Out of Space
Chapter 155: First Air to Air Dragon Combat

*Recommended music Sabaton - Aces in exile*

Blue Thunder gave a grunt, as he lined his body straight at the approaching Empire dragons, "They are splitting up!" He roared over the wind as he noted the dragons had split into two groups.

"Yes! I see them!" Stamford yelled. "Two of the mid-weights are holding together with the single heavy and the other three are vectoring in for an attack!"

The single heavyweight dragon with silver trimmed blue banners and streamers beat its wings rapidly as it sought to gain altitude, together with its two escorts. Blue Thunder could just barely see dark figures clinging onto its back as it rose higher.

"They are going for a pincher attack!" Blue Thunder growled, "The heavy looks like its going for height advantage, while the other three distract and harass us!"

"Ignore the heavy, we take out the trio first!" Stamford yelled as he gauged the distance and speed between the enemy. "We do a high-speed fly pass, followed by a turn circle port side! All guns to fire as they bear!"

"We let the heavy come up from our aft, most likely they will do a swooping dive down at our tail," Stamford twisted in his seat as he looked to the rear, "Dek, make sure you give that heavy a good dose of lead!"

"With pleasure, chief!"

"Alright! Let's do it!" Stamford yelled, "Let's show them ground pounders what the Airforce can do!"

Blue Thunder accelerated, pulling his wings strongly, forcing more wind against its serpentine body and gliding through the air like a fish in the sea. The dotted figures in front of them quickly resolved into three silver-black scaled Razorback dragons with streamers tied to their legs and wing tips, boldly displaying the Empire colors.

They broke their formation and aimed for Blue Thunder in three different directions, aiming to rake their claws against his flanks with the lead Razorback distracted him head-on. "Dive down now!" Stamford yelled as he clutched his shotgun tightly against his chest.

A sense of gravity disappearing sent the men whooping, as Blue Thunder dived under the reaches of the dragons who tried to box him in, and the machine guns fired, raking the underside of the confused Razorbacks.

Stamford gave a wordless yell as he pumped shot after shot at the underbelly of the lead dragon who cried out in anger at the missed ploy and the rear machine gun fired, and Stamford caught sight of a line of tracers sparking off the underbelly of the dragon before it vanished from view.

"Did we get them?" Stamford yelled, checking left and right making sure everyone was still in place while digging into his pouches for shotgun shells.

"I think so?" Someone yelled back.

Blue Thunder craned his neck back as he turned a loop back towards the action, "I can't see the heavy and its escorts!" He yelled as he looked around in panic.

"7 o'clock high! Coming in fast!" Dek yelled as he spotted a shadow against the sun. "It's coming from the sun!"

"BREAK LEFT! BREAK BREAK BREAK!" Stamford yelled urgently, and Blue Thunder did a sharp tilt left, and a swooping shadow burst out from the skies, barely missing Blue Thunder, the force of its passage sent Blue Thunder struggling to keep balanced. "HOLY FUCK!"

"GOT NO LINE OF FIRE!"

"CAN'T SEE SHIT!"

"INCOMING LEFT FLANK!" Barkley yelled as he spotted a silvery shape darting in from the left side. He twisted his body, trying to bring his MG-1 to bear on the target, but the Razorwing cunningly stayed out of his line of sight, using the flapping wings of Blue Thunder as cover as it inched closer.

"I GOT HIM!" Dek yelled as he swung his gun over, his wire sights hovered over the dragon where three of its crew could be seen firing and loading crossbow bolts at them. He angled the gun slightly forward and fired, bright tracers ripping out from the barrel and into the path of the dragon making it swerved away in panic. But before it disappeared from sight underneath Blue Thunder, Dek saw his shots landing on the crew members, their body turning limp as the dragon dived away. "I got its crew!"

Stamford leaned over the back of Blue Thunder to peer at the disengaged dragon, "Damn, we need some guns at the bottom!"

Blue Thunder gave a dismissive snort and Stamford felt its body bellowing up, followed by a roar and a smoking ball of fire rained down towards the diving dragon, and surprisingly hitting it square on its back. "Ha! Take that!"

"What a lucky shot..." Stamford shooked his head, to which Blue Thunder snorted again.

"There is no such thing as luck!" Blue tilted his head up proudly. "I just good!"

"Watch your front you dumb beast!" Stamford yelled, "Praise yourself later, but we still got five dragons to go!"

"Make it three!" Dek yelled from the back, "I just saw one crashing into the trees, and another limping away at five o'clock!"

Stamford grabbed his field glasses hanging on over his neck and quickly scanned the horizon, seeing a dragon laboring its way across the sky, with what appeared to be large drops of blood raining off its body. "That dragon won't make it, gauging by the amount of blood it's leaking!"

"Tally ho!" Luth yelled and pointed. "3 o'clock high!"

"Blue get us some attitude!" Stamford commanded as he turned his glasses over to the direction Luth yelled seeing the remaining dragons have regrouped and were coming back for another pass.

"Roger!" Blue Thunder flapped his wings mightily and swung his body towards the approaching Empire dragons, "Come get some!" He roared and spat out another fireball at the approaching group as the distance closed. The Empire heavy also spat a fireball out, which Blue Thunder dodged and the guns opened up.

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Dante stood on the crown of an ever blue tree watching the aerial dogfight in interest. He smiled and leaped off the tree easily and used the branches of the trees to navigate his way towards the battle. "I found you~"

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Blue Thunder gave a yelp of pain as a bolt of lightning gouged his flank, melting his dark blue scales and fusing them against his flesh. He roared and spat a ball of fire at the Empire heavy as it flew past him, missing the dragon as it bent its body away agilely from the fireball.

"RAWR! I AM PISSED OFF!" Blue Thunder roared as he chased the other heavy through the skies. "Stop running!"

Luth cursed as Blue Thunder's motions made him drop the fully loaded 75 rounds drum magazine off the side and into the sea of trees, he braced himself properly and dug another drum out and hugged on to it tightly as Blue Thunder went into another bout of aerobatics. "I am gonna be sick!" as he was thrown left and right in the sky.

"Watch your 4 o'clock!" Stamford yelled, as an enraged Razorback, which he recognized as the one with its crew decimated, swooped in with its jaws wide opened and its claws stretched out. Stamford raised his shotgun up and fired, while Dek swung the MG-1 around and fired, the short distance making it hard to miss, and the combined fire pounded the dragon into bloody meat.

Blue Thunder tried to swerve out of the falling dead dragon's way but was just a little too slow and the dead dragon clipped part of Blue's wing tip, making him scream as his wing tip bone fractured from the impact.

Also immediately, they went into a spiral, the men screaming as Blue Thunder fought back the pain and tears. He barely managed to recover from the spiraling dive but in the process, he had lost too much speed and attitude, desperately trying to limp his way in the skies above the canopy.

Seeing his weakened state, the remaining Razorback screamed in triumphant, and darted down from the skies, going for the kill. It swooped down, ready to latch onto the back of Blue Thunder and rake its claws into its spine, only to meet another barrage of machine gun and shotgun fire, its bullet riddled body crashing into the sea of trees behind Blue Thunder.

Stamford wiped the vomit stains off his side of his face, and with wobbly fingers, shoved shell after shell into his shotgun as he reloaded. "Oh my god, I thought we were dead there."

"There's still one more!" Blue Thunder growled, his right wing barely able to move, as they glided gently along the treetops. "I can't replace any place to land!"

"Incoming!" Dek yelled as he saw a streaking ball of fire coming down from the Empire heavy. He swung his machine gun up and fired off a long stream of tracers, which the dragon dodged away, and the glow of a magic shield could be seen as a few lucky bullets impacted.

Blue Thunder tilted his body away from the fireball, which exploded, sending a small cloud of smoke upwards. He quickly leaned his body towards the explosion and used the hot air current to gain a bit of attitude, knowing that if he crashed into the trees, his crew will most likely die or suffer from serious injuries, even himself won't be spare. And landing on a hover into the trees will only trap him in the canopy, making him an open target as he needs time to break through the thick branches and into the cover of the trees.

Soon another fireball rained down on them and a bolt of lightning torn into his tail, making tears form on his eyes.

"Dragon One, come in over. This is Gold Leader!" The radio suddenly burst into life and Dek quickly reached to its receiver.

"This is Dragon One! We receive you, over!" Dek yelled excited as he craned his neck left and right looking into the horizon.

"Gold Leader, standby, I believe a big bad bully is on your tail," The welcoming voice sounded so sweet to the crew that they and even Blue Thunder gave a loud cheer.

Suddenly black dots dropped out of the sun, right on top of the unsuspecting Empire heavyweight. Four A/F - 1 Cobra appeared and the twin pylon mounted 20 mm autocannon gun pods fired, sending 129 grams projectiles at 670 meters per second screaming down at a rate of 520 rounds per minute. The 20 mm autocannon ammunition configuration was two high explosives shells followed by two armor-piercing shells and the fifth shell was a tracer.

The magic shield barely held for three seconds when the explosives and armor-piercing shells detonated against the magic defenses of the unsuspecting Empire dragon. It shattered, and the magical backlash slammed into the mage who cast and maintained the spell. He jerked back and coughed out blood before the remaining shells that encountered no more resistance, turned the crew into steaming pieces of unidentified meat, and blowing large chunks of flesh off the screaming dragon.

As the Cobras pulled up from their attack, what was left of the dragon, rained over a large section of Uncharted Forest in bloody chunks of gore and blood.

"YESSSS!" Blue Thunder and his crew cheered as they saw the Empire Dragon literally exploded into pieces. "Airforce for the win!"

"Gold Leader to Dragon One, your wing doesn't look too good," The lead Cobra radioed over as they regroup and buzzed over Blue Thunder, checking them out.

"Dragon One, we took a beating! Need to touch down immediately!" Dek radioed back under Stamford's directions.

"Roger that Dragon One, divert to bearing 223 degrees, there's a river clearing approximately two kilometers away, over," Gold Leader radioed back, "Think Blue can make it?"

"Roger! Standby!" Dek replied, "Blue! You heard that?"

Blue panted heavily and barely gave a grunt in reply, his eyes half closed in pain. "Just... tell.. me... where... to... fly..."

"Got it!" Barkley checking his instruments yelled, "Blue turn to your left, 8 o'clock heading! You can do it!"

Blue grunted and beat his wings weakly, trying his best to keep afloat in the air, and soon the glitter of a snaking river could be seen among the sea of trees.

"We survived the first air to air dragon combat!"