John Ringo - Emerald Sea

“A bay,” Bast said. “One with a narrow entrance but enough water in it for the delphinos to float.”

“There’s one up the coast,” Jason said after a moment’s thought. “But… it’s a ways.”

“No help for it,” Edmund said, pulling his mask down over his face. “The orcas and ixchitl will be dealing with fatigue, too.”

“Fatigue!” Jason said. “We’ve been fighting or swimming since yesterday afternoon! And we’re out of food.”

“We just keep going,” Edmund said, pointing Nebka into the water. “That’s all we can do.”

“Fight until you die and drop,” Herzer said, looking at Jason steadily as he pulled his own mask down. “Now you know what it really means.”

“What are you? Iron?” Jason snarled. Even though Herzer had been on the dragon most of the way, he knew that the landsman had been doing more than his share of fighting.

“No,” Herzer said, “I’m a Blood Lord. Works out to the same thing, though. Blood to our blood, steel to our steel.”

Jerry waved Koo back to the ship and took up station overlooking the black-sailed caravels. Koo, though, flew alongside and made a questioning sign at the device slung under Shep. Jerry thought about it, realized that they were going to have to come up with a sign for “bomb rack” and made the sign for “weapon.” Then he added “Weapon Yazov. Send Yazov,” and waved Koo away.

He watched the ships as he waited for the other dragon to first be readied and then reach his position. They were tacking back and forth across the narrow passage in a ragged line, clearly intending to block the passage. Since the only boats they had seen were local fishing boats, and none of them near here, they were clearly waiting for the clipper. And the war between New Destiny and the UFS was already declared. But he still felt uncomfortable about what he was about to do.

By the time Vickie and Yazov had reached him, he had come up with a tentative plan. He had been watching the boats and noticed that besides going forward, they had a nasty tendency to crab sideways away from the wind. The term “to leeward” came to mind from conversations among the ship’s officers. So he had to account for that when he was dropping his… bombs. Fire bombs, technically. When Vickie reached his position he waved her closer so they could talk.

“I’m going to make my runs,” he said. “Watch what I do and we’ll try to figure out the best way to work this.”

“Okay,” she yelled. “Is it just me, or does something feel wrong about this?”

“It’s not just you,” Jerry yelled back. “But that’s why they call it war.”

He lined up to come at the front of the boat, high enough that arrows wouldn’t reach the wyvern. He had to mentally judge the drift of the boat, and the dragon, and released his first bomb when it was where he thought it would hit the ship. He had lined up long-ways on the ship, since that made for a bigger target area, and the bomb dropped clean but over the windward side; he’d made too much correction. The ship was also closing too fast, so he lined up from astern this time and tried again. This time the bomb fell off to the leeward side. Finally, he came to the conclusion that he needed to get closer to the ship. He banked around and got back up to altitude again, but this time he waited until he was almost over the boat and then put Shep into a steep dive, pointed right at the mainmast.

He could clearly see figures in black armor on the deck, pointing crossbows up at the dragon. But most of them loosed far too soon and the arrows hissed back down into the sea. He dove to well below his previous point and then released, pointed just forward of the mainmast, and pulled Shep up and to windward.

The dragon could not pull out of the dive immediately and he ended up banking out and to the side, nearly at the level of the mast. A flock of bolts from the crossbows followed him as he banked up and away, but most of them struck the nearly invulnerable wings. Jerry could distinctly hear the guttural cries of the orc marines and the shouts of the crew, as well as several awful screams but he waited to see the effect until he got the dragon up to altitude again. Shep was whimpering and Jerry craned around but couldn’t see any damage.

“You’ve got a bolt in his leg,” Vickie said, drifting over him. “It’s barely in, but you’re going to have a fun time landing.”

“Don’t go as low as I did,” Jerry said.

“I won’t. Look at that sucker burn, though.”

Jerry banked around and looked down at the caravel. The bomb had apparently hit just forward of the mainmast and the maindeck was fully involved. He could see fire parties trying to stop the flames but the jellied gasoline simply spread out when hit by water. As he watched, the mainsail caught fire and was whipped into ash in a moment. The mast had caught as well and even as he watched men and orcs were jumping over the side to escape the flames. The orcs, in their armor, sank like stones, but the crew was lowering the boats and some of the unChanged humans were going to survive. Some.

“A shallow dive doesn’t seem to do it,” Jerry called. “Come from the rear and drop towards the mainmast. Watch the way they fall off to leeward, but the wind is pushing the bombs, too. And don’t get as low as I did.”

“Will do,” Vickie yelled.

“I’m heading back to base,” Jerry called, turning the dragon towards the carrier.

The ships had come into the wind and were beating to the north. They had apparently figured out that the carrier was up there somewhere. Jerry made a mental note to pass that on to the skipper.

Martin watched the object drop away from the dragon in puzzlement until it burst into flame.

“So much for there not being any way for the dragons to harm us,” the captain said. He was a squat man named Gebshe with a cynical outlook on life. He raised an eyebrow at Martin and shrugged. “That’s one fine barbecue. What now? We apparently cannot shoot them down.”

“They came from the north,” Martin said. “Turn that way and sail this tub as fast as you can. Try to find that carrier. If we can close with it, we’ll destroy it. If not…” Martin shrugged.

“I think we’ll do that,” the captain said. “But I also think we’ll have the boats standing by, just in case.”

Martin had placed the ship that he was on on one wing of the formation of caravels. The dragon-rider, naturally supposing the center ship was the leader, had concentrated his fire on that one, which was now well on the way to burning to the waterline. In his haste, he hadn’t thought of what raising signaling flags would mean and as soon as they went up the mast the replacement dragon-rider, which had lined up to drop on the far ship, banked around and headed for his.

“Gebshe,” Martin said, “you have my authority to maneuver independently.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” the captain said, judging the line-up of the rider. “I can’t imagine that I would do so entirely on my own.”

Martin grinned. At least the captain was retaining his sense of humor in this disaster. Because disaster it was. He knew there was no way that the ships could catch the carrier if it kicked up its heels. Which it would as soon as it heard they were headed its way. And the dragons were impossible targets; they just stayed too high for the crossbows to reach. But that might mean they could avoid their bombing, for now. If they could just hold on until dusk. In the night they could slip away and be well away by dawn. He didn’t care what his orders were; there was no way he was going to sit here and be used for bombing practice.

The dragon had lined up on its bombing dive and he looked at the captain.