“Because your whole damned base is lit up like a Yule Tree,” Edmund sighed. “Ever heard the term ‘blackout’?” he asked, then shook his head at the sign of bewilderment on their faces. “Lord, give me strength.”
“General, what we need are some positive thoughts right now, thank you,” the admiral replied, coldly. “Not defeatism.”
“Who said anything about defeatism?” Edmund asked. “We’re not defeated, but we damned well are stung. Stung hard. Not this, the shipyards and the fleet.”
The admiral had opened his mouth to reply when one of the bucket brigade shouted: “Dragon!”
The line scattered as the few crossbow-armed marines looked up into the night sky, trying to get a glimpse of the enemy.
Edmund looked up and sighed, then looked around at the tense marines.
“Belay that!” he yelled. “That one is ours.”
The great dragon descended on the quad in front of the burning headquarters, coming in over the fire so that her wings sucked the flames into swirls and caused them to leap higher.
“God damnit!” the admiral swore. “You just made our job harder.”
“Sorry,” the dragon hissed, swinging her head around to look at the admiral. “My mistake.”
“Hey, Joanna,” Edmund said.
“Eddie!” the dragon shouted, delightedly. “I got two of the bastards. Want I should go look for the ship?”
“No,” Edmund said, just as Draskovich said: “Yes!”
“I didn’t ask you,” the dragon said to the admiral.
“No,” Edmund repeated. “They would have launched from maximum range. Probably each of the dragons was only carrying one, maybe two, bombs. You’d have to do a ground take-off. And they would have hightailed it as soon as the wyverns returned. I doubt you’d find them, anyway. Especially at night.”
“Commander Gramlich,” the admiral grated. “I order you to go find and destroy that carrier.”
“You’re in breach of contract,” Joanna said, easily. “I don’t have to listen to you.”
“That is a violation of military regulations,” the admiral said. “And I have no choice but to place you under arrest.”
“You and what army?” Joanna laughed. The great dragon was nearly sixty meters from nose to tail-tip and both ends, and the middle, were equipped for fighting.
“Drask, give it up,” Edmund sighed. “You’re just making a fool of yourself. What’s the breach?”
“Failure to provide adequate support,” Joanna replied. “Failure to provide specified pay and allowances. And I’m overdue for a vacation.”
“You had a vacation in the Isles last year.” Edmund grinned.
“Fisk you, General, sir,” the dragon said, then laughed. The “vacation” had involved, among other things, being dragged nearly to her death by a kraken. On the other hand, the kraken had lost.
“Commander Gramlich,” the admiral said, furious at being ignored. “For the last time, I order you…”
He paused as an officer approached with two pieces of paper in his hand. He looked at the general and the admiral and then handed one to the admiral and one to Talbot. The admiral took one look at the piece of paper, reading it by the light of his burning headquarters, crumpled the paper up and dropped it to the ground. Then he walked away into the night.
“Sir?” General Kabadda called after him.
“Stay,” the admiral said. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”
Talbot glanced at the paper and then looked at Kabadda.
“This reads, and I quote; ‘General Wallace Draskovich relieved North Atlantis Command, effective immediately, Admiral Edmund Talbot appointed command vice General Draskovich. Signature, Michael Spehar, Minister of War.’ ” He handed the sheet of paper to Kabadda, who took it as if it were incendiary as the headquarters. “Do you acknowledge this assumption of command?”
The brigadier looked at it as if he couldn’t read, then read it and read it again.
“I do so acknowledge your assumption of command…” he said, gritting his teeth. “Admiral.”
“Kabadda, I’ll tell you something,” Edmund said, softly. “I’m about a centimeter away from having you follow the admiral. Do you want to do that?”
“No,” Kabadda said, after a long pause.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Edmund went on. “The position of chief of staff is thankless, because everything he does right the boss gets credit for. And he gets his ass chewed for anything he does wrong. But he’s the guy that makes the weapon, the commander just wields it. Frankly, with tweaking, this base and the fleet are pretty good weapons. Pretty good. Because the damned logistics are on your shoulders, from that point of view, not the admiral’s. That means that not properly serving the dragons was your fault. But if you think you can get your job done the rest of the way, then I’m going to give you a pass. But from my POV, you’ve already had your strikes. One more and you’re following the admiral. Clear?”
“Clear, sir,” the general said.
“Okay, stop the idiotic bucket chain. That place was burning to the ground before the last wyvern flew over and we’re just getting more people burned trying to put it out. Get the wounded tended to, get a headcount, get somebody besides you doing all this and meet me at the docks.”
“The docks, General?” the chief of staff asked.
“The docks,” Edmund replied. “I’m gonna go talk to the mer. Joanna, Destrang, Van Krief, you’re on me.”
Chapter Eight
“Hey, son,” Edmund said as he walked out onto the mer pier. He looked at the messenger and motioned. “Mind if I borrow that chair?”
“Who are you?” the messenger asked.
Edmund realized that with his tunic off, he was just a slightly sooty guy in a T-shirt.
“I’m Admiral Edmund Talbot, your new commander,” he said, mildly. “Now would you mind getting out of the chair?”
The seaman looked at the two ensigns and the dragon following the person, who did have the trousers of an officer, and after a moment’s shock, shot out of the chair as if it were electric.
“Thank you,” Edmund said, picking it up and taking it over to the side of the pier.
The pier was raised well above the height of the water but there was a floating dock at water-level. Herzer was stomach down, talking to the mer in the water in low tones, with a delphino drifting on the surface, watching.
“Herzer,” Edmund said, “stand up.”
Herzer rolled over and to his feet, looking up at the general.
“Catch,” Edmund said, tossing the chair down to the captain.
He then walked down the slippery stairs to the platform, took the chair away from Herzer and carried it to the side of the floating dock.
“Hi,” Edmund said to the mer. “How’s it going?”
“You’re Talbot,” the mer said, surprised.
“That’s me, should I remember you?” Edmund asked. “I don’t, sorry.”
“No, sir, we’ve never met,” the mer replied. “Asfaw, sir, communications lieutenant. I wasn’t in the Bimi pod when you were there, sir. I joined later.”
“Oh, good, I feel better.” Edmund chuckled. “There were so many mer on the Retreat I never could keep most of them straight.”
“Talbot!” the delphino squealed. “Talbot General.”
“Yes, and you are?”
“T-t-tilly!” the delphino answered. Communicating clearly with a blow-hole was not the easiest thing in the world. It often made the delphinos sound stupid, but they were of normal human intelligence and had abilities in the water even the mer could not touch.
“Good evening, Mr. Tilly,” Edmund said.
“Not good!” Tilly replied. “Fire!”