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The Last Celestial
Topic Started: Jun 23 2015, 01:38 PM (109 Views)
Solaris
Administrator
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
This is the beginning of a story I'm working on, and one that inspired the genesis of this site. The characters involved are earlier versions of the ones I'm using on this site; think of them as alternate universe counterparts. It has no bearing on the site's plot, though I might be salvaging plotlines.

Just in case you thought your plots were terrible.

***

Life, Jack Hollins reflected as he watched the sun sinking into the ocean from the balcony of a Hawaiian hotel, was good. His dragon was one of the few who could make the trans-oceanic journey, a silver-scaled, blue-winged courier bred from some of the hardiest American and finest Chinese-Californian dragons. The beast could safely island-hop across the Pacific in just days where most Western dragons would take weeks or more - if they could have made it at all. With his fifty-knot cruising speed and a seemingly endless flight endurance, Jack was proud of the beast, having raised him from the egg after adopting it from the dragon's parents in the California Republic. Named Zephyr, the little dragon was Jack's closest - if not only - friend, and the source of Jack's livelihood as a courier.
As if sensing his captain's attention, Zephyr snorted awake and raised his head, the mustache-like tendrils on his snout twitching as he sniffed the air. The dragon was sprawled out on the smooth black volcanic rock, his pale form standing out in stark contrast to the dark background. He blinked his deep blue-violet eyes, looking around before settling his gaze on Jack.
"Good morning," the dragon said with a yawn that could take a man's head in the gape.
"Afternoon," Jack corrected.
"Whichever," Zephyr grunted as he delicately picked himself up and stretched, catlike on the warm basalt. His tail lashed the air behind him, hinting at the dragon's energy and eagerness to fly again. He settled down on his haunches with his tail curled around him and his head upraised in a position that reminded Jack of nothing so much as a great house-cat. His eyes were far more intelligent than any cat's, studying the human intently and with a warm sort of affection. The dragon's nostrils flared as he inhaled, smelling the food cooking in the hotel kitchens. "Have we anything to eat?"
"You bet," Jack said with an indulgent smile. "Chef said it was a pig roast."
Zephyr licked his lips, his forked tongue flicking the air eagerly. "Smells delicious."
Jack nodded his agreement. "After breakfast, we're taking off again. Gotta make the Philippines by-"
"-I remember," Zephyr interrupted pleasantly. "Philippines by the week's end, or we don't get paid."

The other tenants at the mountainside covert were already there when Jack and Zephyr arrived at the dining theater, a pair of great big pigs blackened and roasted to mouth-watering perfection the main attraction with some tables to the side for the more omnivorous human palate. Man and dragon alike took meat from the pigs, though the humans put theirs on plates before devouring it.
Jack sat apart from most of his fellow diners after piling his plate with both meat and potatoes, barely giving them a glance. The four-man crew of an American naval lightweight with their pale blue and mottled white American Grayling were all seated at another table an engaged in an animated conversation with the other two diners. A couple of civilian couriers, one with a uniformly blue-grey Californian Long-Wing and the other with a rust-red Mauerfuchs with a salmon-pink belly and an armor of thick, overlapping scales, they appeared to be swapping stories of exploits in foreign ports while their dragons interjected with points, details, and punch-lines. Zephyr neatly picked out a haunch of the pork and settled down beside his captain, having no interest in conversating with the garrulous bunch.
"Captain Hollins?"
"Pardon?" Jack looked away from the Hawaiian serving girl tending to the main group of diners. She walked with the most interesting roll of her hips, and was wearing little more than a tropical print sarong and bandeau over a decidedly fetching figure.
A young woman slid into the chair opposite his. "I hear you're headed for the South China Sea."
Jack nodded, sensing a customer. She was a cute little brunette, young enough to be Jack's daughter, with curly hair and big blue eyes. "Might be at that," he agreed as he shifted in his seat. "You lookin' for passage or for delivery?"
"A bit of both," she said with a tight smile. "My name is Kathryn Cathay. I need to get to Nepal, a little kingdom just south of China, and I need something flown out of there. My fiance will be meeting us there."
"South Asia's expensive," Jack grunted. "Hell, all Asia's an expensive route. With the Japs running amok over there, it's gotta be worth my while to risk my neck and my dragon's hide."
"Five thousand pounds sterling in gold bullion, and double that when we get there," she replied primly. It was easily twenty times what Jack could expect to make on a similar run, even with the war on. Jack was naturally incredulous.
"Bullshit."
"I am entirely serious, Captain Hollins." She hesitated a moment, biting her lower lip and looking down at her hands. Jack began to sense a great deal of unease about her, more than was to be expected with a contract negotiation. "My uncle was Carl Finnegan. He said you'd served together in the war, and that I could trust you."
"Yeah, I remember Finnegan." Jack nodded. "Good dragon. Not very good at ducking at the right time."
Kathryn blinked in surprise, plainly taken aback by such a cavalier reference to her uncle's wartime injuries.
"So you're his neice, and you need transport the rest of the way across the Pacific to a little pissant kingdom in southeast Asia, and you're offering me a ridiculous sum of gold to take you there," Jack said. "What's the catch?"
"The catch, Captain Hollins, is that the Germans are trying to get there first and have an interest in seeing me dead."
Jack took a deep breath and exchanged glances with Zephyr. Finnegan had been the one who put Jack in contact with Zephyr's parents and vouched for him; more than their bond as war buddies, Jack owed him for that, too. "Deal. We're leaving from the north shore cliffs in an hour. Bring your luggage and my gold."

Kathryn met Jack and Zephyr as the sun was descending towards the horizon. She had only a single bag beside her backpack, and had a small wooden chest tucked under her arm. When Jack and his dragon walked up, Kathryn offered the chest.
"The gold is in British Sovereigns and ten-ounce bars," she said as Jack opened the box and glanced at the shining treasure within. He figured on counting it later, and if she was lying... well, there was an awful lot of empty ocean that she could be dropped into with no-one around for a thousand miles. Jack closed and latched the chest before lashing it into place on Zephyr's harness behind the saddle. In exchange, he handed Kathryn a leather harness similar to the one he wore, a web of straps around the body with a pair of leather straps looped off it at the waist. She accepted it with a mute nod and slipped the harness around her slender body with familiar ease, though she noted it was of the old Great War-era military dragonaut style.
"Climb aboard, ma'am," Zephyr said politely as he lowered himself down to a crouch and extended a wing to ease her climb while Jack secured her baggage in place on the dragon's flanks and hips, making sure to balance it with his own. Carrying a passenger was an uncommon treat for the dragon, who delighted in the opportunity to show off.
"Thank you," Kathryn said as she climbed up and settled into the elongated saddle. She shifted back in it when Jack climbed up and none too politely, though not ungently, pushed her back.
"Awfully close, isn't it?"
"He gets better than ninety miles an hour when he gets going," Jack replied as he handed Kathryn a helmet and goggles. He was wearing a set of his own, with a scarf wound around his neck and pulled up over the lower part of his face. "We're going to be putting down on Johnston Island in about twelve hours or so."
"Understood," Kathryn said as she put the leather motorcyclist's helmet on over her hair, then pulled the goggles down over her eyes. She took a moment to adjust it for comfort, then hooked her straps to the dragon's harness. Jack turned around to check her straps, then nodded his approval.
"You've ridden a dragon before."
"Once or twice," Kathryn agreed with an oblique smile. "Uncle Carl and I used to go flying rather often when I was a little girl."
Jack nodded, turning back to face the dragon. He gave Zephyr's silver-grey flank a pat. "We're ready to go."
Zephyr nodded, then the dragon rose to his feet and faced the Pacific with his wings spread wide, taking the measure of the sea breeze. He adjusted his launch angle a bit, turning this way and that for a moment. Satisfied with his angle, he gathered back on his haunches and leapt into the air with an explosion of flapping. Kathryn gave a whoop when the dragon dove for the ocean, building up speed with his wings outstretched. He snatched at the crests of the waves with a forepaw, then pulled back up to rise into a smooth, graceful cruise with wing-beats drumming a steady rhythm that gradually built up speed.

"Now that we are in the air, Captain, I think I must tell you a bit more about my mission," Kathryn called to him, nearly shouting over the wind despite Hollins being just inches ahead of her. Zephyr wasn't near to his maximum speed, but already at about fifty knots the wind buffeted them with shocking force.
"I figured," Jack called back. "You with the military?"
"No!" Kathryn shook her head. "My fiance found a Celestial egg, but it was stolen from its hiding-place in Nepal."
"A Celestial?" Zephyr cocked his head, his interest piqued. Despite the wind, the dragon had no troubles making his voice heard; it rumbled up to them through the saddle as much as through their ears. "Aren't they extinct?" China, no stranger to strife, had been embroiled in civil war since they ousted their emperors and killed off the Celestials.
"Very nearly," Kathryn shouted. "The Japanese have one prisoner with the Emperor up in Manchuria, and she laid an egg that my fiance managed to smuggle out of China."
"How'd he come to be in such a position?" Jack asked.
"I don't know," Kathryn admitted. "He didn't say much in the telegram."
"Then why are you going?"
"Wouldn't you?"
Jack looked back to their route, pretending to be checking the compass affixed to Zephyr's harness. Her response did not fill him with any species of confidence or reassurance.
"I would," Zephyr offered, perhaps with more enthusiasm than sense.

Travel across the Pacific was as uneventful as the ocean's name alluded. Zephyr carried the pair of humans to the Johnston Atoll, then to Wake Island, then to Guam, and finally to land in the Philippines. They stopped to rest on each island, with the indefatigable Zephyr sleeping or not as was his wont; Jack knew better than to try and set the schedule of flights, as the dragon was more intimately familiar with his own limits of endurance and fatigue than any human could hope to be. The humans rested on the dragon's back and on the islands, Jack more comfortably than their passenger, but all three were glad to be setting down in the Clark Air Base landing-grounds west of Angeles City after several days in the air. The American dragons stationed there watched them with interest, though more from boredom than malice; most of them were middleweight blue, grey, and red Flammes-de-Liberte and a handful of the silver-grey American Graylings, all several times larger than the tiny Zephyr. There were some dragons of other breeds, of course; the American Air Corps was, if anything, more diverse in breeding than the nation's human population.
"We can't stay long," Kathryn said, though she would have liked few things better than to get reacquainted with her own legs again after riding for so long.
Jack nodded his agreement. "We're just here to deliver a package," he said as he opened one of the larger bags on the dragon's harness to extract a box wrapped in brown paper and twine.
"And stay the night," Zephyr said, giving his wings an uncomfortable rustle. Though he could make the flights and had done so before, swift routes across have the Pacific and several thousand miles were wearying.
"And stay the night," Jack echoed to Kathryn's mingled distress and relief. He caught her expression and quirked a wry smile. "Dragon sets the schedule," he shrugged. "I just set the destinations."
After dealing with a curt yet efficient Air Force official who seemed more interested in the Oriental dragon than the plainly Occidental humans themselves, especially after Jack presented his credentials as a licensed courier, Jack took his leave of Zephyr and Kathryn to deliver his package to one of the officers on base. Zephyr curled up there in the landing ground, perfectly happy to rest and wait in the midst of the lazy Flamme-de-Libertes and Graylings taking their ease in their bivouacs. Before long, the little dragon's eyes began to drift closed.
Jack returned an hour later with the fresh cash in his pack to find Kathryn asleep, reclined against Zephyr's flank with the dragon curled around her. He gave the dragon's hindpaw a gentle kick to wake him, and Zephyr awoke with a start.
"C'mon," Jack said. "Let's get a place for the night."
They were able to take a hotel room in Angeles, a little bungalow with two beds to a room that was probably mostly free of bugs. The hotel was managed by a Filipino proprietor who spoke fluent English and was delighted to discover Jack was conversant in Tagalog. Zephyr stayed in the pavilion outside, the only dragon presently at the hotel. While Jack and the manager stayed on the ground floor and swapped rumors about the Japanese in China, Kathryn went up to the room and dropped into bed, not even bothering to undress or get under the covers.
Kathryn started awake sometime later, spotting a dark figure standing at the foot of the bed. She gave a start, heart pounding at the first wild thought that the Nazis had somehow found her, but then it spoke.
"Take off your boots," Jack ordered.
Kathryn grumbled, but she reluctantly complied with the absurd order. "Why?" she demanded as she dropped her boots to the floor.
"Ever seen trench foot?" Jack sat down on his own bed, stripping off his jacket and shirt without pretension of modesty. "Didn't have to worry 'bout it much, being an aviator, but... you learn to not sleep with your boots on 'less you have to. We don't have to."
Kathryn settled back, not quite ready to go back to sleep after the start he gave her. "You were in the War with my dad and uncle, weren't you?"
"Yup. Sergeant Hollins of C-Company, First Expeditionary Wing, assigned a rifleman to Carl Finnegan under Captain Cathay." The note of pride in Jack's voice, different from his usual acerbic tone, was unmistakable.
"Yeah." Kathryn nodded. "They didn't talk about it much."
"Wouldn't expect 'em to," Jack said. "The air war wasn't so ugly as the stuff on the ground, but we got our taste of that when the damn krauts tagged Finnie with flak at Meusse-Argonne. Most of it, though, we were flying escort missions, scouting, that sort of thing. Trying to find holes in the German defenses and run away before they killed us all when they didn't. The Brits didn't really have a place or want for us." He snorted derisively. "They were polite about it, but you could tell it was 'cause they thought our dragons were useless mutts."
"Mutts?"
"Yeah, mutts. Lot of European dragons are kept to tight breed standards. They're a lot like the Confederates in that. They think it makes them better. I say it makes them inbred. We mostly flew lightweight skirmishers, but they like to use big heavyweights with supporting formations. They were getting tore up pretty badly until we showed up, not that they'd admit it."
"What do you mean?" Kathryn frowned in the dark. "I thought formations were pretty good, defensively."
"They are, if you aren't trying to make some poor Yellow Reaper fly as if it were a Darkling Kiowa or Chinese Shen-Lung. The Brits were hung up on 'bigger is better', which didn't work out so well when the Germans mobbed them with those stupid little Firefoxes." He paused, lost in recollection a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had an odd, haunted quality to it. "No sound quite like it, the screams people make when they're burning to death. It's why Zephyr's a Silver Feng - I had a shot at some combat-breed pyrogenics after the war. When the war ended we took all the fire-breathing dragons from the Central Powers, y'know, and the Air Corps tried to hand out their eggs to any of us guys who'd adopt 'em. I got offered a Kazilik - real prime stock, too - but..." Jack's voice trailed off, and he finished with a shake of the head Kathryn could only barely make out in the dark. "I love dragons - you have to, to be an aviator - but God help me, I got a hatred for fire-breathers."

"Wing, two o'clock," Jack shouted to Zephyr, slapping the dragon on his right shoulder. The dragon tilted his head to glance in that direction, then looked back to the distant mainland and flapped with renewed vigor while Jack leaned down close to minimize wind resistance.
"What is it?" Kathryn asked, a thread of worry in her voice.
"Jap patrol," Jack shouted back. "Hold on!"
Though Zephyr was the faster, the larger Japanese dragons were on an intercept course from the northern coastline. Zephyr adjusted his course southwards, but the Japanese dragons were still closing in.
"Make for Hong Kong!" Jack shouted to the dragon. "It's held by the British!"
Zephyr nodded, banking to make the sharper turn and flying with one eye on the city, another eye on the closing dragons. They were getting close enough to make out details, most importantly the dragons' red and orange scales; the name escaped him, but Jack knew they were acid-spitters. They were light combat weights, just barely bigger than Zephyr, but there was two of them and each dragon carried a pair of Japanese officers.
Just as the Japanese dragons began to close within rifle range, flares shot up from Hong Kong and a small formation of British dragons lifted up from the covert near the shoreline. The closing Japanese wavered, clearly weighing their options, but turned away when the British started flying directly towards them. The Japanese may have outnumbered the lone courier, but they were no match for three middleweights and a pair of light combat dragons.
Zephyr slowed down as the British approached, the cluster of middleweights maneuvering to surround the little courier as Zephyr reduced his speed down to where the bigger dragons could keep up with him. The dragon on the formation's flank moved in close, the captain raising a hand in greeting.
"Captain Hollins on Zephyr," Jack called over, and at his name Zephyr gave a tip of the wing in greeting. "American courier."
"Lieutenant Gray on Achilles," the flank captain called back, and his own Grey Copper gave a tip of his wing at his name. "Royal Air Corps. We'll escort you and the lady down to Kai Tak, Captain."
Zephyr was more than happy to land first, going ahead of the British without asking or being asked. Jack didn't protest, knowing it was a courtesy and show of good faith to put them in the vulnerable position of being at a lower altitude. The little dragon alighted almost daintily on the landing-ground, followed shortly thereafter by the three British middleweights and two lightweights.
"I think we're going to be here for a little bit," Jack said to Kathryn as the British crews dismounted their dragons and the ground crews approached. She nodded, expression unreadable beneath her scarf and goggles.
Jack slid off of Zephyr's back and walked up to the British officers approaching them, loosening his scarf and pulling off his helmet before extending his hand in greeting. "Damn good thing you gents showed up," he said. "What the hell was that?"
"Goddamn Japs," the lead captain said as he shook Jack's hand and gave the papers a cursory glance. "They're all over China, giving the Chinamen hell and doing their best to cause trouble for anyone they don't like." He glanced at Zephyr, who was watching them with interest. "They must've thought you were Chinese. He sure looks it."
"Close enough," Jack replied. "He's a Californian breed, one of them Silver Fengs."
"That explains it," the lead captain agreed. "Where are my manners? I'm Squadron Leader Lewis on Vermithrax, the commanding officer for the poor dumb bastards the RAC hated enough to put in Hong Kong."
"Jack Hollins and Zephyr," he replied, then gestured towards Kathryn who was dismounting more slowly and carefully. "This is my passenger, Kathryn Cathay."
"Ma'am," Lewis said with a nod to the young woman. "I'd suggest you three stay in Hong Long a little bit, at least until the Japs get bored and go home. They're not here in force, at least not yet, but they're attacking most any dragons they can see."

Skype: spschnepp2, AIM: SPSchneppII

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