FSE

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Too much crap has happened to really relate, but the short and skinny is I'm posting this from a laptop I don't own in a town I'm not from on an internet network in a McDonalds. I'll let your imaginations fill in the blanks. ;)

The Meeting

Davis strides onto the bridge after an uneventful night's sleep. "What happened during the night, Lieutenant?" He asks the duty officer that was in charge. The man salutes and gives him the long version of saying 'nothing happened' by describing a strange pod of whales that swam by and an abnormally large whirlpool a bit to their south. Davis nods. "Alright Tom, go get some sleep." He says, patting the boy on his shoulder and sending him off. He was only 20 years old. Saphyra walks onto the bridge, looking spiffy as ever in her uniform, with young Jeff with her. "Hey" He says to them both, walking over. As long as nothing was going on kids were allowed, sparingly, to go with their parents to their duty stations before school.

John smiles to his dad and looks around the bridge. It was his first time up here and he was extremely curious. "It's different from the other bridge." He says. The door hisses open again and Draco comes out with his sister, Dracona, who rushes over to Jeff and pokes him. The two start wandering around, chit chatting as Draco goes over to Davis and Saphyra.

"Well, seems we both had the same idea." Draco says, smiling, saluting Davis and being saluted in turn. Davis nods, looking at the two and noting, not for the first time, how well they get along. "Those two are going to give us grief together when they get a few years older." He says. "Double their age and we'll have to watch them more closely." Draco nods in agreement. "Well, if they're already choosing now I guess we won't have to worry about it later." Saphyra says, making both men look at her, with her knowing grin as she watches the two children. They then look at the two children and think about that one.

Before long, however, the ship comm clicks on. "It's 0700 hours. All children report to deck 7 for school." The comm officer turns around and looks at the two kids sighing at the back of the bridge. "Yall two as well." She says, smiling.. "Go on! Shoo! Wouldn't do for the kids of three departments to be late." The two kids sigh and droop as they head to school. Once the lift doors close, half the bridge crew chuckles a bit. Everyone went thru that.

Davis, still thinking about what Saphyra said, walks over to the comms array. "Doghouse calling Beagle."

McLintock was already up and moving with Cynder when the call comes. Not that he got much sleep anyway, Cynder being as repatious as ever in her sexual appetite. "This is Beagle." He says. "Report is as follows: No contact made with target. We stopped in a pub last night to gather intel. Apparently the king has been oppressing for a while." He says. "For a thousand years at least, if anyone here is to be credited. Apparently there used to be many dragons here, and dragon riders. They held the peace. This king, Galbatorix in name, killed all but his and two others and has been ruling his empire since." That had pissed off Cynder when she found out, and Saphyra looks the same way. Davis is a little angry too. He knew the count of SE's on the surface. "That explains why we detected so many SE's, sir." McLintock continues. "If I had to guess, I'd say when these dragons were going to die they went into their SE's but didn't know how to get back out afterwards." He says. Cynder shudders nearby him. What a fate, to be trapped in an egg for thousands of years.

Davis nods. "Alright. Stand by, I need to confer with Saphyra and Command on this one." He says. Davis heads away from the comm system and into his ready room with Saphyra. "If this is true..." Saphyra says. "...we must answer by annihilating this king." She growls and paces. Davis raises up one hand. "We can't just jump in and interfere tho." He says. "We'll have to go over it with command." Saphyra huffs but nods. She could feel that her bonded wanted to take this guy out, but knew his duty and the kind of effect that such an intervention would have on the planet.

Davis smiles to her and pats her shoulder, then opens a channel to Earth. He tells his commanding officer all about the situation, and that officer nods, thinks about it, then relays him to the White House. The President himself would make this decision. After being told the whole story, the President thinks on it and thinks hard, from the looks of it, then reaches a decision "Take no direct action until this is confirmed."

Davis acknowledges and heads back to the bridge. The rest of the report on McLintock's activities was just finishing up. "Beagle, confirm your report on the history of the dragons of this world. If possible, obtain one of the surviving SE's of a dragon from that long ago. We cannot intervene until we have that. How copy?"

"Positive copy, we will make contact with the dragon and human Bluebird saw flying about and obtain SE from when the riders fell. We are now Oscar mike. Out." He smiles to Cynder. "Well, if we find this guy, we should be able to enlist his aid in getting one of those SE's." He says. Cynder nods, obviously eager to get going. "It shouldn't be too far." Cynder says. McLintock nods, mounts up, and they head out.

About thirty minutes later, the detector goes off in McLintock's helmet. They were close. "Drop down to the ground." He says. Cynder nods and immediately does so. Then McLintock does something that he normally wouldn't do. He switches the mental guard over from guard to jam and for a total of thirteen seconds he transmits a message in the clear to anyone listening for such a call. Five minutes later, he has results. Eragon and Saphira come into view in the sky. "Show them where to land." McLintock says. Cynder smirks and raises her head and belches a gout of flame into the sky. The blue dragoness in the sky banks hard and comes over, landing nearby.

"You got our message, it seems." McLintock says, grinning, then blinks as a boy of 16 dismounts the dragon. "Aren't you a bit young to be bonded?" He asks. Cynder sniffs at Saphira and then at Eragon, tho Saphira growls a little bit, protectively.

"Yes, we got your message." He says, rubbing his head. "Very loudly." He looks at Cynder. "We are not alone it seems." He smiles. "I am Eragon and this is Saphira. What are your names? And where do you come from?" This makes McLintock grin a little. "I am George McLintock. This is Cynder."

Cynder nods to them. "It's a pleasure to meet you." She says. With her mouth. Then is a little confused by the looks this wins him from both Eragon and Saphira. "We are from America." She finishes.

"How did you do that?" Eragon asks, for both himself and Saphyra. Cynder just smiles. "We can all do that. It's just you haven't practiced it." She says to Saphyra. McLintock, in full soldier form, interjects before Cynder can go into more detail. "We need to find out more information about the fall of the dragons in Alagaesia, hopefully from a direct source." He says. "Do you know of a dragon, either in body form or not, who could tell us directly of the Fall?" He asks. This catches both Eragon AND Saphira off guard. "We may..." He says elusively. "What do you know already?"

McLintock smiles. "We heard the story of the rider's fall from a local bartender. We seek confirmation of his tale." Eragon nods and relates the story to them, and the story of the Varden and their fight against Galbatorix. McLintock looks to Cynder. "Well, could you take us to this Varden and it's leader?" He asks. "Perhaps along the way we will find a SE holding the soul of a dragon who lived back then." That was close enough for Eragon. "An SE carrying the soul of a dragon? Do you mean an Eldunari?" He asks. McLintock grins, Cynder's eyes twinkle. They had hit pay dirt. "Yes." McLintock says. "If that's what they're called here." Saphira looks to Eragon, then motions with her snout. Eragon goes to his pouch. "This..." He says, pulling out a glowing golden orb. "...Is Glaedr." He says, showing the Eldunari to McLintock.

A half an hour later, the Varden were having quite a show, as the glittering blue scales of Saphira flies over with the black and pink scales of Cynder right there with her. Both land in Eragon's area and both of their riders head over to the red pavilion belonging to Nasuada. "My Lady." Eragon says, bowing as he comes in. "You'll want to meet this man." He says, and then moves aside, showing McLintock to the Varden's leader.

McLintock smiles. "So you are Nasuada. You're quite the celebrity inside the empire's lands." He says. Nasuada blinks.

"And you are...?" She asks, not unkindly.

McLintock smiles. "I am George McLintock, commander of the Fourth Army Assault Unit of the United States of America." He says. This catches Nasuada. That was a formal title from a nation she didn't know of. She leans forward a little bit. "And where is your nation?" She asks. "I've never heard of these United States of America." She says, wondering if this was a joke. Then again, Eragon wouldn't be put up to this kind of thing. Especially not interrupting her time to hear complaints from the Varden.

McLintock doesn't flinch at all, nor show anything in his eyes. "Well, I'm not at liberty to tell you that." He says. "What I can tell you is that we have a mutual enemy." He says, smiling. "We know you are about to engage one of the empire's armies that is holed up in the city nearby called Dras Leona. We request you to hold off on this attack."

At that same time, hundreds of miles away and beneath the ocean, Davis is sitting in the command chair on the ship, wondering what was missing from his life. He thinks about it while watching the crew go about its normal business. Paperwork. He isn't doing any paperwork. When he was in the Air Force before the Dragon War, his life was full of paperwork. When he was exploring the deep reaches of space on the original Caroline, his life was full of paperwork. How many times had he wished he didn't have to deal with any paperwork? And now he has none to do and he's missing it? He gets up and heads to his ready room. He sits down and turns on a little music and a stream of the news. There....Just like home. He is starting to get into it, the news is showing some interesting stuff. The newly reconstructed Big Ben was being turned on in London. Paris was finally back in order, and the moon base was receiving its first civilian inhabitants today.

"Bridge to Captain Davis."

He groans. "Yes?"

"Sir, we have Colonel McLintock online."

Davis nods. "Put it thru in here." He looks to his small desk display. "George? What's going on over there?"

McLintock's voice speaks up. "We have confirmation. I have met with the target, Eragon and Saphira. They had in their possession an SE bearing a dragon who was alive when the fall happened. I request the AAU be deployed to aid in the sacking of this city." He says, quick and clean. Davis can hear the sound of men in armor marching in the background. "Why deploy now?" He asks. "The leader of this resistance, Nasuada, was skeptical." He says. "She wants proof that our nation is not only real, but in a position to assist her movement. She wants it by the end of the day. I told her to be patient, but they won't delay an attack just for that." Davis grins. Typical McLintock, he can only imagine what kind of a response him telling her that so bluntly would have brought about. "We'll send fighters now and the AAU will be there in two hours."

McLintock smiles as he turns around and walks away from Cynder, who is sitting with Eragon's dragon, Saphira, who they know is relaying all this to Eragon on the other side of the camp in the mess area. Eragon, who is eating, blinks as he talks to Saphira in his thoughts. "They were able to talk to someone who isn't here without the use of a spell? Have you ever heard of such a thing?" He asks over the bond. Saphira answers in the negative. "I do know, however, that Galbatorix' army will not wait long for us. We sit upon their supply line." She says. Eragon just eats his food. They didn't know the army was mustering and marching already, intent on meeting them in the field, where their numbers could be used to full advantage. Murtagh and Thorn had even come down from fighting the elven army to stop the Varden cold.

Davis comes out of the ready room. "Red Alert." He says as he comes out, the lights dimming and the red bars coming on, the alert sounding off for the first five flashes of the red lights. "All hands battle stations." He says as this is happening. "Helm, take us up and out of the ocean. All fighters stand by to launch, tell the AAU to get ready for rapid deployment." As he issues orders, the crew rushes about, making everything ready, the shields are powering up, in the hangar bay, fighters are being loaded with their initial ordinance and with the weapons replicators to resupply that ordinance in flight. Power was being put into the weapons arrays and systems normally offline were being brought into standby active mode. Davis sits in his chair. "Take us up." He says.

On the surface, a fisherman, minding his own business, is sitting in his boat, dragging his nets around to gather up fish, when he notices something odd. A blue glow about fifty feet away. As he looks, it gets brighter and brighter, then the water starts bowling upwards. A large metallic object rises from the depths, water cascading down along the hull. He looks along the metal object and sees the full size of the thing that just rose from the water, and gasps, falling back, horrified at this metallic beast. It rose up higher, then a shimmer seemed to cover it, knocking all the water off it in a large spray. It turns and angles up, then takes off into the sky.

"Shields up and operational, sir." Tactical reports. "Phasers, cruise missiles, and railguns ready to fire. Fighters standing by for launch."

Davis nods. "Launch the fighters. Send the hogs and six raptors over to McLintock right now, the other raptors will cover the Caroline." He looks back to his Army communications officer. "Launch the AAU and have them head for McLintock as soon as they're deployed. Saphyra, take your flight and be their escort."Saphyra nods and heads to the turbo lift. Davis looks to his sensor section. "I want to know it the second you find that pirate ship. They had to know we weren't in orbit and should have recalled the ship by now." When he gets his aye sirs, he settles down into his chair.

The fighters launch, one at a time. It's exactly like carrier launching, except in an enclosed area. Below decks, the AAU was loading up, the tanks loading into their drop ships, the heavy equipment droppers carrying their Bradley IFVs with the infantry squads already loaded up inside. They'd need a few minutes to get out, and need several more to deploy. The drop ships exit the ship five minutes after the last of the Worthogs were launched. Going with them were their Apache attack helicopters. The Black Hawks would be used later on. All bank and head west, straight towards Dras Leona.

"McLintock..." Nasuada says, Kings Orrin and Orik there with her alongside Eragon. "We grow tired of waiting. If this imaginary force is to show, where is it?" She asks testily. She had not liked having her attack delayed, and liked the manner in which it was asked to be delayed even less. Cynder is the one who sighs this time. "Patience." She says. "They will be here shortly." They all look out, an army of 25,000 was marching towards them, all of them in bright red tunics and armor. They had trebuchets and catapults with them. Seems Galbatorix didn't mean for them to get any farther inland. "They must have met up with reinforcements. We only expected ten thousand to be guarding Dras Leona." Orik says. Orrin nods. "This will be an interesting fight, to be sure."

McLintock puts a hand up to his ear and grins. Cynder grins with him. "Not really." He says. The first warning Nasuada and the others had to something being amiss from a normal battle was a small dot on the horizon. The next thing they knew a loud, shrieking sound tore thru the sky, causing many in the Varden to duck and cover their ears. Only McLintock tracked the pair of F22s as they passed overhead at 200 feet up. They were testing for air defenses. None reached up in answer. "What in blazes was that?!" Orrin asks loudly, obviously finding refuge from his natural fear in anger. "That." McLintock says, pointing, as another pair of F22s comes by overhead, the other pair had climbed up to altitude. He puts his hand back up to his ear as the rulers look in barely disguised amazement. Even Arya, as she comes up, stands beside Eragon and Saphyra and watches in wide eyed fascination, not paying attention to McLintock as he relays instructions.

Next come the A10s. They don't follow the same path as the F22s. They come in along the army's lines, dropping cluster bombs and racking the middle lines with their cannons. The Varden are now staring as one large whole as the bombers rip the heart out of the army, the armor the men wear offering no protection from cluster bombs and armor defeating exploding rounds. Thousands die in the first pass. It's too much for the army. It turns and runs, only to see a cloud of dragons coming in with helicopters and dropships. McLintock looks at his audience and has to double take when he sees tears coming from Eragon's eyes. "Something wrong?" He asks.

Eragon looks at him. "You...I....I thought that there were few dragons left, but now I count twenty and one." He says. "I am not alone."

McLintock smiles. "Eragon, in America, there more dragons than you could count." He says. "You were never alone. Just...isolated." This makes him the center of attention. Cynder bails him out of his self induced status, however, by scooping him up and putting him on her harness. "Hold on beloved." She says, and pushes a button. What had looked like a leather harness starts growing out and expanding, turning from leather to metal and becoming the full set of armor she would use in combat. She then launches into the air, joining up with the others and circling as the drop ships start landing. Nasuada, being the first to gather her wits, makes her way forward with her guards, heading over to meet with the army that had just landed. Eragon follows her as he notices her, along with Arya. The others take a few more minutes.

I'll have the next chapter put up soon. It'll be the conclusion of this 'episode'.