John Ringo - Emerald Sea

“Lieutenant Herzer,” Commander Mbeki said. “Get aloft and prepare to land the dragons. Skipper, recommend we come into the wind and reduce speed.”

“Sir,” Herzer interjected. “The last time Joanna seemed to have more problems with us being really slow than not. Recommend… well I’m not sure what I recommend, but Joanna needed a higher speed.”

“What about the wyverns?” the skipper asked, testily.

“Either we increase speed for Joanna, sir, or we see if they can land at a higher speed.”

“Prepare to come about!”

The ship tacked back into the wind and left all its jib sails flying.

“Speed twelve klicks, sir,” the officer of the deck said. The speed of the ship was measured by a small propeller at the rear that carried the information to a readout via a complicated set of cables and gears.

“We’ll see how they do at this clip,” Mbeki said. “We were barely doing six before. Up you go, Herzer.”

Herzer climbed up on the landing platform, picked up his flags and pointed at Jerry. This time he maintained a good entry and there was barely a thump when the wyvern landed.

He climbed down and walked over to Herzer, shaking his head.

“When I saw how fast it was going I thought you were nuts,” Riadou said. “But I think it’s easier. More speed means we have more control on the way in.”

“Makes sense,” Herzer said, pointing at Koo. Koo’s landing, too, was much easier. Finally there was only Joanna to land.

Joanna also had an easier time on the glide path but she had more of a tendency to drift to the side. The ship could not point directly into the wind and the wind across her was pushing the larger dragon sideways. As she got on final approach the disturbance in the air from the ship’s sails threw her off path and it was clear she wasn’t going to hit the platform so Herzer waved her off. She had enough airspeed to recover and flapped back up to altitude. On the second try she figured out how to correct for drift and came in straight as an arrow. At the last moment she backwinged and then dropped, heavily, onto the platform as the two humans hit the deck. The entire ship shuddered at the impact of the multiton dragon but the platform held.

“That was… interesting,” Joanna said. “But I did it!” she added with a grin.

“Meeting in the wardroom,” Duke Edmund said, from the stairs. “There’s a skylight so Joanna can stick her nose into things.”

Everyone had some point that they felt could be improved on the dragon landing and launching system. And they hadn’t even tested the launching on the wyverns or seen if they were willing to land a second time.

“Tomorrow for that,” Skipper Chang said. “General Talbot, with your permission I’d like to spend one more day in the bay doing work-ups. I know that puts you behind schedule but…”

“Better a functioning dragon-carrier when we get to the Isles.” Edmund sighed. “Agreed. But just one more day.”

“Most of the changes aren’t crucial,” Evan said, looking up from his notes. “The biggest one is some place for the flag guy to hide.”

“We’re going to need a better term than ‘flag guy’ as well,” Commander Mbeki said.

“How about landing orders officer?” Jerry said.

“ ‘Keep your eye on the loo!’ ” Joanna chuckled. “ ‘Follow the loo!’ No, just doesn’t have that ring to it.”

“Okay, landing signal officer then,” Jerry said. “We’ve also got the problem of five dragons and three riders.”

“Do you think you can work Herzer up on-board?” the duke asked.

“I don’t know, sir,” the warrant officer replied, seriously. “Training usually takes several hundred hours, not just a few hours in the air. And then there’s landing. I’d rather he learned that on land, if possible.”

“And keep in mind that once we get to sea it just gets harder,” the XO pointed out. “This is a mill-pond. Out in the Atlantis it’s solid rollers, even if we’re not having a storm.”

“We won’t launch in foul weather,” the skipper said. “But storms do come up suddenly. It’s something to keep in mind. Think about a good foul weather recovery system.”

“Other than going for a swim?” Herzer asked.

“In the North Atlantis, which is where we’ll be engaging the invasion fleet, that’s not going to be possible,” the XO pointed out. “The water will kill a person before we can get them out. It will be on the deck or nothing.”

“I think that’s about it,” the skipper said, rapping his knuckles on the table. “Unless you have something to add, General?”

“No, nothing,” Edmund replied. “I think today went quite well.”

“Better than I anticipated, frankly,” Chang replied. “General, I’ll see your party at dinner?”

“Of course, Skipper.”

“Very well, people, good work today. Flight operations commence at dawn tomorrow.”

“And what were you two doing today?” Edmund asked when he entered his cabin, Herzer trailing behind. Rachel and Daneh were sitting at the table, looking at papers spread over the surface.

“Mostly checking out the ship’s medical facilities and general health issues,” Daneh answered. “They’ve got an excellent infirmary and the two medics were smart but they’re not very well trained. We also checked out the meal preparation area. The cooks are well versed in sanitation, which I was delighted to discover. All in all it’s a well-designed ship and a well-trained crew.”

“That’s good to know,” Edmund replied, tiredly. “Frankly, it’s more important to the mission than that the dragons work. They might be helpful in the Isles. Then again, they might not be. I still don’t see where they’re an offensive weapon.”

“I’ve got some ideas in that area, sir,” Herzer said, diffidently. “But I want them to get more comfortable in carrier operations before I bring anything else up. It’s going to mean the wyverns carrying a fair amount of weight if it works, which means they’ll have to use the catapult.”

“We watched one of the landings,” Rachel said. “It was very cool.”

“It was very hairy from where I was standing,” Herzer said. He felt as drained as if he’d run the Hill a dozen times. “I think there’s going to be a fair number of the riders that won’t hack it. You have to be very confident in your flying and confident that the LSO is giving you good steers. When you land normally, the wyvern does most of the work. You just point in a general area and they land. This way… the rider has to really steer the beast to a landing. It’s not easy.”

“None of it’s easy,” Edmund replied. “The system that’s been set up for moving them around, feeding them, launching them. The system that Evan has for moving them in and out of the weyr bays, all of it is even more complicated than I think you realize. Which is good.”

“Good?” Daneh said. “Why?”

“So far, New Destiny has been very good at collecting, and even feeding, large masses of troops,” Edmund said. “I’m surprised that they are, because they’re not very good at using them. Paul’s group tends to be very controlling; they don’t think an idea is a good one unless one of them has it. They wouldn’t have let someone like Evan have his head and just figure things out. They would have stopped Herzer when he went up and tried to control the wyverns on the way in. I think they would have even stopped him after it was clear it worked. Again, if they don’t have the idea it is, by definition, bad.”

“Your point?” Daneh asked.

“It’s pretty clear; I don’t think they are ever going to be able to match this sort of ability. They may have, probably do have, wyverns and even dragons. But I don’t think they’ll be able to come up with all the things necessary to use dragon-carriers. And even after we use them against them, if we do, they won’t be able to match our quality. It’s like the Blood Lords in a way. Having a capability that your enemy cannot match in war is a wonderful asset.”