>Somewhere in the Kingdom of the Sea, approaching a scavenger Den_
Dawn had broken through the deep a few hours ago, which was when the dragonets had agreed to set off together towards where the group of maybe-creatures-maybe-boats had been speculated to have been going.
They should be approaching the shore soon, by Cuttlefish's reckoning. He had thought to bring a map on this outing, to more accurately assess distances and locations.
Traveling along with the three dragonets was Mako, who had been 'voluntold' to accompany them by Grouper. Because even though the three dragonets were technically old enough to be going about and swimming outside of the enclave, they were still dragonets. And they were swimming somewhere that could potentially prove dangerous.
Mako herself was less than thrilled to be chaperoning the trio on what she believed to be a meaningless endeavor, but the enclave tutor knew better than to constantly snap at and nag them over it. It wouldn't really make her feel any better, and it wouldn't make the trip go any faster.
["At the very least..."] She said ["This can be a convenient opportunity to observe and study scavengers in their natural habitat, which would surely be a benefit to your three's education. I'll of course be expecting a written report about what you learned at the end of the day and you can expect a quiz in the coming week."]
It didn't mean that she wouldn't exact any toll on them for this, to be sure.
Cuttlefish held steady, as he in turn knew better than to grant her any satisfaction by a negative response. A lesson that was certainly not shared by Clam, who flopped dramatically.
["AW, WHAT!?"] He flashed, ["More homework!? Whose bright idea was it anyway to go chasing after Sea Monsters? Isn't just seeing them once enough!?"]
["Because we have to be sure."] Oyster snapped. ["It would be a shame if we just left it up in the currents if these things are still around or not. Besides, Grouper suggested that the things may not even be living creatures, so we should get up close to them to find out."]
["Fat chance..."] Mako flashed dimly.
["How do we even know they'll still be there?"] Clam asked. ["All we know is that this is the direction they were going last, according to Cuttlefish, and that this direction happens to lead to a scavenger den apparently. These things didn't look like they could go up on land, so why would they be going this way? What if they just reached the shore and turned? What then?"]
["I don't know."] Cuttlefish flashed. ["If the things are still near the Den, we can maybe figure out what they are doing and why they went there. If they moved on, then we'll have to try to determine which direction they went by any clues they might have left behind. If they didn't leave any, then I don't know."]
["Then I guess we'll just go look at scavengers or whatever."] Oyster said.
No one else said anything as they continued to swim through the calm morning waters. Eventually, before they came into visual range of the continental shore through the blue, Cuttlefish waved his map and signaled they should be getting close to the shore and should surface. The four carefully made for the surface to get a look around.
Mako gestured to the dragonets to move behind her. If there was indeed a risk of danger, she wanted to be in front of them.
Mako slowly slid her head above water, and froze in place. The dragonets quickly followed her and popped their heads up almost in unison.
They all froze too.
There, on land, wedged between a strip of beach and short cliff into the water and some foothills, was what looked to be an actual castle, but sized smaller, and a collection of small huts around it. That in of itself was surprising enough, because that was probably the large scavenger Den that Grouper had mentioned. Since when did scavengers build castles!? Cuttlefish could make out a bunch of scavengers on and around a weird flat wooden structure-thing that jutted out from the short cliff off into the water that looked kinda like scaffolding. The scavengers on it looked rather busy, judging by how they were moving around. Cuttlefish also thought he could see them carrying things.
But that discovery was paltry compared to what was on the water: An entire swarm of massive, hulking, floating things.
The creatures they had seen before.
But now they're seeing them on the surface.
Cuttlefish vaguely remembered reading an analogy about icebergs, massive hunks of frozen water that drifted in the seas near the Ice kingdom, saying that only a relatively small amount of the iceberg's mass is visible on the surface. Most of the iceberg is underwater.
These strange things were the opposite it seemed; most of their size somehow rested above the waterline. When the dragonets saw them from below, they appeared big to be sure, but suffice to say they didn't see how huge they truly were.
They towered out of the water, the larger ones, which there were a lot of, were taller from the waterline up than any artificial dragon-made building Cuttlefish had personally laid eyes upon.
And there were so many of them! Counting quickly, Cuttlefish tallied there to be approximately forty-four of them. forty-four! That was about how many dragons lived in their enclave!
Not only that, but the strange things appeared complicated, as well. At the tops of all of the things Cuttlefish could see whole manners of different colored shapes, sizes, and structures that he could hardly guess the purpose of. Nevertheless, he could at least say that all of them looked artificial, and many of them looked distinctly... mechanical.
Cuttlefish also thought he could see what looked like scavenger-shapes moving around on several of the things as well.
"Three moons..." Mako hissed. The dragonets remained in stunned silence.
The four dragons stared for a few moments longer, before they all slowly slipped back under the surface as carefully as they appeared.
Mako turned back to them. ["Well, dragonets... I guess you were right. I have no idea what those things are."]
["Can we go get a closer look?"] Oyster asked ["Underwater, I mean."]
Mako considered the proposition for a moment, while Clam looked alarmed.
["... I guess we probably could. We should at least try to learn what we can about the things while we're here... just remember to stay quiet and stay behind me. No sudden moves."]
All three dragonets, even Clam, signaled their agreement, and they moved out.
They stayed underwater, and approached slowly. Cuttlefish remembered that one of the things seemed to notice them when they approached it from underwater yesterday, but it didn't actually do anything to them. He didn't want to count on the strange things remaining passive again, so going unnoticed if possible would be for the best.
As they swam closer, the shadows the things cast under the sea became visible, and the familiar shapes of the underwater portions of the things came into view. None of the things appeared to be moving. The dragons couldn't see the telltale bubble stream that they created when they moved around. They could, however, see a sort of line that hung from each of the mysterious things and draped all the way down to the seafloor. As they got closer, they realized it was a chain.
An actual, metal chain. Cuttlefish had no idea what they were for, and judging by the expressions on the other three dragons, neither did they.
["What in the Great currents...?]" Mako flashed, looking the chain up and down.
["Maybe it has something to do with it staying still?"] Clam suggested.
Cuttlefish supposed it was possible. Was the thing... chained the seafloor somehow? That seemed unlikely. Why would it be chained? Who chained it? How would they release it if they wanted? How would it have been chained in the first place? It also looked like the chain came directly out of the thing, as well.
Cuttlefish suggested that they follow the chain to the bottom, so they did. They found that the chain did not go directly to the Ocean floor in a mostly straight line, but rather kind of... drooped like a slack rope a considerable distance before ending at a weirdly complicated piece of what looked like metal just resting on the sandy bottom.
Oyster swam forth and placed her talons on the thing, feeling it around and pushing on it slightly. ["It's definitely made of metal, and it's very heavy. It also seems to be stuck into the sand somewhat. I imagine that it could just be picked up, though. If you're strong enough."]
["It definitely has something to do with the things above holding still."] Cuttlefish said, ["But I don't think it's meant to chain the things into staying still per say..."]
["It's probably more to do with stopping the wind and waves from moving them around than anything."] Mako interjected, before she shook her head. ["I don't know dragonets... I think Grouper had a point about these things being artificial 'boats' as he called them. But if they are, it would stand to ask... who built them? Why? How? What are they doing here?"]
["What they even made of...?"] Cuttlefish said, looking up the chain line.
["I have no idea. I don't know anything about these 'boats' anyway, and these things appear to be in a whole new category entirely. The only thing we know is that at least part of them is made of metal, as Oyster pointed out. But then again, metal obviously doesn't float. I truly don't know."] Mako flashed.
["Is it possible that scavengers built them?"] Cuttlefish asked, both him and the two siblings turning to look at Mako.
Mako at first looked like she wanted to scoff that off, but then she appeared to consider the question further.
["...I'm not sure."] She said after a few moments, ["Normally I would consider such a statement to be preposterous, and I still do... but I would also consider the notion of dragons being able to build these things to be ridiculous as well... I truly don't know."]
She gave the dragonets a concerned gaze. They had never heard her say "I don't know" so many times in their lives, much less in one conversation.
["... I thought I saw scavengers moving around on top of the things..."] Clam offered, Oyster and Cuttlefish both nodded, and to their surprise even Mako did too.
["I thought I did too."] She said, ["Let's make some distance and go back to the surface to get another look... carefully. Then I think we should report this back to the enclave leaders, and maybe even the Royal authorities. These things could be a threat."]
The four dragons moved towards the surface and away from where the probable 'boats' floated, once again carefully peeking their heads above water, and looked.
Something was different this time. None of the things were moving, but they could hear this odd... wailing noise... coming from some of the floating objects. Cuttlefish also thought that he could see the shapes of scavengers moving around and odd small boxy structures on top of a few of the floating things were somehow moving as well.
The four dragons backed up slowly, afraid that the wailing sound was an alarm that meant they'd somehow been detected, but none of the things broke off from the large group and came towards them.
What is going on?
***
>Captain Robert Drake's personal log:_
Let it be known that an awful lot can be communicated just through a series of dramatic hand gestures and body language, if you're determined enough and patient.
The first contact meeting went about as well as could have been reasonably expected. We couldn't speak with the locals obviously, but we could get basic messages across via the aforementioned game of not-charades.
The locals appear to be indeed human, which is both fascinating and a relief, in my opinion. Their spoken language is... interesting to say the least. I've never heard anything like it. It has a lot of almost chittering and chattering noises, and frequently goes into falsetto. It reminds me somewhat of the strange languages spoken by remote tribes in the African Congo that I read about in college, but it's still much different. By their skin tones, these people also look like they'd be home near the Persian Gulf, not the middle of Africa. Or wherever this is.
Speaking of where this is... I have no idea. The locals helpfully had a map to show us when we first went to meet them, which was some surprisingly good foresight on their part. I've never seen the landmass depicted on their map in my life.
Then again, I've never seen more than one moon in the night sky, to be fair.
The continent itself is somewhat reminiscent of a map of North America, but drawn all wrong. Our location on it, as pointed out to us, looks to be on an oddly shaped peninsula on the southeastern-most side of the continent.
We don't know anything else about the continent other than its general shape at this time. The local's map had writing on it, a fair amount, but we obviously couldn't read it.
We still have no idea where we are relative to Europe, The Atlantic or the Americas, however.
On a more positive note, the locals have been surprisingly eager in their reception of us. They were evidently a bit apprehensive of us at first, which is understandable given that we showed up in a, at least to them, massive fleet of ships probably bigger than anything they had ever seen with little warning. However, once we established that we weren't a hostile invasion fleet that wariness pretty much evaporated.
I returned to my ship after our first 'meeting' with the village's leader, who I believe is probably named "Talem." Several enlisted men and some officers from various ships across the convoy were authorized to go ashore after the first contact meeting and mingle with the locals. And by all accounts reported to me, it's going pretty well. Requests from the enlisted personnel to go ashore skyrocketed when rumors that the locals had alcohol started to spread. I doubt anyone would have gotten any sleep tonight anyway, either on the shore or on the ships. Hopefully our first contact legacy won't be a series of spectacular bar fights. Or rather, tavern fights, in this case.
Signalman Darren Olson, the multilingual prodigy, reported just earlier that the ad-hoc language team that had been thrown together last night had been making surprisingly good progress in learning the basics of the local language. Reportedly, their language isn't actually that hard, but it is very alien. It also apparently isn't helping that the locals are apparently just as eager to learn English as they are to teach their own tongue. Which is fine by me, to be honest. Many of the phrases and concepts that we would need to communicate effectively on a technical level might not even exist in their lingua yet. Either way, the priority is getting to the point where effective communication is possible in the first place.
On the note of the local people being more than willing to do stuff, they got to work refurbishing and reinforcing their old run-down piers after these sun rose over the horizon. Evidently they want us to be able to dock more than just small utility craft with their piers. Which will be good.
We also learned that their harbor is indeed deep enough for our ships to enter, as per the word of the locals, so we did. None of the ships are moored with their docks yet, obviously, but we moved as many ships as we safely could close to them.
Although that was perhaps a given. If the locals wanted to build a port town, of course they would have been smart enough to do so where the water was deep enough to facilitate larger craft. But still, better safe than sorry.
Even now, I could see the local workers busily hauling lumber and other construction materials around and utilizing small rafts to shore up their piers by replacing parts that have rotted or reinforcing existing ones with stronger beams.
I have to say that I find myself impressed by their work ethic.
Still, if I didn't know any better, I might say that, by the surprising eagerness to which they have taken to these self-imposed tasks, it's almost as if they were waiting for an excuse or reason to have something to do. Like they indeed weren't happy with the state that their docks had fallen into, and/or that they hadn't gotten any visitors, and had been waiting for an excuse to remedy that.
But that begs the question, why? Why don't they have ships to moor? Why don't they have visitors? What is it that is keeping them from operating like a normal harbor town? I saw the location of the city on the map of the continent they showed me; it looked to be situated in a pretty advantageous place to be, as far as coastal trade is concerned.
The locals clearly aren't apathetic to maritime operations of any sort, by how much they've taken to us and have already begun with fixing their piers. So what was it?
Some of the men that went ashore reported that many of the local residents were probably warning them about something, and that others seemed to have taken objection to our presence in their harbor. They also said that whatever it was that they were afraid of, it was probably airborne. They also said that the people either warning or objecting were rather frantic with their tone and hand gestures, so whatever it was that they were worked up over must have made them pretty afraid. The fact that whatever they're afraid of seems to come from the air is also pretty concerning, in my opinion.
***
>Aboard USS Sampson, US Navy Destroyer, officer country, anchored outside an unknown settlement_
Captain Robert Drake stood up from the typewriter in his cabin, and was met by a knock on the cabin door.
"Enter." He said.
One lieutenant Mike Evans opened the door, and stood at attention with a salute.
"At ease." Drake said, and the lieutenant's posture relaxed somewhat.
"We've spotted multiple air contacts on RADAR, sir. Approaching from the southwest, slowly. They haven't responded at all to radio interrogation attempts, sir."
Drake grew serious. "What's their altitude and speed?"
"Hard to say. The RADAR techs said there was potentially interference from the terrain, which the air contacts appear to be over. But the numbers they gave were around fifteen-hundred feet and sixty-nine knots Low and really slow."
That was... interesting. 69 kts was well below the stall speed of any serious monoplane he knew of. Many outdated biplanes could certainly fly that slowly, but it wasn't generally considered to be a good idea.
Could this be what the locals were afraid of?
It was possible. Any airborne threat would be a danger to a medieval-level city, no matter how sluggish.
"Go to general quarters. Sound the air raid sirens. We'll meet these unknown aircraft ready. But make sure no one fires unless they confirm to be hostile."
"Yes sir!" The lieutenant said, and made off with another quick salute.
Drake made his own way up to the bridge, through the crew mess where several seamen were on brake, up into the ship's superstructure and to the plotting room via ladder just as the air raid klaxons began to wail.
He spoke into the ship's intercom:
"General quarters, general quarters, all able personnel clear the AA guns for action."
The alarms began to ring.
He scanned the sky in the direction the air contacts were reported, which was also unfortunately concealed by cloud cover. He couldn't see anything yet.
He moved out from the bridges and looked aftwards. He could see the controlled chaos of the crew moving around to ready the various 20mm and 40mm autocannons, and no doubt the 5"/38 guns were being readied below deck, out of his direct line of sight. The other escort ships were doing the same.
"Sir!" A shout came from the radio room, "CAM ship Novelist is clearing her fighter to launch!"
Son of a... "They were not authorized to do that!" He shouted back.
"Look!" Someone outside shouted.
Movement and a bright light from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Turning, he could see one of the distinct visual spectacle of a Hawker Sea Hurricane being launched via rocket-catapult off the deck of one of the transport vessels.
Well, too late now. He thought ruefully. Let's hope that the pilot can find a place to ditch safely...
***
>Earlier...
>Aboard the SS Novelist, CAM ship_
RAF Flight lieutenant Jeremy Hill clamored into the cockpit of his Sea Hurricane Mk.I c, and busied himself with the preflight checks. The other airmen on deck had already spun up the plane's engine, which was now humming smoothly.
Convincing the ship' master to authorize the launch once the unknown air contacts had been detected was surprisingly easy. It was standard operating procedure to deploy the fighter once hostile aircraft had been spotted, after all. Jeremy also figured the ship's master probably wanted to impress the locals with the technological demonstration of the aircraft launch as well. A sentiment he could very much understand.
From the plane's cockpit, he could see the flag code Foxtrot being raised up the ship's mast. That flag could very much be the only prior warning their ship was giving for his launch, he figured.
One of the airmen working the catapult stood up beside the cockpit and raised in his hand the locking pins for the catapult system so Jeremy could see them. He nodded his acknowledgement. The airman then moved off to show the pins to the Catapult Duty Officer.
Jeremy worked the flaps lever with his hand to apply 30 degree flaps, and pushed on the pedals below him to apply ⅓ right rudder.
The CDO, seeing the movement of the plane's control surfaces, raised a blue flag to inform the ship's master of their readiness to launch.
Normally, the ship would then maneuver into the wind to launch if it were underway. But the ship was at anchor, and there wasn't much wind to maneuver into, anyhow. They would just have to launch as is and hope for the best.
The ship's master raised his own blue flag from the starboard side of the ship's bridge to signal his readiness.
The CDO then waved his blue flag to signal to Jeremy that they were ready, and waiting for his cue to launch.
Jeremy pushed the throttle to full, and the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine roared in response. He tightened the throttle friction nut with his gloved fingers, and pushed his head back into the seat's headrest. He pressed his right elbow against his hip to steady it, and braced himself. He lowered his left hand quickly to signal he was ready for launch.
3 seconds.
Jeremy grunted as the rockets that propelled the catapult fired, and the entire aircraft abruptly accelerated forwards.
The Sea Hurricane cleared the catapult before Jeremy could so much as realize it, and he gently pulled the flight stick back to raise the elevators and pitch the plane's nose into a shallow climb after gaining some airspeed.
It would take time for the unknown aircraft to reach them, and he wanted to have an altitude advantage on them when they arrived.
He loosened the friction nut and eased the throttle off WEP, but kept it open for the climb. He brought the plane around in wide, lazy circles around the convoy ships, as his altitude and airspeed slowly began to climb.
Jeremy looked back down to the strange town they had found. He wished he could see their reaction to the mysterious flying machine taking flight from one of the ships and climbing up into the sky.
***
>Atop the Safehold, Safe Harbor_
Castle Archer Guardsman Robin stared in sheer, unadulterated dumbfoundment as a weird, buzzing flying thing shot off with a small blaze of fire off the front of one of the strange ships in the harbor and began to slowly fly in wide circles, getting higher all the while.
What... is that thing...? He thought dizzily.
Was it a bird? The wings didn't seem to flap or even move once. Was it somehow a kind of... flying machine? Was that even possible?
Just who are these strangers?
Him and the rest of the Archer Guards atop the roof were pulled from their transfixed reverie by the sound of distant bells ringing.
Bells. Alarm bells. That could only mean one thing.
Safe Harbor had a series of small and concealed bell towers with watchers that would ring them in case of a dragon sighting as an early warning system for the city.
"DRAGON!" Someone shouted. Robin wasn't sure who. Probably their Commander. "Raise the alarms! Bring the Citizens Into the Safehold! Man the ballistae! Archers at the ready!"
Robin rushed to do his job. He was part of the division of the Archer Guard that operated the four ballistae that were placed atop the Safehold. It was he and his fellow operators, and the two dozen or so longbow archers stationed up here that provided the city its only real measure of defense against attacking dragons.
It was a risky job, to be sure. Not only being where dragons flying overhead would have the easiest time seeing and getting to you, but actively shooting back at them. But it was a job that had to be done, and it was his duty to do it.
That didn't mean that he wasn't scared.
On the contrary, he was terrified.
But he and the other young men up here were all well-trained and conditioned enough to do their jobs through the terror.
He and another Guardsman ran over to a small ready-use pile of huge spears that were designed as projectiles for the ballistae. Bracing their backs, they heaved the oversized polearm up onto their shoulders and trucked it over to one of the ballista in a manner like lumberjacks would carry felled logs.
Another two men were already cranking the device's arming mechanism back, and the pair of oversized iron-reinforced bows placed in tandem which gave the ballista its shooting power and the thick lines connecting them to the sliding block were drawn taut. One of them placed a sturdy locking pin into the machine, which held it from releasing tension until they were ready. Robin and the other Guard lifted the spear up and slid it carefully onto the firing tray, a long flat bit of wood that the spear would slide upon as it was accelerated to speed. They fitted the butt of the spear against the sliding block, the piece of wood connected to the taut lines of the ballista that would push the spear along as it was released.
The four Guardsman then removed the locking pins from the heavy hinge pivots on the ballista's base that allowed it to traverse both horizontally and vertically. They all grabbed onto handles positioned to give them just enough mechanical advantage to move the thing, and grunted again with effort as they manually hauled it around and up to face the direction they figured the alarm bell came from.
And from there they waited.
And they waited.
The archers were ready to, arrows nocked and ready to draw their longbows.
Not one soul uttered a word to break the silence.
Robin thought he could hear an odd wailing sound coming from the ships in the harbor.
They waited.
People in the city proper were scrambling around, women and children were moved into the Safehold with priority. They didn't have enough time to evacuate everyone, however, so many people were just taking cover where they could.
They waited.
It felt like hours, but in reality it was hardly two minutes they waited.
Robin snapped his head up when he heard it. He could see the other guards did the same.
A strange sound. The flapping of wings. The archers drew their bows.
"Steady..." the Commander said again.
There. Just breaking through the clouds, the black, hulking shape of an adult black dragon emerged.
A Night Dragon...
Then another emerged, then another, then another. All in all eight winged shapes appeared.
8 of them... Robin counted, dread creeping through his veins.
One dragon is bad enough. Even the collective efforts of the ballista and Castle Archers are yet to bring down even a single dragon in remembered history. The best they had managed is scaring them off with volume of fire before they could do serious damage.
But 8 of them?
No one had even seen a single Night Dragon in years!
"Oh, no..." one of the men beside him murmured, they were all looking pale.
The dragons stopped and seemed to stare at the huge collection of ships in the harbor, as if confused.
Robin found himself glancing out to them as well. Was it possible the appearance of the ships attracted the dragon's attention? He didn't know.
Fat lot of good they did, either way. He thought bitterly. Safe Harbor was probably doomed. Destroyed before they could even realize any of the benefits those ships could have wrought.
The dragons above seemed to almost shake themselves, and pulled their wings in to dive on the city with splitting roars. Robin felt like they were aiming right for him.
Robin thought he could hear screams coming from below, through the shaking sound of the dragon's roar and the clanging of the alarm bells. Screams of terrified villagers, young men, women, and children now fearing their brutal demise.
He gritted his teeth and he and his comrades hauled the ballista around slightly to adjust its aim. They had enough discipline to wait until given the order to fire. They also had just enough to not lose themselves to fear as the great flying predators bore down unto them.
The order came.
"RELEASE!" The Commander yelled, and the ballistae crew ripped out the locking pins that held the great bows fast. Four thick spears as long as two grown men were tall shot forth into the air and towards the diving dragons.
They all missed. That wasn't really a surprise, all things considered. It wasn't as though aiming the cumbersome things at rapidly moving and flying targets was easy, after all. Two of the projectiles looked to be on course to hit, but the dragons they were heading towards were able to easily dodge them by adjusting their courses slightly.
The longbow archers fired next, while the ballistae crews scrambled to reload. The arrows loosed by them also either missed or were otherwise ignored.
Robin looked up from the spear that he and the other guard were hauling to the ballista. The dragons were closing too fast. They wouldn't be able to reload in time. The archers loosed another volley of arrows, to little effect.
Robin braced himself. The Night Dragons would probably start by setting fire to the Safehold's roof, where he and his comrades were.
But suddenly, before that could happen, an odd shrieking sound cut through the air, coming from above. The dragons all faltered in their dive and spread their wings out, banking up before hovering in place and looking around.
Robin then heard a series of booms coming from the direction of the ocean, and he himself glanced back. One of the ship's in the harbor, one of the smaller ones, had small plumes of smoke rising from 5 weird small box-looking structures spread across the top of it. He didn't know what that meant. Perhaps they were somehow trying to help?
The dragons didn't seem to care. They shook themselves off, flew back up a little higher, and restarted their dive on the human city. The delay had given them some seconds, though. Precious seconds where hopefully more citizens were evacuated into the reinforced citadel of the Safehold.
Not that it would do him much good.
Robin once again braced himself as the dragons all closed in on the city, this was probably going to be it for them, and perhaps the entire legacy of Safe Harbor as well. If the dragons moved on to burn the city.
But once again, something strange happened. The sky seemed to decide that it would stop favoring dragons, because it exploded.
Massive black explosions appeared from nowhere and shook the sky around the Night Dragons. They in turn all veered off course, or were forcibly thrown off course, and had their hunting cries turned to cries of pain. Robin thought he could see small spouts of red mist appearing from the dragons as well.
One of the dragons had one of the explosions appear right next to it, and as a result its glittering black right-hand wing was reduced to frayed tatters. The dragon then spiraled out of control from the sky like a lopsided leaf with a pained shriek, and plummeted for the forest just outside the city below.
The explosions kept coming.
Robin again glanced back to the harbor, and could see multiple flashes of fire and light coming from several of the ships. We're they somehow doing this?
The dragons above scattered, flying wildly. Clutching limbs and apparent injuries or flapping erratically.
The explosions kept coming.
Suddenly, the weird flying buzzing thing showed itself. It had apparently flown up into a cloud bank after the alarm bells started to ring. Appearing out of the clouds and diving at a ridiculous speed at the dragons like a peregrine falcon would dive on a fowl. Streams of bright red staccato fire spewed from four points on its wings, which still did not flap once. The stream connected with one of the dragons that was still flying strong with a rapid sound of repeated impact, and it lurched and flailed with a roar that was quickly cut off. The dragon's limbs, tail and neck suddenly went slack and that dragon too plummeted from the heavens.
The flying thing buzzed past the remaining six dragons, never once deviating from the smooth diving curve it was following, and screamed back into the clouds above, far faster than Robin thought any dragon, or really anything, could fly. But what did he know?
The explosions kept coming.
One of the dragons realized where the flying thing went, and looked to make after it. But before it could so much as pick up speed, another explosion appeared directly on the dragon, and said dragon was blown apart. Limbs, blood, scales, muscles, organ tissue and bone fragments flew in a macabre confetti of gore in all directions.
Robin surprised himself by wincing. That was brutal... Before now, he didn't even really know if dragons could even bleed. Much less, well, that.
The explosions kept coming.
Another one of the dragons, who had a direct line of sight to the morbid firework, saw what happened and uttered what Robin might have thought was a scream. Until three more explosions suddenly appeared in series relatively nearby it. The midnight black dragon was thrown around by each blast as if it was being punched. The dragon then fell from the sky without another sound.
The explosions kept coming.
Three of the four remaining Night Dragons seemed to realize that the explosions were coming from the ships on the water, because they dove for them. At this point even Robin could tell that was probably suicidal.
Before the dragons could so much as clear the shoreline, the ships revealed they too could release rapid staccato streams of fire of their own similar to the ones thrown by the flying thing. Those glowing red fire streams erupted forth from places all over many of the ships hulls and met the charging dragons with fury.
The dragons all flew into a blazing hailstorm of fire and were literally ripped to pieces for their efforts. Scales flew, many small explosions appeared, limbs were forcibly amputated, and the three dragons invariably collapsed in on themselves as quickly as they initiated the dive and slammed into the water at speed almost simultaneously.
The remaining streams of red fire that missed their marks flew well over the city, and off into the yonder distance.
The explosions stopped coming.
The last Night Dragon didn't follow its brethren on their death charge, but instead turned and fled. Fled! From humans! Before the dragon could get far, however. The flying thing buzzed back from the clouds at high speed and unleashed another stream of fire into it. The dragon staggered, and it too fell. Never to take to the sky again.
No one said anything for a time. The cacophony of the repeated explosions gave way to a stunned silence, broken only by the buzzing of the strange flying thing and the ringing of their ears.
That was it. The dragons were... dead. It was over so quickly. The city wasn't destroyed. Not even a single house was burned. Were there even any casualties?
The stillness persisted for hardly a moment longer, before it was abruptly broken.
"HOW'S THAT FOR PUNY HUMANS YOU MONSTROUS LIZARDS!?" someone yelled.
And then all the humans roared.
The entire Guard stationed atop the Safehold broke into raucous cheering, whooping, and shouting.
They were not used to using their vocal chords like this.
Fully grown adults jumped and hollered and embraced each other like overexcited children. Several of them spat and threw random junk over the roof's edge towards where several of the dragons fell.
The flying thing turned back towards them, and made to fly by the Safehold. They all ran to the side it would pass by, and jumped, cheered and waved as it passed them. The strange buzzing sound it made sent vibrations through their entire bodies. Robin could see the shape of a human inside a strange glass cage in the center of the flying thing, in between and above the wings. The flying human waved back at them with a gloved hand.
So it is a flying machine! Robin thought as they were all buffeted by turbulent wind from the machine. Amazing!
The flying machine looped over the city proper and rolled back and forth to rock its wings, before flying out to the water to buzz over the ships as well.
Robin looked over the Safehold's edge down to the village, and saw the people that had taken cover in the houses, as well as the women and children that had managed to be evacuated into the Safehold in time rushing out to join in on the noisy celebration.
This was the loudest he'd ever seen any human acting ever. Himself included.
Robin looked back to the flying machine. It had circled over the floating formation of ships a few times and was making its way back to them. It banked slowly around and flew parallel with the beach strip, visibly slowing down. The buzzing noise it made became much quieter and slower. Robin watched as what looked like a pair of wheels slowly extended from the bottom of the stiff-winged machine and it gently touched down onto the sand. The thing then rolled for quite a distance, nearly crossing the entire length of the sandy strip. But it came to a rolling stop just before the beach became the rocky cliff where the piers were built.
Robin watched as villagers sprinted out en masse onto the beach to meet the human figure that was currently clamoring out of the machine. The first to reach him was an adolescent boy that Robin didn't recognize. The young man just stood before the heavily clad figure and seemed to stare in awe at him.
The flying machine operator gave the boy a sort of small courtesy, before the rest of the crowd caught up and some of the larger men in the group hoisted the figure onto their shoulders and began to parade him back to the town, all of them hooting and clapping rambunctiously all the way. Many of them were chanting 'Dragonslayer!' and 'Flying man!'
Looks like that guy will be getting quite the hero's welcome. Robin thought with no small amount of amusement. He would not want that much attention on him, no matter how positive it was.
He turned his gaze back to the harbor where the ships lay. He could see them rapidly deploying more of the odd self-propelling boats they used to move people off the ships and onto the shore. More villagers were gathering on the piers and the shore to greet them.
Looks like they all will.
He focused on the small box-structures atop some of the ships, many of them still had small clouds of smoke rising from them. He looked back to the ballista he was supposed to help operate, which was still stuck halfway ready to fire.
I would however like to see how those... whatever they have that made those explosions work.
Whatever it was that the strangers had, it was evidently quite a bit more effective.
***
>After-action report, USS Sampson_
Air contacts were detected by RADAR mid-morning. Exact time indeterminate, as the clocks are inaccurate in relation to this planet's day/night cycle. Therefore, the time measured when the contacts were detected will be referred to as 00:00 for the sake of this report.
0000: air contacts spotted.
0008: General quarters raised, Air raid sirens activated and all AA guns cleared for action.
0010: CAM ship Novelist deployed her Sea Hurricane fighter craft on her ship master's own discretion, convoy commanders not consulted.
0012: All air defense sectors reported ready and on standby. Order given to hold fire until contacts proven hostile.
0018: Activity spotted on local castle structure. Reports of alarm bell sounds from the town were heard.
0019: Crew on shore confirm via radio the town was under a state of emergency, and that women and children were being rushed into the castle structure. Able-bodied men were reportedly acquiring various weapons or taking shelter. They were all directed to do the same. Quote: "They were all really scared."
0021: Acquired visual contact. The unknown air contacts appeared to be a collection of 8 large, flying, pitch-black European dragons (Yes, really). About 2000ft above the town.
0022: The dragons maneuvered to dive on the town. The town engaged the dragons with archers and ballista-type artillery positioned atop the castle structure.
The arrows and javelins launched by the town appeared ineffective at deterring the diving dragons, and an inert warning salvo was fired from Sampson's 5" guns.
The shells passed nearby the dragons, which evidently detected them and broke off from their dive. They reoriented themselves, regained some altitude, and resumed their attack dive on the town.
0023: All ships cleared to engage; Fire-for-effect authorized.
Hostile dragons rapidly sustained damage by flak shrapnel, 1 immediately fell after the first flak salvo from multiple ships.
Novelist's Sea Hurricane dove from cloud cover and engaged another dragon with 20mm cannon fire, scoring the second kill. Sea Hurricane leveraged airspeed to quickly climb back into cloud cover, outside the presumed attack range of the remaining dragons.
0024: Direct hit confirmed to have been fired from Sampson's No.3 gun turret violently scored the third kill.
120mm flak barrage from HMS Tyrian scored the fourth kill.
3 of the remaining 4 dragons made to dive on the convoy. A collection of 12.7mm, 20mm and 40mm autocannon fire rapidly scored the fifth, sixth, and seventh kills.
0025: Final dragon made to flee rather than fight. Novelist's Sea Hurricane once again dove from cloud cover and scored the eighth kill with autocannon fire.
All hostile targets neutralized
Cease fire order given.
Total active engagement time: Approximately 3 minutes.
Personal notes:
Actual dragons. Real, flying, scaled, possibly fire-breathing dragons. Where are we?
I recommend that Flight Lieutenant Jeremy Hill should be reprimanded for insubordination and unsafe flying. Novelist was not cleared to launch by me or Captain Arthur Johnson. Neither of us were even notified of their plans until the plane was already careening into the air. It's a miracle he wasn't killed by friendly flak fire. At least he was able to seemingly get the plane down safely, landing on the beach, rather than ditching the plane. It will probably be a Herculean effort to get him back from the locals, though. Last I looked, they looked to be making him into a new folk-hero.
On that note, many more men from across ships were sent ashore to assess damage and assist where needed. Personally, I just hope they'll do more than party.
The upside of all this is that we seemed to have gained a significant amount of goodwill with the locals. I'll give Lt. Hill that.
I'm also going to commedate the turret crew and fire directors of turret No.3 for their aiming skills. That direct hit on one of the black dragons was as impressive as the aftermath of the hit was gross.
We should also consider potentially providing the locals with some upgrades to their air defense capabilities. Repurposing some of the 20mm Oerlikon cannons and 3" dual-purpose guns from the Liberty ships could be a good place to start.