The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [97]
He listened as nineteen terse acknowledgments came in, in numerical order, from both the Green and Orange squadrons, from Ehrie Kre to Ehrie Dha and Khoey Hwi to Khoey Dha, confirming that both raptor groupings had arranged themselves into a single random formation that closely mimicked the long tumbling ellipse of a swarm of small meteors making its terminal approach to the planet. By the time the enemy forces on the ground realized that something other than an inconsequential spray of interplanetary rocks was headed their way, it would be too late for them to mount any significant defense.
As the blue-green crescent of the planet grew too huge to be contained by his forward windows, T’Voras breathed a quiet prayer of supplication to the D’ravsai—the Great Brothers—and all the other ancient deities of Romulus. And though he felt reasonably certain that none of them had any interest either in him or his men, he placed their fates squarely in the gods’ hands.
Saturday, November 8, 2155
Berengaria VII
In the experience of Lieutenant Richard Stiles, the best time for dragon-watching was during the half hour or so before sunset brought the curtain down on the purple twilight that dominated the daytime hours. Earlier in the day, the majestic creatures tended to be inactive, sleeping off the red giant Berengaria’s heat—oppressive despite the generally thick cloud cover—as they stored up their energies for their nocturnal hunts in and around the nearby Vale of Mists and the surrounding foothills.
After sunset, of course, it was safest to observe the graceful, leatherwinged flyers from the safety of the observation deck on the roof of the still-under-construction multistory starbase complex. Specimens of Draco berengarius were far less likely to approach the base closely enough to endanger anybody than they were to seek more traditional native prey in the tracts of thick jungle that predominated from the perimeter of the starbase all the way to the Vale.
One of the great gray dragons—which Stiles’s own research had proved was not a dragon, nor even a reptile—glided close to the horizon at the moment, its spread-winged silhouette splayed momentarily across the bloated red sunset. Buoyed aloft thanks to the relatively small planet’s Mars-like gravity and the system of internal gas bladders that filled and surrounded the creature’s deceptively tough tubular skeleton, the dragon rose on a thermal updraft before swooping away.
A few kilometers in the distance, and directly in the creature’s path, stood the cluster of weathered-looking stone observation towers, laboratory spaces, and flat dwellings that had housed Berengaria’s Vulcan population for the past half century. In the jungle beyond the Vulcan compound, the rapidly encroaching darkness emphasized a telltale orange flare of another early-rising night flyer; this one had already begun igniting the hydrogen sulfide-bearing compounds contained in its forward air bladders, probably to roast a surprised prey animal in its tracks.
A movement in Stiles’s peripheral vision drew his attention back toward the nearly completed sunset that still girdled much of the purpling horizon. Another shadow was quickly crossing Berengaria’s distended disk, followed by another, then another, and another. Outside of their seasonal migrations, he had never seen such a large grouping of dragons assembled in formation. Several of the flying shapes even seemed to be breathing fire into the jungle beneath them.
A moment later, the flock of newcomers swooped across the Vulcan compound, their exhalations immolating the towers below them.
Oh, no, Stiles thought as he watched the first dragon he had spotted ignite, caught in a crossfire and instantly incinerated beneath and between two of the newly incoming winged shapes.
Shapes that had been constructed by the intentions of sentients rather than the random ministrations