The man behind the desk was old, his close-cut hair gray and his skin lined from time in the sun. But his back was straight and the hand that lifted the stogie to his mouth was firm.
“Estimated time of arrival?” the gunnery sergeant grunted, getting to his feet and walking to the window. The view out the window was bright, revealing a blue-green harbor and a fortress under construction. It was only half built, though, despite a few hundred workers swarming over it like ants. In the water a group of mer-women were playing with their children, watched by a group of soldiers in armor that seemed far too heavy for the heat. Despite that, the platoon of Blood Lords were as rigid as so many iron bars. As he watched, three members of the platoon marched to the water butt, drank heavily, then marched back to their positions.
“At least three weeks, Gunnery Sergeant.”
“Dragon-carriers?”
“Five, Gunnery Sergeant.”
The gunny grunted and then chuckled.
“Good. What’s the weather report?”
“I’ll go check with the mer.”
Elayna rolled over on her back and uncapped the barometer, setting it between her breasts and then holding up the wind gauge.
All of the mer teams, in addition to their other duties like killing orcas and finding enemy fleets, took weather readings. They could only get measurements at the water’s surface, although their support ships had weather balloons, but the measurements were put together to form a remarkably complete picture of the movement of air masses.
It was a nice day, breezy mind you, the weather gauge showed right on twenty klicks, but clear and mild. She lay back and let her eyes close, ducking her head back and under from time to time for a breath of water. Sitting at the surface was always a pain, you had to decide whether to duck under for water or blast the lungs clean for air. But it was as nice a day as she could hope. She lay there and wished she was back at Blackbeard Base. Sort of. Whenever she thought of the name she thought of Granddad and that made her sad. There had been so much death since that day. The world really did suck.
She called up an image of the reefs and imagined herself riding the currents past, just floating. No cares, no weight of command, no fears of attack by orca or ixchitl, no barometer readings that take for fricking ever! She rolled up and looked through slitted eyes at the barometer but it was still showing an unstablized reading.
She ducked her head back down and looked at her second in command. “Any sign of orca?”
“No,” he pulsed back. “Skimmers report open ocean all around.”
“We hope,” she said, looking at the barometer again. It finally showed clear and she cased it back up and put away the wind-gauge.
“Signal fleet met,” she said. “Location point 109, wind speed twenty-two klicks, barometer thirty point one five and rising.”
“Nice day,” Katarin said.
“Yeah. Storm a comin’, though.”
“Message coming in,” Katarin said. “New Destiny fleet is at sea.”
“Let’s hope they get becalmed,” Elayna said, rolling over and kicking for the depths.
Paul rolled over so that Megan was on top of him and stroked her back, lightly.
“You seem pretty happy,” Megan said, leaning down to kiss him on his forehead and, not coincidentally, dangling her breasts in his face.
“I am,” he said, reaching back around to stroke the soft flesh. “The fleet has sailed. All of it. Chansa has sent the main combat fleet to attack Blackbeard Base. Edmund’s going to have to choose which fleet to engage; he doesn’t have enough forces to attack both.”
“Which do you think he’ll go for?” Megan asked.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Paul answered. “If he moves for the northern fleet it can turn around. The southern fleet will take out Blackbeard, kill or capture the mer-women and children and that takes the mer out of the equation; they’ll do anything to get their children back. If he attacks that fleet, the main fleet will land in Norau and we can set up portals to support them. Even if he, by some miracle, destroys the fleet, it won’t matter anymore.”
“And the target’s still Balmoran?” Megan asked, leaning into the stroking. It was actually pleasant; Paul had good hands when he bothered to use them.
“Uhm…” Paul said. “And more good news. Chansa has an agent on the Bonhomme Richard, one of the stewards. He has orders to poison Talbot and the fleet admiral, Chang. Edmund never discusses his plans, so the fleet will be dropped into chaos. Then there’s a two-edged sword: Celine tells me she finally has a way to overcome the personal protection fields.”
“That’s impossible!” Megan said.
“That’s what I said,” Paul smiled. “But she proved it. She uses some sort of special nannite. They generate a destabilizing field that interferes with the physics of the PPFs. Unfortunately, they do the same to teleport fields so they can’t be transported by teleports. She’s made little devices to produce them. The devices can be teleported. I’m considering a way to get some of the devices, and assassins, to Sheida’s location. Take her out and it will destabilize the whole of the UFS.”
“That should do it,” Megan admitted. How do I get this information out? I know that Paul has got to be monitoring my meetings with the damned vendor! “Now, why are we talking?” she added, rubbing her breasts in his face. “Aren’t there better things to be doing?”
“You might be wondering what we are doing,” Shar Chang said to the assembled skippers and their dragon commanders. “Well, the answer is, I’m not going to tell you. You all know that we’ve been leaking information to New Destiny, even at sea. Some of you may be the leaks. I doubt it, but I couldn’t believe it of Owen Mbeki. So you’re going to get orders and you’re going to obey them. I’ll be giving you each written instructions. Most of them will be to detach yourself from the main body along with your battle group. The fleet is breaking up.”
He looked around at the assembled skippers and then at the dragon commanders.
“You may be thinking: Why be so sneaky; the orcas and ixchitl will know where we are. Well, not if we can help it. From here on out I want continuous dragon coverage. But not the usual coverage. I want continuous dragon coverage on each of your task forces. What you’re going to train in is anti-orca patrols. Any orcas will be engaged by the wyverns. The wyverns have proven that they can take on orca in the water. When a pod is spotted the carrier will be signaled and a flight of dragons will engage the orca. The water is cold so the riders will have to stay out of the attack. But many of the dragons have fought orca before and when they see them it’s hard to keep them from attacking. Don’t. Lead them to the pod and let them go. Recover them out of the water. Obviously, if the pod is too far from the ship for the dragons to swim back, don’t engage. If they’re that far out, they’re not a threat. But if they close, kill them. Natural or Changed; we can’t tell the difference until we’re on them.”
“Question, Admiral,” Joanna said, raising a talon.
“Yes, Commander Gramlich?”
“Do we get to eat them?”
The question elicited chuckles, some of them hysterical. Even Shar grinned.
“Feel free,” he said. “The supplementary orders to the other skippers are as follows; the only officer who will take navigational bearings is the skipper. No other officer had better have a sextant in his or her hand. The penalty for such will be immediate and unquestioned confinement to quarters with court-martial to follow. Skippers will take one reading per day. The exception to this will be the fleet command ship. Follow the command ship; they know where they are going. In the event that you are separated by storm you can open your second orders, which will give you a rendezvous. The second orders are to be kept under marine guard and the skipper, XO and navigational officer must all be present and in agreement for them to be opened. Is this clear?”