towards the first transport.

Tarifa was roughly a hundred and twenty pounds lighter than Diantar and she was also part elf with their natural speed. She quickly sprinted across the few dozen meters between the timber and the transports and easily outdistanced him. As she skidded to a stop near the rear of the first heavy Lifter she brought her P190 up to her shoulder with a snap and burned half a magazine into the burning cockpit, silencing the screams of the dying elf and True People's soldier. She turned her head to look at the rear of the transport and was reaching for the rear locking mechanism when the white hand clamped down on her wrist and ripped her arm back.

"Elf bitch!" The voice screamed. "I will kill you for what you have done!"

Tarifa's wolf eyes turned on Talied and his own eyes grew wide as he saw her bare her fangs in a vicious snarl. All that she had found in the last two years, the love, the acceptance, and the future she had dreamed about as a little girl. A future with children and peace. Tarifa was not about to allow some pale, flesh eating creature keep her from saving her bonded one's siblings and insuring that future.

As Talied's movement yanked her right arm to the side, Tarifa snapped her left arm forward in the same motion. Her open palm heel strike struck his jaw with strength that Talied did not expect and his head snapped back. He staggered back a few steps and was reaching for his knife expecting her to continue to try and open the back of the Lifter. As his head shifted back, and his hand was bringing up the knife his eyes saw the stock of the P190 far too late.

Tarifa had swung her rifle with every ounce of elven and wolf strength she now commanded and she watched in sadistic satisfaction as the butt of her 190 shattered into half a dozen pieces on Talied's jaw. She welcomed the gunshot like pop of his breaking jaw and she watched his body propelled back as if struck by a moving vehicle.

"No more!" She screamed tossing aside the rifle and moving after Talied as he landed on the ground some ten feet away moaning in enormous pain and clutching his splintered jaw.

His eyes lifted as the shadow fell upon him and he gazed into her beautiful face, now twisted into an angry mask he had never before seen from anyone.

"No more will you hurt anyone on my planet!" Tarifa screamed bringing her arms up in a defensive posture and snapping out with one of her long legs. The toe of her combat boot smashed into Talied's chest and his eyes bugged out of his sockets as five of his ribs shattered under the impact, several splinters from his ribs slicing into his lungs. The pain was more agonizing that anything he'd felt before as he tried to draw in a breath and his shredded lungs would not work.

"I will kill you even as the Guardian kills the rest of your vile, disgusting species!" Tarifa bellowed. "Your days of horror are over! And you will not harm my bonded brother's siblings! Ever!"

Tarifa bent over and filled her hand with Talied's cloak, yanking it tight around his neck and using her anger fueled strength to lift his upper body off the ground and gaze into his pain filled eyes with sapphire orbs of hate. She lifted the R4 High Elf fighting knife so that he could see it and snarled like a wolf.

"How does it feel to know you are about to die?" She hissed out her fangs clearly visible and making her face appear like some demon from hell. "How does it feel to suffer the fate of so many who have stood before you in fear and helplessness? I will send you to hell now ... for all the souls you have taken before their time! You will never hurt anyone again ... and may you burn in the fires of Hades for eternity!"

Tarifa slammed the curved blade of the R4 into Talied's chest and watched his eyes bulge out in silent pain as she twisted the curved blade and yanked upwards with all her considerable strength, opening his chest cavity to the smoky and dust filled air all around them. She shoved his head back as the life faded quickly from his eyes, her chest heaving in anger and she stepped back, her feet planted in a combat stance. She stepped back quickly and took notice that the firing had stopped all around her and the whine of the RAPTOR'S engines was dying. She lifted her eyes from Talied's body and saw Aelnala's huge body not two meters away. She saw Aihola and Isra sitting in the saddle and gazing at her intently. Aelnala's eyes gazed on her evenly. Tarifa turned her head and saw Diantar first, his P190 resting in the crook of his arm, and then dozens more of her assault team all of them staring at her. She could hear the crackling of fires and the moans of the dying as her head turned back to where Isra and Aihola were gazing at her.

She saw Isra's face break into a smile and he shook his head. "Now I have finally seen why Martin considers you his beloved sister." Isra spoke with a small smile. "Your temper when incited is just as bad, if not more so than his."

Aihola slid from the saddle easily. "Tarifa my love?" She asked softly stepping towards her. "Are you..."

Tarifa met her amber eyes and slowly a smile crossed her face as she took a deep breath. "I am fine Nya Istel." She stated.

"So it is safe to get off Aelnala's back then Sadormacah?" Isra asked.

Tarifa tilted her head and gave Isra a scrunched face look as he smiled at her. "The eggs!" She gasped finally.

Tarifa turned and rushed to the back of the lifter, Aihola right on her heels. Isra jumped from Aelnala's back, pulling his Nehtes from the holster on his thigh as he approached the back of the Lifter.

Tarifa reached up and grabbed the recessed handle of the Lifter door, Aihola stepping up next to her and they both used their combined strength to lift the large door up and out of the way. They gasped and Aihola grasped Tarifa's arm as they gazed into the back and saw at least thirty eggs resting safely in cushioned compartments, the heat of the back of the Lifter set perfectly to keep the eggs from becoming too cold. Tarifa turned to Diantar.

"Diantar ... the other Lifters! Hurry!" She ordered.

Diantar didn't pause and motioned with his hand for troops to comply with her directives as she and Aihola climbed into the back of the Lifter.

The eggs were of every size and color, all of them oval in shape and roughly eighteen inches long and twelve inches thick. Tarifa moved to one side of the Lifter, her hands caressing each egg as she went past them counting. Aihola did the same on the opposite side of the Lifter and they reached the end of the vehicle and turned back to look at Isra who had climbed into the back and stood in the doorway.

"Thirteen." Aihola spoke.

"Fourteen on this side." Tarifa said.

"Twenty-seven." Isra spoke nodding his head.

"Commander Isra?" The voice echoed in all of their helmets.

"Report!" Isra barked.

"Sir ... I have twenty-five undamaged eggs in the second Lifter sir!"

"Commander ... I have..." The second voice spoke.

Isra's brow furrowed as Tarifa and Aihola moved up next to him. "What? What do you have?" Isra demanded.

"Commander I have fifteen undamaged eggs ... and a very small and very frightened baby dragon looking at me." The female voice replied happily.

Diantar shook his head quickly as he saw Aelnala move as if she had been shot from a gun, and then Isra, Tarifa and Aihola were following her in a single blink. He broke into a run in pursuit and they covered the distance down the column, passing the smoking vehicles and blackened bodies with barely a pause. Aelnala kicked up a massive amount of dust and soot as she rounded the corner and came to a screeching halt, her honey colored eyes wide.

Isra, Tarifa and Aihola almost ran into her as they came around the corner and saw the female Spartan cradling the light gray, newly hatched dragon in her arms as she slid from the back of the Lifter. The male Spartan was squatting in the open door with a huge grin on his face.

Aelnala reached out her head on her long neck and touched her snout to the baby dragon's head as the gray hatchling extended its own head out on its neck to touch her cool scales.

Welcome little one! Aelnala's voice echoed within Mindvoice as Tarifa and Aihola pressed up against Isra's lean muscular body with smiles on their faces. Welcome to the very first day of your future.

Roluth! Roluth our bonded one! Aihola shouted out within Mindvoice. We have them Roluth! We have all of them and they are safe! Even the little one that has hatched! They are safe our brother!

BIG SNOWY MOUNTAINS

TRUE PEOPLE BASE

Hurcan turned as half a dozen of his men rushed into the control room and slammed the thick steel door closed behind them. Four of them were bleeding heavily from wounds sustained in the battle, the others mildly wounded as Hurcan himself. He lowered the rifle he held as his men turned towards him their red eyes wide.

"What is happening?" He screamed.

"They have taken over all of the levels beneath us and are moving on this section One!" The soldier replied moving over to him. "The north half of the base belongs to them as we had almost no personnel in those sections!"

"Why can't we reach the hanger and use the emergency exits!" Hurcan demanded. "We are only a hundred meters from freedom!"

"Syrilth and the other dragons are burning any of our people that make it that far One!" The man replied. "We can't even reach across through the upper tunnel because her sister burns anyone who attempts to cross."

"We must rush them!" Another soldier shouted.

The man whirled on him. "We have tried that!" He screamed. "We lost almost fifty men in that attack! Those that weren't burned they ripped to shreds with their claws and teeth! Our weapons are ineffective against them. They have some sort of shielding surrounding their bodies! Our bullets are bouncing harmlessly away!" He turned back to Hurcan. "They have found our food storage bunkers One! The weapons they launch from their arms are slaughtering our men! Even those behind barricades are falling. The flying shields rip right through the metal and wood!"

Hurcan nodded. "Just like in the tunnel!" He exclaimed. "They can direct them it seems! If they have found the food storage rooms they will not spare any of us! They will kill us like animals because of their damnable sensibilities!"

"What are your orders One?"

Hurcan looked at the man. "We will wait until they come through that door and then we will kill as many of them as we can before we die!" Hurcan hissed.

Walter staggered out of the room trying to hold the contents of his stomach inside and not purge them in the smoky corridor. He turned and his eyes took in the three Spartans that were not as lucky as him. They still squatted in the dimly lit corridor, their stomachs dry heaving. He had responded to the call of his second in command and come to this room on the fourth level of the base.

Now he wished he hadn't.

The bodies of hundreds of men, women and even children were hung from the ceilings and walls on hooks. Their blood stained the floor in buckets, telling Walter they had still been alive when impaled upon those cruel apparatuses. Many of them had pieces of their bodies missing, like they had been carved or sawed completely off. It was the most horrible sight Walter had ever seen in his life. He leaned against the steel wall of the corridor as two of his men came up to him slowly.

"Senior Polemarch?" The more senior of the men spoke softly.

Walter looked at the man. "Do we ... do we have any of these foul creatures prisoners?" He asked immediately.

The two men looked at each other quickly. The senior one turned back to him. "Two dozen that were too wounded to fight Senior Polemarch. We separated them and are holding them in a room on the lower level."

Walter looked at him. "Execute them immediately!" He barked out. "I don't care what wounds they have!"

The Spartan nodded. "As you order Senior Polemarch!"

"Insure that we have three Enomotia sweep back through all the corridors and make sure all these vile creatures are dead! I want none of them to survive and leave this mountain this day! None!" Walter spat.

"It will be done Senior Polemarch!"

"The attack?" Walter asked.

"Second Lochi has trapped who they believe to be the leader of these ... things ... three levels up sir!" The man reported. "A hundred meters from the hanger bay. The dragons have kept them from escaping through the hanger entrance quite handily."

Walter nodded. "They have more reason to hate them ... they have suffered for far longer than us under these disgusting creatures." He stood up straighter and clutched his Nehtes in his hand. "Very well ... contact War Master Tareif and advise him and Administrator Selene of our status."

"Not the Queen Senior Polemarch?" The man asked.

Walter shook his head. "I sense Aricia is fully engaged at the moment and we do not want to interrupt her. I detected Aihola's call to Roluth within Mindvoice that the eggs are safe. Let us move up to this level and I will inform Syrilth of this fact. Then we can take down this scum Hurcan and I can watch the blood leak form his body at what I will do to him."

EDEN CITY

CROSSROADS CENTER

It was normally the place where hundreds and thousands of men, elves and Lycavorians came everyday. That number did not include the hundreds of alien species who were part of the reconstruction effort who rapidly realized once arriving on Earth that this was the place to come and enjoy the many different types of dining and cultures that Eden City encompassed.

It was called Crossroads Center.

Selene, Tarifa and Aihola had wanted a place directly in the center of Eden City that would belong to everyone. A place that everyone could come and mingle and shop at the hundreds of market stands and enjoy coffee and food in the outdoor cafes as well as the dozens of restaurants that dotted the area. It was the center of Eden City's four main traffic hubs, and designed into a massive circular pattern almost ten square blocks. Inside that circular pattern was a beautiful flower garden with benches and refreshment stands. The Lifter traffic was limited to only around the outer portion of Crossroads Center, zipping along the outer portion of the huge ring with stops every few hundred feet.