Dragon Rider (Dragon Host Book 1) by Timothy Ellis

Author:Timothy Ellis [Ellis, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty Two

The Earth Sector fleet had made it into Barnard’s Star.

The morning run and fly was more normal, other than the number of riders had increased. All of them were now wearing belt suits. Shania had flown with another dragon, although had she insisted, I’d have let her fly Willow. But I suspected it was because she didn’t want to become a permanent rider that she’d swapped to a dragon who wasn’t ready for one yet.

Breakfast was with the senior dragons, including Fina and Dorm, and we talked about how to approach the Earth Sector fleet. We also looked at what the other nearby fleets were doing, and all of them were obviously heading for our station, but the close ones were pretending to be doing training in Gibraltar. It was a bit obvious though they were waiting for everyone else.

Technically we had another day before they were a real threat, since it would take them that long to get to the Iceland jump point from where they were. But I didn’t see the point in waiting.

They chose thirty dragons to match the number of ships, with Fina and Dorm deciding not to go to give others a chance for a combat mission. I silently applauded that. They needed to get used to sending other people on missions now. The same could be said of me, since I tended to be a lead from the front sort of commander. But that was a trait of everyone working for Jon, with the exception of Walter and Darius, who were well and truly past fighting age.

James, of course, had been, but now wasn’t. But even Susan, Chet, and Annabelle, with three stars, tended to prefer leading from the front. Maybe not Annabelle though, now. I think she was slowing down. Susan was the same basic age as her, but driving battleships was her thing, while Chet was younger. Only a couple of the two star Admirals stayed on stations and let everyone else have the fun. And the generals were supposed to, but never did.

Breakfast and my musings over, Willow sent the dragons to where Judge was docked, and Leanne jumped us to the Barnard’s Star system. It was now joined directly to Wolf 359, and both were without a habitable planet. Earth was between both of them spatially, but without a jump drive, not accessible from the spine. Earth was now linked to Haven and my world instead.

The fleet we’d come to visit with was in a cluster formation around their carriers. Leanne said it was very traditional, going all the way back to wet navies. The battleships were protecting the carriers, the cruisers protecting the battleships, and the destroyers protecting the cruisers.

Of course, it wasn’t any protection against ships which could jump, and it was very two dimensional thinking, which was odd. I’d have used a box formation, not a flat one as they were in. As it was, they didn’t have some depth in all the directions, so the fleet was not properly covered for jump attacks.

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