Ch.4 of Into the Dragon's world. As usual comments and opinions welcome

Ch.1 http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2852145
Ch.2 http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2852148
Ch.3 http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2852159

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King Digram’s Hunting Lodge
Medieval times
Evening

The Portal opened in the courtyard of the king’s hunting lodge, a squad of MCF troops passed through the portal and stepped into the clearing in the woods, weapons at the ready. The body of the guard who had been shot in the neck had been stripped bare and left in the open. The Squad leader Lieutenant Kafarn, a lioness, scanned the tree line for movement. There was almost no sound from the surrounding woods, indicating that there was something scaring the wildlife into silence. She and her men took up positions to cover the open ground and once they were sure they could hold their ground, they signalled for the king, his mage, knights and his guardsmen to come through, followed closely by another squad.

Something was watching them from the shadows, darting in and out of vision, causing the squads to worry, their night vision gear not showing their shadowers clearly, only showing brief glimpses between the trees.
“Heads up, we got movement” She said into here microphone mounted inside her helmet,” all around us, stay sharp.”
Whatever was out there, it was keeping its distance from the group, probably because it didn’t recognise what it was up against. After about ten minutes of skirting the perimeter, a howling yell pierced the silence like a knife and a whole wave of Orcs thundered out of the woods, bearing down on the group. The Knights drew their swords but they stood transfixed as the world around them seemed to explode.
The air filled with shouts that confused the king and his men.
“They’re moving up the Flank on the left!”
“Tighten up, concentrate fire!”
“Another wave surging around the right flank!”
“Come and have a go you Bastards!!”

All through the shouting the rhythmic hammering of Automatic fire from the two squad’s FN FALs and the tinkling of empty cases falling to the ground around their boots mixed with the yells and screams of the Orcs as again they surged around the perimeter again. The portal in the centre of the ‘secured’ area grew larger as three old Vietnam War era Jeeps drove through, their M2HB .50 calibres opening up on the enemy and greatly adding to the already considerable din.
Grenades were hurled along with insults and coarse language as the Orcs pressed their attacks on the flanks and were felled in considerable numbers by the 7.62mm NATO and 12.7mm rounds being hurled at them.

The Orcs seemed to realise when their assault on the flanks was shredded that their attack was pointless and they quickly withdrew, leaving a decent number of dead behind them. Kafarn lowered her rifle slightly and withdrew towards the Jeeps. A third squad and an old M41 light tank emerged from the portal and proceeded to make sure the area was secure before the first squad and the Jeeps could begin their journey to the Castle. The King rode in the lead Jeep so that his own people wouldn’t fire on them when they reached the castle, his men in the other Jeeps following on behind.
The headlights illuminated the grisly scene as the Jeeps threaded their way through the Orc remains and headed towards the castle along the trails.


The Village echoed with the sound of the Jeep engines as the squad’s vehicles entered the village, sending the locals scattering for cover until they noticed their King in the lead Jeep, at which point they nervously moved to where they could see. Lieutenant Kafarn watched the look of awe and fear in the eyes of the Villagers, heard the fear in their muttering voices and saw the way they seemed to back away when her squad looked in their direction. The Jeep bounced and rattled over the rough track that passed for a road in the age of horseback and wagons, the squad hanging on like it was nothing but the King and his men almost being thrown from the vehicles. The main gate came into sight and they swung down through it, drawing some amazed looks from the guards.

A few moments later they were parked before the main entrance to the great hall and, with three of the squad members standing guard over the Jeeps while the others went to see what kind of resources they had to work with. Lieutenant Kafarn drawing strange stares from the guards and the castle staff, getting the distinct impression they disapproved of her and the other female soldiers in her squad. From the top of the tower, they had an almost perfect view of the surrounding farmland.
A few hours later a deep thumping echoed across the castle, gradually growing louder until a UH-1D gunship and a UH-1D transport came into view, moving in low and fast before swinging around the castle, the transport settling down on the tower roof. A Fox officer wearing the rank of Colonel stepped off the chopper and moving low until he was clear of the blades before standing. Lieutenant Kafarn ran forward and saluted the Colonel,” Lieutenant Colonel Vulpes, Lieutenant Kafarn, 117th expeditionary force CO, welcome to Castle Digram”


Lieutenant Colonel Vulpes was lead to meet King Digram while outside an Engineers unit were starting to construct a temporary airfield in a vacant field. The Runway matting had been laid by the time the Colonel had finished his meeting, securing permission to install the necessary equipment to the castle so it could be used as a base of operations until such time as the horde no longer posed a threat.


Temporary Airfield X-ray
Dawn


By the time first light started to show over the horizon, the Airbase was starting to really take shape, the first aircraft had arrived and the Ammunition and fuel dumps were in place. Rows of UH-1D Gunships and transports sat alongside Mi-24D Hinds and Mi-26 Halo heavy transport helicopters. A Squadron of AV-8B Harrier IIs sat in ‘hangers’ that had been made by pushing the earth up into mounds and placing a roof on them, the resulting structures being large enough to do maintenance work on the jets.

The silence was shattered as two Hawker Hunter FGR.Mk9s came in for a landing, the first of the squadron to arrive, while a Grumman E-2C Hawkeye waited for it’d turn to take off and provide the base with AEW capability. Service personnel were already busy on the first damaged aircraft of the day; one of the three Cessna A-37 Dragonfly which had its nose gear had collapsed after it had stopped. The local farmers were only just starting to get up to start their work and those that had managed to sleep through the arrival of the Modern Forces walked out to find their strange machines and people on the other side of the fence. John Leeson, a farmer, stood silently by his farm outbuildings, not knowing if he should run away or not. He was used to seeing the Dragons under the King’s command flying around, but these flying machines he was seeing defied belief. He had heard of what had happened at Castle Malasam and wondered if these strangers would be enough to turn the horde back.

Meanwhile, in a tent turned HQ/ Briefing room, Lieutenant Colonel Vulpes and some other officers were presenting their plan to the King and his Knights. The table was littered with recon photos taken from a high flying recon plane, all showing castle Malasam still holding out against the horde, but they were surrounded by Orcs and were coming under regular attacks by Dragons. The plan was simple on paper, airlift troops, supplies and ammo to the besieged forces in Castle Malasam while ground attack aircraft preformed high speed attack runs on the massed forces. They would them be relieved by a decent sized force moving overland with what limited armour and mechanised infantry they could muster. The Dragons would be the biggest threat, both to the airlift and to the ground forces so the ground attack aircraft would double as air superiority machines, either shooting the dragons down or driving them from the area.

The King’s own Dragons would escort the helicopters to the castle, flaming anything that got close to them. The engineers had been working all night to fit two way communications to the Dragon’s armoured helmets to allow them to talk to each other and to the combat forces they were to support. The officer in charge of the attack would be Lieutenant Colonel Vulpin, who would accompany the troops into Castle Malasam and direct the operation from there. Air support would continue to be on call until the siege was broken and the troops withdrawn.

King Digram and his knights thought that these beings were crazy to attempt to launch an attack on the massed forces of the Horde, no matter how powerful they seemed. After a few moments he reluctantly committed only five dragons to the plan, stating that he needed the others for other concerns. The shortfall would have to be covered by other helicopters which would reduce the force available to cover the Castle and the village in the event of an attack. They meeting broke up about half an hour later after agreeing that two of King Digram’s knights were to accompany the airborne troops to the castle, mainly to show Lord Malasam that these beings were there to help, not that Malasam was in any condition to turn down help, no matter how strange they may be.


Take off was scheduled for 5.30am the following morning and the rest of the day was taken up with the preparation of aircraft and Troops for the plan. While this was going on Lieutenant Colonel Vulpin met with the lead Dragon of the King’s force, who had flown out to the airbase upon the request of the King himself. The great creature towered over Vulpin and the aircraft parked nearby, its wingspan, though smaller than that of the dragon which had attacked their world, was still greater than the C-130 parked nearby. The Dragon lowered its large head and looked at Vulpin,” I am K’afar, I was informed you wished to speak with me.”

“Yes, I wished to speak to you about the inclusion of five of your Dragons in our battle plan” Vulpin replied, before running him through the plan and then informing him of the king’s decision as to the number of dragons he was willing to spare for the plan. The large Dragon shook his head in disgust,” clearly you would need more dragons than that, but if the king only gave you five of us, I will make sure they are my bravest and fiercest warriors that are sent with you.”

“I thank you, from what we have seen they will be needed” Vulpin replied, looking at the large dragon,” we will win this.”

Temporary Airfield X-ray
5.30am

The thumping of rotor blades echoed across the plains as the soldiers climbed aboard the helicopters in the early morning light. The knights, Sir Golan, a Cougar, and Sir Golwar, a snow Leopard, looked out of place amongst the soldiers as they climbed into the lead helicopter. While they choppers were loading Aircraft were warming up for takeoff, while at the edge of the field the five Dragons waited in their modified armour. The last being aboard the chopper was Lt. Colonel Vulpin who had climbed up beside Sir Golan and leaned towards the pilots,” Lets go.”

The thumping became a fast paced beat as they lifted off and headed towards their destination, the dragons joining them a few moments later. Vulpin removed his helmet and put a headset on, handing two more to Sir Golan and Sir Golwar, who followed his lead and were surprised as they heard his voice clearly over the headsets.
“This will be tense, we will need to get off the chopper almost as soon as it has landed, things will be confusing for a while but don’t worry, we’ll get through.”

Sir Golan and Sir Golwar were taken aback by this fox’s words, he could see, despite how they tried to conceal it, that they were nervous about the battle. They nodded to Vulpin and went back to watching the farmland whip by below until they felt the whole helicopter drop rapidly, levelling out just above tree top level, much to the relief of the two knights. The other transport choppers had done the same, while the gunships had taken a different course, allowing them to come in from all angles at once.

After about thirty minutes flying, the pilot’s voice came over their headsets,” E.T.A two minutes to LZ.”
Vulpin removed his headset and placed his helmet back on his head, the two knights doing the same. He cocked his rifle, as did the other troops with him,” let’s give them hell”