"Four fives."

I eyed Egart as hard as I could. He leaned back into his chair, smug and satisfied, and turned his head towards to Dara. My own dice, a four and two threes weren't going to match up with that. A total of fourteen dice on the table, three of which aren't fives, leaves a total of eleven. Odds were generally about forty percent-ish for dice to match up to a called total, so he was safe-ish. But Dunston and Gynk both called fours. His switch to fives might very well be a vote of confidence in himself. He has three dice under them. If he has at least two dice that are fives, it's a good bet to make. Which is why he'd probably lying his ass off. Egart is smart, but not as smart as he thinks he is.

I take a drag from the good old cig' and push it in the ashtray while giving Dara a doubtful look. That'll put some pressure on her. If she knows I doubt it, then if she raises, I'll call her bluff. Unless she raises to fours.

"Come on, princess." Donovan mumbles, tossing fuel on the fire and he knew it. "One good guess away from calling this brat a fuckin' liar."

"You're just salty that your bones are creaking, old man." Egart shot back.

Gynk's pulled a lever on his torso and held his mask closer to his face, inhaled, then sighed. "Dara can make her own decisions, Don."

Donovan scratches he great black and peppered beard as his cheek. "She's about as capable of making decisions under pressure as she is capable of keeping a boyfriend for longer than a week, hehe."

"Hey!" Dara yelled.

Most of us couldn't hold back more than a stifled grunt. Poor Dara.

"Fuck you, guys."

"No thanks, I'd rather not be added to the list." Egart responded, then let out a scrawny howl. Donovan could keep it together and roared with him. Poor Gynk damn near blew a ventilation valve. I couldn't hold it in either.

"You're a lying piece of shit, Egart. Show me!"

Egart knocked over his cup, showing three fives. And yet, no one else on the table had fives or ones.

"Oh come on! Fucking hell, you guys."

"Maybe ask the girl nicer next time." Dara muses as she scoops up one of Egarts dice on puts them on a pile at the center of the table.

The bell starts ringing. No one's laughing now.

"Seriously? A heist out here?" Donovan asks himself more than anyone in particular.

"Imagine being in this blasted dry heat for days waiting for this to come by, you've got to be mad with thirst or well supplied." Egart said as everyone left the table and scooted the seats back.

Gynk already lumbered towards his station, the heavy gears thumping away as he does. Probably to man the turret that cost him half his body so far. Donovan hit his gauntlet, and a suit of hissing and clicking armor spread all over his body, finalizing with a heavy looking helmet. Egart and Dara sped to the locomotive.

"You idiots better not get yourself killed out there, otherwise I'd have to go get other dice players and teach them how to play all over!" I holler at them as Donovan and I head for the main wagon for a sitrep.

"They can barely play as is." Donovan replies, his voice deepened even further in his suit.

"Yeah, well, it's a start."

The speakers on the walls come to life with a whirl and a whine, Captain Valignat blares through them: "DRAGONS! All hands to stations immediately! This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill!"

Donovan and I look at each other for a split second, before racing through the cart with me up front. Dragons? You're shitting me. Out here? They never left their continent.

"We might end up needing new players after all." Donovan drones through his helmet. As we speed by, we see Gynk hauling himself up the ladder.

"Give 'em hell, Ironarm!" I call out, though I'm not sure he hears me. Passing by the turret wagon, we enter the barracks. It's chaos out here. Late night guards are hauling themselves into their breeches, snatching whatever rifles they have and barking orders. They hesitate to move out of the way until Donovan shows up and almost ends up crushing one or two of them while moving on. I fall behind him and let him lead, while loading my pistols one by one. Let's hope is ends up being just a plane looking like dragons.

A massive shadow falls over the wagon just before we reach command. A quick peek shows some huge, something white, and something fast outracing the wagon. I stop in my tracks. What the fuck was that? I drop a bullet in the moment, slipped through my finger.

"Cressel, save the staring for the strip clubs, let's go!" Donovan roars over the gasps of the crew. Fuck the bullet. I go with him.

We barge into the command wagon, things are unusually calm. No windows. They mustn't have seen whatever that was.

"Donovan, I don't want to hear you excuses! Get back to the locomotive!" Captain Valignat orders without hesitation, "If these flying lizards have any brains, they'll wreck our primary means of moving forward. If they try anything, I need the best engineers on it to keep moving, but I only have you. Now git!"

Donovan wasted no time questioning her orders, not even bothering to say goodbye.

"Cressel, call went out already for backup, but that will take half a day. I know what I'm seeing on the slides, but I'm hardly believing it. Get topside in the sniper tower, take your rifle and start putting holes in it. Don't extend it all the way, you'll be a sitting duck." Some young officer came to me with an anti-tank rifle and a pouch of some of the nastiest ammo this thing can handle. I didn't even know we had this stuff on hand.

"Gynk on the turret?"

"Aye."

"Good. Stay in touch with him, he'll provide cover fire. Now get out there, before I kick your sorry ass out the back!"

A bestial roar shook the wagon, and some ungodly noise followed up to it, like a high pressure spraying something sizzling. Something large and heavy spoke, or something, followed by something smashing into the wagon. The ceiling didn't come down, but it dented, and the sudden weight placement shook everything and everyone.

"I didn't tell you maggots to stop! That's over a foot of titanium over our heads, it can handle an avalanche, it'll handle these scalies. Get to it, go, go, go!"

I made my way through the command cabin, taking one last look at the captain. A tiny woman with the voice of battle-queen. Her face red from yelling, her eyes wide in rage...or fear. I moved on through the masses, made my way to the other end of the cabin to one of the sentry towers installed in the side of the next cart.

I took my place in it, buckled up the harness and loaded the rifle as the rigging of the tower raised me to the side and up so I could peek around.

I took one look to the left and looked at a humongous, black, digitigrade lizard leg thrice my size, bundled up on the cart I just came from. Its tail stretched on over my wagon, leather wings folded up on its back. As I looked, it slammed its right arm into the side of the command wagon, clawing at it and trying to rip it apart with its sheer strength. The deafening blasts of Gynk turret started battering at my ears, but whatever this dragon was, it wasn't affected.

It wasn't until I got a look beyond the black dragon that I saw why. Gynk was firing at a white dragon, flying overhead. Small clusters of explosions traced the white dragon, but it was outflying the turret's rounds with a grace I didn't know such a gigantic creature could muster. For a second I jus take it in. Gynk, the mad cripple, the mechanized monster of Dorninor, it currently dogfighting with a fucking dragon.

No way I was going to let him take all the credit. The black dragon digs his claws in the command wagon again. I wait for him to raise his arm before I mount this ridiculous rifle on a rail, line up a shot at its elbow, and fire. The blast from the rifle blows steam and fire across its recoil dampeners as it nearly knocks me back. It impacts something, and the dragon twitches as a small blast hit it where I aimed. It doesn't scream, or thrash, or move. It's still for a second, before it turns its elbow towards its face.

Its stretched out, skull like, bull horned face. A good look shows that he's inspecting the spike on its arm that now gone. I hit it. It knows. It moves its long neck to the right, scan the area where the blast came from and make eye contact with me. I feel caught in its gaze. It's looking at me. It sees me. And if looks could kill, I'd drop dead on the spot. It is intelligent, and it is fucking pissed.

"Shit." I say to myself as I disengage the tower and unhook the harness. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshitshiiiiiii-" I mutter to myself as the tower lowers, but as fast as I'd like. The dragon unfolds it wings and beats them once, taking to the air. It coils with a barrel roll and a flip midair, slamming its weight back on the command wagon, bending it the top of it down further. Seeing it from the front like this is much, much more bone-chilling. Every single nerve in my brain is screaming at me to get the fuck out of here.

Something catches the dragons attention. I take the moment to get back inside and unhook the rifle, turning back to the hallway. People are streaming out of the command wagon into this one in a sheer panic. I get slammed back into the now folded tower by the masses, unable to leave. Something falls from the ceiling. Something liquid, black and sizzling. I look up to the ceiling. Holes are starting to form and that stuff is leaking through. It's coming from the dragon's mouth.