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A.R.Yngve

DARC AGES Book Three
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Chapter 40


Kamo Yota glanced momentarily at the gauges on his control panel. His fuel supply depleted rapidly during the duel, and was now below a critical point -- he could not make it back to Castilia in The Roaring Wind. So he pushed the ship even harder, making a last effort to destroy his rival once and for all.

Dohan's fuel supply was better -- but he had no safe place to land, each island now being invaded by cohorts of Tharlos's allies. He flew the Sunray round and round the volcano's column of smoke, nudging closer by each turn. He had attempted, in vain, to get behind Kamo and score a hit -- but it was hopeless. His only chance was to let Kamo chase him, until...

Dohan heard another spray of lasers hit the rear of his craft. A fuse blew on his control panel, and smoke filled the cockpit. He reached for the fire extinguisher under his pilot-seat, and quenched the small fire with chemical foam. This is very bad, he thought. He could literally feel the Sunray buckle and creak in the pushing heat waves from the volcano, and hear the discord of the engines. Invisible hands forced the craft up, then down; turbulence was heavy. The cockpit was too hot, as if the ship was crowded with people; Dohan's hands were so sweaty they could barely hold the controls.

"Do not desert me now, engines..."

Suddenly, some miniscule rock fragment from the eruption hit the ship's nose. The craft shook by the tremendous impact -- the wide windshield, one of the hardest objects Dohan knew, once salvaged from the Wasteland ruins and used to build the Sunray, cracked in the middle. The cabin's air pressure began to drop. Dohan whispered a prayer between clenched lips, that Meijji would be spared from the enemy.

Kamo, likewise, noticed that his own ship was being damaged by pollution. The sensitive burn cycle of the jet engines was rapidly declining; his speed was by the second approaching that of his rival. Kamo knew that he would have to rise higher to gain speed -- but the air above was even worse. The Sunray still managed to elude him, ducking and rolling just a few hundred meters in front of The Roaring Wind.

Then the volcano changed. The cascading eruptions dropped off, the smoke column drifted off -- and the inside of the crater suddenly became visible to the circling aircraft. A strong air current pulled the Sunray inward. Without thinking, Dohan banked left and dived into the inferno. He glimpsed a boiling lake of red smoke, whizzing past just below his ship -- and in his periscope, a small shape was following him. Kamo had swallowed the bait. As he crossed the huge crater, Dohan banked again and throttled the engines, making the crossing last as long as possible -- three seconds, instead of one at most. In that brief passage of time, Dohan felt as if he was falling into a red-hot fireplace.

Kamo's faster aircraft zipped past the crater in no time, then turned and came back after Dohan. When The Roaring Wind made its second turn across the crater, the Sunray was accelerating out of it. Kamo squeezed the triggers of his cannons, and fired an uninterrupted volley. This, he thought, is glorious victory -- and his next thought was his last.

Turbulence!

An unseen force pulled Kamo's powerful but light craft up -- then sucked it down. In the shadow of an instant, The Roaring Wind speeded straight into the inside of the smoking crater wall. The fighter exploded like a giant aluminum firecracker. Burning debris scattered over the lava streams and vaporized. Nothing remained of The Roaring Wind and its aspiring young pilot, but smoke and an unfulfilled promise of greatness. Dohan took his ship away from the volcano -- it was starting to erupt again. The tension across his chest lessened, and he drew a long breath.

"Thank you, great Goddess," he breathed out, and added: "Be not too harsh on my opponent, for he was brave."

The damaged windshield was scraped and dirtied by ash; it was hard for Dohan to get a clear view, but the skies seemed even darker. He checked the clock, then the barometer; it was falling. Dohan had to put the craft down, before it was hit by stray lightning. He set course for the north side of the main island. Red warning lights were beginning to flash on the control panels. The Sunray had not been properly overhauled in a long time; it was not going to last much longer.



Lord Ue Yota could glimpse the distant air battle around Fogo through his binoculars. His forces had landed on one of the minor islands of the archipelago. Ue Yota could not see which ship left the vicinity of the volcano -- but the sea carried the sound of its engines across to his ears. It was not the sound of The Roaring Wind.

And Lord Yota knew in his hardened heart, that his favorite son was dead. He showed no sorrow -- and even if he would have, his face was covered by armor and reflective glass.

Lumbering along the beach in his mechanized suit of armor, Lord Yota was desperately trying to lead his soldiers into a proper charge. From the moment their carrier craft had touched down on that particular island, no human enemy had appeared. Instead, an older breed of Mechao's guardian beasts had attacked the noisy newcomers. Scaly baboon-lizard chimeras came screeching at them from the palm-trees, chilling the hearts of the soldiers. The furry creatures leapt like frogs onto the riflemen, clawing and biting with fangs and claws. Their screeches sounded strangely half-human, and that was the worst part of it -- soon, the rumor spread that these animals were Lepers, deformed humans. Panic spread out of control; the forces were paralyzed and confused.

One of Yota's captains, a pale, gray-haired man with many successful Summer Jousts to his credit, fired at the creatures, missed, and cried out: "Somebody! Show me an enemy I can fight!"

Lord Yota's innate phobia of anything even remotely like Lepers was beginning to win over his sense of honor. He, too, dared not come close to the screeching beasts, but kept his distance and fired from afar. If there had been a human foe nearby, the prospect of surrender would have been acceptable to him -- but in the absence of human enemies, surrender was unthinkable.

A suffocating sense of futility came over the aging, wiry commander. What in the name of the Goddess, of his home province, was this crusade being fought for? Pride kept Lord Yota there, fighting his own fear, waiting for a chance to retreat with honor.