Free Eden's Children (Earth Exiles Book 2) by Mark Harritt Page A

side.  Take your team and go to the other side.”  Mike grabbed Ken and pulled him forward to point at the dying dragon, “We knocked that one out by shooting at the joint on the forearm.  Try to cripple them before they get up to the top.”
    “Roger Mike, we’ll try to take them out.”
    Ken switched back to his team channel and the sec team followed him to the other side of the wall.
    Another male dragon was feeling its way onto the pile of tree trunks.  The trunks didn’t slip, so it levered itself up and started climbing.  The rail guns shifted and started pounding the new attacker.  The mass of trees didn’t shift as much with the new dragon.  The bulk of the dead dragon actually stabilized the tree trunks.  Another, smaller dragon, probably one of the females, moved onto the trees behind the larger male dragon.  She slipped to the left, closer to Mike and his team.
    “Ken, you take the bigger male on the right, we’ll take the smaller female on the left.”
    “Roger Mike.”
    Jennifer called him, “Mike, we’re going to concentrate on the one in front.”
    “Good call Jen, closest threat first.”
    “What do you want to shoot at, Mike?” Everett asked.
    “What do you think, Tom?” Mike asked.
    “Front shoulder, bigger target, could shatter bone.  If we miss, the bullet might hit something vital,” Tom answered
    “You heard Tom, aim for the shoulder.”
    They unloaded on the smaller dragon.  She roared as the first bullets slammed into her.  She looked around to see where her attackers were.  She looked in the direction where she felt the pain, and saw the muzzle flashes from the rifles.  She opened her maw and thundered a challenge at Mike and his team.  She started crawling in their direction.  She reached the carcass of the first dragon and dug her claws into the quivering flesh, gaining traction in her rush to get to her tormentors.
    “Mike, she’s not stopping!” Rob yelled.
    Mike called Jennifer, “Jen, we need a little help over here.”
    “Keisha, Michelle, hit the small one on the left.”
    The dragon hesitated as a stream of hot iron pellets ripped into her hide.  She lifted her chest up and screamed her defiance, the tentacles imprinting a nightmare image on Mike’s mind.  She was only fifty feet away.  Suddenly, Mike had an idea.
    “Rob, Everett, Grenades!  Throw for the mouth!”
    Mike dropped his rifle and it bounced against his body armor as he pulled a fragmentation grenade out.  Mike pulled the pin and pointed his left arm up at a thirty degree tilt in the classic pose of a solider throwing a grenade.  The arm pulled back as he pitched the grenade forward.”
    Three voices yelled, “Grenade!”
    The spoons of the grenades popped off in the air and the ignitors lit the fuses.  Two of the grenades landed in the mouth and the third bounced off the top of the dragon’s head.  The dragon closed its mouth as it felt the grenades hit the front of its throat.  The grenade that bounced off the head exploded first, and then the two in the mouth.  The dragons face blossomed and distorted as the explosion shattered bone and flesh, blood fountaining from the explosions.  The jaw hung by threads of muscle and sinew.  One of the dragon’s eyes was hanging from a shattered eye socket.  The dragon was dead on its feet.  The dragon slowly toppled over, the limp body sliding back down the carcass of the dead dragon it was standing on.  The carcass started tumbling as it picked up speed and shattered a large branch.
    On the other side, the larger dragon had one paw up on the edge of the wall.  Two of the Mechs were pounding it with edged gauntlets and pulse lasers as the third one emulated Mike’s tactics and was pouring pellets into the leg of the dragon.  On the other side, Ken’s team was doing the same thing to the other leg.  Sheets of blood were streaming off the dragon.  The two Mechs that supported Mike’s team shifted fire, adding their weapons to