The Warbird and The Dragon

This is another one of my incomplete short stories. I decided to completely scrap it since: The protagonist was unlikeable, the action was uninteresting, and The reader usually doesn't end up caring about the stakes at all by the end. But regardless It is in a nearly finished state so I shouldn't just let it go to waste. So now it is here for all of your reading pleasure.

On a far off world in a land ruled by a powerful and savage kingdom, an invasion by an empire of civility was underway. The war was unfortunately a bit of a stalemate, The empire of civility, being known as the authority, was doing quite poorly against their enemy, who didn’t even have firearms.

Surprisingly the savages actually had a defense against the authority’s guns and tanks, that being, dragons. These beasts prevented the authority from making any quick land gains, since they’d have to build new concrete fortifications for every inch of land gained or risk being torched by dragon flame.

A plan however was underway to deal with their dragons, a plan involving thousand-kilogram bombs dropped by a Zeppelin directly upon the savages’ den of dragons. It is only reasonable to assume a dragon’s corpse can’t do much to oppose you.

Assigned as part of the Zeppelin’s escort, was pilot Hermann Michaels.

Hermann sat on a bench on the deck of a Carrier Zeppelin. Far below him, dense black clouds slowly marched along the sky. Beside him was his dog “Gijzelaar”, A Dutch barge-dog; The dog had seen many battlefields, But it never wavered, never ran, and never stopped grinning, A loyal dog indeed.

Hermann sat up and said to his dog, “I am going to enter my plane now to join combat, you will be safe if you go below deck.”

The dog gave the pilot a sad sort of look, but slowly walked toward the door that led to the interior of the Zeppelin.

Hermann ran across the runway and approached his biplane, He climbed the wing and the short ladder that would take him to his cockpit. The pilot buckled himself down to his seat, and started the biplane’s ignition. A moment later the engine started and the propeller began to pick up speed. Hermann kept his brake on, then, once the engine was fully started, He deactivated the brake. The plane lurched forward at a quick speed, reached the edge of the zeppelin’s runway, and dove nose-first towards the ground.

Hermann looked at his flight instruments and waited until his speed was at the set mark. There was always a chance of his own death in every take-off, It was thrilling. Once it had reached speed, he pulled himself out of the dive and entered a formation of a dozen other biplanes.

The pilot reached to his left and grabbed the file given to him detailing what intelligence had gathered on the enemy.

The main subject of his research was the enemy’s dragon commander. The enemy was rather notorious, as the leader of the enemy’s dragons, they naturally had the most skill upon a dragon, and had already taken down several Zeppelins. Their skill with a bow was so great, that they had taken out pilots with a single shot to their skulls.

But their skill and usefulness to the enemy was theorized to be their weakness, if they were ever taken out; the enemy would completely lose coordination and be no more of an obstacle than a band of children to a mortar.

“Target is near, prepare to engage” heard Hermann over the radio. He put away his flask and folder, activated his radar, activated aerobatic controls, and finally unlocked his weapons. Outside his open cockpit, it was dark; The sun was still a few minutes from rising, and clouds obscured their view of any enemies. Michaels tried to adjust his radar, but the clouds, made any readings it gave completely unreliable.

Far away a horn blared, the sound of leather wings flapping could be heard for miles. Hermann’s radar pinged and a moment later, a great armored beast descended from the clouds, clad in a light layer of steel with a skull painted upon its flank; it was impossible to mistake, the enemy commander.

A few hundred meters away Hermann could see a small group of biplanes attempting to engage the enemy commander: One biplane was torn like paper by the strength of dragon claws, another plane blew apart as dragon flame melted steel to meet petrol, And the leader of the small newly-recruited biplane group met the worst fate of all; as a meter long arrow of iron pierced deep into their skull.

a flash of range temporarily engulfed Hermann, seeing his fellow pilots being murdered by such a terrible beast, and the terrible enemy who rode it. Then he took a breath of cold air and regained his composure.

Hermann gave a warning over radio: “Do not engage the enemy commander, I will take them myself”. Hermann forced his throttle to full and quickly accelerated towards the enemy. An iron arrow narrowly missed Hermann’s plane, tearing some of the paint off the top wing; But Hermann closed the gap and got closer. Hermann’s plan was simple, get behind the dragon and fire his guns. The dragon’s wings were the only thing keeping it in the air, not only that but the wings weren’t armored with scales so bullets could pierce them easily.

The enemy commander attempted to get behind Hermann by banking rapidly, But the turning speed of a biplane far exceeded that of a dragon. Hermann pressed his thumb into his control stick and a volley of bullets collided with the dragon, Some imbedded and some grazed; yet the dragon still flew.

Hermann’s biplane continued gaining on the dragon, The enemy looked back and could see Hermann, only a few dozen meters behind their dragon. Hermann remained emotionless, while the enemy’s face was hidden by the unmoving bronze mask that served as their armor.

Hermann fired his guns, bullets flew through the wings of the dragon, tearing holes in the thin leather. The dragon was pumping its wings quicker now, struggling to remain airborne. Four arrows had been embedded in thin steel sheet of Hermann’s top-wing, but it would not fail yet. Hermann was growing far too close to the dragon, and lowered his throttle.

Oddly enough, the dragon slowed down to keep on an interception course with Hermann. The enemy knocked an arrow on their bow, and aimed square in the center of Hermann’s bi-plane.

Hermann looked at the picture of his dog he kept taped to his front wind-screen, grinned, and disabled the overheating-safety on his guns; then held them in the firing position. They were of little concern to the dragon, Its wings were tore apart by bullets, then with a sickening crunch, Hermann’s propeller was severely warped as it collided with the meter-long shaft of an iron arrow. His plane was knocked aside into a uncontrolled downward spin. Flaming petrol began to leak from Hermann’s Engine. With only a tattered mess for wings, The dragon fell as well.

Covered in flaming petrol, The entire engine burst into flame. Hermann’s entire view was entirely blocked by thick black smoke.

Hermann quickly dumped his fuel, and deactivated the engine, since an explosion would only be moments away otherwise. As he wrestled control of the powerless plane, he thought only of his own survival.

After yanking his control-stick every-which way, he brought himself out of the spin. Only a thousand meters above the ground. The force of this maneuver managed to extinguish the flames of his engine. Forcefully then the pilot pulled back his control stick and brought himself out of the dive. With the smoke out, he could see that he had enough speed to make it back to the Zeppelin.

“I believe I’ve taken down the enemy, Can you confirm their status” Radioed Hermann.

Several long painful seconds passed before Hermann received a response.

“Enemy down, They crashed into the mountainside”. Hermann breathed a sigh of relief, He gently guided his plane back the the Zeppelin. “Permission to land?” asked Hermann into his radio set. “Permission granted” was the answer he received. He gently brought his plane down on the deck of the Zeppelin, and felt a lurch forward as his plane was stopped by a landing hook. Hermann unbuckled himself, exited his biplane. and leaned on the steel railing of the Zeppelin’s flight deck to wait for the bombing. With his part in the mission complete, he waited and breathed in the cold air. Surprisingly though, his dog, “Gijzelaar” who was a dark-grey Keeshond, Ran up to him.

“I had thought you remained at the airbase” Said Hermann to Gijzelaar. Gijzelaar gave no response beyond the sort of joy a dog should always have. Hermann lay his hand upon Gijzelaar and said “You may stay, we are about to win the war”. Gijzelaar sat down and gave a sort of happy dog grin.

“Bombs deployed” Said a harsh voice over the nearest speaker of the Zeppelin’s communication system. Moments later a loud blast shook the ground, and a great cloud of smoke rose and encompassed the mountain used to hold the enemy’s dragons.

After the smoke had cleared there was only a pile of rubble upon the ground, no sight of any living dragons. The Zeppelin’s crew cheered, The pilots cheered, And the army marched forward.

Within only a few days, nearly one hundred kilometers of ground had been lost by the enemy. They soon gave an unconditional declaration of surrender and the war was won for the authority.