“That doesn’t make sense.” Online in the Net community was a universal translator program for — more or less — every known human language. Some dialects were still fuzzy, but basic concepts could be communicated easily. Encrypted code sometimes couldn’t be broken, but that was by design. “My name is Maj Green. Who are you?”
The smile on the handsome face lost some of its electricity. He spoke again, but with the same incomprehensible result.
“Uh-oh,” Matt said quietly. “That doesn’t look good.”
Maj swiveled her head forward, spotting the winged shapes fast approaching. They flew in formation like geese, but her intuition told her they were nowhere near as pleasant as geese following some migratory path.
In the next instant she recognized the flying figures as winged demonoids. Before she could draw another breath, they attacked.
“Matt Hunter is a Net Force Explorer.”
Andrea Heavener’s announcement brought a sudden rush of fear that flooded Gaspar Latke’s system with adrenaline. His fear of Net Force was automatic and sprang from years of being an outlaw hacker on the Net.
“No one wants Net Force involved in this,” Heavener declared.
“No,” Gaspar repeated as he plunged through the veeyar to his target. For a moment, though, his mind flirted with the idea of intentionally letting Net Force get information on what they were doing. If Net Force caught him, he’d be arrested and maybe jailed for a time, but he’d be free of the terrors of the last few months.
“Why would Hunter contact Peter?” In the next moment Gaspar opened his eyes, back in the tera’lanth. He felt his wings beat, the huge muscles on his back rippling with effort as he sped through the sky. He searched the horizon ahead and spotted the dragon and the jet.
“He didn’t,” Heavener said flatly. “The connection you found in the hotel was a result of a bleed-over.”
“Impossible,” Gaspar said. “The game version Peter’s testing shouldn’t be capable of that. The effects of the bleed-over are very specific, very localized.”
“People are tracing the outbound computer access line. Peter didn’t make contact with Hunter’s veeyar on purpose.”
As the tera’lanth, Gaspar adjusted his flight and swooped down toward the dragon and the jet. Around him were a hundred other tera’lanth, all in full attack mode. The creatures in this veeyar were highly destructive. And they were all presently under his control because he’d accessed the programming he’d layered into the game’s AI. He divided his forces. Part of them would be a sacrifice, a diversion for Peter Griffen. But the others would destroy the Net Force Explorers.
Maj tried to disengage from the demonoid attack by pulling the stick up and to the right. The jet’s engines screamed as the thrusters kicked into renewed life, pressing them back into the seats.
The demonoids were faster than they looked, streaking through the sky and attacking from the left. Three of the nearest ones dived in at her with folded wings, halting twenty or thirty feet ahead and to the left of the jet in a perfect intercept course. Their wings unfolded, revealing long bone-white quills. Before Maj could adjust her course, the demonoids fired a salvo of quills from their wings.
The quills slammed into the Striper in a long row that stitched the side of the aircraft. Two of them speared through the Plexiglas canopy, imbedding six inches or so with another six inches behind them.
“They’re playing hardball,” Matt croaked.
“Hang on,” Maj warned grimly as she worked the stick. The Striper grabbed air, shoved through the sky by the big engines. She looped and rolled expertly till the Striper’s nose faced the cluster of demonoids again. She lifted the protective cover from the weapons activation switch, then toggled it up. The green READY light came on.
Maj depressed the launch button. Two air-to-air missiles sprang from the wings. The missiles achieved target locks on the creatures’ mass at once, ripping across the distance to impact at the center of the demonoids.
The orange-and-black fireball knocked the creatures from the air, exploding a half-dozen of them.
Even as she completed her rollout, she got another target lock with the air-to-air missiles. She brushed the button and sent another pair streaking forward.
The explosion this time was much closer. With no way to avoid it, Maj flew through the flaming debris left behind. Burning chunks of demonoid bounced from the canopy with distant thuds, barely heard through the helmet. In the next moment she was free of the cloud of attackers.
She craned her head over to the side, glancing back at the attack scene. A group of demonoids had already taken up pursuit, letting her know at a glance that she couldn’t outdistance them. But a second group surrounded the dragon and the dragonrider.
Maj brought the jet around, feeling it stutter in protest as it jammed across conflicting air currents. The target-lock peep sounded again, and she released another pair of missiles, finishing off her heavy payload and leaving her only two thousand rounds of machine gun bullets.
“That was the last of the missiles?” Matt asked with real concern.
“Not for long.” Maj punched a quick selection of icons under the heading CHEAT MENU. “Now we’re more heavily armored and have infinite ammo as well as infinite fuel.” She worked the stick, diving toward the center of the demonoids. Her thumb moved restlessly across the missile launch button, releasing a salvo of missiles that hammered the winged creatures from the sky. Working the stick, she cut power and pulled into a barrel roll that brought her into a sharp approach path to the dragon.
“Look at that guy,” Matt said, pointing.
Maj looked, following the line of her friend’s arm. Incredibly, the dragonrider sat on one folded leg on the saddle, a bow pulled taut before him as he took deliberate aim. When he released, the arrow streaked forward and embedded in the chest of a nearby demonoid. Then it exploded.
“One monster,” Matt said, “extra chunky.”
Maj glanced up through the canopy and saw the phalanx of winged demonoids approaching from the rear. “Is he the target, or are we?” she wondered out loud.
The dragon gaped its jaws and spat a huge fireball into the midst of the attacking demonoids. The flames fanned among the demonoids, blazing merrily as they ate the wings off the creatures’ burning bodies. Wingless demonoids dropped from the air, turning into full-blown comets before they struck even the tops of the forest below.
More demonoids fired quills at the dragon and dragonrider. The quills shattered against the dragon’s scaled hide, but Maj worried about the dragonrider. A sudden blue glow surrounded the dragonrider only an instant before the quills reached him. Unbelievably, the blue glow caught the quills. The dragonrider made another gesture, then the quills shot back at the demonoids.
“He’s got a force field of some kind,” Matt observed.
The dragonrider was already drawing back another arrow when Maj arrived.
She unleashed her arsenal, launching missile after missile as each target lock came up. She kept her field of fire away from the dragon. In seconds the demonoid horde was nearly decimated. The survivors flew away.
“They’re coming down on top of us from behind,” Matt declared.
The dragonrider’s voice drew her attention. This time she drew a circle in the air, bringing up a record-audio function she’d designed in the programming to makes notes to herself.
The dragonrider kept speaking. His face showed concern that was mirrored in his words. He waved a hand, drawing her to him.
Maj juked the stick and swung toward the dragon. Despite her speed, the demonoids behind her closed the distance.
The dragon, urged by its rider, flew toward the approaching jet. The dragonrider waved Maj down.
Pushing the stick forward slightly, Maj dived under the dragon. For an instant the sky was reduced to the alabaster scales of the dragon’s belly.
“Oh, yeah,” Matt said. “And we were thinking we were the cavalry.”
Twisting around in the seat once she had her course safely locked in, Maj watched a massive gout of fire splatter over the demonoid pack. There were few survivors, and they quickly turned tail.
Maj climbed again, cutting back on speed since the threat seemed to be gone. The dragon flapped its bat wings and dropped into the same heading she’d chosen. In seconds the dragonrider was at her side again.
Outside the canopy the dragonrider made a few gestures. A necklace of violet-red links appeared around his throat. He gazed at Maj and asked clearly, “Who are you?”
