What is this planet, anyway?

Chapter 2: Threadfall

"It's so beauuuutiful... Can we go around it one more time? Please?"

Vasha gave Katri a dirty look. "We've gone 'round once and we could barely afford that. Come on, Yoka, let's land this thing and see if we can survive on this planet."

As they entered Pern's atmosphere, Katri was glued to the window and sighing at how perfect the planet was.

"Yeah, we know, Katri. Pretty water, pretty mountains, pretty forests," Kienan teased. "Hey, what are those?"

"What are what?" asked Yoka as she steered the small ship toward the area they had scanned with the most refined metals.

Kienan pointed. "There, at 2 o'clock! It's like a flying formation -- some of those large avians?"

"Maybe it's the flying lizards," said Vasha wryly.

"No, no," said Kienan emphatically, "They're too big. They couldn't be... aircraft, could they?"

Yoka shook her head. "They couldn't build aircraft with so little metal on this planet!"

"What else could it be?" wondered Kienan. "Are they made of wood? Let's get a closer -- Hey! they disappeared!"

Vasha rolled her eyes. "They couldn't just disappear. Maybe they went behind something."

"Did they land?" wondered Katri. "Or go in the trees?"

"No, no. I'm telling you they just disappeared!" Kienan thumped his fist on the control panel. "I didn't even blink. They were there and then they were gone."

"Hey guys? There's another group over this way." Yoka turned the ship around.

Vasha squinted. "Could be the same group... if they can travel faster than the eye can see..."

Kienan blinked. "Maybe they can teleport."

"Ooh, like the Qwertyuiops of Asfda VII?" interjected Katri excitedly. "Their entire transportation system was run by five telekinetics!" (If you can't tell, I made this up off the top of my head. Sort of the same idea as the Talents, only on a smaller scale.)

"Um, right," said Yoka distractedly. "C'mon, let's get a closer look. I'm scanning to see what these flying things are made of."

Vasha squinted harder. "Are they... flapping?"

Yoka looked up from the scanner in consternation. "This says they're organic, boron-based life forms."

"They're huge! " Kienan exclaimed as they drew closer.

"What are they?" Vasha lost her normal jaded look and stared in awe at the flying creatures.

"They're dragons," Katri whispered. "Hah! I'm telling you, they're real, live dragons!"

"Are those... people, riding them?" asked Vasha.

"They are!" Kienan whooped excitedly. "Woohoo! Actual, live, human beings, riding humongous flying lizard things! This is the coolest planet ever!"

"Dragons," Katri corrected him. "You have to call them dragons."

"Okay, fine," said Vasha patronizingly. "Let's all call them dragons. Now what are they doing?"

Kienan watched the dragons raptly. "Um, I think they're waiting for something."

"Something?" Vasha frowned. "Something's happening, and I don't like it."

"Look behind us!" yelled Yoka. "It's some sort of weird hail storm!"

"No," Vasha said softly. "It's the Threads. The hostile organisms that fall from the sky. We'd better get out of here!"

"There are more dragon formations on the other side of us," said Katri. "I saw them appear out of nowhere!" Yoka steered the ship several meters to the rear of the dragons and slightly above the highest formation.

"Those dragons just spouted fire from their mouths!" Kienan was practically jumping up and down. "Just - just wow!"

"Did you see that?"

"Ooh, that dragon got a Thread on his tail. Looks like it hurts."

"He's gone! Disappeared completely."

"Hey, I think this big yellowish one is the leader."

"That's not yellow, it's bronze."

"Check out those big gold dragons!"

"I like the little blue ones."

"Did you see that dive? Spectacular."

"Truly amazing," said Yoka thoughtfully as the fighters continued to burn Thread. "They're defending their planet from the air, meeting the challenge head-on instead of hiding as the group that was rescued did. I wonder how they got these dragons, though."

"Perhaps they bred them from the little flying lizards. It's been what? Two thousand years, according to my report."

"Typical programmer, Vasha. It woud take a lot longer than that, unless they had Eridani genetic engineering technology."

"Maybe they did," suggested Kienan

Vasha was already at her report. "Yep, the report says they had three qualified genetic engineers."

Author's note: I know it's kind of weird to have so much dialogue and so little description, but that's just the way it came out of my pen. Actually it was all dialogue when I first wrote it, and I've added a little description to make it clear who's speaking. You'll get to know the characters later and find out what they look like, what they do, etc. Here's what you should know so far:

Vasha- programmer/hacker, pretty cynical.

Yoka- pilot, unofficial leader. Her name is an anglicization of a Dutch name I love, but looks very odd when you type it into an English story: Joke (actually a fairly common name in the Netherlands!), short for Johanna.

Kienan- copilot, excitable (the only guy in the group)

Katri- Kienan's sister who knows a lot of history and is a bit sentimental