“Ah,” Herzer said, leaning back and sipping at the coffee again. Yes, not bad at all. “And the other news is…?”

“New Destiny punched their combat fleet,” Edmund replied. “Their orcas and ixchitl have pushed back the mer and delphino scouts, but there’s no indication that the main invasion fleet has sailed.”

Herzer thought about that as he took another sip. The UFS’ New Destiny enemies in Ropasa had started building an invasion fleet almost immediately after the Fall, while the UFS was still being conceived. The fleet was mostly unwieldy caravels and merchant ships. But it included a fair smattering of surface combat units. And, since the UFS had demonstrated the ability of their dragon-carriers to destroy any other ship, dragon-carriers of their own.

“It’s a counter carrier mission,” Herzer said. Each of the converted clipper ships could carry thirty-six wyverns or ten great dragons. Each of the wyverns could carry three canisters of napalm for dropping on the wooden ships of the enemy fleet. The great dragons could carry nine.

There were never enough of the latter, though. Great dragons were not a permitted Change under the protocols that still held post-Fall. They were survivors of a race that had been created in the heyday of genetic manipulation. A race that, while long-lived, had slowly dwindled in the millennia before the Fall until there were but a handful left on earth. They were intelligent, unlike the wyverns that made up the bulk of both sides’ air arm, and just as inventive about destruction as humans. They also were, by and large, mercenaries, unlike the riders of the wyverns who were all UFS officers or enlisted.

But with five carriers in the UFS fleet, they could gut any potential invasion by New Destiny. If they were around to gut it.

“That’s my take as well,” Edmund said. “The fleet has moved to engage them, though. Current reports are that they are ‘highly confident’ of success.”