by Alma Boykin
“Good to know, and thank you,” Rada nodded. They entered the mouth of the cavern complex at Moytu Center and she paused. “One moment, please, we need to let our eyes adapt.”
“Don’t worry, Lord Ni Drako, you won’t be in the dark for long,” a profoundly bass voice rumbled. Horsa lumbered up from the shadows. “Welcome. I’m Horsa, Lord Ni Drako.”
“This is Korlee, my chief forester, and Sskara, our fire expert. We have fifteen more coming by road, with three hydro haulers,” Rada began. “Korlee, Sskara, Horsa is the chief fire specialist for House Moytu.”
“Well met. I apologize for the lack of formality, but things are getting interesting, Lord Ni Drako.”
“Lord Mammal,” Korlee offered, “why don’t Sskara and I go with Master Horsa while you do whatever you need to?”
“Excellent idea, Korlee, if Master Horsa has no objections?”
Horsa made a negation. “This way and you are in time for the detailed report. We get an update every six hours,” and the three reptiles vanished into the shadows.
The pink and gray True-dragon guide tugged Rada’s jacket hem. “This way please, Lord Ni Drako.” Rada trotted along behind the young male until they reached a large door. “Lord Oragi is waiting, Lord Ni Drako.”
“Thank you.” Rada squeezed in between the partly open panels to find the blue-green True-dragon studying a map projection. “My lord?” she called.
“When will your people get here, Ni Drako?”
Rada glanced at her timepiece. “Just before sunset unless they encounter road delays. They are bringing hydro-carriers.”
“How many can your aircraft hold?”
“Two True-dragon adults if they are very good friends and not fat. Five Azdhagi adults, and up to 1500 kilos total weight but that is the utter limit.” Rada limped over to stand beside Oragi. “Care to brief me, my lord?”
Oragi blinked, looking down and startling as if only now realizing who he was talking to. “Sorry, Ni Drako. Things have deteriorated since we last spoke. These two fires,” and he used a laser pointer to circle them, “are merging and changing direction, endangering Black Valley.” Rada nodded, noting the landing-site symbol by the town. “There are a few people still there who can’t leave overland for various reasons and I want them out before the fire gets any closer. Here’s the other problem,” and Oragi zoomed the map. “The oilwood plantation. It’s the smallest of the three but we can’t just let it burn.”
“Hmm. What is the weather forecast?”
Oragi growled, “Poor. No rain and shifting winds, moving to the north as a dry cool front pushes through. Which will push the fire straight into the oilwood trees.”
Rada folded her arms as she studied the map. “What is the first priority, my lord?”
“Black Valley. Can you use your aircraft to get people out?”
Rada nodded, falling back into military manners. “Yes, sir. You will need to fuel us. We tankered some fuel but not as much as I wanted to because of the heat.”
“Fuel we have, fuel coming out of our ears,” Oragi snorted. “Strip Black Valley if you need it, Ni Drako.”
“Very well, my lord. I’ll tell my pilot to start preparing for the rescue flights. And there is no way for us to convert my aircraft for water drop. Before you ask,” Rada preempted his question.
Oragi grunted, turning to look at a new message. Rada shrugged and saw herself out. After the mammal departed, Oragi’s secretary emerged from her corner. “My lord?”
“Yes?”
“That was rather rude.”
Oragi slapped the floor again. “I don’t have time to be polite to the King-Emperor’s emissary.”
Taersa held up his positively ancient data calculator. “We can carry 1200 kilos to begin with, then 1400, then no more than a thousand, Ground One.”
“Fuel?”
“I want to keep it at one hour maximum, my lord. That gives us room to divert if anything interesting happens here.” The two Defenders glanced towards the main smoke wall.
“Good thought, Sergeant. I have the frequencies and I warned the people at Black Valley that we’d need to triage and triage heavily.” Rada skimmed through her message list. “They have not protested yet, so let’s get moving.”
“Ah, ‘we’ my lord?”
Rada bared her fangs. “You need a navigator for the first run. I’m a medic, I speak mind-to-mind, and I want to be able to properly brief my superiors should the need arise.”
Taersa tilted his head to the side, giving the Lord Defender a look that questioned her sanity. Then he shook all over and gestured towards the half-hover. “Very good, sir.”
Black Valley took its name from the shadows cast by the mountain to the east, and from the dark evergreen trees that covered everything as far up-slope as the tree line. Sgt. Taresa landed the half-hover with room to spare, but Rada measured the landing strip with a wary eye. You could land anywhere once; taking off again was another story, as she well knew. “Park there,” Rada ordered, pointing to the cleared space on the weak-side of the runway.
“But the fuel pump is,” Taersa got his first good look at that side of the landing area. “Oh fewmets. Yes, Ground One.” After they parked and ran through the shut-down checklist, Taersa and Rada stared at the commotion on the other side of the strip. “I do not believe that I have ever seen that many fire-fighting vehicles in one place, Lord Mammal.”
“I have, but it was an equipment auction.” Rada’s eye began stinging from the smoke in the air. They watched the organized chaos for a minute or two before a True-dragon in a medic’s harness on waddled up to the aircraft.
“Ah, are you our evacuation fleet?”
Rada took off her helmet so the medic could see her. “Affirmative. How many people do we need to evacuate in what order and what are their conditions?”
A pale red True-dragon waved from off to the side, catching everyone’s attention. “Lord Mammal? We’ve got the list over here.” Taersa and Rada followed the medic to meet the larger reptile. “I’m Androo, area fire manager. Here’s who we need to evacuate. Do you have any fire fighting experience, my lord?”
“Taersa, your call on the loads. Only grassland fires and small structures, Androo, not a forest fire.” Rada got out of Taersa’s way as the pilot skimmed through the list.
The grey and tan Azdhag thumped his tail, raising a puff of dust from dry-baked ground and dead grass. “Lord Mammal, if the adults are stable, let’s get the juniors out first, then the seriously ill and injured. With these weights, we can carry,” he pulled the calculator out of a pocket on his harness. “Thhhhhpp,” he stuck his tongue out a little as he ran the numbers. “All the Azdhag juniors in one batch, or three True-dragon Juniors and three Azdhagi, then two and four, then four and two.”
The True-dragons exchanged worried looks as Taersa read out his numbers. “Go with mixed loads, Taersa,” Rada ordered. She did not need a diplomatic incident on top of the fire. “I weigh sixty three kilos, including equipment, so use that if you need a lighter medic’s weight.”
The dark orange True-dragon medic puffed up his neck, his tail and whiskers rigid. “Lord Mammal, we have some of the best medical personnel in all of the Wildlands! We know the patients and their needs and . . .”
Androo jabbed his irate colleague with his tail. “Marty, we also have some of the heaviest medics in the Wildlands. Lord Mammal weighs one third what Tee does, and she’s our lightest. Go help load the aircraft, Marty.”
Rada rumpled her tail in a shrug. “I am certificated in reptilian emergency medicine, specifically general and combat trauma.”
“There you have it. Go, Marty,” Androo poked the other True-dragon and Rada and Taersa exchanged forefoot gestures. Taersa signaled his agreement and sauntered off to oversee loading.
“Master Androo, is there someplace where I can be out from under feet?”
“Stay with me if you want, Lord Mammal. We’re well back from the fire lines and you will be close if t
he medics need your help.” Androo sounded profoundly tired and Commander Ni Drako wondered when last he’d gotten any rest.
The four loads of juniors went without a hitch, aside from airsickness on the last run. Taersa oversaw two True-dragons as they hosed out the interior of the cargo section. “Social tossers. Gotta love them, my lord,” and he mimicked someone losing their meal.
“How turbulent is it?”
“Only moderate, but the smoke smell goes all the way to Moytu Center, my lord.” The two Defenders studied the list of medical patients and Taersa measured the space in the fuselage. “It will be snug, but we can do two at a time for the True-dragons.”
Rada swirled her forefoot. “Not the two severe traumas you can’t. You’ll need one medic for each patient in case something goes wild. Moytu is paying for fuel, so we’ll do one at a time on the first two patients, then batch them.” She turned to Marty. “What are your protocols?”
“The same as yours, Lord Mammal.”
Everything went as planned until late afternoon. The True-dragons had just started loading the last two patients when a siren’s wail stopped operations dead. Half the True-dragons charged off towards Androo’s makeshift command post. “Lord Mammal, you need to get out now,” Marty warned as he finished latching the second patient’s safety harness strap to the inside of the half-hover. “That means the wind has shifted again.”
Taresa ran a quick calculation and his neck spines twitched. “Ah, Lord Mammal, there’s a weight problem.”
Rada rubbed under her missing eye. A little voice warned that while Rada Ni Drako could go gallivanting around playing fire fighter, the Lord Defender could not. Rada told the voice to shush. “Go. If you can’t come back to get me after this run, wait until I call or Lord Oragi sends you back. That’s an order.”
“Very good, my lord.” He saluted, the wiggled his way between the patients and unto the pilot’s position. Rada, Marty and the others trotted out of the way of the engine blast.
The mammal limped into the fire command center, cursing herself for leaving her walking cane in the half-hover. Androo and his assistants studied a map projection and even Rada could see what the problem was. “Pyro-cu started another fire. It’s going to run.” The projection shifted to fire forecast and Rada flinched as she saw it engulfing Black Valley. The display flipped back to the current status and everyone hissed in dismay. “We’re trapped,” a calm voice observed.
“Not yet.” The speaker, a medium sized yellowy orange individual, poked the display with a talon. “The shoulder route is still clear and will remain so as long as the wind behaves.”
Androo’s whiskers fluttered and his ears rocked back and forth as he studied the map. “Right. But it remains open only as long as we can keep that oilwood test stand from burning,” and he pointed to a very small, bright blue triangle on the display. “If that catches . . .” He looked around and spotted Rada. “Lord Ni Drako, how many more flights?”
“The last patients just left. If the half-hover can’t come back, I’ll just tuck into a spare corner of one of your transports.” Rada wanted to see how House Moytu and Howland fought the fires, but she did not want to be in the way. Nor did she want to become a crispy critter.
Androo and the other True-dragons looked her over. Someone warned, “Androo, our critical care Healer-medic left on that last flight. If he can’t get back, we’re stuck.”
“No we’re not. Lord Mammal is a trauma medic with reptilian certifications,” Tree reminded everyone. “And he’s small enough to handle surgical tools if it comes to that.”
Androo rubbed behind one pink-orange ear. “Right. Lord Mammal, stay here with the command team unless someone needs you. Torali, take the trucks, all but two, and start working the leading edge if it’s safe. Noor, fill the other trucks and position them so they can stay clear in case we need to take the shoulder road, and start evacuating by the colors.”
“Yes, sir,” the other reptiles replied, moving quickly but without panic. Soon a stream of transports rumbled past the landing area, driving up the shoulder of Two-tooth Mountain. No one complained about the evacuation and Rada suspected that the growing fog of smoke and the intermittent swirls of embers and ash convinced even the most reluctant to flee.
The pale red incident commander yawned, then yawned again. “I’m going to have to nap,” he admitted after a third gape-jawed moment. “Lord Ni Drako, keep an eye on things.” With that Androo dragged himself over to a relatively quiet corner and curled up into an enormous, limp lump. Rada sympathized and wondered just what she was supposed to do if things suddenly became “interesting.” Run around, flailing her arms and yelling? She shrugged and put herself into “watch” mode, relaxed but observing, monitoring the real-time image displays and alert for changes.
A few other True-dragons came in and out but did not wake Androo or question Rada’s presence. Noor, her grey-brown hide the color of late season dirty snow, crept in and spotted Androo, swished her tail and turned to Rada. She turned off her broadcast device and sent, <
Rada glanced at Androo. <
An energetic head nod answered that, and Rada made an executive decision. She eased over to the sleeping reptile, laid a hand on his flank, and deepened his sleep. <
<
They’d finished before Androo stirred. He blinked, stretched carefully, and shook his head as he discovered the missing equipment. “Fewmets, I was tired.” Rada acted as if she’d not noticed anything. She stopped acting as a red tongue appeared on the screen. Androo stretched again and studied the display. “Damn it, that’s not what I wanted to see.”
“Is there supposed to be a gap in the fire line there?”
“No, but standard practice is to retreat when faced with a fire-swirl, which is what led to that,” he pointed one talon at the screen. “Air attack would have prevented that, or at least greatly blunted its advance, but,” Androo stopped before Rada heard anything that might cause her problems with her liege.
Noor poked her head in. “Lord Ni Drako, the medics need you.” Rada grabbed her satchel and helmet, trotting to keep up with the True-dragon. “Sorry, my lord,” Noor slowed enough that Rada didn’t have to worry about falling.
“Lord Mammal, what experience do you have with burns?” A brown-striped Azdhag with a Healer’s robe demanded.
“Basic wound care and heat removal. I can’t reverse damage but I can stabilize the tissue and surrounding. I’m general trauma certified.” Rada lacked the patience for serious burn Healing. “ The patient will not get worse, but he won’t win any beauty contests.”
“That’s what we need. Got a True-dragon with second and third-degree burns, plus lung damage and broken bones under the burns. Burning tree fell on him. Go with that vehicle, Lord Mammal,” the Healer ordered.
Rada saluted and did as told. Protocol never mattered much to medics in the field, no matter the species. Well, Rada reminded herself, it did matter to some species, just not the ones she preferred to associate with. As the vehicle rolled up the road to the pass beside Two Fang Mountain, Rada reviewed her files on True-dragon anatomy and physiology, skimming through until she found the section on burns. Aside from scale, the Azdhagi, Lormak, True-dragons, and other endothermic reptiles all used identical treatment protocols. Then Rada read the note. Good Lord have mercy, she thought behind her shields. That’s not what I wanted to know. Well, no one ever gets a simple injury outside of blaster grazes and basic skull fractures. Those and th
e annual Azdhag junior with a foreleg fracture from falling out of a tree.
“Out here,” the driver ordered. “I’ve got a passenger load to evacuate.” Rada and the reserve firefighters tumbled out of the transport. One of the males assisted the mammal, pointing her to the aid station once she’d gotten both feet on the ground. Rada limped over to the portable hospital, squirming between the large reptiles until she found a Healer.
“I’m Ni Drako,” Rada began.
“Good. There’s your patient. Koypoh just got him knocked out, thanks be,” the triage specialist stated, pointing with her tail. Rada nodded and went over to the scene. An indigo and yellow True-dragon adjusted the controls of an air-bubble mattress and Rada fought to keep her last snack where it belonged as she looked at the unconscious True-dragon hovering a meter off the ground.
“Ni Drako, the hindleg and tail are yours. He can lose his tail if it comes to that, but try and save the leg,” Koypoh pointed to the limbs in question. “I’m working on his head and upper spine.”
Rada started to ask why bother with the neck spines. No, idiot, she caught herself, spinal cord; True-dragons didn’t have the Azdhagi vestigial neck frill. “Wilco,” Rada agreed, scrubbing her hands and lower arms before pulling on the gloves she carried with her. Rada opted to begin with the leg. Someone had a tourniquet on the artery and Rada noted the tear, then quickly checked the four leg bones. The upper ones held but both lowers had broken under the burn and the mammal saw black ends covered in dark-pink blood. Right, she steeled herself, gathering energy. Blood, break, then burn.
Rada mended the artery and loosened the tourniquet before starting on the leg. She repositioned the limb only enough to gain full access to the breaks, mauling part of the burn since she did not have a traction frame to work with or an extra pair of forefeet. Rada reached in with her Healer’s gift, using energy to stimulate the reptile’s own body to knit the bones back together. Still in a light trance, Rada shifted to the burns, again feeding energy into the lower layers of muscle and periostium above the break, sealing the tissue and rebuilding the next layer of muscle.