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    By the time the firefight downstairs ended, Torkos found himself hiding in a lush side room from the main hallway, holding the thick door shut while gunfire spluttered outside. The Doc gritted his teeth in pain, feeling the bullet in his claw burn.

    "I hate doing this," he growled to himself.

    Leaning heavily against the door, he put his back to it, and held his claws up. The round had punched right through the thick skin of his palms, almost completely through his hand. Torkos had no choice but to have it complete his journey.

    Taking a his thumb from his free hand, he stuck it into the bullet hole. Torkos paused for a moment, preparing himself. Then, he shoved, forcing the round through the rest if his skin and out the other side in a flash of blood. It took a couple scales with it.

    "Gah!" He groaned, leaning back against the door. The gunfight outside continued. "Ain't we in a fine mess?" he muttered to himself.

    'It could've been worse.' he thought, thinking back on things.

    When the flash bang had gone off downstairs and the first shots downed DM, Napalm had already been halfway up the staircase to the balcony and the rooms beyond. The grenade must have been a signal, for as soon as it went off Torkos and his squad ended up under fire like those below. Most had leapt over the railings to get away, but Torkos was more stubborn, and instead flattened himself against the wall just out of sight. Too far away to make a run for the door, but too close to guarantee being shot in the back had he tried to retreat, the only option was forward.

    He'd inched closer as the fight around him raged. Some dragon of Napalm, most likely Syd, had hefted a human's rifle and was spraying the soldiers with fire. While it did little against their riot gear, it gave Torkos the covering fire he needed to be within a short dragon-dash to the door. At this point, he was at the climax of the balcony.

    Torkos waved a claw, signaling whoever was shooting to stop. The gunfire lowered for a second, before stopping, and as the soldiers began to increase their efforts Torkos had gone in.

    The first never saw it coming. As he stepped closer to the doorway to gain a bead on Megs, Torkos had swung around the corner, punching his faceplate in. He twisted, backhanding another hard enough to crack scale, and was rewarded with a scream as the man's ear pulped. The rest of the squad had begun to turn their weapons on Torkos, but like Gilead downstairs, he was already amongst them, striking left and right. With every blow he felt bones break, and heard screams and groans. He wasn't sure if he was satisfied or disgusted with himself, and the notion that he was enjoying this made him sick.

    While Torkos fought the men and himself, one managed to get his gun into play. Torkos saw it out of the corner of his eye, and as luck would have it, threw his arms up to ward his face. It had stung badly. The man hadn't been able to shoot again as Syd managed to punch him down.

    The rest of Napalm was arriving when a dozen soldiers lined up at the back of the hallway in a firing line. Gun barrels poked over shoulders, and Torkos felt like he was in an executioner's chamber. At the order of the officer, the rifles fired in complete unison.

    Napalm hit the deck, and Torkos found himself inside a small side bedroom with mahogany nightstands and personal wooden wardrobes where he had thrown himself. Tracers dug into the doorframe, and Torkos slammed the door shut. The nature of the room was oddly metaphoric to the gunfire outside. And so, Torkos took a moment to remove the bullet impeded in his claw before thinking on his options. He didn't have time to make a decision, for it was made for him.

    Roars sounded outside, and Torkos felt more than heard a form barge by the door. Bullets pierced the door, ricocheting off scales. The Doc slammed the door open, and powered on after the receding silhouette of Tairivius. A trooper was thrown back the way Torkos had come, and he only glanced back long enough to see Zike knock the man unconscious.

    Ahead, Tairivius left little to remember of the firing squad. They stumbled about without coherence, some snapping off shots at the dragon amongst them and the rest tripping over themselves to get away. Tairivius himself dealt with three of them at once, bashing two heads together while swiping the legs out from a third. He had hundreds of cracked scales, some missing completely, but he still fought on with wanton abandon. It didn't slow him down in the slightest.

    Torkos leapt into the fray, tackling a soldier holding a shaking rifle. A quick flick of his wrist and he had been disarmed, gun clattering away across the carpeted floor. He pistoned his fist into the man’s chest at the solar plexus. Torkos left the man gasping for air as the rest of Napalm arrived and fought the men back.

    “That was fun,” Tairivius panted. “There were barely enough for me, let alone the rest of you.” The Doc eyed his wounds. A pair of scutes were chipped away by glancing impacts, and the scales around his underbelly were shattered on the floor. Blood leaked from bullet holes in the chinks of his natural armor.

    “Seems to me like you could barely handle one,” Syd joked. Tai growled in reply.

    “You’re one to talk,” Torkos butted in, “I’m guessing you’re the one who broke my orders. Can’t shoot lightning, so you shoot bullets instead?” Syd’s slit eyes narrowed. A barely audible hiss came from behind gritted fangs.

    "Without me you would have never been able to get close enough," Syd growled.

    "Be that as it may," Torkos conceded, "we cannot risk being discovered. Every time you do something like that it gives them another piece of information to lead them to us. The last thing we need is for the British to discover the Dragon Shadow Council were the ones who sieged their compound." Torkos brought his muzzle close to his squadmate’s. "Am I clear?"

    Syd stayed locked eyes with Torkos, before he averted them and spat on the ground. "Yeah."

    Torkos signalled the squad to form up, and they continued their clean sweep. In the midst of it all, Torkos brooded on the irony that Syd was the one he was at odds with, not Megs. But then again, she was now having the fight of her life.

    Click... Click... Click-click-click. Kettou tapped a steady little tune on the cavern floor, brooding to himself. "Is this what I've been lowered to?" He asked himself rhetorically, swiveling his head around to peer at the sleeping Zorath.

    The two were still in their blood soaked cave, holed up like some damn exiles. They were terribly bored, only being able to go outside to hunt at night when nobody was looking, and dragging the carcasses back when it got light. The day was spent sleeping, writing like Zorath, or doing exactly what Kettou was doing, nothing at all. Once in a while they talked over battle plans, about Council management, but all that was over with. The raid was now underway, and both did not feel like going out hunting with the churning of their bellies. Only their memories kept them good company.

    Zorath snorted and shifted in his sleep. Kettou tried imagining what the Black was dreaming about. Judging on how his friend growled, snorted, and frowned with his horned head between his paws, it was nothing good.

    The Lung dragon shifted himself, his long body striving to find a comfortable position. It left him staring out at the entrance, on duty as always. He could understand why Rob slept on the job, and why being such a large dragon could bring about its own share of problems. It's not easy when you take up the size of a high school basketball court all on your own.

    Zorath shifted in his sleep again, growling and snarling with impotent rage. Kettou sighed to himself. It looked like once more he was going to have to subdue the Head of the Council once more, and add dozens more scars to the hundreds along his body.

    With a guttural snarl, Zorath woke. He was on his feet in seconds, and Kettou slowly raised himself to a ready stance. He made sure not to make any sudden movements, for the last time he did while Zorath had gone feral left Kettou fighting for his life with tooth and claw.

    "Brother?" Kettou asked, "Are you well?"

    Zorath growled in reply, but made no move to attack. "T-To... Top hats." The black stuttered, more intent on something other than his friend. 'Top hats' was code for 'I'm alright,' for, so far, a feral dragon has little intelligence besides animal cunning. It was a precaution to make sure Zorath wasn't going to try anything unnaturally deceiving under the influence.

    Kettou padded forwards to Zorath's side, watching as his friend's ears twitched. "What is it?"

    "I hear howls... and roars. On the other side of the hill, in the Council chambers." Zorath turned to glare at the Lung, eyes blazing with their own inner light.

    Kettou strained to make out anything through the rock. He almost imagined he heard gunfire. The thought chilled his blood. "I hear gunfire, and I don't think it's us."

    Zorath made for the exit, thick tail following. His teeth were pulled back in a wolfish grin at the prospect of battle and bloodshed. "The Council is under attack!"

    "I'm always stuck on guard duty," Robinton growled to himself. The massive Black was hidden in a thicket, not far from the main road leading up to the old building under siege. He had sat motionless for multiple hours, and was feeling the need to do something. The sounds of battle didn't help in the slightest. He'd like nothing more than to be there with the rest of the Council as they fought the soldiers, but instead Torkos had placed him on guard duty. Curse him! Oh, what a thrashing he is going to get when this all blows over. The Black chuckled evilly to himself as he imagined how humiliating to the tiny purple dragon as he gets crushed by the largest dragon in the world.

    Robinton had trouble turning his head to glare back at the compound, with all the foliage about, but managed to do so, growling at what he saw. Gunfire strobed up and down the length of it, lighting it up from the inside like some damn Christmas tree. He'd be angry if he didn't get even a little bit in on the action. If not, he'd make some. Perhaps he'd pick a fight with those dead deer Rekalnus or some other dragon dragged into the Council kitchens the other day. As far as he knew, they were still in the freezer. Rex did say something about a marmalade.

    Rob shook his head, snapping small branches, and peered back at the empty darkness. The road just continued until it looped around the bend about a mile away and the rest was lost from sight behind a hill. There was no light to mark that there was even a road, but Rob's enhanced vision easily pierced the gloom well enough to tell that the road was getting brighter near the bend.

    Something was coming.

    Twigs snapped as Rob's heavy form trampled dead plants under him as he settled into a crouch. Whatever was coming up the road, it wasn't going to get far. Rob was certain of that.

    A standard black van swerved around the corner, speeding at fifty miles per hour. Headlights bounced crazily as it sped over the uneven terrain. The driver was in a great hurry, and a little suicidal as Rob saw it, and it looked to him that more were following. It'd take a second for the car to reach him, and by then he wouldn't be able to do much, so he sprung his trap.

    Bellowing a challenge, Rob leapt out into the path of the van and the convoy following behind. The black vehicle swerved to the side, slowing as the driver hit the brakes. Before the car had come to a complete stop, men started piling out from the back, lifting rifles that might as well be peashooters compared to the German Godzilla.

    The driver dove out of the driver's seat, and the passenger quickly followed in the face of an all consuming shadow. The entire engine block of the van crumpled like tinfoil underneath Robinton's weight, and he bellowed once more, sending troops scrabbling back towards where the rest of the convoy had stopped. Rob's idea had worked. With all the cars piled up on the road, it would take a dozer to shove aside the abandoned vehicles. It also left Rob with a way to discourage others to follow.

    At the center of the stonewalled convoy, a humvee with a mounted 50 Cal. spooled up. The heavy rounds slammed into Rob's side like thunderbolts, shattering scale and rending flesh. Hot blood splattered the road, glowing in the harsh headlights.

    The massive dragon crouched, protecting his underbelly while getting his muzzle underneath the lead van. A massive display of strength sent the van tumbling end over end in the air before crashing into the gunner, crushing him into paste and flattening the military transport underneath.

    'This was fun,' Rob told himself. It looked like he got his fight after all. He was still going to give that Runt a good thrashing when he got back, and tear into that deer with marmalade too. 'Couldn't forget that,' Rob thought as he harried the soldiers sent to relieve their doomed brothers. But who was going to relieve them?

    Torkos felt nothing anymore. He was none past the point of feeling pain or remorse. My pure state. He was lost in the heat of battle, the only thing his brain could do was calculate cold facts and strategies. It was like this when anyone fought. As adrenaline pumped through their system, as split-second reactions meant the difference between life or death, there was very little to worry about.

    He had long since forgotten about the cracked scales of his knuckles, or the bullet wound in his claw, or even the stench of death that now permeated the bleak, but luxurious halls of the benighted building. All he cared about was his squad and the soldiers he knew were around the corner.

    Torkos knew because he had seen Tairivius whirl around it, and now solid slugs were ricocheting back the way he was headed. Tairuvius appeared a moment later, his side a scorched mess.

    "There's a dragon around the corner, eight meters away," Tai explained, pointing back behind him. Wisps of smoke curled up from the edge of his scales. Torkos could only shake his head at the dragon's rashness.

    "How many men?" Torkos asked. Tai held up four clawed fingers in reply.

    Four soldiers, and a dragon, most likely all armed with guns. They probably thought the dragon was their lynchpin in their defence. A human's train of thought would think to fight fire with literal fire. Their ignorance would be their downfall. Almost all dragons were well proofed against fire, but Torkos was near untouchable by it. The other dragon around the corner wouldn't know that. He'd probably never fought other dragons before. Never felt searing heat on his own flesh, and he probably never will after this night.

    "Hold here," he told the other members of Napalm. "I'm going in first. Megs, you follow. Rex, you're support." The dragons he picked growled their assent, and the leader of Napalm bolted around the corner, running low and fast.

    As he charged forward, Torkos cursed. Tairivus was right about the soldiers being eight meters down the hall, but he seemed to have forgotten to inform Torkos about the barricade they were behind. The purple dragon had little else to do but continue running as he heard heavy footsteps follow behind.

    Troops popped up over the barrier and opened fire. A bullet sparked and flattened against Torkos's knee, making him stumble, but he continued his mad charge.

    Then the dragon, sheathed in copper scales, rose above the barricade. It opened its jaw, and a plume of fire consumed the already blackened hallway.

    Torkos's world went red, and both layers of eyelids shut against the fiery onslaught, but he kept running. When he felt he was close, he threw himself forward, and over the barricade, grappling with a form as he hit the floor.

    He punched downward, feeling scales shatter under the blow. The firestorm suddenly stopped, and he thought the dragon was either stunned or unconscious. He was wrong in both aspects.

    Opening his blurry eyes and seeing his now black muzzle before him, Torkos knew he was in bad shape. There was roaring all around as Napalm handled the other men, but none matched the roaring he felt in his ears as the Copper slugged his muzzle. A tooth flew, and Torkos was knocked completely off the dragon he had under him. He felt the wall slam into his horns. The Copper lurched to his feet, and began stumbling towards Torkos who began to pick himself up. Before either combatants could earn first blood, a green blur decked the Copper.

    Sorien Theraikea picked himself up, his squad appearing down the hallway at a flat out run. Most stopped when they realised the fight was over, and instead started to slightly mingle with Napalm.

    Sorien walked over to where Torkos was slumped against the wall, and offered Torkos a claw. Torkos was not so arrogant as to not take it.

    "Fancy seeing you here," Torkos said as his friend helped him up. "Got my back right?"

    "Damn straight, sir!" Sorien replied with a grin.

    Torkos clapped the Green on the shoulder, "You'll be one hell of a commander one day." The purple dragon then turned to Tairivius as his squad formed up.

    "Forgot something Tai?" He asked as he nodded pointedly down at the barricade.

    "What? This?" Tai kicked the slab over in distaste. "I thought it was just some rubbish." Some of the dragons giggled, but at a bark from Torkos they silenced themselves.

    "Sir, how much time do we have left?" Sorien asked. Torkos checked a watch strapped to his left arm.

    "We got three minutes."

    Sorien shook his head. "Then we best hope those downstairs have better luck than us."

    Draconis's EMP that effectively left almost all the tech in a five mile radius of him unusable... it only lasts so long. Within fifteen minutes of the device going off, most tech would reactivate once more. Those that didn't would have had their circuits fried. This left the Council very little time to find the stones or a command and control room of sort, and get out, or destroy any means of communication. The first seemed unlikely to happen within the next few minutes, as all the bedchambers and labs that had been ransacked were devoid of what they were seeking.

    "We had best get moving. Time's wasting! Form up and move out!" Torkos shouted to his squad and they continued their search through the building. Sorien waited as rearguard before Napalm just disappeared from sight, then moved to follow in the pierced night.

    Torkos turned the corner, attentive for anything. His ears strained to find panicked breathing, muffled shuffling, or the clack of a round being chambered. That is, separate the sounds of the enemy from the sounds of his squad. Tai was breathing hard and favoring his right side, while Syd's lightning kept snapping inside his maw.

    This hallway had less doors than the past hallways. One quick look inside and you could tell these were luxury suites. A massive, covered bed, fancy dresser, a wardrobe, nightstands, some even had their own personal bathrooms. Torkos was sure trying to figure out all the plumbing and piping for this place must have been a nightmare. He'd done it plenty of times.

    It was then multiple men burst out from inside doorways and from behind tables along the walls. The room went from being a multimillionaire's mansion, to a battlefield.

    Tables became cover, doorways were firing slits, and paintings and vases became shrapnel. As soon as the first opened fire, Torkos felt a bullet graze his muzzle, leaving a scratch down to the bone. He flinched, and the rest of the squad ducked for cover. Torkos was right behind them.

    He ended up in another suite with Rekalnus crouched at his side. Panting hard and feeling his burnt scales and skin pull tight, he tried to take stock of the firefight.

    "A hard fight, eh?" Rex asked.

    "A hard fight!"

    Zike came bursting through the doorway, blood leaking from holes in his chest. Torkos picked him for the squad because he was fast, and not so much thick scaled like most of Napalm. Seems like that was a blessing here.

    "You look like shit!" Torkos remarked. Zike grinned.

    "You should see the other guy!"

    "How bad is it out there?"

    Zike shook his head, making his mane flap. "Not good. There's no way we can make it through that bulletstorm without becoming religious."

    "Religious?" Rex asked.

    Torkos and Zike grinned to each other crookedly. "Hole-y," the Doc explained.

    "Right."

    Pockmarks stabbed out through the walls as bullets tore through the plaster, and the three dragons scrambled back from the danger. The volley plinked a lampstand and tore it to splinters on the far side of the room. Torkos lifted his arm to shield himself from flying wood.

    "Damn walls are thin," he cursed. Suddenly, his muzzle brightened as a realisation dawned on him. "The walls are thin. That's it!" Torkos leapt to his feet, the other two following suit.

    "What? Do you have a way out for us?" Zike asked. The sound of a lamp shattering out in the hallway filtered back in from the doorway.

    "Exactly! Follow me." Torkos bolted for the bathroom that led away from the door. His two squad members were on his heels. "The walls are thin, right. Probably because the builders needed to fit as many rooms in as possible, and since all the electrical and piping are in the floor, the walls are rather thin. And if that's the case..."

    "Then we make an exit," Rekalnus finished. He stepped back from the far wall, taking position.

    "Zike," Torkos ordered, "follow me, Rex. you're good to go."

    Rex nodded, then pushed off from the wall at a dead sprint. He leapt forward, ducking his head and plowed through the wall like it was made out of cardboard and paper instead of plaster. Torkos leapt into the hole after him, and found soldiers blinking in surprise at Rex's entry.

    Before the Sergeant could order a charge, Torkos bashed his faceplate in, then ducked low, swiping the legs out from under the nearest trooper. His armor clattered on the ground, and cracked as Torkos stomped on his chest. The others ended up being dispatched by Rex's and Zike's precise strikes.

    "Through the next wall!" Torkos shouted as more men tried to shove in through the door. "Into the next room!"

    He bolted from the room, heading for the bathroom while more men in riot gear tried to come to grips with him and his squad. Turning back for a second, he saw Rex heft a nightstand and hurl it at the door, striking soldiers down.

    Then, he was in the spacious bathroom. Not stopping in his mad charge, he hurled himself at the wall, feeling it cave in under his momentum. He hit harder than we would've thought, and ended up skidding across the floor of the next room with the other two behind him. The enemy was not far behind.

    "We can't keep running like this or we'll end up surrounded!" Rex shouted over the gunfire. Bullets whickered past them to bury into the walls as troops took snap-shots from the room the dragons just occupied.

    "Then we charge! Rex, you go left! Zike, you're right!" Torkos led them into the breech, bashing aside troops as they stumbled about. The clumsy riot gear only made things easier for the dragons to shove them aside. Torkos swung left and right, breaking faceplates and bones. He was a brawler to the core. No finesse could be seen his technique, even though he moved between the men like quicksilver. Every punch landed hard and landed home. With Rekalnus and Zike at his side, they clove a path through the British soldiers.

    "No sport in this fight!" Torkos shouted over the din. Multiple soldiers heard, and threw themselves at him in their anger. He only needed one punch and they all were thrown onto their backsides as his fist passed by.

    "Yes Sir!" shouted Sorien as he rushed through the suite door, leading his squad in a counter-charge that crashed into the humans. Men were sent flying, and guns went off as what had been a close-quarters battle became a slaughter. In the center of the chaos, Torkos furiously fought to reach the other squad leader, and the gab between the two leaders shrunk until they were face to face.

    "Your timing was perfect again Sorien!" Torkos said, stepping forward to knee a man in the groin, then again in the face to launch him into a group of his fellows that fell over like bowling pins.

    "I always got your back sir! Even when you're a fool!" Sorien replied, feeling the honor in fighting at his commanding officer's side. It made him fight twice as hard than before.

    "Damn I'm never going to be thankful enough. Why do you think you don't end up in a dire situation and I save you?" Torkos joked.

    "Sir, I'm not paid to think."

    "Ha! As good as a reply as any."

    Men fell beneath the dragons' combined wrath, and some ultimately died in the press. It was to be expected in the brutal close-quarters of the government owned mansion. Torkos was thankful for the fact that the same amount of deaths were by the soldiers friendly fire as the dragons' pummeling fists.

    Then, as suddenly as it started, the claustrophobic brawl ended. The last man crumpled in a heap on the stained floor with his nose leaking blood behind the visor. Torkos was panting, along with the rest of Sorien's squad and Rex and Zike. The Doc looked around, seeing only the broken bodies of humans. No dragons had fallen. He did discover that Zike managed to obtain a couple more bullet wounds to his thigh, though they weren't serious, and Rex had a ragged scratch on his leg where a collapsing soldier had dragged his combat down in a last ditch effort of defiance. Those of Sorien's squad had very few injuries, the worse being a broken arm thanks to a burly man and the stock of his gun, survived proudly by none other than Negadrake, or Nega to most.

    "Squad, sound off!" All of Sorien's called out an affirmative, and Torkos could see that Rex and Zike were there with them, but what of the rest of Napalm?

    "Where's the other three?" Torkos asked the other squad leader, stepping over bodies towards the door.

    "We saw them pinned down in a room down the hallway a bit. I think they figured things out before you, but kept going. I saw Syd leading them."

    Torkos bit back a curse. "Damn fool's going to get us all killed if he keeps this up." The leader of Napalm sighed. "Alright, form up and roll out. We're going hunting. He set off down the hall at a sprint, heading for the sound of gunfire and dreading what he would find. Fate didn't disappoint.

    At the fifth door, Torkos swung around the corner and tackled the first soldier he saw. At a quick glance, he took in exactly what had happened while he and the other two of Napalm had been busy.

    While Torkos, Rex, and Zike had been pinned in the suite's doorway, Syd had led Tai and Megs straight towards the heart of the human resistance, bashing through wall after wall in a glorious, but utterly futile charge. Judging from Tairivius's body on the floor, he had taken a shotgun blast to the side at point blank and was thrown back to shatter a wardrobe down the middle. Syd and Megs dispatched the shotgunner and his brethren, but with the lost momentum of the charge had become surrounded and cut-off. They had reaped a bloody harvest amongst the enemy, but it had been for naught. One man had bashed Megs in the face with his gun, and while she stumbled back he had brought the stock 'round again to thunder into her chin hard enough to crack her head back. A couple bullets while she was on the ground and she was well on her way to not getting up again. Syd had been forced to retreat at the loss of his two friends and ended up pinned in the bathroom, ducking cover as soldier's filled the room with hot lead. That was when Torkos arrived.

    His sudden arrival left the soldiers stunned, and Torkos wasn't going to give them a chance to regain their wits. Shoving himself up, he slugged a man in the chin hard enough to feel the man's jaw fracture. The next was left with shattered ribs, and the next with broken teeth, and the next lost a leg, and the next, and the next, and the next... Torkos couldn't be stopped, for as he cut down the opposition, none could touch him. Those that tried to bring their guns into play ended up with rifles being thrown at them like a throwing axe, tossing the troops to the floor.

    "Syd! You better be alive in there or I'm sending you to hell anyway!" Torkos shouted towards the bathroom. Sorien and his squad bludgeoned what resistance was left with scaled fist and swipes of their tails.

    The blue-grey dragon appeared in the doorway, anger written all over his face. Torkos wasn't sure if it was focused at him, or Syd himself. Torkos didn't care. All he cared about was getting those of the Council out alive while completing the mission.

    Syd didn't reply to Torkos's remark, stomping forwards towards the smaller dragon with a posture that looked like he would strike him down. Torkos held his ground in the face of Syd's wrath. Sorien and his squad saw the confrontation, and tensed. One move, one order, and they'd subdue their fellow dragon if they had too.

    "I know what happened," Syd hissed, his entire body showing he would like nothing more than to show Torkos how much pain he felt.

    "As do I, and I know the feeling of losing men." Torkos glare was hard, and unmoving. "But if you want to prove yourself a dragon, and not some whelp who hides in the corner, then fight! Fight damn you."

    "Always," Syd growled as he turned away.

    Zike and Rex approached the leader of Napalm, casting cursory glances at Syd. "What happened?" Zike asked.

    "Nothing important."

    Zike and Rex traded a glance, but said nothing. Instead, Zike said, "The radios are back now."

    "Good." Torkos picked up the offered radio. "Let's hope there's some good news for us." He browsed the channels, hoping to find a signal from his squad leaders. A voice filtered through the static, but was laced with too much white noise to make out. Torkos twisted the dial back and Draconis's voice filtered through. The dragons gathered to hear him better.