John Ringo - Against the Tide

The Drake she was on was a bright, fluorescent, green with pink polka dots ranging in size from as big as the end of her thumb to as large as her head. Her wingman’s was, in a way, worse, a sort of mottled “camouflage” pattern in electric purple and yellow: truly eye-searing. There had been attempts over the years to get the dragons Changed to more “traditional” colors. But Silverdrake riders were strange folk and liked their dragons the way they were. Flighty, bad tempered and all.

“Over there?” Ramani signed, pointing to their left.

“Try,” Vickie signed back.

She angled the Silverdrake over and down, slowing its descent so they didn’t plow into the ocean or the ship. They were only a couple of hundred meters up by her reckoning, but she was aware that “grayed out” as they were, there was no way of telling if they were a few hundred meters up or a few thousand. All there was in every direction was water. Of course, the stuff in the air wouldn’t drown them.

The wyvern suddenly banked hard left as its wingtip barely missed the top of a mast. So much for being a couple of hundred meters up.

Vickie shook her head and banked around, trying to line up the opening in the rain. The ships were only partially converted and a heavy line, a stay, ran from the top of the rear mast to the rear of the ship. There were more lines to the sides. But there was a narrow gap between the stays that permitted egress to the platform installed over the quarterdeck. Unfortunately, the gap was smaller than the wingspan of a Silverdrake, narrow as that was.

The only way to land was a stoop like a hunting falcon. The Silverdrake, which was shaped much like a peregrine for all it was brightly colored, came in, lowering its forward speed by back winging and then folded its wings, dropping through the slot and onto the platform with a bone-jarring thud that rocked the ship.

Vickie had learned to tuck her head and brace against the saddle when landing; if you didn’t you got a broken nose. But she swore after each of the landings that she was going to find some better way to land. This just wasn’t safe.

Vickie walked the dragon down the platform and it hopped to the maindeck, automatically heading for its stall. There were two of the latter on the maindeck, a massive nuisance for the skipper and crew, and she took the port side one. She dismounted outside and stripped the gear off the wyvern, then led it into the stall. There wasn’t food already laid out so she shook her head and went in search of it.

Vickie was sitting in the wardroom, staring at a bowl of pea soup, when the skipper walked in.

“You going to eat that or just look at it?” The second thing that people noticed about Skipper Some Karcher was that she was short. Not dwarf sized, but far under normal height. The first thing that people noticed was that she looked like a Siamese cat. Her face and head had a distinctly catlike shape, something like an apple, her eyes were turned upwards, her hair was “touched” in places with coloring like a Siamese, her face was covered in fine fur and her eyes were green, almost like emeralds, and had pupils that were vertically oval. She squinted now as she looked at the dragon-rider pointedly and the pupils contracted sharply.

“I was just thinking how opaque it looked, ma’am,” Vickie said, picking up her spoon. “Sort of like the air I was just flying through.”

“I was thinking about those landings,” the skipper said. “And I really hate them.”

“Not as much as the person on the dragon, ma’am,” Vickie said with a grin.

“And I really hate not being able to look at the sky when I’m on the quarterdeck,” Karcher continued. “And I was wondering: why not put the platform off the rear of the ship?”

Vickie opened her mouth to respond and then closed it. After a moment she shook her head, angrily.

“Because none of those geniuses at the shipyards thought of it, ma’am,” she replied, making a moue. “Do you think it would work?”

“I don’t see why not,” the captain said, shrugging and giving a little hum that sounded suspiciously like a purr. “We’d have to brace it, but that’s not a problem. You already take off from back there. This would just make it easier. And I didn’t come up with it, one of my seamen did. Good sailor who wants to be a rider methinks.”

“What’s his name?” Vickie said, pulling out a notebook and unwrapping it from the rubber cover. “We’re really shorthanded on the Powells, ma’am.”

“Fink,” Karcher replied. “Hers, by the way.”

“Well, ma’am, tell her that if you’ll approve the transfer she can start as soon as she gets back to land,” Vickie said. She tilted her head to one side, started to say something and then shrugged.

“Yes, Rider?” Karcher said, her face unreadable behind its catlike smile.

“I was wondering…”

“Did I Change before the Fall?” Karcher said in an odd intonation. Again, very like a meow. “No, I did not. This was how I was born. Do you want the long story or the short one?”

“Whichever you feel appropriate, ma’am,” Vickie said, uncomfortably. “I’m not trying to pry.”

“Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a scientist who was, frankly, a bit cracked. It was at the very beginning of the time when Change became possible. But this scientist didn’t want to Change himself into a cat. He wanted his cat to be a human.”

“Oh,” Vickie said, uncomfortably.

“And, yes, it was for the reason that you think. So, and this was before the protocols were put in place to prevent this sort of thing, he Changed his cat into a humanoid sentient. And the rest of the story should be that they fell in love and lived happily ever after.”

“Yes,” Vickie said, now extremely sorry that she had asked.

“Well, the story didn’t go exactly as he had planned. Cats are cats, after all, even if you make them sentient, and the cat, already angry enough when she found out her name was ‘Muffins,’ was having none of it. She left him and broke his heart. On the other hand, she eventually did find a human male she thought was reasonably attractive and settled down and had a litter. From which litter I derive. Any questions?”

“No, ma’am,” the rider said, her face working.

“Don’t ask me if I chase mice, okay?”

“Oh no, ma’am, wouldn’t think of it.” Pause. “May I ask one question, ma’am?”

The captain nodded.

“How do you stand with dogs?”

“I have threeÑRottweilers. When I say ‘heel,’ they heel ,” Karcher said with a grin that exposed very prominent canine teeth. “I have to admit that climbing the rigging when I’m stressed is very… natural.”

Vickie laughed again and closed her notebook. “Rain’s cleared?”

“Yes.”

“Well, ma’am, I think it’s time for us to head back to base.”

“We’re due back day after tomorrow,” Karcher said. “You could probably ride back.”

“No, we need to keep doing work-ups, ma’am,” Vickie replied. “For our sins.”

“Evan, you’re on time,” Edmund said, taking off his reading glasses and looking up from the desk. “Mr. Ennesby, how are you today?”

“Wet,” Tom Ennesby said, taking off his broad-brimmed hat and shaking it to the side.

“Bad news, Duke,” Evan said. “We’re going to be at least a day late with the Herman Chao .”

The dreadnought, which was being converted to an anti-dragon ship, was one of the three that had been ready for sea.

“What’s the problem?” Edmund asked. “Anything I can do?”

“Not really.” Evan sighed. “We’re short on materials for the air-guns. Basically I had to convert so many of them for the Silverdrake that it’s leaving the Chao short. We’re hoping to have the materials in a couple of days, but it’s going to set us back by at least that long.”