John Ringo - Against the Tide

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.

He pulled the wyvern back up to where the sergeant was waiting and signaled to her.

“Watch your first drop. Go below floor to watch. Floor on other drops.”

She looked at him in incomprehension and signed back. “Watch drop?”

He slid the wyvern over until he was just above her.

“You can watch your first drop and go below the floor for the exercise!” he shouted. “You have to stay above the floor on the others.” More signing lessons were clearly in the future.

“Okay!” she shouted.

He watched as she lined up and dropped and could tell she wasn’t going to get anywhere near the target. The practice bomb landed more than ten meters to the side and well to the rear.

He waited as she flapped back to altitude and Joanna slid into his wing position.

“Not going so well, is it XO?” Joanna bellowed.

“No,” Herzer signed, stooping over and lining up the target again. He tried to correct for its tendency to jerk but even as he dropped his load he was aware he’d missed. As he pulled the dragon up and over he glanced back and, sure enough, it landed behind it. Close, but not on target.

“This is damned near impossible,” Herzer signed as he got up to altitude.

“Others do it,” Bast signed back with a humorous fillip.

“I’m a lover, not a bomber,” Herzer signed, fast so Zora wouldn’t catch it.

Joanna turned over and lined up, her wings pulled back so she was correcting with only the tips. She spread them slightly halfway down to catch up to the target then continued on, looking more like some giant arrow than a dragon. When she released, she had her own controls, she didn’t even look, just pulled out and used the momentum to carry her up on a controlled climb until she was just at stall speed and started flapping. The bomb hit the center of the target and exploded.

“That was amazing!” Zora yelled.

“Yes,” Herzer signed back. “Now we have to figure out how to be amazing!” he added with a yell.

“Herzer,” Joanna bellowed as she flapped back up to their position. “Don’t start your dive, yet. Spouts to the south.”

Herzer looked in the indicated direction and just caught the sight of a plume of breath. They’d had other sightings, but they had all been regular whales. Each sighting, however, had to be checked.

“You and Zora form on me,” Joanna continued, winging over to the south.

He laid Lydy over and formed up on Joanna’s wing then hooked the reins off and took out his semaphore paddles. He waved to the flagship until he saw a pennant raised with his number then signaled that they had spotted plumes to the south and were investigating. As he looked back he saw the ready dragon lift into the air as another came up from below and one of the Silverdrake dropped off the main-sail crosstree and headed towards the indicated sighting.

He shook his head and signaled for the Silverdrake to go high and give the fleet some cover. The Drakes had a tendency to go haring off after anything that struck their fancy. With the training group gone the fleet was without a reconnaissance cap, not to mention that when they reached the whales they were going to be below the horizon from the carrier. The Drake rider waved his arms in reply and headed upward in a steep climb as the three-dragon patrol continued towards the spouts.

Joanna was slowly climbing with occasional wingflaps and the other two dragons followed her. Herzer was careful to monitor Lydy to make sure she didn’t tire; being out in the middle of the ocean when that happened would be bad.

It only took them about twenty minutes to get over the spouts and the black and white patterns showed them, clearly, to be orcas.

“How do you want to handle this, Commander?” Herzer signed.

Joanna continued to watch the orcas for a moment then winged over in a sharp, spiraling, dive. When she was at about five hundred meters she lined out again and spiraled the orcas, turning her head to the side as their shadow passed over the pod.

“I’m gonna let ’em go,” Joanna bellowed. “They’re naturals.”

“You sure?” Herzer signed.

“No,” Joanna admitted. “But they didn’t bolt when we swept over them. I’d say they’re dumb brute animals. And, anyway, they don’t… move like Changed. There’s just something different with the way that Changed act. I’d say these are nomads, so they’re a danger to our selkies and delphinos. But they’re not a danger to the fleet. So I say: Leave ’em be.”

“Your call, Commander,” Herzer yelled. “Besides, we’re well away from the task force.”

Bast suddenly cocked her head to the side and leaned out on the dragon’s neck to yell something.

“You sure?” Joanna bellowed, turning her head around on its long, snakelike neck, to look at the elf.

“No!” Bast yelled. “Closer look!”

“Stay up here,” Joanna said, looking at Herzer, and then she dove towards the water.

She lined up behind the pod and passed over it, fast, her wingtips nearly touching the water on either side. The whole time her head was moving from side to side and when she passed the pod she began beating for altitude, hard. As she did the pod made a radical turn to the north and dove.

“Changed!” Joanna bellowed. “I was wr… wr… not right. Herzer, you and Zora head back to the ship. Get another dragon and get up here with some wyverns. I’ll shadow these. Signal hostile orca to south as soon as you get in range.”

“Will do, Commander,” Herzer said, gesturing at Zora.

“Wait,” Bast called. She stood up on Joanna’s back and began stripping off her clothes. She had left her bow but she was carrying the saber. When she was done she was wearing her baldric and the saber and nothing else. She looked over at Herzer with the bundle of clothes and armor in her hands and then shook her head.

“You’d never catch it,” she said, toeing at Joanna.

“Are you crazy?” Herzer yelled. She was balanced on tiptoe on the back-ridge of a flying dragon nearly two thousand meters over the cold waters of the North Atlantis.

“Yes!” she yelled as Joanna lifted up and over Herzer’s mount. Bast leapt lightly onto Joanna’s wing-root, catching the uplift and then off into midair, landing with feet together on Lydy’s back.

The wyvern reacted to the sudden impact by swinging from side to side as she tried to see who was running up her spine and it was all Herzer could do for a moment to keep her in control. Bast handled this much like a rodeo performer or an experienced sailor running out a crosstree, walking up the spine of the dragon, feet in line, until she dropped down on Herzer’s back.

“Hold this, will you, lover?” she asked, lightly licking him on his ear.

“You are insane.” Herzer chuckled, then pulled up slightly on the reins, getting Lydy above Joanna.

Bast repeated the performance, jumping off of Lydy’s wing-root and onto Joanna’s back. As soon as she was in place, Joanna dove for the water.