“Frag. that worm’s fast.” Begay commented in mild surprise as Sam watched the fiery line of tracers chase the erratically weaving shape.

The Dragon unleashed a burst of flame as it swerved past the Thunderbird, but the jet of fire impacted the ground in front of the panzer. Sage blackened and smoked. The Dragon seemed reluctant to stay and slug it out with the tank. Orange tracers chased it across the valley.

From his aerial perspective, Sam observed activity a few dozen meters in front of the panzer. The earth was mounding. and Sam’s first thought was that concealed enemy troops were breaking cover. The notion was soon dispelled when he saw the soil moving by itself. Rocks and pebbles rolled toward a central bulge that heaved itself up, making a wall across the panzer’s path. Before Sam could warn Begay, the Thunderbird plowed into the weird obstacle.

Deprived of the sound, Sam could only imagine the grating and pinging of the gravel on hull of the speeding panzer. He feared that the debris would clog or damage the cooling vents, a fear more than justified as metal shrapnel from the protective louvers exploded out from the sides of the T-bird. The panzer charged on another ten or twenty meters, but the gravel still swirled around it in an unabated storm. Fist-sized cobbles struck the vehicle, rebounded, then struck again like maddened bees defending a hive from an interloper. The slowing panzer was nearly lost to Sam’s sight in the swirling haze of sand and grit.

“How in bell do you fight dirt?”

Sam didn’t think that the question was meant for him. Besides, he had no idea. Then he noticed something. “The gravel cloud’s only five meters tall.”

“Right.” The rigger’s response was clipped, but Sam knew Begay had understood when the Thunderbird rose up on a column of superheated air, her main thrust directed straight down. Soil and rocks were kicked out and away, only to curve about and rejoin the agitated mass. At first, it seemed that the T-bird’s action only made things worse, for the gravel storm rose up along with the panzer. Then Sam saw that the malefic sediment was attenuating, being stretched as though it were somehow tied to the more placid earth. As the panzer reached ten meters, the surging mass fell back. Only fugitive pebbles and streams of sand cascaded from the now rapidly rising Thunderbird.

Then, sudden flame washed the belly of the panzer, taking the titanium compound of the already heated nozzles past its melting point. The Dragon had returned to attack from an unexpected angle. Its thrust directors warped and partially fused, the Thunderbird canted to port and lost height. Starboard thrust vents opened momentarily, increasing the panzer’s speed to the left before they closed as the force of the laboring turbines was redirected aft. With that, the fall became a swooping dive that the rigger could control. Black smoke boiled from the Thunderbird’s underside, but the chain gun whirled, sending avenging slugs toward the Dragon. The beast ducked out of sight.

The Thunderbird’s flight was wobbly. When she plowed a furrow through a thin ridge and slumped down the far side, the panzer slewed drunkenly to a halt. Sam was impressed with Begay’s skill in managing to reach a thrust balance that had kept the panzer aloft.

“Where is it? Where is it?” Begay’s voice howled through the speaker.

“Are you all right?”

“Where’s the fragging Dragon?”

“I don’t see it. It must have gone to ground.”

“Drek!”

“Are you all right?”

“Me? I’m fine. The opticals have been sandblasted till they’re frosted, the cooling system’s shagged, and I got no lift. I’m just fine. Where is that fragging wizworm? I want its hide!”

Sam scanned the area, spotting the Dragon as it circled around to come at the valley where the Thunderbird was idling. Sam reported the sighting to Begay.

“Roger.”

On full magnification, Sam could see the armor shielding on the T-bird’s starboard weapon pod retract, If Begay was readying the surface-to-air missile that nestled there, it meant he was through fooling around. The rigger had told Sam that such smart SAMs were hard for panzer runners to come by. They were reserved only for those times when life and liberty depended on a swift kill.

The Dragon banked around a rock tower and swept in. The swiftness of its reappearance surprised Sam, but Begay was ready with a missile that rose toward the serpent on a tail of smoky fire. The beast’s long, serpentine shape contorted in an attempt to evade the oncoming weapon and just barely succeeded. Huge wing feathers fluttered away, singed by the rocket’s passage. The beast craned its neck around, which let it see the missile begin a curving arc to return to its target.

The Dragon’s distraction was enough for Begay. The orange tracers from the chain gun kissed the serpent’s side, creating a mighty explosion of feathers and blood. The beast dropped rapidly to earth behind a fold in the ground that shielded it from the rigger’s searching tracers. From what Sam could see, it was far from dead. As soon as the beast hit the ground, its powerful legs unfolded from their tucked position, and it ran behind a more massive formation to launch itself into the air once more.

As the missile completed its turn and headed back, Sam was surprised to see the Dragon head straight for it. Was it mad with pain? Just when Sam thought that collision was inevitable, the beast belched forth flame to lave the oncoming missile, then twisted violently to the side. The missile burned past, once again singing the beast’s feathers. Bereft of its sensors and control surfaces, the missile followed a straight track down into the earth. Its warhead detonated, sending a geyser of rook and dust skyward.

“Get it?” Begay asked.

“No.”

“Frag it!”

The Dragon hadn’t stopped moving, turning sharply to slip over the ridge toward the panzer again. Its maneuver was too fast for Sam to warn Begay, but the rigger had anticipated. He was firing the chain gun as the serpent cleared a domed mound. For this pass, Begay used the main cannon as well. The big gun wasn’t suited for firing against an aerial target of the Dragon’s maneuverability, but one shell would be enough to blow the beast into hamburger. Unfortunately, the creature wasn’t giving Begay any such opportunity. Its flight was a masterful aerial ballet of twisting, sinuous flight. Avoiding the fire, it rushed in under the guns, and before the rigger could switch to the antipersonnel armaments, it swooped low over the panzer. One black-taloned claw caught the chain gun turret. The Dragon’s mass and momentum tilted the panzer over, while the vehicle’s own supporting thrust helped slam the Thunderbird into a rock face.

The Dragon beat its wings and gained altitude, fanning away the cloud of dust raised by the panzer’s impact. Sam saw the Thunderbird half-buried under a small landslide, with a thin strand of gray smoke or steam rising out from a rent on the engine deck. The barrel of the chain gun was gone.