by C. Litka
02
We paused for several rounds on reaching the "Halfway Islands," a small archipelago of islands that DeArjen had discovered on his return voyage. ValDare wanted to get the team used to working together before we reached our final destination of DeArjen's Islands. I also suspect that he wanted to get as much entertainment value out of the expedition as possible - and so we stopped in the islands to shoot vids of some wildlife and perhaps a dragon hunt as well.
The hunters' boat was a heavily built, twin propped, ten-meter cage-enclosed launch. It had a semi-enclosed platform at its bow from which the hunter, armed with a large gauge air-rifle could shoot. The photographer's launch was a lighter, single-prop eight-meter-launch with a similar bow for the photographer and his cameras. The hunter crew manned both boats, using their launch as a second vid unit. We spent two rounds filming the very abundant island wildlife of the islands - who were unfamiliar with, and so not alarmed by, the hunters, and not intimidated by their boats - getting everyone familiar with their roles, and documenting hunting some rather large and dangerous lizards, which provided some fast and furious action at times.
The third round found us lying 100 meters off the jungle edge of a fair sized jungle island. Between the ship and the island with both the camera and hunter's launched maneuvering to film half a dozen large, stocky "Drego lizards" - some up to eight to meters in length, which were lounging on a rocky point. DeRaze, the head hunter, ValDare and PinCar, the chief photographer, were aboard the camera launch while DeRaze's second in command, FezSer, had command of the hunters launch, which planned to kill one of the Drego lizards, which were said to be good eating, adding Drego stew to the mix.
The sky was bright, light blue, with a few clouds hanging about. A slight breeze carried the sweet flower and earthy jungle scents to us. Colorful birds and lizards soared around the ship, squawking their protests, as the bigger ones darted after the smaller ones for a meal. The big, Drego lizards on the rocks watched the launches drift in with sleepy indifference. Most of the off-duty crew were lounging against the bulwark on the afterdeck watching the proceedings, while the whole scene was being recorded by the assistant cameraman from the upper boat deck.
'Nasty lizards, those Dregos. Give me the shivers just looking at them,' said DeArjen, who was leaning against the railing next to me, as the launches drifted in towards the lizards on the rocks. 'They look so lazy and slow, but they ain't neither.'
'From what I've heard, you found these islands to be very dangerous.'
'Aye. You'd not know it by looking at them. Look mighty peaceful, just like those sunning Dregos. And you don't have to worry about any savages either, since they're uninhabited. However, that meant that none of the beasties had any reason to fear us, as they do on the inhabited islands. That's why those Dregos are letting the boats get so near - with their size and speed, they don't have much to fear. It also made for easy hunting when we reached these islands. Our prey didn't flee at our approach. We knocked them over easy as kiss my hand. However, the flip side of the coin was that the bigger beasts didn't fear or flee us either, and had no qualms about attacking us like they might in the human inhabited islands. The biggest of them Drego lizards could dart out of the foliage and grab one of us in its jaws and dart back before we even knew what was happening. We'd just hear a scream and then see the foliage waving where the Drego had vanished back into the jungle. Oh, we could quickly track it down and maybe kill it with our springer rifles and spears since it had no fear of us, and so it didn't go far. But it's victim would've been half chewed up before we could do anything and there wasn't much we could do about that, even if they were still alive after we killed the drego. Still, we needed to resupply the boat, so that we couldn't just cut and run either,' he paused, and shaking his head, added quietly, 'But after a couple of rounds, we had more than enough provisions - seeing that there was just the two of us left alive when we set sail again.'
'We, me and Triz, made it to the Outward Islands, eventually. But, well, that was the Outward Islands. We'd done some trading there, so we knew our way about and managed to get accepted by the Isakans as sort of semi-slaves, and spent a couple of thousand rounds with them. Triz was killed on a raid and I, eventually, was able to slip aboard an island trader and make my way back to the Dontas, with a long, tragic story to tell...'
The Drego lizards began to roar as the launches closed in on their rocky point.
'Getting mighty close to them,' I said. 'Will they attack the launches?'
DeArjen shook his grizzled head. 'Dregos generally keep their claws on the ground. They'd have been after the boats already if they... What? By the savage gods of Te'arja!'
We instinctively jumped back from the bulwark, as a very, very large dragon, wing-limbs outstretched, suddenly and silently appeared over the top of the island jungle, and with a sweep of its limbs, flew over the ship, casting a deep shadow over us. It was the largest lizard dragon I'd yet seen. Each of its limbs, with their feathered wing membranes, had to have been over 20 meters long. Its long, emerald green body and wings were feathered, intricately patterned in golds and reds that glistened in the milky light. Its massive long-jawed head, set on long outstretched neck, was crowned in a long spray of golden feathers. This was no serpent dragon, but a full-bodied monster example of the lizard dragon. Its long tail had just passed overhead when it spied the sunning Drego lizards on the rocky point below and swung about, diving over us again, to grasp one of the suddenly scrambling Dregos in its massive jaws. It settled, with much creaking and cracking of wood, on the tops of the jungle trees, seemingly content to devour its catch while studying the Lora Lake.
This peace didn't last long, as one of the hunters sent an explosive slug it's way, blowing a small hole in a puff of feathers in one of its forearm wing membranes. That apparently rearranged its priorities.
Abandoning the now limp lizard, it bellowed, and reaching down with its long, claw-tipped arms, grabbed the upper cage of the hunter's launch to pull it close, and began to tear at the cage with its claws and jaws to get at the crew. Inside, the hunters were flung violently about as the dragon angrily attacked the launch, scrambling to escape the dragon's probing claws and teeth as it attempted to tear it apart the launch.
'A King Emerald dragon. That has to be the King of King Emeralds!' gasped DeArjen. 'He'll tear that launch apart... The fools!'
After instinctively jumping back from the bulwark, I stood frozen, gaping at the giant dragon's violent attempt to tear the steel cage off the hunter's launch. Anchored to the island jungle, it swung the launch about. I could catch glimpses of its crew being flung about so violently that they had no chance to send another explosive slug its way. All they could do was to hold on to something solid as far away from the dragon's claws and teeth as possible. Over its angry roars, I could hear the screech of steel being bent. As I said, I stood at a loss as to what I could do to save the launch from being torn apart by this massive king emerald dragon.
Captain KimTara was not at a loss. She leaped for the ladder to the boat deck.
'DisRay! To the rocket launcher!' she shouted to our second mate, who was watching from the bridge's wing deck above us, over the roar of the dragon as she flung herself up the ladder.
There was an even louder, angrier roar.
I looked back to see that the camera launch, which had been dancing in the air currents generated by the violent encounter, had caught the attention of the dragon. DeRaze, in the camera launch must have sent a second explosive round from his high-powered dragon hunting rifle into the dragon, with no apparent effect, save that the dragon roared, and lashing out with one of its long arms, caught the camera launch by it cage and flung it against the rocks of the point where the Drego lizards had been sunning themselves. They'd also been thinking faster than me - and had already made themselves scarce.
The camera boat hit the rocks with a grinding crunch and bounced off, spinning away out of control.
The Captain reached t
he boat deck and was unlocking the case that held the initial supply of rockets, as the cameraman scrambled to get out of her way - still filming. DisRay, at the launcher, was tearing off its canvas cover.
By now, the crew had snapped out of their shock, and were racing up the ladder to help the skipper and DisRay at the rocket launcher. She ordered DisRay to take several of the hands down the ship's rocket magazine to get more rockets, tossing him the keys. A dozen rockets were kept in a box on the deck for immediate use, which I thought would be enough. But better safe than sorry.
The skipper shoved a rocket into the launcher and swung towards the dragon. The problem was that with the boat, still being flung about in the dragon's grip, getting a clear shot at the dragon without risking hitting the launch was going to be tricky. Desperation would probably be the trigger...
The dragon roared again, suddenly glaring at the Captain and her crew on the boat deck. Its telepathic abilities may have given it a warning that things were about to get very dangerous. He roared and flung the hunter's boat at the Lora Lakes - at Captain KimTara and the rocket launcher beside the smokestack to be precise. Telepathy could only explain that. It then dived at them as well.
The boat deck is only a narrow deck running between the ship's two launches and only had a light grating overhead to keep people from being carried off in a wind. It seemed to offer no protection from either a very large and very angry dragon or the launch it flung at them.
The boat bounced off the smokestack just above the rocket launcher. KimYara and DisRay had prudently dodged behind the smokestack while the rest of the crew on the after deck and I dived for cover behind the solid bulwark. The boat bounced off the edge of the bulwark and grating just above me with a clanging crash and slowly began to drift away after putting a minor dent in the heavy grating.
The shadow of the dragon followed it, the claws of its legs raking across the smokestack and the thin grating of the boat deck. Then, with a flap of its forearm wings that brushed against the cage overhead, it soared away - the backwash of its wing-like forelimbs swirling around us. It rose high overhead, twisted, and disappeared over the island. The skipper slipped back around to the rocket launcher, but the dragon did not return.
I glanced up at the slowly drifting hunters' boat, and looking up through its grating, I saw some bloodied men, slowly gathering themselves.
I could see the battered propeller cowlings and knew they weren't going anywhere under their own power, but the boat was still close enough to quickly secure, if I acted quickly.
Rising, I raced over to the gate that led down to the after hold deck, and scrambled down and across the deck to one of the winches set in the bulwark used to secure lighters next to the ship. Reaching it, I released the light cable and began to draw it out. Glancing up, I saw that the hunter's boat was still within reach.
A couple of the crew joined me on the deck.
'Play out the line,' I ordered as I climbed to the top of the bulwark. It was a dozen meters or so off now, - but I thought I could still reach it with a jump - if the cable I was holding didn't hold me back too much. My boots were programed for jumping, so they momentarily shut down when I crouched and then pushed off.
The cable, despite its slack, did slow me down, but I was able swing about before reaching the boat feet first, landing with my magnetic boots, which kept me attached long enough for me to grab the battered cage and haul the cable close enough to where the crew quickly wrapped it around a section of cage so that it could be winched down to its makeshift davit on the deck. Crew members gathered on the deck to help the bleeding and battered launch crew wrench open the bent-in access hatch and then take them to the ship's surgery to be patched up.
The Captain, meanwhile, was directing the launch of one of the ship's boats to tow the camera boat back, since, it too, was immobilized by a damaged propeller. As soon it was brought to its davits on the deck, DeRaze jumped out followed by a ValDare, nursing a bloody cut over his eye.
'Have you ever seen a dragon of that size before?' exclaimed DeRaze, as the skipper climbed down to see about her cousin. 'We need to get right after it - before it gets lost in the islands! We can't lose even a second more. Never mind steam, Chief. We can run on battery power. We'll run it down with the ship. Snap to it Chief, we've wasted enough time already!'
'You want to go after it?' exclaimed ValDare. 'After what it did to your boat?'
'Of course I want to go after it. A dragon that size would be the prize of a lifetime. That one was half again as large as any I've ever seen, dead or alive! We can safely hunt it aboard the Lora. Get a move on it, Chief.'
I glanced to the Captain.
'No,' she said, shaking her head.
ValDare glanced at his cousin, 'It would be a prize, if only to get it on film...'
She shook her head again. 'We were chartered to transport you, not hunt dragons.'
'Tara...' he pleaded.
'I've no intention of taking this ship through the islands looking for a dragon. You've got plenty of it on film already.'
DeRaze was not about to take "No" for an answer. At least not without an argument. The skipper simply turned her back on him and began directing crew to haul the battered launch back to its makeshift davit on the after deck.
DeRaze then turned his angry pleading to the rather helpless ValDare, which got him no more than, 'Perhaps on the way home we can stop and search for it again. As isolated as these islands are, it seems very likely they're its home, so it will still be here when we come back.'
DeRaze must've decided that this was the best deal he was going to get, since he just nodded, and said, 'I'll hold you to that,' and sulked off.
Hissi slept through the whole affair - until the launch hit the ship. She was pretty mad about missing the excitement, and didn't appreciate me telling her the tale, several times, just to annoy her. Simla dragons can be pretty annoying at times. Turnabout is fair play.
With both launches needing repairs, we'd no reason to linger any longer in the islands, so we sailed on the next watch. Once we put the islands a round behind, likelihood of seeing anymore dragons dropped to near zero, allowing us to repair the launches on the open deck without fear of dragons, and with only safety lines to keep us from being blown overboard by sudden cross winds. Repairing the boats kept all of us busy until we reached DeAnjen's Islands, the islands of the Dragon-people, the Scarlet Guard of the Dragon Kings.