"I always Wanted to hunt Dragons..." by Giles

Ok...

Check magazine. Check change lever is set to three-round burst. Keep both
eyes open. Take deep, regular breaths. There it is, weaving from side to
side. Swooping down from the high cliffs, along with the others. That one
is mine!

Wait. Wait until it gets nearer. Wait until you can't miss. Ignore the
firing from the others and the stink of cordite. Look down the sights.
Centre on it. Bloody hell! Those wings are huge! And that jaw and the
claws... Concentrate... Safety catch off... Wait... Fangs... Hold breath...
Claws... Squeeze...

"BLAAAAAAM!"

A cloud of blood explodes! A fearful, inhuman scream! It crashes to the
ground only feet away, spraying blood across the rocks by the path...

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

It was time to lay up and keep out of trouble. The plan was real for a
change - that is we actually had a proper one and it actually worked... Now
all we had to do was lie low for a few days and we would be swimming in
credits... Again!

We all had a bit of a conflab and decided a little hunting trip would be a
great idea. It would seem that there was some sort of flying dinosaur the
locals called a "dragon" which was the big game idea around these parts.
The hotel looked pretty good and was well away from other habitation in the
mountains - so it looked to be just what the doctor ordered.

We trooped off to the bar to have a few wets before setting out on the
early dawn shuttle. I wandered over to the sim arcade in the corner and
found a dragon hunting game. A few credits later I had the highest score,
even beating "ZAP" for a change. The dragons looked silly though, their
wings were huge and surely nothing could be that big in real gravity...

I grabbed my orange beer and headed over to the others. They were chatting
to Milo again. What the hell is he doing here? He seems to be following
us... Is he up to no good, or is he just after the same things we are?
Careful... Check the alternative exits... Sit down with the others and keep
quiet...

Milo is chatty as ever, but there is nothing new there... I check the
manifest for the shuttle and find that there are a brace of Treens coming
on the trip with us tomorrow. Oh, hell... I hope they know what they are
doing...

Hours later I crash into my bunk, the room spinning. Not spinning from the
drink or anything, just from crashing into the bunk. Shit! That hurt!

Moments later the alarm starts screaming at me. Literally. The alarm is a
woman screaming. Absolutely, positively, totally guaranteed to wake you
up...

We meet up and my hunting clothes get quite a few admiring glances;
especially the wide brimmed hat with the mock leopard-skin hat-band, and
the yellow calf-skin riding boots.

The Treens turn out to be a bunch of excitable kids. I just hope the guide
is experienced or else there might be a few accidents happening out on the
range... We get on the shuttle as strap in for a really bumpy ride down
dirtside. At least the others said it was bumpy - I really didn't notice
because I slept through the whole thing. One of the guys puked his guts up,
and the smell was making the Treens look pretty green. So not much change
there then...

We landed in the mountains at the hotel. It was a kinda small place,
surrounded by huge mountains that looked beautiful in the morning sunshine.
The rooms were great and the "intimate full-body blood temperature water
body massage" helped me relax after the trip. Filling in all the forms was
a total pain - the disclaimers, medical waivers, legal waivers, next-of-kin
reports, medical insurance, will forms. This was followed by a trip down to
the range for some live firing practice to get certified on the hunting
rifles. Nice to see these weren't some weedy little aristo's piss-poor
popgun, but a proper assault rifle.

The Hotel Heiyama - Bakufu Mountains, North Continent, Saunders III
- if you look carefully you can see some ' bakufu dragons' in the distance circling the mountains.

Of course, it makes you think. Are they trying to frighten us so the trip
looks good, or are the dragons really that scary...?

The Treens are busy blowing holes in the walls of the range when they
switch to full-auto, but on single shot they seem to get most of the rounds
in the right direction. I'm just going to make sure they are in front of me
when the firing starts...

The guide seems good though. He moves like a Marine and has some of the
tattoos to match. I see him removing the sear from the change lever on the
Treens guns as we finish up. This is a good sign, 'coz they are only going
to get single shots off which might be a little safer for all of us later.

After the range certification, we check out the bikes. Compact little
machines with big knobbly tyres to take us to the game area. Each one
fitted with a cool box for food and drink. The Guide has a trike with a
couple of collapsible sleds "in case we get lucky". The sleds are really
battered and scratched... They must be used for hauling other things as
well... Really heavy things...

We travel up into the mountains for about an hour. The air is clean and
clear and makes a welcome change from the recycling plant, the dust from
the bikes is a bit annoying, but I soon get in front so the others have to
eat my dirt cloud...

We stop at a clearing and the guide gets us in a circle. He's looking a
little nervous and keeps his eyes on the sky constantly while fingering his
assault rifle. He's got a Westinghouse Mk27 Cyclone, with a ventilated
floating barrel, chromed receiver, laser zero-error sight, and 99-round
drum magazine, so I'm feeling a little nervous as well...

I check the 30-round magazine on my standard Mk14. I managed to sneak all
the tracer rounds into my ammo loads so at least I'll see where my shots
are going... Well, for the first 1200 meters anyway...

Suddenly the guide says "Heads Up!" and points forward. In the distance I
can see some little specks moving slowly from the craggy peaks to the West
of us.

"BAM!"

I duck as one of the Treens lets loose. Nobody says anything, we just look
at each other and shake our heads. At least he has the decency to look
embarrassed. For about 5 minutes. Then he's banging away at maximum range
hoping to get a lucky hit. At least the guide is going to make a profit
from ammo sales this trip...

I look on in amazement as one of the guys gets a hit. I can hardly see at
that range, so I decide to wait until they get close enough so they fill
the sight and I literally can't miss. It might be a little more dangerous,
but it is the only way I'm going to hit anything, and it will look cool
anyway...

They dragons start swooping from side to side as they ride the thermals on
their way down to our position. There seem to be hundreds of them and I'm
feeling a little more nervous when I realised that the arcade sim was
photo-realistic and they are HUGE!

The Treens are firing pretty continuously now, and cursing that the
full-auto mode seems to be broken... Smoke and cordite fumes waft across
the clearing, punctuated by the hammering of the guns and the brassy chink
of empty cases hitting the rocks.

I line myself up and wait.

It is getting closer now and is really huge. The wingspan has to be at
least 15 meters and the body is larger than a compact car. It suddenly sees
me and opens it's mouth to reveal masses of razor sharp teeth and a
flickering tongue, like a snake. It swoops nearer and arches it's wings
preparing to strike.

I watch in detached admiration as it folds it's body underneath itself and
brings it's vast claws towards me, ready to plunge them into my soft
yielding flesh. Except I have a ceramic-plate armour vest on under my
jacket and an assault rifle on burst fire, set and ready to rock and
roll...

"BLAAAAAAM!"

It stops. Dead. In a burst of blood and bone, and crashes to the ground
with a wet thud spraying me with gore. It is exhilarating! I am alive!

After a while, they stop coming. There must be twenty of them carpeting the
floor in front of our position. The guide helps us cut off some souvenirs,
a head, some claws... The Treens want to take one back to the hotel to eat,
but the guide vetoes the suggestion and we pile the corpses in a heap and
burn them with some magnesium flares.

Hell... I need a drink...

"What I did On My Holidays", by Wallace, Astronaut and Armourer.

Well, didn't we have a nice time doing a little bit of hunting at Heiyama? Quite relaxing once one got used to all the deafening noise, but what can one expect from a bar full of drunken Venerian youths!

The resort was, to be frank, one of the nicest places I have ever stayed and the grub was yummy, much better than on board 'Totally Harmless' [sorry, Mr Nutrition Officer...] and miles so much better than prison food!

I must say I was a little...nonplussed...to see that we were to hunt with military-issue assault rifles. I have no military training as such, and although I am a civilian armourer and know how to maintain these weapons, this was not the kind of hunting I am used to. When I've hunted in the past, it has been track and sneak, spot and draw a bead, then squeeze off a round from a carefully-chosen hide, hoping to see Target's head explode.

This was more like defending an orbital station from pacifier attack!

The 'Bakufu Dragons' are perhaps the biggest and scariest pterosaurs I have ever seen. Wingspan about twelve or fifteen metres. Ye Gods. I reckon maybe 250kg of muscle, claws and then a toothed beak as long as I am tall. Amazingly ferocious. The dense atmosphere of this planet keeps them up there, while our high-velocity rounds bring 'em down.

We form a kind of perimeter and then it's a kind of skeet-shooting; only these beasties fly TOWARDS us from surrounding mountaintops with the evident intention of tearing us to bits. I am glad I put on these ear-defenders; it's an incredible din of detonations, bonechilling dragon-screams, and whooping from the boys. I do manage to hit a few Dragons, though I must admit I am not used to the way these Westinghouse 14's spit out the rounds.

This does lack the grace and subtlety of the kind of hunting I'm used to, but it is undeniably exciting!

I come away with a nightmarish dragon-claw souvenir in a large ziplock bag. I was especially pleased at how well the other members of the T.H. crew behaved. Considering that they are basically combat thugs they were surprisingly polite and civilised, and certainly showed up those ghastly Vennies, a bunch of immature, whining, selfish, spoiled little ticks. What a shame we weren't allowed to shoot them too! Maybe next year?!!

Wallace's Poem

I saw a Dragon in the sky
It fell down, I know not why?
"Oh yes you do", said my good friend Ape
"I shot it down, what a merry jape!"