“We can’t point directly to the wind, can we?” Edmund asked.
“No, but we’re still making about four klicks,” the commander noted. “There’s not much wind today so it feels like it’s from right in front of us. But the wyverns will be pushed to one side as they come in.”
Herzer watched Jerry start to line up again and quietly backed away from the group. There was a ladder up to the platform at the rear of the deck and he rapidly ascended it. The ladder was on the outside of the platform and the deck so he found himself precariously dangling over the water three stories below.
When he reached the top of the platform he found it open with no recesses or obstructions of any sort. He moved to the rear of the platform and waved his hands over his head, looking up at the approaching wyvern. After a moment he saw Jerry’s head come up and was sure that he was looking at him. When he was he lowered his arms until they were outstretched and then waved them upward; the wyvern was well below the “right” glide angle to make a landing. There was a moment’s pause then Jerry coaxed the beast upward. The movement got him out of line and Herzer directed him left, then held his arms out straight. As the wyvern neared he, again, dropped low so Herzer ordered him upward. Jerry followed the command and as he swept in in a flurry of wings Herzer dropped to the platform and shielded his head. He was rewarded with a massive “thump” and the platform shook under his body.
Herzer rolled over and looked up at the wyvern, which was eyeing him like dinner.
“There is no way to tell the right way to land from up there,” Jerry yelled. “None!”
“We figured that out,” Herzer replied as the rest of the party from below made their way up the ladder.
“Great landing, Mr. Riadou,” the commander said, smiling. “I thought we weren’t going to be able to get you in.”
“I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for Herzer,” Jerry said. Handlers had come forward and were attaching traces to the wyvern. The center-rear of the platform suddenly slanted downward and the handlers walked the wyvern down the slope and into the broad hatch to take it below.
“What did Herzer do?” the commander asked, looking at the lieutenant.
“He waved me down,” Jerry replied, artlessly then looked at the group who were all eyeing Herzer. “It worked, sir.”
“Yes it did,” the commander admitted. “Do you think you can do it again?”
“If the riders follow the commands, sir,” Herzer temporized. “It might be better if Mr. Riadou did the ordering; they’re more likely to follow him.”
“But he hasn’t seen it from the ship side,” Commander Chang said. “Has he?”
“The next one up is Vickie,” Jerry said. “Sergeant Toweeoo that is. I think that she’ll follow Herzer’s directions and I can follow through. One thing, though.”
“Yes?”
“It was hard to see his arms; I was catching more glints from his hook than seeing his hands. Could we get some hand flags or something?”
“I’ll have them brought up,” the XO said after a moment’s thought. He looked up at the circling wyverns and shook his head. “We need to set up a signaling system. Why didn’t we think of any of this in advance?”
“We thought it would be easy,” Evan said, his eyes glazing as he got caught in thought. “We’re working on a flag signaling system for the fleet; the dragon signals can be worked into that.”
“Work on that later,” Chang said. “I’ll get some hand flags up here and then you get those other dragons down.”
The others descended while Herzer and Jerry waited on the top-deck. Herzer noticed that despite the fact that it was October and there was a faint breeze it was damned warm up here; controlling the landings in the summer would be unpleasant.
Finally they heard the ladder squeaking and Chief Brooks’ head appeared at deck level; he had two flags grasped in his right hand.
“Here you go, sirs,” the chief said, holding the flags out. “Have fun.”
“Will do, Chief,” Herzer said with a chuckle, taking the flags from the chief who, clearly, wasn’t coming any closer to the landing deck than that. He took one flag in his right hand easily enough but found that the rounded handle of the flag was one of those surfaces his clamp had trouble with. Finally he slid it into the interior of the clamp and applied slight pressure of the cutting surfaces against it. It was awkward but it would work.
Finally he had it juggled in place and looked up at the group of circling dragons until he spotted the one that he thought was Vickie.
“Is that Vickie just turning out?” he asked Jerry.
“Yeah, I think so,” the rider muttered. “Another thing to add to the list: binoculars.”
Herzer took the flags and pointed them outward at Vickie, tracking her around the sky until he saw her wave, then pointed them down at the deck and spread them outward.
He saw immediately that she was lined up badly so he waved her off to the right. Then she was too far over that way so he waved her back to the left.
He continued to coax her down but she was all over the sky. Too low, too high. As she came in on final it was clear that she was far too low and he waved her off wildly but she still came in until the wyvern with a gobbled cry backwinged right at the stern of the ship, nearly hitting the pri-fly deck. It backwinged hard but didn’t have enough airspeed to recover so, with a tremendous splash, it landed in the bay.
Jerry and Herzer ran to the rear, fearing the worst, but from the curses emanating from below Vickie was fine. The wyvern, when they got there to look down, actually seemed to be having a good time paddling around in the water.
“What do I do now?” Vickie yelled. “This water is bloody cold! By the way, thanks for the steer, Herzer!”
“His steers were fine,” Jerry replied, angrily. “You were all over the sky!”
“Whatever!” Vickie snarled back. “What now?”
“Away the longboat!” Colonel Chang yelled, then leaned over the transom to look at the rapidly receding dragon. “I was informed those beasts could swim!”
“They can,” Jerry said. “Vickie, swim Yazov back to the ship!”
The ship was turned even closer to the wind so that it was practically standing still, but Herzer noticed that it was drifting off to one side. The wyvern was swimming powerfully, though, occasionally ducking completely under water and swimming that way so his wings could give him a fair semblance of flying. He made such good time underwater that the last burst was entirely submerged and when the dragon finally emerged next to the ship it gave a pleased burble as if it was having fun.
“Oh, yeah, sez you,” Vickie choked; she had had to hold her breath for the entire swim. “Get me out of here! This water is freezing!”
Sculling his wings on the surface the dragon could easily keep up with the slowly drifting ship, and the longboat, which had launched immediately on the crash, was able to recover the rider easily. The dragon was another matter.
“Recovery team, over the side!”
With the longboat standing by, four seamen, three males and a female, wearing close-fitting full-coverage clothing, went over the side. They were followed by a large cargo net which, with difficulty, was slipped under the wyvern. Through it all Yazov was fairly placid, poking at the divers as if they were some sort of interesting sea life provided for his amusement. But when the sling pulled up on him he was anything but amused. The net, though, closed his wings into his body so all he could do was protest as he was raised up via a derrick and swung across and then down into the hold. Only an idiot would allow an angry wyvern loose on the surface of the ship.