Chapter 14: Battle in the Skies of Norden
I tried to concentrate on my shield, focusing my mind to increase its density and potency. I knew that, if my focus would have not been strong enough, I would have seriously risked being shot, and possibly killed.
"We cannot keep this up!" I practically yelled at Tanya while trying to maintain my concentration.
"They are in numerical advantage!" she answered in the same tone of mine "Try to move as much as possible: do not give them an easy target!"
I nodded. Gritting my teeth for the focus, I raised up at maximum speed. With the shield temporarily off (because it switched back to his automatic light version as soon as I stopped focusing), I started to hear the hiss of the bullet that missed my body for a few meters. To avoid being hit, I tried to take advantage of the fact that I could go for all three the dimension, and to change course of flight as soon as possible.
Still, we were two, and the enemies where much more.
"Emission signatures! Enemy mage group detected!" I hear Tanya's voice yell in my headphone. It was clear that she did not like it too "We are engaging the enemy! Repeat, we are engaging the enemy!"
More shots of the enemy exploded around us. If the command center had not sent us reinforcements soon, we would have been toast.
"Dammit, dammit! Where are ours ECM?" I yelled as another bulled fly too close at me for my liking.
"Norden Control to Fairy 08 and Dove 08" the electronic voice that represented our only hope for survival said "Give us your sitrep"
"Combat zone alpha, block 08" I said still trying to avoid the bullets "Company-class unit is invading."
"Roger. Initiate delaying action. Allied air unit will arrive within 600 seconds"
600 seconds? I thought with pure horror. By the math, they were approximately 10 minutes. In my old life, 10 minutes they were more than enough to play a game on a video game by phone, or to go to the coffee machine and make yourself at least five coffees one by one!
Worse, in all this time we would have to face the enemy company completely alone!
What are the odds of two against a company? My heart asked to the brain.
…
Not very good, my brain answered in return.
"Permission to leave battlefield immediately!" Tanya yelled into her communicator "I repeat, requesting permission to leave battlefield immediately!"
Never thought I would hear her say such a phrase. And yet, I could not help sharing these feelings.
"Unfortunately, we cannot permit that" said the no-longer friendly voice of the Command "Delay the enemy until the response team arrives."
"Roger," said Tanya in a very grievous tone "We'll do the best we can."
"Good luck. God is on our side," Norden Command said, before leaving us to our destiny
As soon as I heard those words, my mind turned hysterical. We were doomed. Totally, completely, hopelessly doomed. There was no way we could keep up with an enemy company all of our own, and if we would have tried to escape, disobeying the orders of the command, that would have been enough to sentence both of us to death by the firing squad.
"God… Did she say God?" Tanya said, her tone of voice ill-concealed her angriness "I refuse to accept the existence of God!"
She turned around, heading at great speed in the direction of the Wizards enemy company. Seeing her change direction, I did the same, pointing in turn towards the enemy.
It did not take much longer before we sighted a part of the enemy company splitting from the rest of the group and heading forward. Our future executioners.
That was it.
We were going to die.
It did not matter what we did, we would be dead.
And if we were dead, we knew we would have nothing after it. Only whatever that jerk of being X would have done to us, while laughing at our failure.
Being X… die…our orders… our duty...die… these words keep bumping into my mind as rocks into an empty canister.
It was then that, something, inside me, changed.
Something broke. Something snapped.
Instantly, I felt no more fear. No more sadness, nor angriness. All I felt now was… excitement.
At my right, Tanya suddenly started to chuckle. First in a low voice, then louder and louder, until she started to outright laugh.
"We get to be the heroes of the battlefield all by ourselves!" she practically screamed "What an honor!"
I smiled.
Yep, we were totally screwed. However, if we had to die, we could at least die like heroes.
"You know Tanya," I yelled to her, holding the rifle "Some people usually says «It's a good day to die! »"
"I know. And it's amazing!" she yelled back.
We were ready. Ready to take on the enemy, to fight to our last breath, even to die. Inside my little body, the excitement went to a thousand, and the adrenaline in the blood made me eager to fight. And to kill.
"Bring it on!" I screamed to the enemy.
The enemy Wizards were now close enough to us that I could see them more clearly. They were a group of four, maybe five; young adult men eager to fight for their motherland, no matter it was their motherland who started it. Their uniform was very similar to ours, except it was blue. Moreover, instead of one or more over-boots, they were wearing skis.
How the hell is that supposed to be practical? I remember thinking as soon as I saw that, How does a ski manage to help fly?
However, that was no time for question, as the bullet that flew a few centimeter from my nose reminded me. Within seconds, my fingers were already on the trigger of the rifle, shooting back at them.
Tanya flew straight through the formation of enemy Wizards, before turning around to face them again. I, on the other hand, moved upward, trying to move as fast as possible to avoid the enemy shooting. If Tanya and I were able, thanks to our small size and greater agility, to keep the enemy in a stalled position, maybe we could still get by.
Do not panic, do not panic I tried to repeat in my head to keep myself calm and focused on the battle It's just like at the training: finger off the trigger, viewfinder on the target, and shoot!
Suddenly, an enemy wizard started to fire on me. I returned fire, targeting his skis (it's weakest point, in my opinion).
The first bullet missed. However, the second did not.
Yes! I though with a little smirk as I saw the enemy wizard's body fall to the ground. However, I could not enjoy my success for long, before another wizard came to attack me.
Without thinking too much, I launched myself upward. Then, as he was close enough, I shoot again.
An explosive spell, right into his face. I think I will never forget his face of crude terror as he realized he was going to die. Maybe the old me would have felt bad into killing someone else (and find pleasure into it) but these men were actively trying to kills us.
We were in a war.
And there was no place for virtue in war.
Suddenly, another rain of bullets drew my attention. I focused once again on my shield while I tried to identify our new enemy.
Dammit, I thought as I saw four mages approaching us.
I threw myself in Tanya's direction without a thought, trying to lay return fire on the enemy.
Everything is fine, I tried to repeat in my head as a mantra, keep going. 245 seconds until reinforcements arrive. Keep going and you will live.
An explosion on my right signaled that Tanya had managed to kill another enemy mage; and this meant that there were now… five? Six? Definitively fewer than they were before.
"Frederick!" Tanya yelled at me through my headphones "How is the situation?"
"Enemy reinforcements incoming!" I screamed back at her "Five enemy wizards armed to the teeth!"
"Ok. Try to keep them busy. I'm going to attack them from the left…"
"No, it won't work! There are too many of them. If we want to survive, we must take them by surprise!"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"Kind of. How fast do you think you can fly above them and attack them from behind?"
"Three to six seconds at most!"
"Okay, then. I will try to get their attention and make them focus on me. When you are in position, attack them. I will take advantage of their momentary distraction to kill as many of them as possible. Remember: this is a joint strategy. Our only way to survive is to cooperate!"
"Roger, doll-face. Try to not get killed: I don't have the patience to look for another minion!"
"Right-you are, ice princess!"
I stopped moving, focusing my mind to keep my shield at strong and resilient as possible.
Of course, the enemy fire started becoming heavier and piercing. My shield resisted, but I knew that if Tanya did not hurry, the intense enemy fire would break it.
That was it… until all of sudden, the enemy fire started to decrease until it stopped.
What now? I thought trying to see what the enemy was doing. They had me cornered. Why did they stop shooting?
"You, kid!" said a voice I did not know "What the hell are you doing here?"
Remaining alert in case it was a trick, I looked in the direction of the voice.
A middle-aged wizard, who from his ranks I understood was a Lieutenant Colonel, approached me. He was close enough that I could see his hard, scarred face, his light brown eyes and hair of the same color. Behind him, at a distance of a few meters, I was able to see five others, all armed and ready to start fighting again.
"Stop!" I shouted, raising my rifle "Do not move! Stay right where you are, or I will shoot!"
The man stopped, raising his hands to prove that he was not a threat. At the same time the men behind him raised their rifles together, ready to shoot me if I tried something.
"It's okay." the man said to me "Where is your little friend? I would like to speak to both of you."
"She's dead." I lied "One of you shot her right in the chest. She fell down." I said, trying to appear as downcast as possible.
"Oh. That's… regrettable." He said, looking at me with eyes full of empathy "Look, there is no point in more unnecessary bloodshed. Just give up and surrender. I will assure to you that…"
"In your dreams!" I said, tried to appear as mad and angry as possible so they will not notice Tanya "I'm an imperial wizard. My destiny is to die defending the Empire. I will die before I surrender!"
"I admire your courage, but sacrificing yourself just to avenge your friend is pointless! Do not be stupid! Just give up: I do not want to be forced to kill such a young child!"
"I'm in position," Tanya said in my headphone "Ready to shoot!"
"Please!" the Entente wizard implored once again "It does not have to end this way. What do you say?"
"Just one thing…" I replied, letting him see my smirk
A glow from behind the Entente's squad made me realize that Tanya was aiming at her target.
"…NOW!"
With a moment's delay Tanya's bullet flew right into the second enemy wizard from left, killing him instantly and diverting the attention of the others.
As I imagined, the sudden attack took them completely by surprise. They totally forgot I was still there… and that my rifle was still loaded.
I let loose five bullets. Two hit their targets, two went wild and one went across the old wizard's shoulder, making him bleed.
"You… you little…" the man tried to say something, but found himself unable to due to the pain.
But I didn't listen to his words, and after a few seconds I flew upward again.
"Tanya, it worked: two enemy wizards dead, four more to go!"
"Bad news: I've just run out of ammo!" she replied, "How are you doing?"
I checked the magazine "I've only one bullet!"
Now, it was clear that our situation has gotten very dangerous. We still had four enemy wizards to survive against, and we had no more bullets with which defend ourselves.
"Tanya, what we do now… What…."
However, I was unable to listen to Tanya's response as another heavy rain of bullets hit my shield.
"Dammit" I exclaimed, trying to move to avoid the enemy bullets "Tanya, what we…"
"Doll-face" I heard her familiar voice come from my headphones "If you're still alive, please report!"
"I'm here. But were out of ammo. What do we do!"
"Listen, I have an idea: do what I'm going to say, and maybe we can still survive"
I had absolutely no idea about what Tanya was going to ask me to do. However, our desperate situation urged to me to listen.
"How far are you from the enemy?"
"A few meters at most" I said as another bullet almost missed me "I do not believe my shield is going to resist for much more!"
"When I say now, launch yourself on the enemy. Grab the first one you manage to catch and hold him tightly!"
"Why, you want to use them as hostages? It will not work!"
"Do it: it's our only chance!"
The fire of the bullets stopped for a second. The enemy was reloading.
"NOW!" Tanya's voice echoed through my headphones, almost making me deaf.
I did not hesitated. I launched myself forward, in direction of the enemy Wizards. They were totally not expecting such a maneuver from me, so (luckily) I was able to throw myself on them before one of them could get the chance to shoot me point-blank.
"Hello!" I said, grabbing an enemy Wizard and holding him tight "beautiful day to die, don't you believe?"
"You!" said another Wizard pointing his gun to my head "Stop and surrender, unless…"
However, just before he could press the trigger, someone hit him very fast in the back. He looked back, just to meet Tanya's face.
"Gotcha!" she said with a very creepy smile.
What is the plan now? I tough by myself for an instant, She want to use them as human shiel…
It took to me only three second before I noticed Tanya's eyes becoming bigger, and of color red. A few more and I realized what was going to happen.
"Tanya!" I said letting go my prisoner and jumping towards her "Don't…"
Then the explosion, and everything went black.
