Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

“They’ll listen to their inner voice only,” Babak retorted, “and this voice will tell them to send you to… well… to where you were heading in the first place.”

“Am I a prince or not a prince?” Artem was indignant.

“I mean, no one cares,” Babak clarified. “And as long as the mayor refuses to use his brain, which is smooth and untouched, no one will lift a finger.”

“Who’s the mayor here?” Yaroslav was trying to recall the right face. “I don’t remember him.”

“He went to the capital on some business. He wanted to see the crowned people.”

“Right. Then we’ll do it this way. Babak, you take Alena and Ivan and ride to the capital to warn the king about the vampires.”

Artem removed the medallion from his neck.

“Show it to the guards. They’ll let you in without further questions. And we will save Maria. Yeah, and tell them to make as many arrows as possible. I think we’ll be able to handle them that way.”

“Alena, how’s the miller?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Wake him up and tell him we’re going. There’s no time to lose.”

Alena went into the house.

“You also need to make a wooden weapon,” Babak reminded them. “Make yourself a spear or something.”

“We’ll do it right now,” the princes said.

Yaroslav looked at his brother and muttered, “I wish I had a chance to test the arrows on them.”

“You’ve killed the bats!” Artem pointed out.

“They didn’t burn. The vampires do.”

“That’s it?” Artem asked, surprised. “It’s not really a problem. I wish I could make a sharp wooden sword!”

“Nonsense,” Yaroslav said. “We’ll manage.”

That same morning, the fox began to carry out her ingenious plan.

The wolf didn’t find the requested chickens, grew furious, swore, and went in search of the wily fox that had dared to disobey him so recklessly. And soon, he found what he was looking for. A gutted chicken was lying on the ground, and a sparrow was sitting on top of it.

“Shoo, you pot-bellied thing!” the wolf growled.

In response, the sparrow made a lazy motion with his wing, showing the wolf what he could do with himself. The wolf was unable to believe his eyes. He growled so loudly that the Sparrow was simply blown away. But the Bully didn’t give up. He came back and repeated the motion with his wing. Enraged, the wolf rushed at the crazy sparrow to crush him with one blow of his paw. However, the sparrow fluttered and flew up, trying not to get ahead of a pissed-off wolf.

“Where do you think you’re going?!” the wolf growled. “Stop! “

“Run, predator, run!” the sparrow giggled. “Don’t give up!”

The wolf was shaking with rage, and only the appearance of the fox on the trail stopped him from exploding. The wolf stopped and snarled, but said nothing. Suddenly, there was an incredibly loud uproar, and a cloud of sparrows attacked the wolf.

A few minutes before the meeting between the fox and the wolf, the captain of the ship woke up because the on-board computer was vibrating with a melodic trill. The ship was almost restored. The captain opened his eyes and jumped up. He hit his head against the shelf but still got into the chair and gave the ship a command to check the state of equipment. Then he gave a short cry of pain and checked if he had cut the skin on the back of his head.

No. A second piece of good news.

On the holographic screen, the messages about the devices’ current performance appeared. Most of them had already recovered. Now, he just had to restart the program, and in a few minutes, according to the clock, the ship would be fully prepared to perform its basic functions. Most of them recovered almost completely.

“Great news!” the captain exclaimed, turning on the stopwatch and entering the command into the computer. He wanted it to broadcast the time remaining until the ship was restored.

“Fifteen minutes, ten seconds,” the low and unclear voice muttered. Before, it had belonged to a generic female, but the block of voice modulation was restored last. The captain shivered. The voice sounded unusually muffled, and the joyful news were shared with an intonation that seemed downright ominous.

The captain tried to calm his heart and turned on the second monitor to admire the marvelous local scenery. From what he saw, his heart jerked even harder. There was a suspicious level of activity of some flying life forms around the ship. The sparrows, who had seemingly flown out of nowhere, settled on the neighboring trees in such huge numbers that the branches drooped under their weight. In the next moment, the Fox came, put the gutted chicken about fifty meters from the ship, and stared at the latter in a way that made the captain break out in a cold sweat. He felt that the time, which was rapidly fleeing, suddenly slowed down, and even the automatic voice continued the countdown after a very long pause.

“Sssseevveen miiinuuttees, foooortyyy seeecccooonndds!” the computer voice drawled unbearably slowly.

The captain nervously tapped his fingers against the table and watched the developments around his ship. The fox hid behind a tree, peeking from behind it every couple minutes to glance at the bait up until the sparrow landed on it and the wolf appeared.

There were only ten seconds left before the ship was restored, and the captain was really hoping that nothing unimaginable would happen.

It did.

A sparrow flew under the vehicle, followed by the wolf. The fox left her hiding place and blocked the way, so the wolf stopped. A flock of sparrows soared into the air and went to ram the ship. The frightened captain grabbed the wheel, simultaneously trying to turn on the takeoff system. The ship tilted, the captain pulled the lever to activate the manual control mode and pushed the button of anti-gravitation system with all his might. No results. The computer said three seconds were left when the ship lost its balance and began to fall down.

The wolf was ready to grab the fox by the throat but with a distant part of his furious mind, he heard a suspicious noise above. He looked up involuntarily and stared. Something was falling directly on him, something with a huge hole in the center. At the same moment, he heard a joyous cry of the fox and realized that she had outsmarted him.

“Zero!” the computer announced. Thirty-nine inches left to the ground. The instruments were restored, anti-grav mode turned on, and the ship froze, slightly brushing against the wolf’s ears.

‘Still alive,’ the wolf thought, looking at a fox that wasn’t laughing any longer . ‘Now I’ll show you what attacking me results in!’

The captain yanked the seat belts, which had jumped out from the recesses in the chair at a supersonic speed, and gave the command for an emergency take-off.

The wolf bared his teeth and…

The ship took off, throwing out a powerful jet of plasma from its center. The sparrows and the fox rushed away from the noise, smoke, and sizzling flames.

The wolf was gone.

The Bully was flying away from the scene when a terrible roar began to chase him. The trees swayed, rustling in the awakened wind. The Bully suddenly felt like his fellow sparrows had caught up with him, so he chirped in fright and flew north, away from these places. It was better to lay low until the sparrows forgot about his skull joke.

The fox ran, or rather, flew away by a decent distance, swept away by a hot wave. Everything became clear. It was time to run as far as possible because the crow would not rest until she got revenge for the eaten cheese. She’d managed to get rid of one wolf, but how many more the angry crow would be able to persuade? The nut flew off… an odd nut, to tell the truth, and no similar ones seemed to be in the vicinity. She had nothing to beat the wolves with. And the sparrows wouldn’t agree to help again. There was no reason for it. She’d given them the skull and told them about the Bully’s hiding place. She could only run to the north. No one would look for her there.