Dragons Dawn

* * * * *

If Dieter and Boris were correct, the oncoming Fall would give the Kahrain peninsula a near miss, begi

Acting Commander Kenjo Fusaiyuki assembled his squadrons at the required point. Though Thread drowned in the sea, his teams would at least have some practice throwing flame at the “real thing.”

“Practice” was not the appropriate term for the chaos that resulted. Kenjo was reduced to snarling peremptory orders over the comm unit as the inept but eager sled pilots plummeted through the skies after Thread, frequently favoring one another with a glancing touch of thrown HNO3.

Fighting Thread required entirely different techniques from hunting wherry or scoring a hit on a large flying machine driven by a reasonably intelligent enemy. Thread was mindless. It just fell – in a slanting southwesterly direction, occasionally buffeted into tangles by gusting winds. It was the inexorability of that insensate fall that infuriated, defeated, depressed, and frustrated. No matter how much was seared to ash in the sky, more followed relentlessly. Nervous pilots swooped, veered, and dove. Unskilled gu

In the first half hour of the fall, seven sleds were involved in minor collisions, three badly damaged and two with cracked siliplex canopies which made them unairworthy. Even Kenjo’s sled bore score marks. Four broken arms, six broken or sprained hands, three cracked collarbones, and a broken leg put fourteen gu

A hasty conference between the squadron leaders was called on a secured cha

Once the sleds began to maintain their distances, midair collisions and scorchings were immediately reduced. Kenjo led the most capable fliers at ground level to catch as much missed Thread as possible and to inform the surface crews where tangles got through. Paul Benden coordinated the movements of the fast ground-skimmers, which carried teams with small portable flamers. Cha

By mid-Fall, Paul knew that his ground-support teams were too thinly spread to be truly effective, even though there were, fortunately, substantial stretches where thread landed on stony or poor soil and shriveled and died quickly. Toward the end, when weary pilots were ru

The abrupt end of the Fall, on the verge of Maori Lake and the main buildings of Mexico, came as a distinct shock to those who had been concentrating so hard on destroying Thread. Squadron leaders ordered their fighters to land on the lakeside while they had a chance to confer with the ground-crew marshals. Those at Mexico who had not been in ground defense provided hot soup and klah, fresh bread and fruit, and had prepared an infirmary in one of the houses. Tarvi and the Karachi team had managed to complete metal roofing just before the Fall reached the area. Then Joel Lilienkamp’s supply barge arrived with fresh power packs and HNO3 cylinders.

The day was not over yet. Pilots cruised slowly back over the Fall corridor, checking for any “live” Thread. Paul drove himself and his sweat-smeared, soot-covered, weary teams back toward Malay Stake and the coast to try to spot signs of a secondary infestation where no shell or dissolving matter was visible. Only two such points were discovered and, on Paul’s order, the ground was saturated with contained blasts of HNO3.

One of the ground crew on that detail told the admiral that he thought that was a waste of fuel. “The dragonets weren’t at all concerned, Admiral. They are when there’s Thread.”

“We take no chances at this stage,” Paul replied, a slight smile removing any hint of rebuke. He did not look upon the fiery bath as an overkill. The dragonets were palpably alerted by Thread, but were obviously unaware of the presence of the second, and possibly more fearful, stage of its life cycle.

However, Paul Benden’s respect for the dragonets was increased by their diligent searching out of newly fallen Thread. Several times during the Fall, he spotted the fair of dragonets fighting alongside Sean Co

On almost too many occasions, Paul saw the little creatures suddenly disappearing just when one seemed certain to be seared by the fiery breath of another. He found himself wishing that sleds had that sort of ability, or even more agility. Sleds were not the most efficient fighter craft. He recalled his admiration of the dragonets during the wherry attack. From accounts of their now legendary “umbrella” defense of Landing from the First Fall, he knew that hundreds of wild ones had assisted their domesticated kin. They could be splendid reinforcements. Paul wondered what the chances were to mobilize all the dragonets to be trained by Co

The present Fall had left denuded patches on the surface, but despite all initial bungling and the inexperience of sled and ground crews, the devastation was not as widespread as in the first horrific Fall.

Most of the exhausted fighters chose to remain the night at Malay Stake. Pierre de Courci took it upon himself to act as chef, and his team had prepared baked fish and tubers in great pits on the beach. Weary men, women, and youngsters sat around the reassuring bonfires, too spent to talk, glad enough just to have survived the rigors of the day.

Sean and Sorka opened an emergency clinic on the Malay beach to tend the wounded fire-dragonets, slathering numbweed on Thread scored wings and seared hide.

“D’you think that once Sira stops crying, my bronze and brown will come back?” Tarrie Chernoff asked. She was dirty with black grease and vegetation-green stains, her wher-hide jerkin showing numerous char spots, new and old, but like all devoted fire-dragonet owners she was caring for her creature before seeing to her own relief.

Sean shrugged noncommittally, but Sorka laid a reassuring hand on Tarrie’s arm. “They usually do. They get pretty upset when one of their own fair’s hurt, especially a queen. You get a good night’s sleep and see what the morning brings.”

“Why’d you give her false comfort like that, Sorka?” Sean asked in a low voice when Tarrie had trudged back to the bonfires, her comforted queen cradled in the crook of her arm. “You know bloody well by now that if it’s hurt badly enough, a fire-lizard doesn’t come back.” Scan was grim. He and Sorka had been lucky with their fair so far, but then, he had seen to it that their dragonets had the discipline to survive.