And the pod was already pretty worn. They hadn’t had a resupply in three days and there hadn’t been much they could catch with the damned skimmers squealing along to either side. The open ocean was mostly desert anyway so the orca normally followed the currents, hunting at their edges where food was most abundant. This mission had had them chasing all over the ocean, though, and that meant where the food wasn’t. They’d called for a resupply ship to rendezvous with them and gotten nothing but bullshit assurances that “something would come along.”
And as he was thinking about that, something did.
The team of mer had spread into a pike-wielding hexagon, the underwater equivalent of a phalanx that they had worked out as the most efficient attack formation in these circumstances. It spread wider than the pod of orcas and engulfed it like a rising, metal-tipped, seine net. The first orca to be spitted was a youngster that had dived below the main pod and squealed an alarm just before he was struck between his pectorals by a pike.
The pod reacted quickly but in an undisciplined manner, some of them darting ahead to try to escape the enveloping mer and others diving to the attack. Most of the ones that dove ran into a solid wall of spear-points. Unwilling to brave the wall of metal they turned and darted for the surface. A few dove into the phalanx and were pincushioned for their bravery. Despite this the mer were careful to avoid opening up holes in their formation; they shifted position to maintain a solid, and ever narrowing, formation as teams stayed behind to finish off the wounded orcas.
Irkisutut darted ahead as the alarm call went up but quickly saw that he was going to be cut off by the mer. He turned to the side and realized that the pod was surrounded. After darting back and forth for a moment he did the only thing that made sense, building up speed and then leaping into the air to clear the ring of mer.
As soon as he hit the water he turned back towards the mer, darting in and capturing one in his conical teeth. He didn’t stay around to be attacked by the rest, instead backing away as the ribcage of the mer crunched in his teeth. He dropped the dead mer-man and turned to attack again but the phalanx had shifted to half attacking inward while the rest covered their backs. He, too, was facing a wall of spears. There was nothing he could do but watch the rest of the pod slaughtered mercilessly.
“Damn you!” he bellowed as the last of the pod was finished off. “Freaks!”
“Go home, little orca,” one of the mer taunted. “Go home and tell the rest of your fellows that you’re no longer the top of the food chain!”
As the mer darted towards him he turned away and headed towards the east. Somewhere out there were other pods and a supply ship. Somewhere out there was safety.
There was nothing left for him here.
“Where in the hell are we?” Zora said as she mounted her wyvern.
“I don’t know, Sergeant Fink,” Herzer replied with a grin. “Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantis Ocean, but that’s just a guess.”
The carrier had been sailing for four days. And not in any sort of straight direction. She tacked, she turned, she sailed west, she sailed east, she sailed north and south. None of the tacks had been of equal lengths and given the state of wind and current they could be anywhere. Well, anywhere in the northern Atlantis.
Currently they were on a generally easterly course, as far as Herzer could tell. They’d been on it most of the day, but that didn’t mean anything. He knew there were New Destiny forces to their north and south so either way they turned they were going to be going into battle.
He and Fink weren’t battling today, though. The majority of the dragon-riders were brand new and today they were engaging in bombing practice. The ship’s launch had been sent out three hours earlier and was now towing a target slowly to the east, falling behind the carrier with every minute. The target wasn’t all that large and it bobbed around on the waves quite a bit. But that didn’t answer why none of the riders had managed to hit it yet.
Herzer walked Lydy to the catapult and settled himself in position as the wyvern got a good grip on the launching balk and leaned forward eagerly. It took a bit of practice to get the wyverns used to the launching catapult but once they acquired the knack they loved it.
The catapult accelerated the wyvern to almost forty kilometers per hour in its short traverse and as it reached the end the wyvern flapped open her wings and took flight. The wings of a wyvern were enormousÑthey had to be to support the weight of the dragon’s body and riderÑand the mechanics of them were impossible without a large number of changes from the birds of prey they were based upon.
The first and most noticeable change was in materials. The wings and flight-bones were threaded through with a mesh of bioextruded carbon nanotubes, a monomolecule that was enormously strong for its weight. But beyond that there were subtle additions throughout the wyvern’s body. The energy of flying meant that they got extremely hot, hot enough that their own body heat could cause brain damage. To reduce the dangerous build-up there was a small channel in their head that took in air at the front, blew it over the skull and released it at the back. This ensured that while they might become overheated it would not affect their brain. It also was a noticeable portion of their total body cooling, since it was lined with water releasing membranes. The changes went on and on. Normal muscle could never support their flight, certainly not for any length of time, so they borrowed from bumblebees a special “reflexive muscle” that only had to flex in one direction. Internal tubules acted as springs to bring their wings back into “gliding” position automatically so they only had to “flap” and then release.
Despite all of the changes they could only stay aloft for a few hours so Herzer headed for altitude and then glided, waiting for the sergeant to catch up. As soon as she had formed up on his wingtip he headed for the distant dot that was the launch.
The launch had a crew of twenty oarsmen and a coxswain but at the moment most of the oarsmen were leaning on the side of the boat, watching the show. A previous division had formed up on the target and were dropping practice bombs. Herzer watched as, one by one, they all missed. Well, it was a small target. They were getting close. Most of them would have hit a ship.
The problem being that with the relatively small bombs, and the increasing ability of ships to fight the fires with foam agents, the ships had to be hit multiple times to ensure the fire got out of control. And in some cases dropping the bombs in precise locations would help, such as taking out the quarterdeck.
So being able to hit the three meter by three meter target was not an option, it was a standard. A standard the riders were not meeting.
He saw Joanna coming up from the ship with the small figure of Bast perched merrily on her neck. Only Bast would be crazy enough to ride a dragon without any safety straps. He wondered how she held on.
Then he thought about her leg strength and chuckled. He knew damned well how she held on.
He lined up on the target and nosed the wyvern over, making small corrections. The target wasn’t moving in a regular pattern since it was being towed. It jerked forward and then slowed, then jerked, then slowed. He made small corrections on the dragon and then, when he felt he was at the minimum altitude, released his first bomb. He continued below the “floor” however to watch it drop. It hit just forward of the target with a small splash.