Chapter 9 - Fighter

  The raid would start at Luxa rise.

  Broad Flight looked upon the beach sands with exacerbation. For the life of her, she couldn't make out what it was. Some looked to be stones, other metals, all of it, washing from the waters to the sands. Never had she seen such scenes before. The young vyrme had come as a member of 'vyrmes against depravity'. She had come to damage the infrastructure of the immoral mollis farming apparatus (again).

  The plan was briefed upon the Eivuh infiltration wing, their formation to be split into four flights, one for each island. All striking in unison.

  Broad Flight had wanted to frustrate the efforts of those who contributed to the troubles in the dry lands. To send a message that mollis should not be caged, that what ever claims of 'necessity' made for their poisons and the various items derived from are just as easily matched from the fair and humane harvesting of nepa. Hers' was a worldview of peace and cooperation. Not this boasting and posturing and scrapping they did now at the border. She was not expecting to find 'this', whatever 'this' was supposed to be.

  Alone-at-Dawn gathered her battle sisters close in a huddle. For what seemed the oughts time, they reviewed the final island's layout. Their island. Their quarry. Their hunt.

  The objects looked foreign. Looked somewhat like possessions of the Micoligo, not that Broad Flight was particularly sure of that those looked like. But she knew the rules as well as anyone! To tinker with the ocean, to take (unthinkable!) from the ocean: strictly forbidden. Mother God knew, with the amount of stuff accumulated here, she could not hope to return it all on behalf of the vyrme that claimed this island.

  Naught was expected there but wild mollis. She impressed upon them that theirs would likely a short stop before they would be off to the mollis fields or family scrape for the real action.

  Broad Flight's plans ended then, this was no longer about mollis, or troubles far from here. Offending the Micoligo was just something you never did. Ocean gathering was just something you never did! It was an act that affected everyone. Items taken from the sea and collected ashore is very serious business!

  The Eivuh infiltration wing made their final preparations and then departed for lone tree hill's waypoint stone. It was all done in short time. Much faster than a combat operation.

  She flew swiftly then to Burned Rock, and then from that waypoint stone, to lone tree hill, its waypoint stone pointing her towards First-to-Play's Veldt, and then Broad Flight threw herself upon the first magistrate she could find. It didn't matter that she confessed to the crime of property destruction. The fine would be small, maybe curbed entirely for a slashing or two. It didn't matter the unsavouriness of the claim's originator ('vyrmes against depravity' are unpatriotic FVA sympathisers! Or so many think). Given the weight of such an accusation's implication, word was passed up to the sisters, as are all serious claims.

  All of them were fit, competent, and confident. Fine warriors at the apex of their craft. As a challenge they didn't even stop. A direct flight to Burned Rock, then out over the ocean. Just because they could. The two sisters of the Vahn trailed behind in tow. They needed the pause.

  First-to-Play was the first to be informed. She sequestered herself in the company of Last-to-Fall, and the two sisters of the Vahn debated over what should be done on the matter of Dawn Watcher's alleged activities. Anything that could threaten the Southern Free Coalition's trade (their life giving trade!) with the Micoligo, anything that could threaten their ability to resist aggression from the Five Vahn Alliance. Any such matters must be dealt with swiftly. That was what the two sisters of the Vahn concluded. And so Alone-at-Dawn was requested at once.

  A final equipment check was performed before entering the zone of operations. Luxa had just fallen below, bathing them in darkness. The hunter puritans would scoff at them, but the reality of modern day fighting was that those who forgo tools were already dead. They just didn't know it yet.

  Alone-at-Dawn had the most overbearing question ever after being brought up to height: what is Dawn Watcher doing? Amid heated discussion, First-to-Play had to push away the imaginings of subterfuge and betrayal. That their prime supplier of mollis could be doing something so unreputable beggared belief. For seasons now Dawn Watcher's mollis had helped keep the Five Vahn Alliance at bay. The mollis poison: it formed the ramparts that FVA invaders threw themselves against. The mollis meat: the savory nectar that kept morale high in the face of unfavorable odds. She was compensated fairly for her efforts, so one was left wondering what could drive her to ocean gathering?

  The radio check was a success and reports from initial reconnaissance came flying in. Within them was support for the claims of ocean gathering. Scouts reported never-before-seen items on the sands.

  Eventually the simmering tone faded, and the sisters of the Vahn turned to Alone-at-Dawn's expertise. They had brought her here to derive a plan, a strategy to get to the bottom of this matter of extreme import. Hers' was a simple one, to be executed with speed and efficiency. No dawdling. A raid, inspired by the ones she flew across the border. The two sisters of the Vahn gave their approval. Alone-at-Dawn's plan had a simple conclusion. Once the site was secured, the matter would be left to First-to-Play and Last-to-Fall. Dawn Watcher would be given over to the two sisters of the Vahn. Wherever their investigation took them, the raid would be the extent of Alone-at-Dawn's involvement, and the rest of the Eivuh infiltration wing. It was planned that the wing would return northwards to the dry lands to help keep watch again. She took no pleasure in it, Dawn Watcher had earned her reputation among the FSC as a fair flier after all.

  The operation was approved. Over the radio, the word for action was spoken. None in Alone-at-Dawn's flight quite expected the two legged thing seen walking around the beach.

  Last-to-Fall could not help but wonder: the missing sister of the Vahn would never betray the Free Southern Coalition, would she?

  It was decided quickly that the two legged walker was no factor for the operation's success. An order disseminated to capture it alive. At first Luxa light, Alone-at-Dawn dove, paws outstretched, ready to secure the anomalous organism on the beach.

  Day 12 Chara rise

  "Get the fuck off of me!" I yell, but my face is driven into the sand by a dragons paw I have no hope of countering. It's the third night all over again but with way more fucking dragons and they aren't nice ones either.

  I had been woken by the sound of rattling. It was my perimeter trip wire. The grogginess of sleep faded, replaced by thoughts of crabs and my poor feet! And so I was awake and searching around. Keeper wasn't there, which was abnormal, she had always come back in the mornings. The first inkling that something was wrong. I had been looking around, and saw nothing of note under the PSQ-99's night-vision view. I concluded some kind of false alarm, maybe a strong breeze?

  I only caught a glimpse before it was too late. So I guess I did better than when Keeper dived upon me last time. And hey, my goggles didn't go flying away this time either (hooray for lessons learned!).

  This dragon pinning me down now looked very different. This dragon was actually wearing something. To best describe it's appearance for the record, the term "scrim" comes to mind. Scrim is the patch work of threads, fabric, and mesh soldiers often decorate their gear with (especially their helmets) to give a more organic shape; often the look of loose leaves. Except the scrim covers the dragon's entire body. It almost reminded me of camouflage, right before I became intimately acquainted with the beach sand once again. But that wasn't all. One of its black eyes was covered in what could only be described as an eye patch.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I don't see much point in struggling against the aggressor. Just settle in and get comfortable with the cold sand grains. Maybe I get to have another light-show from the bio-luminescent lights that line this species' neck? Another mathematics lesson after we get past this initial confusion? Perhaps this dragon and its friends will be fond of logic. But somehow I am doubtful. I am somewhat disappointed that all the effort yesterday carving and scrapping away seems to be in vain.

  After a while I am rolled over and get a better look at it. And yeah, the dragon is scrimmed out. The eye patch seems to be a defining feature separating this one from the rest.

  "Wear your eye pro next time," I joke. The dragon has no idea what I am saying.

  I try to stay calm. If it wanted to harm me, I would already be dead. The way it barks at the other dragons, its likewise scrimmed companions, as though it was ordering them about. If I get through this, I vow to name this dragon Sergeant Johnson, in honor of my great grand father's favorite character from a video game franchise long forgotten.

  I've no explanation for what is going on, and without Keeper, I have no way of asking, so I lay still and watch... watch the bastard's friends start going through my stuff! Noses and muzzles being stuffed where they don't belong.

  "Get out of my tent you damned lizards!"

  In response to my protest, there is a grumble from the dragon pinning me, but not really, and realization dawns on me.

  Sgt Johnson here has a radio tied to it's neck just like Dora did, and this radio is functioning too.

  It's a broken transmission often littered with static but I'm shocked that I make out Keeper's name among the other unintelligible draconic words.

  Keeper! Do they have Keeper? I don't even get a chance to wonder what the hell is going on before I am picked up and flown away into the early morning sky. Don't wreck my camp you bastards!

  Day 12 a little ways away

  Dawn Watcher knew not to struggle or fight when they descended upon her. With them having the advantage of height, any other course of action would be futile. She had been at the mollis field (on the correct side of the stone wall). The hours of dark were spent tending to the herd. She had been pushing herself, not wanting to let her new 'George' responsibility impede the chores of her islands and, as the days went, it helped take her mind off of, well, she would rather not think about it. They came as she had readied herself to fly back to the human.

  There was time to see their camouflage before a large vyrme pinned her down over the shoulders. Effective, she concluded, if not for their approach betraying that they were flying towards her, she could not have said their orientation in the strange light. But pinned down she was, so without making a fuss she watched the raiders finish their tasks and actions.

  Dawn Watcher snarled at them to leave George alone when reports of the two-legged-thing's capture were proclaimed. Dawn Watcher was not acknowledged. The poor human would not have stood a chance. She hopes George has not resisted and gotten himself hurt.

  It was about then when she witnessed the two sisters of the Vahn land just in front of her.

  "Sisters," she greets them, muzzle pinned into the dirt. She settles for a bow her dorsal sail instead. Dawn Watcher asks, "Pray, do tell what is the meaning of all this?"

  Last-to-Fall replies, "Oh, missing sister who-was-found, Dawn Watcher, better for you to explain what this is."

  The elder vyrme drops it in front of her and Dawn Watcher concludes it is a fragment of Tongzhou wreckage, she can even see some human numbers and other script inked onto its surface.

  Without giving Dawn Watcher a chance to speak, First-to-Play talks next.

  "Sister, recently some serious allegations have been leveraged against you which you must answer for. Ocean gathering is unacceptable. I do not wish to punish you harshly and we have come to hear your story but..."

  Suddenly it all makes sense. Tongzhou. Falling stars. The wreckage on the beach. And George. Of course there has been a mix up. The fucking poacher! Dawn Watcher swears she will have their head one day. But not this day. Today is the day for Dawn Watcher to try argue her case. She withholds no secrets, freely admits that the objects washing ashore are not from the sea but the heavens. George said! He said damn it, said that Tongzhou crashed down from above the high skies, burning, and fell down to the world. Most fell into the seas, and the escape pod landed on her island, both of them in fact! To claim she was ocean gathering is like claiming one receiving the coming rains has performed robbery from the seas because that's where the water evaporates from. Utter nonsense!

  But her words, her pleas, her arguments, all seem to fall on deaf ears. What, what do you want me to say? I've done nothing wrong! I will not apostatize myself without just cause.

  Last-to-Fall speaks next. She wants to know about Sky Catcher and her dead child. Just blunt force mental strikes placed upon Dawn Watcher.

  "What happened?" the elder asks. There is a lack of empathy in her words.

  To Last-to-Fall this seems a case of taking from the Micoligo that which you don't understand and wow, just look at the consequences already! And this is before the Micoligo have been mediated with to define restitution for such an offense.

  It was about this time that Alone-at-Dawn lands with her precious (and noisy) cargo. The human sees Dawn Watcher and cries out for her. The poor little human, she feels relief that he appears OK. Dawn Watcher then feels frustrated that she only sees his appearance is OK. Appearing OK and being OK are too entirely different things. Dawn Watcher tries to get up but she can't. At least the vyrme above allows her head to move now. Dawn Watcher speaks out to George from within his vyrme paw prison, asking if the debris here before them has any Danger Light. She cringes when the dosimeter beeps once but George assures her there is none.

  Yet alarm rises within Dawn Watcher. Last-to-Fall asks of Sky Catcher and her child. The only way they would know about that is... Danger light! Where are raiders? Are they in her home? Finally, with cries of danger, her words seem to be heard. George's lesson is passed along second hand to the sisters of the Vahn, that the stone she had collected is dangerous and remains dangerous, that if it wasn't for George, this little human, she would be dead too.

  Last-to-Fall flashes a message to Alone-at-Dawn and the vyrme barks for an update from her subordinates by the radio. When she hears no response, the seriousness of what Dawn Watcher words finally cements. Alone-at-Dawn departs without a word, leaving George and swooping gusts of wind to buffet them all.

  The human approaches Dawn Watcher cautiously, looking up and around at the vyrme towering over him, but they are curious too, and he makes it as Luxa light beams over the hills and through the trees. The mollis in the field continue about their business like nothing is happening. Dawn Watcher half wraps her neck around him, in a half measure attempt to shield the human from the affairs of the vyrme.

  First-to-Play continues, asking about the creature. What is it? Where did it come from?

  And Dawn Watcher replies: from the heavens above, an explorer, now stranded and waiting for rescue. A Human.

  "And can you prove this, Dawn Watcher? You know the penalties for lying."

  Oh come on. You were holding the proof before. You want proof? I shall give you some proof.

  Dawn Watcher releases George, and George hears Keeper instructing him to climb the stone wall and enter the Capy field. Why the opposite instructions from last time? George does not know, but given the unprecedented situation...

  I step over the stones and make it to the top. I'm eye level with all these dragons now, and there are so many of them. They all watch me, all their eyes, their black eyes, their normal eyes. It is uncanny. They're not all black scaled like Keeper is. Most keep to the mono color scheme, greys and whites, but a few are browns and reds. I ask Keeper what the fuck is going on, but she re-iterates her instructions.

  "George, close with Capy. Do now."

  If that will somehow help the situation, then sure, why not? I step down once and then twice before jumping into the grasses. Towards the Capy I walk. Just look at them, I should be like them: calm. Always. Maybe without all the grass eating though. I reach one and stand so that it is between me and the dragons. It is close enough that I could give it a back scratch. Briefly I wonder if that evolutionary quirk of central nervous systems is present on this planet too, but my musings are interrupted.

  There is a keening cry of distress from one dragon. Another appears to faint? I'm not entirely sure. It's scrimmed comrades look with concern but don't touch the fallen. The dragon wrestling Keeper down on the ground lets her loose, its mouth hangs open, gawking at me. There is only one thing to ask.

  "Keeper explain now?"

  "Keeper explain soon."

  My dragon friend sits on her haunches and enters into an animated conversation with two other dragons. They seem older than the others, a weathered look on their scales.

  I recognize the dragon which captured me initially returning, now that I have finally learned to start looking up. Sgt Johnson is on a course to pounce on me again, until it gets close enough to see the Capy I suppose. Sgt Johnson veers wildly of course, nearly crashing into the trees.

  Keeper and the two others continue speaking like nothing happened.

  I wonder if this is how it felt in Roswell New Mexico when the Army Air Force, as it was called back then, finally came to clean up their crashed balloon. Sgt Johnson stares at me from the other side of the mollis fence with its three eyes. The eye patch is black and its strap goes all the way around and under its muzzle. For the crime of abducting me, I offer the dragon a central finger, safe in the knowledge it has no idea what the gesture means. I settle in for a long morning next to my chill Capy companion.