“Alright folks, we do this old school!” John shouted over the near panic that filled the room. “Park the tanks, land the helicopters, and ground those Harriers. We don’t want them falling out of the sky because something just decides to stop working.” Stevens gave him the thumbs up. He was already giving those very orders. “Someone tell me what is going on with the warthogs.”

“Warthog pilots say all systems are operational except their auto-piolets.” John smirked. Those systems almost never worked, anyway. “Ripping and raring to go, General.” Cranton said from the communications consoles. He had three other people working with him.

“Inform the QRF. They won’t have Blackhawks but they can still call in for air support if needed. Inform the section commanders to have their anti-air munitions switched to manual control. Lets see if we can find a workaround and get our stingers back. Someone get me —”

“Contact sir! Contact! I have six bogies through the portal, moving at incredible speeds! They’re flying sir, the contacts are flying! We’re tracking—” The young radar operator’s voice was drowned out as a roar from something not at all mechanical filled the command deck.

“What the hell was that?” Stevens demanded.

“Dragons General. Six dragons. Their radar signature is all fuzzy because they’re organic, but it looks like they’re easily the size of a city bus, sir.” The radar operator said, putting some steel into her words. “C-WIS defenses are tracking, but aren’t engaging. Stingers are completely powered down.”

“Do we still have the systems in place to manually operate them? Yes or no? I need a straight answer.” John asked, as the firing of fifty-caliber machine guns started a pitter patter staccato response to the hellish roars outside.

“Firing!” Came the voice of one of the weapon operators for the Command Deck. The mobile command post had several large caliber weapons, including machine guns and small artillery emplacements that could be automatically or manually controlled at need by the people inside. The roar of small artillery rounds ripping through the failing light matched the roars of the hostile lizards.

“Firing!” another of the weapon operators shouted. This one opened up with the command deck’s fifty caliber turrets using remote controls. The weapons were mounted on the roof as a pintle support for the larger C-WIS anti-air and anti-munitions defensive weapons that were inoperable.

“Got one!” the artillery operator said as a piteous pain filled screech filled the warm African air.

“Section 1 reports manual and remote options had been removed per installation instructions. 3 and 4 the same, sir.” Cranton shouted over the staccato weapons fire. Fire bloomed over the clear steel plating that allowed natural light into the command deck as a massive horned, winged creature breathed its deadly attack at what it thought was an undefended target. As the clear steel heated a few degrees, powerful plasma shields erupted in front of the plating , rebuffing the attack and keeping the people on the outside deck safe from the fiery death that the lizard meant for them.

“Get those snipers inside, now!” John yelled, and several officers ran to the doors and began helping snipers and spotter teams off the outside deck. The bloom of fire ended before the shielding gave way, but it was a close thing. The powerful if small caliber artillery cannons traversed up as far as they would go, and pointed directly into the creature’s chest. John held his breath, and the world seemed to still as the creature realized weapon’s deadly intent. It panicked and tried to flee, beating its wings as hard as it could, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Get some!” The operator yelled over the moment of silence as he pulled the trigger and ended a second of the mighty beasts. When the creature fell from the sky, the second weapons operator, a young brown-haired woman, turned to her fellow weapons specialist and just raised an eyebrow. “What? I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“Sure Dockins. Because we’re in the middle of Vietnam. Shut up and select another target. There are four more of those things out there.” The woman chided, as she too scanned for the nearest and clearest target for her fifty caliber delivery systems of death.

“Sir, additional contacts coming through the portal.”

“Visual.” Cranton sent him the link to that fed into the 3d command table. On the table, three red blocks appeared as if out of nowhere, and began marching and organizing. In the feed, John saw something out of an old time re-enactment. Three blocks of warriors, each carrying a massive metal shield that interlocked with the others, marched slowly forward as if expecting to be under immediate assault. The three blocks of what looked like some kind of gaudy interpretation of a roman legion with flame emblems painted on everything that could take the image, fanned out into a single line headed west out of the portal. As John watched, nine more blocks appeared, creating a nearly perfect square around the portal.

John watched the feed as dozens of heavy if extremely obsolete and ancient artillery pieces were dragged through the portal by what looked like plucked chickens with scales the size of horses. He glanced back at the command deck and found that two more of the dragons had been killed by the rapid response from the machine gunners all along the wall. The last two circled high overhead.

“Stevens, task the Warthogs to take out those dragons if they think they can.” Stevens gave a thumbs up from his secondary command suit on the other side of the room, and John left that alone. “Maverick. We have ground forces coming through the portal.”