The first of three requests I've received by email! Comments appreciated and I'll keep the story coming along.

Children of Earth - Out of Fantasy

Eragon yawns and stretches as he flies on the back of his dragon, Saphira, over the city of Fienster. The fires in the city were out, thankfully, and the Varden were using the city as a staging point to both heal their injuries and recruit more people, as many bands are roving into the city to join the Varden, now that their army is no longer in some unknown location beyond the Empire's borders. A small speck catches his eye as they come around at the far northern edge of the city. Unlike most specks that catch his eye when he's in the sky, this speck is actually up in the sky. He blinks and focuses on it. Was it a bird? "Saphira, what is that?" He asks, pointing.

Saphira's massive head swings around and looks. Her eyesight being much better than Eragon's, and with Eragon looking thru her eyes, they see what Eragon couldn't. A large, metallic thing flying thru the air at a fast speed.

"Bluebird two five is overflying target, over." The pilot in the F22 reports to his superior on the Caroline. "There's no base in the city, over. Scans show negative." He goes to bank his fighter left then stops. "I have a dragon located over the city." He reports.

The ship had found a disabled civilian freighter, her raptor crew killed off and her cargo looted. A scan had revealed a warp trail, which they had followed five light years to a small, Earth like planet with one very large continents and five smaller ones that were more the size of England than true continents. A preliminary scan showed there was lifeforms, but was unable to be very thurough thanks to the high concentration of magical energy on the planet. It was one of those few 'nexus' planets, a planet where the magic of a region gathered, allowing for many unusual and fascinating things. Davis is also listening to the reports. "Repeat your last, Bluebird Two Five."

"There is a dragon flying over the city, repeat, a dragon." He says. "This day is just full of surprises, command."

Davis has to nod about that. They have no idea why humans are on this world. Same thing for Elves, Dwarves, and now at least one dragon. He turns to his science officers who are scratching their heads at a nearby console. "What's your estimate on adjusting the sensors to filter out all that magic?" He asks.

An officer pokes her head up from the group. "Three hours sir, at the least." The officer gets back to work with the others, the group putting their minds into how to speed up the process. Davis sighs and goes over to the tactical display and looks down at what the fighters had tracked. He has four fighters up in the air, one in the north part of the large continent sweeping south. No signs of any civilizations so far. The ones in the middle and south of the continent were finding a large population, at least three million. The one in the middle found a dwarven civilization hidden in the mountains and found elves marching on a human city. The one in the south found massive numbers of humans, as well as two armies, one in retreat, the other solidifying its hold on a city it had just taken. The fourth fighter was out at sea, checking to see if the pirate base they were after was hidden in the water.

"Contact." A voice comes. The fighter in the middle of the continent had just overflown a large city. "City four has EM signatures consistant with an underground base." He says. Davis tracks where the fighter is. There was a massive army there.

"Scan that city." He orders. Caroline's sensors, while unable to do a broad scan and get any results in such a concentrated magical aura, could be focused to scan one area with good intensity, enough to even get a picture.

"Scanning sir." Science reports. "Sir, if I had to guess, I'd say it's a nation capital in about the medieval time period. There is a castle, a large army, manors that could belong to dukes and earls, and...we've got SEs sir!" That brings Davis straight over. "Here. There's a large group of them." He says. "And here, there's a dragon nearing ancient years." She says, pointing to the large life scan.

"What are SEs doing here?" Davis wonders out loud. "Shouldn't the dragons have hatched out?" He looks back over his shoulder. "Saphyra?" He asks. Saphyra was looking too, drawn by what was said.

"Dragons only go into SEs for deep space travel. The eggs are so tough that they can bore straight thru an asteroid." She hmmms. "I bet you that this is a colony some of my ancestors established. A group didn't like that we weren't going back to Earth and split off from us. They must have ended up here, drawn by the aura."

Davis nods. "Would explain a lot, but why haven't we heard of them?"

"Maybe they forgot as the generations went by. It's not unheard of for colonies to forget their homeworlds if contact is lost for long enough. The dwarves had a planet like that." The officer at the station says. "There was an elven colony like that, at least till the elves 'found' them again and snapped them up."

Davis rubs his chin. "Humans, tho?" He asks, getting a shrug. "Ah well, if I had to guess, I'd say we're seeing a rebellion in progress against this king here." He says. "I'd also guess he's supporting the pirates with food so they'll support him with putting things down if they get out of hand."

"It's a good bet sir." The science officer says. His tactical officer speaks up next. "Sir, I've got a report from Bluebird Two Five. Dragon has changed her direction, heading straight for him."

Davis makes his way back over to the plot and looks it over. "Alright..." He says, and keys the comm channel to open. "All fighters, return to base." He calls. He then looks to his helm officer. "Once all fighters are recovered, take us down and land us in the sea." He gets his aye sir and goes to sit down in his command chair. "Try to do it gently, remember we have children aboard." He says, then keys the all hands circuit. "All hands, this is the Captain. Prepare for water landing. We will commense naval operation status upon splash down."

If Eragon hadn't seen it for himself he wouldn't have believed it. Just as they had turned to make their way to the strange...thing flying nearby, it pulled up sharply and rocketed upwards into the sky so quickly Saphira had no chance of catching up. After a moment, it was a dot in the sky even to Saphira's keen eyes. "Never have I seen something fly so fast and so high." Saphira comments in her sweet voice, deep in the recesses of Eragon's mind.

"Let's keep this to ourselves." Eragon replies. "Everyone would think the fighting had driven us mad." He says. Glaedr's eldunari flares on his hip as the consciousness inside starts paying attention. After a quick moment of sharing the memory of the sight with the ancient dragon locked in his heart of hearts, the dragon tells them he has no idea either.

Together, Eragon and Saphira go down and land near the Varden's camp, then walk into it side by side. So many people are in the city they are able to make it to Nasuada's tent without anyone really bothering them. "My lady..." Eragon says. "Galbatorix' army is in full retreat." Nasuada nods and motions to a nearby chair as Saphira puts her head into the tent.

"Please, Eragon, sit." She says, kindly. "We are most fortuitous you showed up when you did. Many lives were spared, both from your efforts to open both gates, and from the men who fled before you."

Eragon shifts a little, the praise still doesn't sit well on him. "I did what anyone else would have done." He says to her. "But there was more here than we realized." He says. He then relays the story of his decent into the citadel, and then, how the Shade was made and the fight that ensued after, and how Arya had slain it with his and Saphyra's help.

Nasuada, for her part, was just graceful enough to not have her jaw drop at the tale Eragon told her. Soon Arya came in and confirmed the story, sitting closer to Eragon than she usually did in these meetings, if only by a few inches, thanks to the cramped size of the tent's interior. Maps were strewn all over and new furnature was being brought in and positioned so Saphyra could still directly participate in planning. Even if this was the reason, Eragon relishes the fact that Arya is closer to him, almost close enough to feel her warmth. Saphira winks at him a bit and then puts her focus on Nasuada, making Eragon's ears go red.

Fortunately Nasuada doesn't say anything and Arya has enough fortitude to not show anything, so nothing is made of his flushing. Nasuada starts going over her plans. In three days the army would move from Fienster and head to Dras Leona. The march would probably take the better part of a few weeks, so they were resting and provisioning while they could. It was also insurance. Galbatorix could attack the city if they left too quickly. Waiting would ensure that if he did attack they would be here to fight back. She looks to the pair of them. "I know you are both tired, you especially Eragon, for you have fought after a three days long flight from Elesmera. I will let you two go to seek your beds." She says and smiles as they rise and take their leave. Eragon bids Arya farewell, and instead of heading to his tent straight away, he goes to seek out his cousin Roran and his wife. Nobody is looking up, where the Caroline is coming down at high altitude, high enough to not be heard, but not high enough to not be seen.

"Hull temperature within allowable limits." The tactical officer calls out. "Air flow is normal over all parts of the ship." Science calls out. "Speed is under terminal velocity for this planet." Helm reports finally. "Splash down in four five seconds." Davis sits in his chair, watching. It was up to his helm officer to put the ship down safely. Thirty seconds later, they were over the water and almost completely stopped, the helm officer putting the ship down into the water easy, waves were made, but the landing was barely felt. The ship immediately sinks down until only the saucer section and nacelles were above the water. "We're in the water, sir." Helm says, smiling. His first time doing that outside simulation.

"Well done, Hawk." Davis says, and pats the guy's shoulder. "Alright, cut off the warp drive." He looks around. "The pirates know there's a ship nearby. Once we've sent out our recon team, we'll head in on them and stay in the deep water." He says, smiling. "With any luck they'll not think about the ship submerging when they don't find us on the surface and they'll scan orbit, find we're not there, think we've left, and do something stupid." He looks over to as McLintock comes up onto the bridge, and waves him to his ready room. Once the door closes behind them, he smiles. "George, I want you and Cynder to head out to the continent and find that dragon we found earlier." He says. "You'll take a squad with you in her hardpoints. I want any information you can give us about this planet and the social and political climate in the area."

McLintock nods. "Standard recon then, sir?" Davis nods. "What do I do if that dragon is helping one side or the other?"

Davis has to think about that one. "Well, we'll make that decision once we know what's been going on." He says. "However, I think, either way, we can't get involved. These pirates aren't involved in the fighting yet, so they're not directly affecting the planet. We can't step in until they do something stupid like that. We can, however, try to provoke them into doing something."

McLintock nods. "Air support sir?"

"You'll have one raptor in the sky, waiting to support you, at all times of the day. We'll be monitoring the pirate's activity. If you hear 'zulu zulu zulu' over the radio, it means they've gone active, and you can expect the AAU to be landing near you."

McLintock smiles. "Great news sir. I'll get right out there. Tho it'd probably be easier and more stealthy if me and Cynder went alone." He can't help but have a grin on his lips as he says that.

"Planning to make a vacation out of this?" Davis asks, then laughs a bit. "Alright. Do what needs to be done, and turn off your microphone at night." He says, winking, even grinning when he sees the slight blush on McLintock's face. "Take care of yourself George, I'll see you when your recon is done."

McLintock nods. "You too, Brent." He says, and heads out the door.

Davis taps his combadge. "Davis to Cynder."

"Cynder here." The badge chirps back.

"Meet George over in hangar one. You and he are going out for some recon."

"Be right there." She says. Davis grins, thinking he heard a bit of happiness in her voice.

McLintock is waiting in full gear when Cynder comes out into the hangar bay proper in her full natural form. She had brought the essentials for a two person recon, and then made it simpler by putting in a close and very intimate relationship into the equation. One big sleeping back for both of them, food, water, their small arms, and also a sentry drone and sentry gun for when they were sleeping at night. After all, there was no reason why they shouldn't have fun on this camping trip.

Fortunately the most commonly used and, most important for pirates, cheapest planet bound detection system radar. Most factions made their fighters to fight in space, with atmospheric combat as a secondary concern. Humans were different. They had gone into space so quickly it had been easier to simply make their existing fighters space flight compatible. There were two results to this. The first, and most pressing at the current time, was that their fighters were still stealth, so atmospheric systems like radar wouldn't be able to detect them easily. The second was that they were very maneuverable. Races were finding out that even in space aerodynamics were important. It was hypothesized by the elves, who modeled their fighters after swords with wings. It went on to be proven by the human fighters, that were modeled after birds.

McLintock was in the hangar first, waiting on Cynder in full gear, his M8 slung across his back, full power packs, and a fresh bar of ammunition put inside the weapon. He had a few grenades, some binoculars, and a notepad with pencil. He watches as an F22 taxies over to the launch rail built into the hangar for just these instances. Just as Cynder comes into the hangar, in all her natural glory, the fighter launches, a trail of steam coming from the launch rail as water is used to cool down the rails after the fighter is launched. It looked just like all those old videos of carrier launches.

"Are you ready?" Cynder asks, looking McLintock over. The crewman who was signaling for the launcher heads off into the back, his job over. McLintock climbs onto Cynder's armor and gets himself into his man hole, right between her wings. "All set." He says, grinning. Cynder takes a running start and kicks herself up into the air, taking flight and whipping herself back around. The hangar closes now that everyone has launched, and George watches with Cynder as the saucer and nacelles slide under the waves. They can see the dark shape of the ship and the blue light of the nacelles fade away as the ship gets deeper. Once deep enough, the ship starts moving at 28 knots, heading towards shore.

It takes Cynder only fifteen minutes to make it ashore. Cynder picks a good spot and sets down, her armor hiding itself now that she's on the ground, nanotechnology at its best. "We'll need to blend in." he says. "Is there any way those nano's can make your armor into a saddle?" He asks. "I could shoot from the air with my rifle if we're attacked." Cynder hmms and shifts down, standing nude before McLintock save for a lone piece on her neck, looking just like a necklace. She takes it off and starts poking at it, reprogramming it as McLintock starts getting out clothes for her. Seeing this, Cynder whaps him with her tail. "I'll be in natural form most of the time, hun." She says. "Don't break those out yet."

After fifteen minutes of tampering, she gets it to do what she wants. Then it's remounting and heading off in the direction of the last sighting of the blue dragon.

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Ok, for those of you who I know will ask, Davis' bonded's name, Saphyra, is pronounced 'Saf-Fire-ah" and Eragon's Saphira is pronounced "Saf-fear-ah". The next chapter is to follow soon.