“General Chang wasn’t from one of the yacht clubs,” Herzer said, puzzled. “What was he doing in charge of the dragon-carrier?”

“Dragon-carriers had been, more or less, an order from Olympus,” Edmund said with a grin. “Sheida said: I’ve got dragons and I’ve got ships. Let’s put them together. The admirals from the yacht club, though, thought it was a terrible idea. They were working on various ballista and trebuchet boats, ships designed to do damage at short range and then board with marines. They’d even requested that they be given command of the Blood Lords and retrain them for boarding.”

“Grand,” Herzer said, dryly.

“But when the carrier took out six ships, five of them without ever coming in sight of the enemy, much less letting them get a chance to counterattack…”

“All of a sudden,” Herzer frowned, “carriers got important.”

“And all the new carrier commands go to the yacht guys, and Shar, who is their most successful carrier commander, is shuffled off to a minor base to guard babies.”

“The mer are bloody important,” Herzer said. “No mer, no delphinos; those two are bound like glue. No delphinos, no whalos, because the whales don’t talk to us, can’t most of the time. No whales and their intelligence system is gone, their -communcations… The key to that is Blackbeard Base. I’d thought they were sending him there because he was their best man. Not, in their eyes, the one they could afford to lose the most. Are they idiots?”

“No, they’re just very shortsighted.” Edmund sighed. “I think it’s coming to a head with this plan to forward engage Paul’s fleet. I wasn’t even copied on the information; Sheida asked me about it because it struck her as wrong. If Paul wants to destroy the carriers, why put them in harm’s way? Why not find out what’s going on at the very least?”