The Radiant Dragon

"Ghost ships are not uncommon. Perhaps you should tell me why this particular one was brought to my attention," she suggested.

Vallus hesitated, and the admiral did not miss the foreboding in the wizard's eyes. "The abandoned ship was an armada. It was adrift in Winterspace," he said.

The ancient admiral's face turned gray at this news, but her disciplined features showed no other sign of her distress. "I see." She nodded curtly. "Very well, you may bring the patrol ship captain to me now."

Vallus Leafbower bowed and left the small chamber. Alone, the grand admiral slumped low in her chair and passed one hand wearily over her eyes. The power and authority of her position fell from her, and for a moment she was no longer the grand admiral, the representative and embodiment of all elves; she was only a frail and heartsick elven woman, exhausted by the weight of centuries and the responsibility of directing an escalating war.

She dragged herself from her chair and began to pace, relying on the motion of her legs to nudge her numbed mind into action. There was time to collect her thoughts, for it could be a good while before Vallus returned with the rescued captain.

Lionheart was a vast place. The base under her command was actually a fleet of ships co

In the first Unhuman War, the goblinkin had been unorganized and undisciplined. Unfortunately, her people's disdain for all goblin races had left them ill prepared for the scro. Descendants of orcs, the highly evolved, fiercely militaristic scro were a force to fear both in wildspace and on world-to-world combat. Already the scro had overcome and destroyed whole elven worlds. Now, as if the elves hadn't problems enough, it seemed that the mighty armadas were somehow vulnerable.

A small knock on her office door interrupted the admiral's troubled thoughts. Vallus Leafbower had returned, and with him was a young male elf clearly long past exhaustion.

"Captain Sirian Windharp reporting, Admiral," Vallus said gently, unobtrusively supporting the haggard elf.

The admiral motioned the captain to a chair. "Please have a seat, Captain Windharp," she said kindly. "We will try to keep this interview as brief as possible, so that you may be free to rest and recover from your ordeal."

Sirian Windharp sank gratefully into the offered chair, and the admiral took the seat behind her desk and folded her hands on the polished expanse of blue marble. "I understand that you have something important to tell us. Please start at the begi

The elf nodded. "I am captain of the Starfoam, a dolphin patrol vessel recently assigned to duty in Winterspace. As we approached our post, we came across an abandoned armada-"

"Where, precisely?"

The captain blinked, startled by the interruption. The elven custom of long, uninterrupted narrative was deeply entrenched, even in situations of greatest import. "It was adrift in ^interspace, about two days' travel from the planet Radole. I'm afraid the exact coordinates were lost with our navigator."

"The armada was old? Derelict?" she demanded.

"No. It was of recent metamorphosis."

Silver eyebrows flew upward. "You're quite sure of that?"

"Oh, yes," Sirian said with quiet certainty. "The armada's wings were patterned in purple and yellow, marking it as a newly developed strain. I believe that only one or two generations of this particular ship have been grown."

The admiral nodded slowly. "That is so. Go on."

"There was no sign of life on board, and the armada's air was fouled. The Starfoam could not land on the ship, but we sent down a boarding party." A haunted look filled the elven captain's eyes. "Not one member returned."

"It is a great loss," the admiral said gently. "We will speak of it again when you are well. For now, please describe the damage done to the armada."

The elf s gaze turned inward as he tried to recall the details. "The ship was virtually unscathed," he said slowly. "The only mark on it was a few broken boards on the top hull, as if the armada had been bombarded. The damage wasn't severe enough to explain why the armada was deserted, though."

"Did you attempt to destroy the ship?" She had to ask; policy decreed that any adrift elven vessel was to be reclaimed or a

"Yes, we tried." The elven captain was silent for a long moment. The loss of his crew showed in his eyes like a physical pain. "I sent down two more parties, with the same result. The ship seemed to swallow them whole. In order to report back, I kept only the barest minimum crew needed for the return trip."

"But you left the armada in a spaceworthy condition," the admiral stated, in the ma

"What else could I have done?" Sirian Windharp cried with a sudden burst of emotion. "I could hardly tow an armada back to Lionheart behind the Starfoam!" As soon as the words were out, the captain blenched, horrified by his own grievous breach of protocol. The grand admiral, however, appeared not to notice.

"It seems incredible that an enemy capable of overcoming the armada would resist claiming it," she mused aloud. A long silence filled the chamber. Dread hung in the air as the three elves contemplated an unknown force that could render the most powerful vessel in the elven fleet a lifeless hull.

Finally the admiral looked over at the captain. "Thank you for your report, Sirian Windharp. You did well in returning to Lionheart with this news. Be assured that we will do all we can to find and reclaim the armada."

The elven captain rose, but, despite the obvious dismissal, he hesitated. "With your permission, I would like to be among the searchers."

"If you remember your history lessons, you realize that this matter is of grave importance," she said. "The fleet must leave at once. Can you be ready?"

"Yes," he said simply.

The grand admiral held his gaze with eyes that saw and measured. Finally she gave a crisp nod and clapped her hands twice. A uniformed aide appeared at her door. "Take Captain Windharp to the supply master," she directed. "His ship, the Starfoam, is to be prepared for flight, provisioned, and crewed. Give the captain whatever he requests." She turned to Sirian Windharp, and a rare smile brightened her face. "Go, then, Captain, and may you find sweet water and light laughter."

The traditional elven farewell, seemingly incongruous in such grim circumstances, was an affirmation of the unquenchable elven spirit and a personal tribute to Sirian Windharp. The elven captain bowed deeply, then followed the aide from the chamber.

The admiral's smile faded abruptly, and her eyes drifted shut. After a moment she shook off her dark introspection and turned to Vallus Leafbower. "We need the ultimate helm," she stated. As legend had it, an ultimate helm was the only device that could be used to control the mighty ship Spelljammer. Such helms were said to be ordinary artifacts imbued with special powers by the great ship itself, and they were exceedingly rare.

"An attempt was made to recover the Cloak of the First Pilot, as Captain Kilian reported," Vallus reminded, referring to elven admiral Cirathom's effort to take Teldin Moore's cloak. "It was not an honorable attempt."