7 - Operation Firestarter 4

C7 Operation Firestarter 4

By N00813

  “What do you mean – right.  Right, right.”  Rolk’s voice paused for a moment as Dust cannoned from her vantage point, towards a dog who was stumbling out of the curling clouds of grey.

  Behind her, Dust could see Tricks give her an encouraging smile.  It was somewhat awkward, not because it was obviously false, but because Tricks’ hooves were stained red with diamond dog blood.

  Dust’s armour stuck to her skin, even as she pumped her wings harder to try and speed up.  It used to be the dog’s armour, in fact.  There were still blood stains on it, around the neck collar and in a little stream down the back.  The arm-holes were too big, but the collar almost too small.  It also weighed a hell of a lot.

  But it would keep her alive.  Alive enough to perform the tasks she’d signed up willingly for.

  “Slavers,” she hissed beneath her breaths, as they were stolen away by the passing wind.  The tear tracks still streaked her face, mussing the fur beneath, but her eyes were hard and her mouth set in a thin line.

  She grit her teeth as the bloodstains dried on her fur, the shifting armour pulling the hairs here and there as she dove and twisted.

  Below her, little circles of bright blue light spun themselves into existence, hovering over random parts of the smog.  Curious, Dust dove in –

  “Fuck!  Get away from that, Dust!”

  Tricks’ yell and the thunder of a rifle yanked Dust into a sudden stop.  The pegasus’ legs went swinging beneath her, almost scraping the glowing, coiling ring of light –

  –and through the red cloud that spurted upwards, slowly dispersing into the smoke as a pale pink tinge.  As the bullet whizzed past, the air itself parted like a butterfly’s wings for a nanosecond, warping the mass of grey miasma into curling eddies – a sideways tornado.

  “Shit!” Dust squeaked, her voice several octaves higher than natural.  She could feel the wetness around her hind hooves, the heat of the passing bullet rising up.

  Her next breath tasted especially sweet.

  “Sorry,” Rolk mumbled, after Dust dove to ground.  He didn’t sound apologetic at all – merely vacant, like he was going through the motions without putting any sort of effort or feeling into them at all.

  “Avoid the rings,” Tricks grumbled.  “I told you about sighting.”

  “You only said that there was going to be a signal,” Dust returned, her voice slowly returning to its normal pitch.  “I didn’t know what the hell that even meant!”

  “Goldie, any manifest?  Shipment times, cargo lists, any timetables?”  Rolk’s voice came again over the earpiece.

  “No!” Gilda yelled back.  The hen grunted for a moment, before the rest of the team heard her exhale heavily.  “Guard inside the pen was just a grunt.”

  Dust continued her crawl around the perimeters of the smoke cloud.  There weren’t a lot of enemies by the boundaries, surprisingly.  Gilda had either been very quick at taking them out, or the smoke had some latent magical properties.

  A shape started to solidify in the grey, getting darker and larger by the second.  Two arms on either side thrashed about, as if it was swimming in the smoke rather than running.

  Dust felt the grip of the knife beneath her hoof, slippery and warm.  She clenched it in her grip, before Gilda’s voice seemed to growl at her to not do that very same thing –

  Too late to think.

  The dog’s eyes blazed with fury as he swung down a dagger, his lithe arms a blur and the blade a flash of steel.  Lightning jetted away, leaping to the side with additional unconscious help from her wings.

  The dog was young, that much was obvious.  He looked as old as a teenager, barely fitting the armour he wore.  He was inexperienced, and his rash attack had left him hunched down as he stumbled forwards with the momentum.

  Lightning took half a second to pause, before making up her mind.

  Damn slavers.

  She lashed out with a hoof – the one without the knife.  The blow connected with the dog’s side.  Lightning’s foreleg jolted as the impulse travelled up her bones.

  The rock hound crumpled, clutching at his side.  His dagger lay in the dirt, forgotten for the moment.  Dust clenched the handle of her own knife.

  It was even slicker than before.  Sweat travelled down the blade in little rivulets, dripping off the point.

  She found herself hesitating as she took a step towards the dog.

  He took advantage of that pause, pushing himself forwards and flinging out an arm to clutch at his dagger.  Lightning jumped backwards and to the side as his other arm flashed outwards.

  Nonetheless, she wasn’t fast enough.  The blow left her stumbling, even as the dog dragged himself upwards, the knife in his other hand.

  Now, they were even once more.