John Ringo - Emerald Sea

“Well, that’s done,” Jerry sighed. “Now we check them over.”

The dragon’s pebbly skin was fairly strong but it could be badly gouged by a misplaced strap. Jerry, with Vickie occasionally giving acerbic advice, showed Herzer how to check for gouges or scrapes. They then spent some time working on Chauncey, trimming his toenails. Jerry had a large set of bolt cutters for the job but Herzer gently lifted one of the talons and inserted the tip into his clamp.

“They’re strong,” Jerry said.

“Not a problem,” Herzer said. “Probably.” Herzer flexed his forearm and the tip of the nail flew off with a “snick” sound.

“Cool,” Jerry said. “Very useful.”

“Also opens bottles and makes julienne fries,” Herzer said with a grimace. “I’d rather have a hand.”

“How’s it work?”

“If I grasp like I’m grabbing with forefinger and thumb it clamps,” Herzer said. “If I grasp with middle and ring finger it engages the cutters. If I pull with the pinkie it engages a gear on the cutters and the clamps. Gives me about six times the grip or cutting strength.”

“Did you use the clamp?”

“Nope, didn’t need it,” Herzer said, running his hand up Chauncey’s leg as he cut the other nails. “That’s done this one.”

“Chauncey’s one of our newer wyverns,” Jerry explained as Herzer worked on the other talons. “He’s just out of the rookery but since he’s biddable and didn’t have a designated rider and we were told we needed one spare we brought him along despite the fact that he’s not full grown.”

“Big enough,” Herzer said. “How fast do they grow?”

“Ten years to get this big,” Jerry said. “He’ll add another sixty, maybe eighty kilos before he stops in another ten.”

“Ten years?” Herzer said. “Then… he was born before the Fall?”

“Yeah,” Jerry said with a smile. “Nobody’s been able to do time travel yet. There was a wyvern racing league; we came from that.”

“I’d thought that Sheida had had them bred,” Herzer said then paused. “Why did you join up?”

“Well, we had to keep them fed somehow,” Jerry replied with a shrug, giving Chauncey a last wipe with a rag. “And between Sheida and New Destiny there wasn’t much choice, was there?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Herzer answered honestly. “I… I was involved with some folks that were allied with New Destiny at first. I didn’t know they were until after I’d left. They weren’t very good people even before that, though.”

“Well, I joined up with Sheida almost immediately,” Jerry said. “I had a rookery near her home in the Teron mountains. After the Fall I flew over and she saw the benefit immediately. So I and a couple of others flew around to the rookeries and recruited.”

“Where did Joanna come from?” Herzer asked.

“I don’t know. Sheida found her someplace.”

“Do you mind her… sort of being in charge?”

“Not at all,” Jerry replied with a shrug. “She’s like a god to the wyverns, which helps as you might have noticed. And when she gets into a battle the other side doesn’t have much of a chance. The wyverns really aren’t very good at fighting; all they can do is bite or claw down, and when they do they lose airspeed. Joanna goes through the enemy like a mechanical reaper. She can really use that tail for some serious damage. I’m glad she’s on our side.”

Herzer and Jerry were gathering up the rags and cutters when Herzer spotted Rachel picking her way through the wyverns. The dragons had settled down after their feed but a few of them hissed at her as she passed.

Rachel ignored them, making a beeline for Herzer. When she got close she stood with her hands on her hips and shook her head.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding?” she asked. “I thought you were happy in the infantry?”

“I am,” Herzer admitted. “But we’re going to be working with the dragons a lot. I figured it was a good idea to get to know them as well as possible.”

“Well, Father thinks it’s a good idea if you two attend the mission briefing, whatever that means,” Rachel said. “Which is why I’m here.”

“Are we done?” Herzer asked.

“Done enough,” Jerry answered. “Let’s go.”

Joel had permitted the enthusiastic ensign to recruit him; it seemed like the simplest way to manage the insertion given the complications. Ensign Weilis had even picked up the ticket from Tenerie to Newfell. So after arriving at Newfell Base, the ensign led him to the recruiting station and then took off to report for duty.

Joel shook his head at that, wondering at many levels about the ensign’s naiveté. They had stopped overnight south of Washan, staying at one of the coaching inns; the price of the cramped room was included in the fare. So it had been midmorning by the time they arrived. Technically, the ensign did not have to report until just before midnight the day of his arrival. If he reported now, he’d either sit around in an office all day or be assigned busywork until somebody figured out what to do with him tomorrow.

The other level of concern about Weilis’ naiveté was Joel’s conviction that whoever was running counterintel couldn’t find their ass with both hands. The ensign had gladly told him all of his duties in Balmoran and some of what he thought he would be doing in Newfell. In fact, the kid was such a chatterbox, Joel now knew half the story of his life. He either had his cover down pat, or he was an idiot. No, the kid wasn’t an idiot, he’d been trained by idiots. And that was worse.

Joel shook his head again and opened up the door to the recruiting office. There was a desk in the room with two comfortable chairs placed in front of it. Behind the desk was a stern-faced older guy in a uniform just about covered in medals. His face broke into a friendly grin when Joel came through the door.

“Hello there, son,” the NCO boomed, coming to his feet and walking around the desk. “Glad to see you, I’m Chief Rishell, but you can call me Chief.”

“Hi, Chief,” Joel said. When the chief limpingly cleared the desk it became apparent why he was behind it; his right leg was gone from the knee down. “Got bad news for you, I think this must be the recruiting office, right?”

“That’s right, son,” the chief said, pumping his hand. “It’s a man’s life in the Navy, but we only take the best. Good strong hands there — you working as a plow-hand before?”

“No, Chief,” Joel said. “The point is, that nice young lieutenant directed me here. I’m looking for receiving.”

“You already got recruited?” the chief replied, dropping Joel’s hand.

“Yeah, I used to work fishing boats, before and after the Fall,” Joel replied with a grin. “They said something about making me a petty officer.”

The chief looked at him with a blank expression for a moment, then pointed to his left.

“Receiving’s three buildings down.”

“Gotcha, Chief,” Joel said, trying not to grin.

“You on orders?” the chief asked, looking at his shabby traveling clothes.

“Verbal is what they told me,” Joel replied with a shrug. “Basically they swore me in and put me on a stage coach for Newfell.”

“Hmmm…” The chief peered at him for a second and then went back behind his desk. “Siddown, son.”

Joel did so, cocking his head to the side.

“The thing is, you’re not required to report until just before midnight,” the chief said with a slight frown. “If you go over there this time of day, they won’t have any way to use you. They might tell you to take off and take care of personal business. But they’ll probably put you on some temporary detail nobody wants to do, like raking grass or shoveling shit. Now, everybody has to do those sometimes, anyway. But there’s no damned reason to put yourself in the way of them, if you know what I mean.”