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.
“She needs a good night’s sleep without worrying herself sick. And a lot do come back.”
Sorka gave a weary sigh as she closed the medicine case. She arched her back against tired back muscles. “Give me a rub, would you Sean? My right shoulder.” She turned her back to him and sighed in relief as his strong fingers kneaded the strain away.
Sean’s hands felt marvelous on her back; he knew just how to ease away the tension. Then his hands moved caressingly up the nape of her neck and lovingly into her hair. Tired as she was, she responded to the silent question. She stepped away from him, smiling as she looked quickly about to see where their fair had taken themselves.
“They’ve all found quiet nests to curl up in.” Sean’s low voice was suggestive.
“Then let’s find us one of our own.” She caught his hand and led him off the beach and into a thick grove of arrow-leaf plants that they had helped save from Threadscore.
Revived by the hot meal and a generous beaker of a very smooth quikal fermented by Chaila Xavior-Kimmage from local fruits, Paul and Emily quietly organized a discreet council, which they held in one of the unscathed Malay outbuildings. Besides the admiral and the governor, Ongola, Drake, Kenjo, Jim Tillek, Ezra Keroon, and Joel Lilienkamp attended.
“We’ll do better next time, Admiral,” Drake Bonneau assured Paul with a cocky salute. Kenjo, entering behind him, regarded the tall war ace with amused condescension. “Today taught us that this Thread requires entirely different flight and strike techniques. We’ll refine that wedge maneuver so nothing gets through. Sled pilots must drill to maintain altitude patterns. Gunners must learn to control their blasts. It’s more than just holding the button down. We had some mighty close encounters. We lost some of the little dragonets, too. We can’t risk so many lives, much less the sleds.”
“We can repair the sleds, Drake,” Joel Lilienkamp remarked dryly before Paul spoke, “but power packs won’t last forever. We can’t afford to expand them uselessly on drills. Despite our resupply system, which I bet I can improve, nine pilots had to glide-land at Maori. That’s clumsy management. That wedge formation, by the way, Drake, is economical on the packs. But it still takes days to recharge exhausted ones. How long will this stuff keep falling, Paul?” Joel looked up from his calculating pad.
“We haven’t established that yet,” Paul said, his left thumb rubbing his knuckles. “Boris and Dieter are collating information from the pilot debriefing.”
“Hellfire, that’s not going to tell us what we need to know, Paul,” Drake said, his weary tone a complaint. “Where does this stuff come from?”
“Probe’s gone off,” Ezra Keroon said. “It’ll be a couple a more days before any reports come back.”
Drake continued almost as if he had not heard. “I want to find out if the stuff mightn’t be more vulnerable in the stratosphere. Even if we only have ten pressurized sleds, would a high-altitude strike be more effective? Does this junk hit the atmosphere in clumps and then disperse? Can we develop a defense less clumsy than flame-thrower? We need to know more about this enemy.”
“It doesn’t fight back,” Ongola remarked, rubbing his temples to ease the pounding sort of headache that battle had always given him.
“True,” Paul replied with a grim smile as he turned to Kenjo. “I wonder if we would gain any useful data from an orbital reconnaissance flight? How much fuel in the Mariposa’s tanks?”
“If I pilot it, enough for three, maybe four flights,” Kenjo replied, deliberately avoiding Drake’s eyes, “depending on how much maneuvering is required and how many orbits.”
“You’re the man for it, Kenjo,” Drake said with a flourish of his hand and a rueful expression. “You can land on a breath of fuel.” Kenjo, smiling slightly, gave a short, quick bow from the waist. “Do we know when, or where, the stuff hits us again?”
“We do,” Paul assured them in a flat tone. “If the data is correct and it was today, stakeholders are lucky. It strikes in two places: 1930 hours across Araby to the Sea of Azov,” – his expression reflected his continued regret at the loss of Araby’s original stake owners – “and 0330 from the sea across the tip of Delta. Both those areas are unoccupied.”
“We can’t let that stuff go unchecked anywhere, Paul,” Ezra said in alarm.
“I know, but if we’re going to have to mount crews every three days, we’ll all soon be exhausted.”
“Not everything needs to be protected,” Drake said, unfolding his flight map. “Lots of marsh, scrub land.”
“The Fall will still be attended,” Paul said in an inarguable tone of voice. “Look on it as a chance to refine maneuvers and train teams, Drake. It is undeniably best to get the stuff while it’s airborne. Thread didn’t eat through as much land today, but we can’t afford to lose wide corridors every time it hits us.”
“Draft some more of those dragonets,” Joel suggested facetiously. “They’re as good on the ground as in the air.”
Emily regarded him sadly as the others grinned. “Unfortunately they just aren’t big enough.”
Paul turned around in his chair to give the governor a searching look. “That’s the best idea today, Emily.”
Drake and Kenjo looked at each other, puzzled, but Ongola, Joel, and Ezra Keroon sat up, their expressions expectant. Jim Tillek grinned.
There were five main islands off the southern coast of Big Island and several small prominences, the remains of volcanoes poking above the brilliant green-blue sea. The one Avril and Stev were eagerly approaching was no more than the crater of a sunken volcano. Its sides sloped into the sea, providing a narrow shore, except to the south where the lip of the crater was lowest. Avril was bouncing with impatience as Stev nosed the prow of the little boat up onto the north shore.
“That Nielsen twit couldn’t possibly be right,” she muttered, hopping on to the pebbly beach before he had shut off the power. “How could we have missed a whole beach full of diamonds?”
“We had more promising sites. Remember, Avril?”
Steve watched her scoop up a handful of the black stones and sift them through her fingers. She kept only the largest, which she thrust at him.
“Here! Scan it!” As he inserted the palm-sized stone into the portable scanner, she looked about in angry agitation. “It makes sense. They can’t all be black diamonds. Can they?”
“This one is!”
She took back the stone and held it up to the sun for a moment. And this one?” She grabbed up a fist-sized rock and pushed it at him, but he was quick enough to see her slip the first stone into her pouch. “It’s lucky that Nielsen kid’s only our apprentice. All this is – ours – too!”