'There is no room for two dragons in one pond.'

"Okay, prepare for descent protocol. I want everyone strapped in and ready in two minutes. This is being timed for eval, Blossoms."

Captain Zheng and first lieutenant Dong looked at each other and smiled, 'Blossoms' was the nom de guerre of contact troops who were making their first Terra run. They could smell how nervous the girls were and despite their training, little things betrayed their inexperience. One was the rechecking three or four times of fastenings and personal gear. The other was the rhythm of their voices; broken and more abrupt. They were in the top of their class back on Luna and conditioned for combat but contact missions always yielded casualties.

15% was nicknamed "Vacation"

30% was average.

This was probably going to be a 45-55% one.

Dong Shen Yin was pretty accurate with her predictions.

"Corporal Xian check that coolant cycle on the front boosters. We're coming in a little faster than we should," Zheng ordered.

"Hai," Corporal Xian acknowledged, with a nervous edge to her voice.

The shuttle began to slow a bit and soon the inner atmosphere became visible. Atmospheric sunlight, known only to the new women in an artificial form, filled the inside compartment. Lieutenant Dong looked at the expressions of her unit to this new experience. There was excitement and wonderment mixed with the ever ubiquitous fear. She remembered her first run. That had been a '70%'.

"Captain, radar detects..uh.." Corporal Ma announced nervously.

"Well?" Zheng asked with impatience.

Corporal Ma turned to her colleagues with a look of concern. "Radar detects, uh, several objects. Heading in our direction."

"Objects?" Captain Zheng asked rhetorically.

She opened the front monitor for a visual of her own. It would be a hell-of-a-lot faster than the new girl.

It was Lieutenant Dong who noticed the concerned look in her Commander’s eye. "Captain ?"

"What in the nine hells? Take a look at this, Scholar."

Lieutenant Dong looked on the monitor.

"Any idea ?" Zheng asked her more experienced friend.

Dong Shen Yin's initial silence was an answer all in itself. "Not a clue."

Five pulsating 'things' were heading in their direction, already visual at seven miles.

"Magnify, I want to see what the hell they are." The navigator complied and the eyes of every woman on board widened.

"Are those? Are those Leviathans?" One of the blossoms piped from the back.

Captain Zheng's mouth formed a nearly straight line. "Not any one that we have seen before. They're not supposed to be able to fly for one thing."

The beings in question resembled strange saucer like shapes with both top and bottom narrowing to a point, almost as if seeing a mountain and its reflection on the water line merging together. There seemed to be no obvious form of propulsion although pulsating bladders that grew like vegetation from the midline of the creatures seemed perhaps the most likely method. Various spheres seemed embedded; obviously the optic sensors. A dozen or so flailing tentacles grew on either side with large crustacean like claws at their ends. They snapped almost rhythmically as if in anticipation of the seizing of prey, which in fact they were.

"They're moving at 1000km/hr. Contact in five minutes."

Lieutenan Dong saw that blossom communications officer Corporal Ma was scared. The inflection in her voice was a dead giveaway to her after so many missions. While her commander went over maneuvers to the crew, Dong Shen Yin could only marvel at the Leviathan adaptation.

As per Zheng's instructions, the shuttle took evasive maneuver but only for the purpose of a skirmish. How fitting that the superior sex would be the first to test an obvious Leviathan evolutionary adaptation.

Dong Shen Yin smiled at the thought of their male counterparts missing the action. With a foe that defied gravity like their battle armors.The Leviathans moved slow but seemed to have a linked cohesion, as if they shared the same mind. Such behavior was at times seen with the ocean Leviathans when dealing with the occasional Terran ship that was foolish enough to trespass on their domain. These were taking on an almost vertical spiraling formation to try and cut off the angles of evasion the shuttle was taking. The long tentacles seemed to extend and shoot out to try and snatch their prey.

"That arc is not tight enough! Lieutenant Tung, compensate!" Captain Zheng barked.

"Hai!" Lieutenant Tung responded with no emotion.

She had been conditioned to be a combat pilot after an intense selection process. Yet she was still making mistakes, little ones but mistakes all the same. The conditioning was supposed to be getting better but those 'In the Rear Scholars' called the Department of Conditioning/Neural Skills Training always made the ancient mistake.

The words of an old grizzled male Celestial vet came back to Dong Shen Yin time and time again.

"Kerrangg."

One of the claws had struck the shuttles right wing with a failed grab. As it was, its serrated claws ripped a jagged furrow into the titanium hull, like it was paper.

"Mao!!!" Private Zhuo shouted with obvious terror.

Lieutenant Dong chuckled amusedly.

Why Dong Shen Yin thought of such things during battle was a mystery even to her. Death was never the first or even second thing on her mind. The shuttle was now flying low over land with the Leviathans—who merely brushed aside the trees they hoped to use as cover like so many sticks—in close pursuit, like dust motes drawn to a filter.

"Okay, let's test out some ordinance shall we, ladies?"

Captain Zheng was now ready to fight.

"Corporal Ma, shooting meteors."

"Hai."

Missile launchers emerged from the rear and top of the shuttle.

"Targets engaged; the first three."

The shuttle shuddered as the shooting meteors were launched. Ten rockets disintegrated just before contact, igniting 400 explosive mines in a cluster. The first Leviathan was almost disintegrated and had taken the bulk of the payload. Of the surviving two one was damaged but continued pursuit while the other fell to earth shooting out torrents of green and gray liquid.

"Not good enough," said Captain Zheng, unimpressed with the Meteors.

Originally developed for the occasional Terran aircraft that liked to sneak up on Luna Shuttles, for Leviathans it seemed to have mixed results.

"Okay let’s try some actual anti-Leviathan weapons. Lieutenant Dong, the Cutters.”

The Blossoms all looked upon the quiet crew member who seemed to stand aloofly apart from them, as if thinking, ‘This bookworm was combat trained?’

"Cutters engaged, let’s finish off the downed one, and then her bitch," Dong Shen Yin added after engaging the release button.

"How do you know they are female?" Corporal Pui, another blossom, asked earnestly.

"Oh shut up!" Ensign Fan snapped from behind her.

Bay doors on the bottom hull opened and released what appeared to be small cone shaped devices. They were drones that looked smooth with no discernible features or machining. Their transformation was startling as they reacted to the atmosphere and then seemed to come apart like shattered eggshells. What they gave birth to where sharp spiked and bladed monstrosities, inorganic rather than organic like the intended targets. The surviving two Leviathans were ripped to shreds within seconds by the hornet like projectiles. Leviathans had slain many Han soldiers in previous contacts, rather horribly. The anti-Leviathan methods reflected more than function and efficiency. Vengeance was part of the design.

The satisfaction enjoyed by the shuttle crew quickly evaporated as they felt the hull shudder and buckle.

"Kerrangg!"

Signal klaxons went off and holes opened through the steel frame as clawed tentacles ripped through them like paper. The remaining two Leviathans had effectively sandwiched the shuttle between their massive bodies. This began to slow down the shuttle to dangerous levels but the true attack was about to begin.

"Infiltration! Squad tactics! Formation!" Captain Zheng shouted over the cacophony.

Unbuckling her restraint and drawing her 'moon' blade simultaneously, the others followed but for one. Private Chan panicked as she was closest to the Leviathan appendages which made a slobbering and ominous sound, like a cricket chirping.

She drew her sidearm and took off the safety which took two hands. She had not unbuckled herself. Within four seconds the clawed tentacles were ripping in and out of her body. "Aiiieeeeeeeeeeeee."

Her screams of terror quickly became screams of agony and then a gurgling as her vital organs were both ripped to shreds from within and bathed in acid like venom. Her still strapped in form shuddering as she was held in place.

The two Blossoms next to her began to panic, with Corporal Xian screaming and Private Gao seemingly frozen.

"Mao be damned!" cursed Captain Zheng

Having two more Blossoms killed might psychologically incapacitate most of the others. Captain Zheng leaped over the console and faced the quivering and retracting claw appendage which turned to face her despite still being partly enmeshed in Private Chan’s now limp and shredded body.

She ducked and slipped the tentacle thrust while simultaneously thrusting her moon blade edge up, dissecting the leviathan tentacle nearly in half. That was a specific sword technique designed for Leviathan tentacle attacks and just one of eighteen. This seemed to rouse the two blossoms, who drew their blades and took formation like the others.

Lieutenant Dong produced a rod like object from her belt and pressed the bottom of it. Long filament like threads shot out of the top and then formed an eight foot lance/staff combination; tipped with a crescent like pincer and spear head. Three of the other blossoms followed suit. Five more clawed tentacles ripped through the hull from top and below. The cricket like sounds they emanated made quite an unnerving chorus.

"Protect Lieutenant Tung, while she tries to shake these devils off us!" Captain Zheng barked.

"Hai!” The Celestial sisters shouted in unison, and took up their collective cry, "For the Middle Empire!" For the Han!"

Lieutenant Tung began to sweat. All their lives were in her skilled yet inexperienced hands.

To be continued inThrough the Dragon Gate.