A Dragon's Tale #Watty's2015

Germany

The 22 touched down at about ten after ten that night, the lurch stirred us all from sleep. When the hatch came down, it was pouring rain out. Thunder was cracking off every few seconds and the flashes of lightning briefly lit the area like it was the middle of the day. Greyson killed the 22 and shut off the cabin lights. Sozenn cracked a few glowsticks as I stepped out to scan the area. We had landed on the side of a small mountain and I could see the castle from where I was. There were two search lights that were pointing to the sky and I could hear the faint rumble of Deuces coming and going from within the compounds walls. I pulled out my tactical binos and started scanning the area. I could see four stone towers on each side of the castle and they each played host to a sniper, dressed in red and black with the Soviet Star and Dragonov sniper rifles. There were many, many jeeps and trucks lined up in a parking lot and there were a few guys unloading crates from them. I could see two buildings at the base of the castle and several scaffolding that lined the outer wall. They looked vacant at the moment, but that could change. I counted at least fifty or sixty guys, many of them were ready to fight a small war, others looked ready to throw down with America, Romeo, China and Russia, all at the same time.

"Well would you look at that", Sozenn growled, "our Russian's got a whole private army down there."

"Russians, Yugoslavians, Ukrainians, looks like ex military, PMCs state of the art tech", I said.

"Does Nolan really think that Andrews will turn up here?", Sozenn asked.

"He's got balls if he does", Hudson said.

I continued scanning the area. I was passing by the cat walk when I picked up something on the thermals. I shifted my view to a catwalk near the top of the castle and saw a single man walking along. His signature barely registered on the thermals, so I know he wasn't the one doing it. I shifted my glance when the Thermals ticked again and saw a glowing white, four legged figure with tail swishing creep around the corner and pounce on the man.

"Found him", I said, "I can see Andrews on the catwalk near the top of the castle."

Hudson charged his FAL, "then let's go get him."

I flared my wings, "can you keep up old man?"

"Any day of the week", Hudson said putting on a helmet for his wingsuit. He slapped a button on his rig and a membrane filled the area between his legs and arms. He slung his FAL over his shoulder and stepped to the edge.

"Were about 10,000 feet up right now", I said as Sozenn and I flared our wings, "and it's 4,734 feet to the cliff we need to hit. If we drop off more than 300 feet during or descent were gonna smack into a rock wall."

"Ever heard of not doing that?", Hudson asked as he jumped off the cliff.

"See you on the other side Sozenn!", I said as I joined him.

Sozenn lept after me. I clicked my gun down by my side to reduce my drag as I glided through the choppy air and Sozenn did the same. In the night vision on my HUD, I could see all kinds of rock formations that were in our path. There was a giant arch that curved at least 300 feet in the air above me and was covered with trees on top and on several slabs of rock extending from it. It was really something to see. The three of us glided through it without any problems and weaved through several more rock formations before the cliff we were aiming for began to come into view.

"Deploying chute!", Hudson shouted as he pulled the rip cord on his vest.

"Deploying chute!", Sozenn said.

"Deploying chute!", I said yanking my own ripcord. There wasn't any way I was going to risk opening my wings at 450 miles an hour because I would rip the membrane clean off. My Dad always told me that the higher your speed is, the less effective your wings become. After you hit the 300MPH mark, the most you can do before hurting yourself is just glide on the wind.