Beneath Sovereign Skies

by Bobmin356

Harry and the dragons fight to find their place and gain acceptance amidst growing international tensions. Not all is well and good as the Weyrs threaten established powers and offer new opportunities. Follow Harry and the dragons as they try to navigate increasingly turbulent waters of international politics, terrorism and intrigue. On indefinite hiatus.

14. Chapter 14

Standard Disclaimer:

"Harry?"

"Yes Cheki?"

"Where are Bob and Alyx? It's time for the disclaimer again."

Harry frowned and looked around the deserted stage. "Alyx is plotting to get revenge on some neighbors who egged their house. I'm not sure where Bob is off to, something about a naked donut delivery girl convention."

"Oh," Chekiath replied, "So who is going to give the disclaimer? Or start the story?"

Suddenly Bob dashed onto the stage and both Harry and Cheki breathed a sigh of relief. That meant that they didn't need to make up a disclaimer.

"Sorry about that folks, but the convention ran longer than I expected it to, they spent a lot of timing debating whether or not to include muffins in their deliveries," Bob said with a bit of a leer.

"I'm afraid Alyx isn't going to join us tonight, she's a bit busy dealing with a couple of neighbors. A few kids egged the side of our house, now she wants to pay them back. I tried to tell her that dinosaur eggs won't do the same kind of damage as chicken eggs, but she wouldn't listen to me."

Bob smiled broadly at the audience. "So I can proudly give you this disclaimer, free of any of Alyx's zaniness and violence. We do not own Harry Potter or the Dragon Riders of Pern. Furthermore we are not responsible for the massive number of injuries from the improper use of Alyx's cold steam powered sex toys and our hearts go out to the families of the victims. Next time people will read and follow the instructions."

Bob walked over to the big button that started the chapter. He was about to push the big button when Alyx walked onto the staging grinning madly.

"Did you know that dinosaur eggs are fossilized? You only need about a half dozen of those suckers to knock a house down when you use a catapult!" she exclaimed.

Bob shook his head, he was certain there was another law suit in the making in this disclaimer. Quickly he pushed the big button to start the chapter.

"Whew! That was close," Chekiath exclaimed.

"I know mate, she's more scary than Hermione and May pms'ing," replied Harry. "Oh look, the chapter is starting!"

---

Beneath Sovereign Skies
Chapter 14
Closures and Decisions

---

The Ukraine, near the training camps, January 20th 2006...

Ismo slid down to land lightly on Lakreth's leg, then he jumped down the remaining distance.

Nearby two wings of dragons gently landed with two dozen over-sized cargo containers containing vehicles and supplies. All of the dragons had exited Between at exactly one hundred feet, well below any radar coverage in the area. The Weyr had practiced the move for a week before the military authorities finally realized that dragons would always exit Between at the altitude they chose.

The clearing wasn't natural, at some point in recent times someone had gone to a lot of trouble to clear a large area that was several acres in size. Nature was starting to reclaim the land, but Ismo and his magical riders had snuck in several days ago and cleared the area again using magic.

The Ukrainian magical population was very small. It wasn't until 2000 that they were formally admitted to the ICW. Compared to other European countries, their ministry was still weak and disorganized and most importantly, had yet to set up any sort of magical detection grid like most European country's had to detect magic in unexpected regions.

Ismo spotted Adam, his second in command and leader of Division two, directing the unloading of the troops and smiled in approval. The wings were landing and unloading the multinational force with precision. Once he admired Campbeltown and their precision, but now he could admit that his dragons looked just as good.

The assault team consisted of special forces from several countries. Ismo only knew that the British and Finland were involved. They had trained loading and unloading at a Finnish military base, and the British had been Ismo's initial contact. All of the troops he had worked with wore uniforms with no unit designations or country markings. The troops spoke nearly every language Ismo could recognize. As it had been explained to Ismo, the countries involved wanted this as secret as possible.

During training, French seemed to be the preferred language used by the assault force.

All told the attack involved nearly just over one hundred special troops which the Weyr was ferrying tonight.

The cargo containers were thrown open and soldiers entered each one. One by one standard commercial pickup trucks were driven out of the container and a group of soldiers would pile into the flat bed in the back. One out of every four trucks contained a special mount that the soldiers quickly attached a machine gun to.

"All down now Ismo," Adam said softly. The dragons and the riders would not be helping the soldiers at all. They were here just for transportation.

"Excellent, the wings did good Adam," Ismo said. "They looked really smart."

"As good as Campbeltown?" Adam asked with a chuckle. It was something of a joke among the Weyrleaders that everyone wanted their Weyr to be as good as Campbeltown.

"Better, but don't tell Harry I said that," Ismo replied with a laugh.

Adam laughed softly, then he noticed a man waving at him. "There they go," Adam said softly. At some unseen signal the vehicles fired up their engines and slowly made their way out of the clearing. Adam noted each driver was fitted with night vision goggles.

It took barely three minutes for all of the trucks and soldiers to leave the clearing. Ismo reached into a bag and pulled out a thermos. "Let's get a wing airborne to keep an eye on things, remind them to keep below three hundred feet."

Three hundred feet was below the real radar limit. They chose the one hundred foot entry point to reduce the chance of the cargo containers being picked up.

Adam nodded and trotted off to speak to one of his wing leaders. Lakreth moved closer and Ismo smiled up at his dragon before settling down. "Thanks Lakie, I wasn't looking forward to sitting on the cold ground."

"Its not too bad. Between is colder," Lakreth observed.

"Still I don't think my skin is as tough as yours," Ismo replied.

"Of course it isn't, I have scales and hide. You have just skin. I've seen plastic bags stronger than your skin."

Ismo frowned and was about to reply when Ingrid showed up. "Are you arguing with your dragon again?" she asked teasingly.

He turned to his wife, "I wouldn't be arguing with him if he wasn't so smug."

Ingrid reached up and gently rubbed Lakreth's eye ridges. "He's not smug, he's just very opinionated, like his rider."

She reached into a bag and pulled out a Coleman camp heater powered by a small amount of pebble sized Hot Rocks and with a flip of a latch, it opened up and started to radiate heat. She took up a position sitting on Lakreth's other paw and absently scratched the dragon along the base of his neck.

"Now Ingrid knows how to treat me. Aren't you glad I picked her out for you?" Lakreth asked smugly.

Ingrid laughed at Ismo who sputtered and glared at his dragon.

Suddenly the sound of gunfire was heard breaking the silence in the clearing. It was distant, but clearly discernible. The clearing was closest to the training camp of terrorists than it was to the wizards, but it was still nearly two miles away.

Ismo stood up and looked in the direction of the sound but there was nothing to see. "That doesn't sound good," he muttered.

"No, even their live fire exercise wasn't that noisy," Ingrid agreed. "Do you think something has gone wrong?"

Adam hurried over to Ismo with a worried expression on his face. He skidded to a halt only a few feet away and Ismo held up a hand silencing him.

Ismo considered the plan he had seen the soldiers practice. Since the Weyr only had a role in their transport, they knew little of the actual attack plan but in every case, they were silent, attacking their targets with hand weapons or using silenced weapons. Their machine guns were only supposed to be used as an emergency measure. They had planned on a stealthy attack and clearly something had gone wrong.

The chatter of machine guns continued and there were several sharp explosions.

"Hand grenades?" Adam asked from nearby.

A silent command from Ismo sent four dragons skimming the tree tops northwards to take a look. Another set of four took off east to check the camp that held the Wizards. "Lakie, get the riders and the dragons assembled, we may be leaving here in a hurry," he ordered then he turned to Ingrid. "Go back and wait next to Masth sweetheart, I don't know what's going on but I do know this isn't what was planned."

"Ismo, Gronth reports that the group of soldiers attacking the normal camp are in trouble. He says that the soldiers are caught between two groups," Lakreth reported.

"And the other group?" asked Ismo.

"Hebrath says that group is attacking the camp without any problems," Lakreth said, then he paused and looked at a dragon up the line. "Ismo, Lolth says his rider and the other magicals could use magic to erase memories?"

Ismo blinked and then turned towards Lolth and waved to her rider. Hemel, Lolth's rider was one of the few wizards that Joensuu had. Joensuu was a smaller Weyr with three permanent divisions and one transitional division. The transitional division had been sent off to a jumpstart a new Weyr only a few months earlier leaving Joensuu with just three hundred riders and three hundred non-bonded dragons.

Being so small, the Weyr had just fifty five magical riders unlike Campbeltown who had nearly one hundred and eighty wizards.

Ismo waved for Adam to join him while they talked with Hemel. They had plans to make. The soldiers were friends and allies and they couldn't sit back and let them get slaughtered.

Campbeltown Weyr, January 21st 2006...

May typed happily at the computer in her office. She had pulled late night shift in the infirmary and was happy to use the free time to work on the latest version of her book of Dragon Medicine. This was a second edition, updated with new information on dragon anatomy and treatments for specific ailments.

Harry didn't like her working so late now that she was pregnant, but he knew she couldn't avoid taking the shift, it wouldn't be fair to the others. Harry still took his turn on the overhead patrols, usually choosing the most hated time slots, so he really couldn't complain about May taking a late night shift four nights a month.

She glanced up and looked through the glass window in her wall that allowed her to view most of the stalls. They were mostly empty now. Pith, an older non-bonded dragon from Svartvatn Weyr in Norway slept in stall six. He was laid up with a bad infection in his ear but he was responding well to a general anti-biotic and May hoped he'd be able to return to his own Weyr before the week was out.

Her only other patient, Rokth was reading from a wall screen. Rokth was a Campbeltown dragon who had ignored the Weyrling Master and listened to his brand new rider during training. Now Fred had a bad second degree burn on his face and Rokth had managed to burn away several scales on his neck. Both the rider and the dragon would recover, and eventually get over the very public and very loud ass chewing Harry had delivered but for now, both were consigned to the infirmary until May cleared them.

She leaned back from her keyboard and slid her chair out before standing and stretching. She could see Katie working at a desk out in the main ward. Katie was still struggling to learn the veterinary science side of dragon care but she was already an accomplished potions mistress.

May reached for her mug of tea when suddenly Trath screamed. "May! Outside!"

She dropped her mug which shattered with a sharp crash and bolted for the door. Katie was standing around looking alarmed, she too heard the alarm echoed to her by her own dragon.

May ran to the door and slapped the switch that opened the large hangar doors, then she wrenched the smaller door open and stepped outside into a light snowfall.

The outdoor flood lights came to life and Katie joined her a moment later.

A dragon appeared in the dark sky, the dragon's head was drooping oddly and the rider was doubled over and hanging slightly off to one side as if unconscious.

"Trath, alert the watch commander, I need Doctor Sheppard to come to the Infirmary immediately then wake the ready wing," she snapped.

"Here, land here!" Katie shouted to the injured dragon. Two more riders pushed a large cart loaded with supplies out of the infirmary. They were part of the four person late night shift, although one was only healer trainee.

Lights came on outside Hangar two. The doors to the hangar slowly started to open. The night watch wing leader had woken the ready wing and they were already forming up.

The dragon circled above them flapping furiously to maintain altitude. It was obvious that the dragon was having trouble maintaining flight with the way it's head was hanging down. May could hear the dragon moan painfully in the snow fall quieted night.

Chekiath appeared a moment later and positioned himself above the dragon. He reached with his huge paws and grasped the smaller dragon around her belly. The dragon moaned again and Chekiath crooned softly. The injured dragon realized that with Chekiath holding her, she didn't need to worry about maintaining any altitude. The dragon furled her wings. "My rider," she moaned again.

"Sheppard's coming," Katie said, pointing to car headlights in the distance. May nodded and waved Chekiath to bring in the injured dragon.

Chekiath brought himself to a near hover just inches above the ground and then gently lowered the injured dragon to the tarmac. Chekiath's huge wings billowed up clouds of loose snow and for a moment May couldn't see anything. The snow cleared a moment later when Katie cast a spell. Chekiath lifted higher and side slipped fifty meters to one side and landed.

"This is Verath from Joensuu Weyr," he announced. "She is injured in her neck and her rider is injured in her leg."

Katie pulled her wand and quickly cleared off an area of snow then she scrambled up the side of the dragon and examined the woman rider; she quickly cast a spell on the rider's leg. "May, this is bad, we have a very bad leg injury here and she's bleeding heavily. I've cast a tourniquet charm on her leg, but she's lost a lot of blood."

May nodded. "Get her down and let Issac handle her. I need your help with Verath," May replied.

Katie nodded and understood. It wasn't that May didn't care about the rider, but she couldn't help the rider. Verath she could help. She quickly levitated the woman to the tarmac and cast a quick warming charm on her and the ground around her before turning to help May.

A car screeched to a halt and Issac stepped out wearing a robe over his pajamas. A moment later one of the Weyr security Land Rovers pulled up on the scene and a man started to climb out of the vehicle. Issac snapped out, "Get an ambulance here," to the security officer. The man nodded and climbed back into the vehicle to radio for help. The ambulance would come from the adjacent army base.

Meanwhile May was busy examining the dragon for injuries. "Verath?" she said softly. "Where does it hurt?"

"My rider?"

"She's being cared for. Right now it's time for us to take care of you. Now do you hurt anywhere besides your neck?"

"No, but I can't move my neck. Something snapped and I can only turn in one direction now."

Katie reappeared carrying a bucket of pain potion which she gave to Verath, then she looked at May expectantly.

"Can you walk if we lift your head Verath?" May asked. She knelt next to the dragon and examined the three bullet holes that pierced her neck. They were big holes, big enough for her to put her thumb through with room to spare. May was a little relieved to see the dragon wasn't bleeding heavily. A dragon's neck contained four major arteries and four major veins, any one of which could have caused the dragon to bleed to death in just a few minutes.

"I think I can," Verath replied shakily.

May gasped when Verath's head lifted just off the ground and hovered there. She turned to see Harry standing behind her, grimly staring at the injured dragon and holding out a hand. Harry was levitating the dragon's head and in the process, lifting Verath's neck off the ground. May frowned and sent a quick message to Hermione via Trath to make sure she helped him warm up when he returned home. He was wearing a light robe and slippers and she knew for a fact that he wore only some boxers under the robe.

"Verath, follow the Weyrleader's instructions, he'll help you move into bay one," she commanded. Right now, as far as Verath was concerned, she was in charge and could order everyone, including the Weyrleader around.

Harry's expression turned grim and he nodded to May. Bay one was reserved for only the most serious of injuries. It was a new addition to the infirmary and was in fact a small building that was accessible from inside the hangar. May had plans to add four more similar additions to the infirmary like this, but Bay one was the first and it was a prototype for the future bays.

As such Bay one contained a specially modified X-ray machine and it was the world's only dragon operating theater.

May glanced over to Issac who was supervising working on Verath's rider with the help of an army medic. An ambulance was already on the scene and it looked like they would soon be transporting their patient.

Harry walked backward into the infirmary and slowly pivoted around so that Verath could back into Bay one. Katie held the doors in place while the pair maneuvered into the room.

May glanced skyward one more time, then she turned and headed back into the building.

Inside Bay one, Harry gently lowered Verath's head to a cushioned floor. Two elves popped in to help move the dragon's body around while Katie pushed the large x-ray machine over to the dragon's neck.

Harry stepped back and watched silently.

May stepped into the room and nodded in satisfaction, Katie was already getting the x-ray machine in position and Alice Wagner was setting up a tray to take some blood for cross matching. Dragon blood came in two groups with three sub-types per group. Once May had graduated from university she had instituted the first Weyr blood bank. It was tiny compared to a human blood bank, containing only ten gallons of each type of blood. Considering that a full grown Hungarian Horntail had ninety three gallons of blood, the Weyr had just enough on hand to handle a simple emergency. Anything more disastrous and May would have resorted to live transfusions.

"Harry, get out. You've done as much as you can, now you're just in the way," May said absently while she watched Katie.

Harry blinked in surprise, then he smiled and gave May a slight bow. "Of course Weyrhealer," he said, then he turned to Verath. He placed a hand on Verath's head and whispered a quick prayer to the Goddess before he said, "Do not worry, I'll have someone keep an eye on your rider Verath. All you need to do is follow your Weyrhealer's orders."

"Thank you Weyrleader," Verath replied faintly.

Harry stepped from the room and May was about to turn back to her patient when Gustav Brigidson hurriedly entered. Gustav was panting heavily and his boots were mud spattered. He was Joensuu's Weyrhealer and until a few minutes ago, had been in the field with his Weyr.

"Get out and wash up!" May snapped at him. He glanced down and blanched, then he backed out of the room and an elf cleaned up the mud he had tracked in. May turned and walked into a small room where she could change into her scrubs. Suddenly her long quiet night had radically altered and she knew it was going to be a rough one.

She stepped from the room after changing and looked at a large wall monitor which was showing the results of the x-ray. The door to the bay opened and Gustav returned, this time in scrubs and wearing little booties over his feet. May nodded in approval, then she gestured towards the screen. "She was hit by three bullets. Look here, this one nicked a vertebrae and shattered into fragments. It must have torn up the muscles and tendons."

Gustav nodded grimly. "This is not going to be easy," he said uncomfortably.

She glanced at him. "Are you up to this? We're going to have to try to repair as much as we can."

Gustav shrugged. "We have to try. One for two," he murmured.

May nodded, understanding the sentiment exactly. 'One for two' was a phrase she coined several years back that was meant to remind the Weyrhealers that saving a dragon's life usually also saved the rider's life. Saving one life meant saving two lives when treating a bonded dragon.

"Alice will monitor her vitals," May said. "You'll assist me and Katie."

Gustav nodded grimly and they both turned to their patient.

Harry's office, Campbeltown Weyr, January 21st 2006...

Harry stared out the window without really registering what he was seeing. Chekiath watched him from his stall, but he wasn't concerned. He knew Harry was wrestling with a problem and once he solved it, things would be better again.

A pair of arms slipped around him and he felt Hermione pull him closer to her.

"Cheki says you're thinking deep thoughts. I thought that was my job," she said teasingly. "I brought you some clothes to change into."

He chuckled and gently turned in her arms, then he wrapped his arms around her. She sighed and reveled in the comfort of his arms. Being pregnant had invoked new emotions in her and lately she found herself feeling particularly vulnerable, being in Harry's arms made that all go away.

"What's bothering you?"

He squeezed her a little more tightly for a brief moment, then he released her and turned to the small pile of clothing and started to dress. Hermione glanced out the window while Harry dressed. In the distance she could see the flood lights lighting up the infirmary building. "May is dealing with a badly injured dragon," he said softly, then he gestured towards another building that had an air ambulance in front of it. The helicopter was waiting while Issac supervised the loading of the rider who had been badly injured. "I can't help feeling like I have been manipulated sweetheart. Without our help this raid would have been nearly impossible. And yet, I have to wonder, if Prime Minister Blair counted on our refusing to sit back and do nothing if things went wrong for the raiders."

Harry turned to Hermione again now fully dressed and his expression was very unhappy. "Have I been tricked into violating our own neutrality?"

He gestured again towards the infirmary. "It's obvious that Ismo and his Weyr got involved in a fire fight. Verath and her rider had been shot. That would not have happened had they confined themselves to just transporting the raiders like we agreed to. I want to be angry with Ismo, a dragon and rider are badly injured. If either dies, we'll lose the other. But on the other hand if something went wrong with the assault Ismo would have jumped in to save the soldiers he had been training with for the past few weeks. I would have to say I would have done the same..."

He paused and scratched at his chin. "I can't help wondering if people took advantage of our eagerness to help. Did I let them manipulate us?"

Hermione grimaced, if there was one thing Harry hated, it was people manipulating him. "I remember a time when the British asked us to attack a ship full of terrorists," she said softly and tried to suppress a shiver. That particular attack came within a few inches of killing her and her dragon when a terrorist's bullet passed within inches of her head. "You could of let the British navy take care of it, but you knew we had to make a stand. How is this any different love?"

She backed away from him and folded her arms. "These terrorists are working to hurt our efforts. They are working to hurt people. The British asked for our help, you've always said we help our friends, so what's changed?"

Harry sighed and his shoulders slumped slightly. He made to speak when Chekiath made a keening noise in his stall. Harry turned to his dragon in shock. "Verath?" he asked in a strangled tone.

Chekiath lifted his head and turned to look at his rider. "No. Neberoth just jumped Between, his rider died. Lakreth is coming here. Joensuu is returning home but there are more injured dragons getting ready to come here."

Harry's head dropped for a moment and Hermione gasped. Normally dragons only mourned for their Weyrmates, but Neberoth and his rider Pytor were wing leaders. An important rider and dragon had been killed and Cheki would honor his passing in the only way he could.

Harry took a deep breath and then looked at Chekiath. "Alert the Watch commander to wake up all the infirmary personnel. Tell the ready wing to go to the Infirmary to lend a hand. May is busy so let the other Weyrhealers know if they need anything, to contact me."

"Yes Harry."

"I think I see now," Hermione said softly.

He looked up at her sharply. "No, you were right, I was second guessing myself. The Weyr needs to make a stand on issues that directly effect us. The people in those camps were working to hurt us and others. We cannot afford to passively watch the world. Perhaps I was a bit naive but we need to be involved and yes, we are going to take losses."

He smiled gently at her. "It was just a moment of self doubt," he said with a shrug.

"Ismo will be here soon, why don't you go help with the incoming dragons?" he told her.

Hermione nodded a bit unhappily. She knew Harry had to deal with some unpleasant aspects of being Weyrleader, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

Harry took his seat while Hermione left the room. He fired up his computer and started writing down some thoughts concerning what had happened. It was only five minutes later when a pale faced and shaken Ismo and Adam entered the room.

Harry gestured to the two seat facing his desk. "Campbeltown grieves with Joensuu over the loss of Neberoth and Pytor Schneerson," He said formally.

Then his voice turned cold, he wasn't angry with the Joensuu leaders but he did want an explanation. "Now please explain to me how a simple ferry mission resulted in injuries and the loss of a dragon and rider."

Ismo and Adam exchanged stricken looks, the Ismo began to speak.

Campbeltown Infirmary...

May's nose crinkled behind her surgical mask. The smoke drifting off of the scale Gustav was cutting away made for a very unpleasant acrid smell. She watched carefully as Gustav cut away two more scales using a hand held electric saw, then he placed the saw on the tray table.

Gustav took each scale he had cut away and placed them into a container. The freed the scales would be put aside and would be later used to make an artificial scale over the affected area. Artificial scales were an invention that came out of Condron Weyr. The scales would be ground up and mixed with the same insulating material that was used on the American space shuttle, then it would be formed to fit over the original area and riveted to the surrounding scales.

Adult dragons did not regrow lost scales like immature dragons did. Condron's answer to the problem was a mechanical patch that worked almost as well as a real scale.

With the scales out of the way May stepped forward and used another saw with a much finer and smaller blade to open an incision right over the bullet hole. This was the third time tonight that were going for another bullet. Verath had been hit with armor piercing rounds from a large caliber gun which resulted in a deadly injury.

Small caliber ammunition lacked the fire power to penetrate the scales and usually resulted in shattering the bullet, and sometimes the scale. Someone could still get a lucky shot with a small caliber weapon, but generally the scales protected most of the dragon except for the eyes or a shot in the mouth.

"We got lucky Gus," May said softly as she put down the saw and picked up a spreader which she used to open the wound wide. "Hand me a clamp."

Gustav reached for the clamp and placed it in May's outstretched hand. "You call this lucky?" he said incredulously. Verath's injury was very serious and it would require months to heal and more months of therapy before she could return to duty.

"Well yeah, there are four main arteries and four veins in the neck and all three bullets missed them. This one bullet came closest to the aorta prima but still missed it. The only real damage came from that first bullet which nicked the twenty second neck vertebrae," May replied. "That one had me worried, but the bullet never went near the spinal column."

Dragon bones were incredibly tough. Verath had been hit in such a way that the bullet directly struck the vertebrae and it had resulted in shattering the bullet and only nicked the bone.

May didn't mention that repairing the torn ligament had taken nearly two hours of their time, and only time would show how much movement returned to Verath. The neck of a dragon was incredibly complex and still much wasn't understood. The ligament was only partially torn, had it been fully torn May's only option would be to try to copy what a human surgeon would have done for such an injury and pray it worked. It was a procedure no one had tried before and no one wanted to attempt unless absolutely necessary.

Depending upon the breed, an adult dragon's neck ranged from six to fourteen feet long. To ensure adequate blood flow there were four major arteries and four major veins that ran the length of the neck. There were also three major structures which ran the length of the neck, the fire breathing organ turned out to be the source of the dragon's heat and it was situated between the dragon's immense lungs. A tube that was coated in an insulating material that resembled cartilage ran the length of the neck right next to the airway and the esophagus. The insulating material protected the rest of the neck structures from the heat of the dragon's flame. A thick coating of saliva protected the dragon's mouth from the fire.

May clamped off two ends of a torn vein. With the local bleeding clamped off, the blood that had pooled quickly drained away thanks to a suction tube and now she could easily spot her prey. The bullet was intact and easily removed.

"Well I suppose when you look at it that way," Gustav replied dubiously.

May extracted the bullet and dropped it in a tray for both of them to examine. The first bullet they had removed was intact, and so was this one, but the second one had shattered into fragments that took nearly an hour to find and remove all the pieces.

"It looks intact, we got lucky again," she murmured.

Gustav nodded, "Indeed, may I repair and close up?"

May nodded and stepped away. She knew she needed to give Gustav this chance. All of the Weyrhealers needed surgical experience and so few had any because all of the really bad cases came to Campbeltown. It was now common practice to send a Weyrhealer to Campbeltown to help heal their dragon and give the healer the badly needed experience.

May watched Gustav with approval as he worked to connect the broken vein before repairing the rest of the wound. Five years ago this kind of operation wouldn't have been possible. There was a lot they still couldn't do, but every year that list got a little bit smaller. Just following Issac's advice of treating the injuries had resulted in hundreds of dragons being saved. At least half of the repair procedures were copies of human surgeries scaled up to dragon size.

"How are we doing Alice?" May called.

Alice was up by Verath's head, nearly eight feet away from where Gustav and May had been working.

"Verath is doing fine. Respiration is strong and steady, we have good O2 saturation at ninety two percent. Heart rate is one hundred beats per minute. I figure she'll remain unconscious for another hour before the anesthesia wears off," Alice replied.

May nodded, the heart beat was a little higher than normal but considering the circumstances well within acceptable limits. "Alright then, Gustav and you can finish up here, I had best check in with Katie and see how she's doing with the other injured."

Both healers nodded and grimaced behind their masks, they had forgotten about the other injured dragons they had received.

May walked from the room to check on the other dragons. It had been a very long night and she was certain it wasn't over yet. Verath would probably survive this night, but she was in for a long recovery. Her neck would have to be immobilized for at least two months then she'd need more months of physical therapy to regain her mobility.

Harry's office, Campbeltown Weyr...

Ronan stepped into Harry's office and he looked up from his computer, then waved him in. "Ismo get settled alright?"

"Yeah, I put him into the guest quarters and a few minutes later Ingrid showed up and took over. He was still pretty shaken by last nights events. Adam returned home, he'll watch over the Weyr for the day," Ronan replied, then he sat comfortably in one of Harry's chairs. Ronan still wore a bandage on his hand, but he was steadily recovering. Issac had finally given him a date for his first trip Between since he injured his hand and Ronan was eagerly looking forward to it.

"Of course he is shaken, last night he lost a dragon and a rider, and has five more dragons down with injuries. As much as I'd like to be angry with him, I'm more angry at myself for not foreseeing this. Had we been there we would have done the same thing," Harry said hotly.

Ronan looked at him curiously. "What could we have done differently to prevent it?"

Harry's shoulder's slumped. "Prevent the deaths and injuries, probably nothing. But the Weyr created and executed a plan of attack in five minutes. Had we insisted that we train for such an event before hand, it might have gone better for us and our friends."

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

"Harry, you wanted to see me?" Lord Mills asked.

"James, come on in please. I'd like to ask you something," Harry replied seriously. Ronan blinked in surprise, he had heard Harry talking about the government taking advantage of the dragons, but he didn't think Harry would actually confront anyone over it.

James smiled and took the seat next to Ronan. Harry glanced over to his monitor where May's email detailed the injuries to dragon and riders.

"James I find myself wondering whether or not Prime Minister Blair took advantage of the Weyr's willingness to help. Last night a simple ferry mission went very badly when Joensuu weyr came to the rescue of the multinational force. This morning I have a dragon and rider dead, another pair seriously injured and four other dragons with injuries ranging from serious to moderate. Fortunately none of them are life threatening."

"Harry," James said in surprise. "You know no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. If you think you had it bad the multinational force had seventeen killed and another thirty eight wounded. And I've been told those numbers would have been much higher if Joensuu hadn't attacked that Ukrainian army unit from behind, and then erased their memories once they had been subdued. The clean up took a lot longer than anyone planned on, but they had to create a cover story on the fly."

James paused and looked intently at Harry. "We managed to kill over one hundred terrorists, and Carlos the Gerbil. Miss Upton I'm afraid managed to sneak away, but I have no doubt she'll turn up."

James leaned forward in his seat. "The PM told me personally," he said intently, "that the only thing that prevented the entire attack from being wiped out was the actions of the dragons."

Harry sighed and stood up, then he walked over to the window. "A dragon and his rider are dead, another pair are still in critical condition," he murmured, then he turned back to James. "I'm sorry James, but to be honest I had hoped that Prime Minister Blair had been counting on our willingness to go beyond the expected. I wanted someone else to blame, but I can't. The only real blame I can pin on anyone belongs on my own chest because I was the one to teach the riders to help our friends no matter the cost."

"Harry, that isn't true!" Ronan exclaimed. "If I had been in Ismo's shoes I would have done the same thing he did. So would you."

"I would have," Harry snapped. "Don't you see? That is the issue. We are so eager to help we leapt without considering the ramifications. We have to do better, I can't prevent more dragon deaths, but I'll be damned if I'll sit back and wait for them happen without trying to prevent them."

"Easy there lad," James said. "It was nothing more than a tragic set of circumstances that no one could have foreseen. I know that Tony Blair was very upset to hear that the mission took a bad turn. We lost a lot of good people last night but the mission was a success."

Harry nodded sourly. The multinational force had taken a large hit, in comparison, Joensuu had gotten off lucky.

"Joensuu saved the mission last night Harry. They overwhelmed that army unit, and then sent their wizards in wiping their memories. As far as the Ukrainians will know, their unit came upon the terrorists who were slaughtering each other and they finished off both camps. I don't want to say that killing Carlos justifies the deaths we had, but at least they didn't die in vain," James said. "Your dragon and rider didn't die in vain."

"You know that's true Harry," Ronan added.

"Yeah I know it's true, but if this kind of thing ever comes up again I'm going to insist that we plan, and train for the dragons getting more involved," Harry replied, then he gave James a weak grin. "Thank you James. I'm sorry if I might have offended you, but you have to admit it is a concern."

James nodded, he could easily see where Harry was coming from. He personally didn't believe the Prime Minister would have done that in this case.

"Yes I can see why you would think that Harry and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I believe you can trust Prime Minister Blair to never take advantage like that, but you can never tell about the next man to fill his shoes."

Harry nodded, he had already discovered that fact for himself. When the American Weyr was first started he had a very cooperative president, but when that Bush fellow got elected, it was a whole different game.

The Special Committee for State Security, The Kremlin, February 2nd 2006...

The defense minister stood in front of a Japanese made projection screen and faced the committee. "Conditions in Georgia are becoming worrisome my friends. There are rumors of Pro-Russian separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and we have learned that the Georgian government is increasing surveillance of those provinces."

"Our sources inside the region are trying to find these Pro-Russian rebels so we can find out what they need. In the meantime the Georgians are making some highly provocative moves."

He paused and gestured and an aide advanced the display to a simple map of the region.

"The movement of police forces barely disguises the fact that these are highly armed police, dressed in Georgian army uniforms. Right now the situation is tense, but stable. As a precaution I have sent a light motor rifle division and two squadrons of aircraft to bolster our forces in the North Caucasus Military District should we need to intervene. I have ordered General Baranov to increase his training and to weed out any dead weight."

The defense minister waved to the aide who then shut off the projector and turned on the lights. "Diverting the resources is troublesome to our long range plans, but my intelligence analysts are saying that the region is quickly destabilizing. Some of them have gone on record as predicting we'll be forced to intervene in Georgia within two or three years," he concluded, then he took his seat.

President Putin looked down at the table for a moment and everyone assumed he was considering his options. In fact Danakov was sending him instructions.

"The Georgians are becoming too rebellious," he said finally. "Despite our attempts to sway them, they openly seek an alliance with Europe and NATO. We cannot allow NATO a foothold so close to our borders and strategic assets. I understand that diverting resources may delay our actions against the dragons, but this poses a greater immediate threat than the dragons. If NATO were to gain a foothold on our borders, it would disrupt the balance of power within our confederation."

Putin turned to the Defense Minister. "You will personally inform General Sukov of the forces being reallocated and why. Tell him that we are pushing the timetable back by at least two years. I'm sure the good general will be glad to know of the additional time in which to prepare."

The Defense minister nodded brusquely. "General Sukov has assembled a special unit to fight these beasts. They are training and working to come up with new tactics. Sukov will be grateful for the extra time."

Putin nodded and looked around. "Does anyone else have anything to add?"

Danakov raised his hand, he didn't want to report about the disaster in the Ukraine, but reports were already reaching parts of the government that he had little control over. Sooner or later they would be heard by the various ministers who would question why he hadn't reported it.

Danakov controlled Putin and through him, large pieces of the Russian government, but he didn't control it all and couldn't control everything without arousing suspicions that something was wrong with Putin.

"Mishka you have something to report?" asked Putin.

"Yes. As you are aware we set up two training camps for destabilizing the dragon efforts. One camp was made up of ideologically sound individuals who were being trained to incite unrest and strikes among the workers at several company sites in Europe.

"The second camp was training people that were no less motivated, but their motivations stemmed from their religious beliefs. These people were more prone to violence and less controlled than their counterparts in the other camp."

"Yes yes, you've explained this before," Putin said, letting a bit of impatience show.

Mishka's eyes narrowed, then he got back on the point. "Last month everyone in both camps was killed, wiped out to a man. The Ukrainians are claiming that one of their army units came upon the two groups who were in the middle of a battle to wipe each other out. The Ukrainians claim their army group jumped into the conflict and slaughtered everyone."

"What?!" exclaimed the Foreign Minister.

Danakov held up a hand and gave him a weak smile. "Rest easy, there was nothing in those camps that pointed towards us in any way. Even the weapons were weapons readily available on the black market. The loss of the two camps is regrettable, but training religious fanatics is always a risk. Look at what happened to us in Afghanistan no? I have no concern that our involvement will become known."

"Then what does concern you Mishka?" asked Putin.

Danakov leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. "The reports aren't adding up. An inventory of bullets used by the Ukrainian army unit vs the number of bullets recovered doesn't match. They recovered far too many bullets even when you factor the bullets from the terrorists themselves. Then there were a small handful of bullets that were found to have markings consistent with being fired from an silenced weapon. Also there is a large clearing just off the road between the two camps which shows signs of having been recently used by trucks and perhaps aircraft and yet there was nothing to indicate any aircraft in the region. Even our radars reported nothing and we do have coverage over that area."

Putin leaned forward in his chair. "What do you think happened?"

"This has all the earmarks of a Spetsnaz operation," Danakov said.

"What!?" the defense minister exploded out of his seat and glared at Danakov.

"Forgive me Minister, but you didn't allow me to finish," Danakov said coldly. "The attack has all the earmarks of a Spetsnaz operation, but we are not the only country to have such forces. If I had to make a guess, I think that another country initiated an action against those two camps. The Ukrainians are covering it up because they don't want to admit to having had such an action happen right under their noses."

Several nodded knowingly in the room, the last thing a government wanted to do was to appear to be weak and unable to protect their own territory.

Danakov observed the others and refrained from smirking. Fools, he thought. He had several of the Ukrainian army soldiers that had been involved in the incident kidnapped and tested. All of them had tested positive for having their memories altered by magic. Magic had been involved in the attack, but he wasn't about to share that information with his fellow ministers. They knew nothing about magic and he'd see them all killed rather than informing them of Russia's true master race.

"So some other nation attacked our camps? How does this affect our plans?" asked the Finance Minister.

Danakov glanced down at a slip of paper in front of them for a moment, then he glanced up. "The religious zealots were always a high risk part of the plan. Those fools were as likely as to blow themselves up in some meaningless gesture than to actually attack a target of value. The other camp of operatives had been more successful because they were concentrating on more 'political' methods. With the committee's permission I would propose to restart the effort using a more realistic ideology than religion."

Putin glanced around and saw no one was against Danakov's proposal. "Mishka, you may proceed with restarting the one camp," he stated like he was granting a huge favor. "But I want you to also make sure there is no way these camps can be tied back to us. If there are any loose ends, they need to be eliminated."

Danakov nodded and made a mental note to meet with Putin sometime soon to reinforce his controls on the man.

Putin looked around until he spotted the Finance minister. "What will this delay do to our economy?"

The Finance minister tugged nervously at his tie. "Well I will have to ask, but our original estimates were based on the idea that this issue would have been resolved by 2008. Now you're talking about not even starting until then. Our projects were showing that it would be 2010 before we experienced a ten percent loss of revenue. I think we'll be fine, but I must stress that a loss of fifteen percent of petroleum revenues would result serious disruptions in our economy. We can weather the increasing loss, but fifteen percent is where it will cause everything to topple like a house of cards."

He looked around the room, "Make no mistake, we are already starting to feel a pinch. Recently we were forced to delay paying a Japanese electronics manufacturer for a week. These are crucial components for our new aircraft and the company was very willing to accept a week delay, but that will not always be true. We no longer make everything here in Mother Russia. We rely on outside sources for many things and they expect to be paid on time."

"Your warning is acknowledged, Boris. Please have updated figures for our next meeting in a month," Putin said gravely, then he checked his watch. "Friends let us close for now. I have a press appointment in an hour which I cannot put off."

The men around the table packed up their papers and stood. They understood the dismissal and most suspected that Putin had unusual tastes that he often disguised as political appointments. Unfortunately no one had been able to catch him at it.

Ronan's Office, DSL Design group building #1, February 10th 2006...

Ronan ushered everyone from his office into the adjoining conference room. Alongside one wall was a one tenth scale model of the Dragon Egg. Next to the model was a similar sized sphere.

Ronan waited until everyone was settled, then he moved to the front of the room and turned to face them.

"Not too long ago I was tinkering with the Egg design when I suddenly realized that we had overlooked something so fundamental. I was stunned and totally dismayed because it had the potential to completely derail our plans," he said solemnly.

Harry looked alarmed and he glanced around the room. Everyone appeared to have the same expression. "What have we overlooked?" he asked tensely.

Ronan grinned and the tension eased a bit. "I found myself suddenly asking what would someone inside the egg experience when the dragons went Between? We know we can protect men from outer space, but what if Between was different somehow? It's already baffling the best minds this planet can throw at the problem. So what happens to someone in the egg when it goes Between? Will they experience the cold and blackness and lack of air? Or will they still be seated in their chair, breathing and observing the interior of the capsule?"

Harry shook his head. "I would think you would just be inside the capsule," he said slowly.

"No," Mildred objected, "we have nothing to base that assumption on Harry. I'm not saying you're wrong, but as Ronan has pointed out, we don't know."

Ronan rubbed his chin and looked a little sheepish. "Well Mildred is partially right. That's why I had us build a test capsule. We used what we had on hand that was scheduled to be installed into the Egg and put together a much smaller test capsule. This wasn't nearly as good as the egg design, but it was good enough for our experiment."

He pointed towards a large wall screen. "In a moment you will see the results of a test we ran."

Ronan picked up a remote controller and pressed a button. The screen flared to life and it was showing a split image. One half of the screen was an image aimed directly at a small window that appeared to be heavily reinforced.

The second half of the screen showed a small German Shepard puppy happily chewing on a bone in a plexiglas cage. The interior of the capsule seemed to be very cramped, it would not have been possible for someone to stand inside it without stooping.

"Hey! What are you doing to that puppy?" exclaimed Sirius. The puppy looked to be about four months old and it's presence tugged on Sirius' animagus form.

Ronan paused the playback and turned to Sirius. "Sirius, trust me, right now Tweenie is perfectly fine. When I decided we would do this test, I also decided that we'd test out the basic life support design as well. There is another video feed not shown here that displayed the instrumentation measuring temperatures, internal and external, O2 flow and CO2 absorption rates, battery drain and so on. Tweenie was safe the whole time."

Sirius nodded a bit unhappily and Mildred leaned forward in her seat. "Sirius, I'm not thrilled either to see a live passenger, but it had to happen sooner or later. NASA did the same thing with chimpanzees and the Russians used dogs."

Ronan turned back to the screen and pressed play again. "Garanoth is our 'engine' for this small scale test," he offered. "And I'll add that he wasn't too happy that I couldn't go with him which explains why he deviated slightly from our plan."

Ronan was still recovering from his injury and he knew Karen would kill him if he had gone on this test flight, and after that, Harry would put him painting the fence line for the next ten years. He had plans to be the pilot, but he needed more time before approaching Harry about that subject.

The timer on the video hit zero and through the view-port one could see the capsule being jerked into the air a bit unsteadily. Tweenie looked up and barked twice, but as the rocking motion settled down she returned to gnawing on her bone. Ronan paused the playback at that point. "Note the uneven lift off even with one dragon. One of my people wants to stabilize the capsule by adding several large gyroscopes. Work is already underway on modifying the basic capsule design to add the gyroscopes. Stabilizing the egg using the same method is likely but we're not sure we have the necessary power. Our people are looking into it and hopefully we'll have that resolved soon."

He hit play again and a half minute later the view port turned pitch black. "Note the window has gone pitch black, Between obviously, and Tweenie is still enjoying the bone Dobby got for her. Note that she's perfectly fine and the interior of the capsule is still in the same state as it was before it took off. Temperature, Oxygen and CO2 absorption all nominal. Battery drain is also within acceptable limits. At this point it's safe to say that a passenger inside the capsule will not experience the sensory deprivation of Between."

The blackness of Between was suddenly replaced with another kind of blackness. "We programmed the interior lighting to drop to a small fraction of it's normal intensity at this point so we could get a better view through the window."

The lighting dropped and stars became visible through the window. "Now for the final piece of proof," Ronan murmured. "Garanoth is making a second jump. Mind you, he was supposed to jump away from the planet and turn the capsule to face the Earth."

"My way was better," Garanoth announced proudly.

"Yes Gara I know," Ronan said sounding like this was an old argument. He motioned towards the monitor.

The blackness of Between returned and a few seconds later it vanished to reveal a gray cratered surface. "Yes that's the moon. We're not sure exactly how close Garanoth came, but I estimate we were within one hundred and fifty miles. One of my people came up with that estimate based on the size of the craters and what we know about the camera optics. It's not very accurate I'm afraid. But our next test capsule will have an outside camera feed and a radar altimeter to correctly judge the altitude." Ronan said, then he paused the playback.

Mildred gasped and shot to her feet. She hurriedly put on her glasses and walked up to the screen. "There is the Descartes Highlands where Apollo 16 landed and Mare Nectaris," she said reverently. She peered at the image for a long silent minute and she ran a hand across one lunar feature. Finally she turned to Ronan. "You jumped to the moon?"

Ronan gestured helplessly at the image behind her. "Either that or Garanoth is really good at faking stuff."

"I would never!" Garanoth said in outrage.

Ronan winced. "I know Gar, I know you went there, I think we just surprised people."

"Why would they be surprised, it was an easy jump," Garanoth replied in puzzlement.

"Perhaps it is an easy jump," Harry said, "but none of us expected you to make that jump Garanoth. Thank you for showing us this."

"You're welcome Weyrleader," Garanoth replied, sounding pleased with himself.

Mildred returned to her seat and slumped into it. Alarmed Harry sat forward in his chair. "Mildred? Are you alright?"

She nodded, then shook her head as if she couldn't make up her mind. Everyone watched her closely.

"It's ironic," she said finally, "The lunar landings were what first sparked my interest in space and astronomy. I was just a young girl at the time, and here was the effort of a decade and billions of dollars just to send three men to the moon. The history and technological advancements that resulted from that effort still echo today."

She looked up at Ronan and gave him a weak smile. "And then you come along with your dragon and a few thousand dollars worth of parts and off the shelf hardware and go to the moon as if you were going to the corner supermarket."

Ronan blushed and looked down at his feet. Several around the room exchanged amused glances. "In all fairness Mildred, our attempt lasted less than five minutes," Ronan countered.

"Five minutes," Mildred repeated with a smile. "That is five minutes more than NASA is currently capable of doing Ronan. What you accomplished is nothing short of astounding."

"So to summarize then," Harry said softly, interrupting Ronan and Mildred. "Ronan has proved that someone can be protected from the environment of Between, and that dragons are capable of making very long jumps. It had been thought that Norendrath's jump to Earth had been a fluke, something caused by her extreme desire to suicide conflicting with her instinct to clutch. This casts doubt on that idea."

"Here to the moon in about than 2.6 seconds," Ronan added softly. "Garanoth first jumped into orbit, about 150 miles up, then he oriented on the moon and made his jump."

Ronan frowned, "Our timing system wasn't very good, so I can't say if it was any longer or not. We know it takes 2.6 seconds whether we're going to London, Tokyo or just jumping to Campbeltown village for some groceries. I'll have to come up with a more precise timer for our next test and we'll need to take some really precise measurements of terrestrial jumps."

Mildred turned to Harry. "I have mixed feelings about this. Ronan and Garanoth proved a number of concepts, but so many things could have gone wrong. There could have been a deadly solar flare, the jump could have disoriented Garanoth. We got lucky, but might not be so lucky next time," she said.

Harry nodded. "I agree to an extent, but I also believe at some point a risk had to be taken. Ronan knew full well what he was doing and more importantly what he was risking. I am not going to send him to mast over it when I have no doubt in my mind that Karen has already torn strips off his back over this."

Ronan nodded glumly, Karen had made her displeasure quite clear.

Harry looked over at Ronan. "Ronan, from here on you will consult with Mildred before you run any tests which involve going into space. I want you and Mildred to plan for things to go wrong and have some ideas of how to deal with them. Mildred I want you to make sure we're doing everything we can to do this safely. If you need something special let me know and we'll figure out how to get it."

Ronan nodded and Mildred sat back on her chair looking pleased. At least this way she could try to mitigate any space based threats by tapping into NASA's solar monitoring network.

Harry looked over at the model of the capsule and rubbed at his chin. His five o'clock shadow was three hours early today and it tended to make his face itch. "Ronan," he said slowly. "That capsule, could we make it larger, so it could carry people?"

"You want to give people rides in space?" quipped Sirius incredulously.

Harry shook his head. "No, not at all. I was thinking about DT&T. They have accepted several contracts for hauling heavy equipment to hard to reach areas, but they aren't meeting their goals with the second part of their mandate. My other idea was if we could create some kind of dragon powered air ambulance. Passenger modules and ambulances would allow us to be more open at the factory with what we're making and still sneak in the odd space capsule or two."

DT&T or Dragon Transport and Tourism was a relatively new company running as a subsidiary of DSL. The ferry service was doing rather well once people got over the shock of dragons airlifting tons of machinery, but the tourism part was falling flat on it's face. The riders never expected that people would be reluctant to climb up behind a rider and jump Between and then there was the problem of lifting a lot of people.

Ronan blinked and turned to look at the capsule. "A passenger module for terrestrial use?" he mused softly. "We can do that, and it would be easier to do since we don't have to worry about carrying an atmosphere with us. Unlike a passenger jet, any module we build wouldn't need to be at high altitudes. Just load the passengers and jump Between as soon as your airborne."

Ronan reached up and rubbed at his temple for a moment. "There are so many ways we could work this," he said.

"Ronan, talk to Karen and then talk to our riders. If we're going to do this we need to make sure we have every safety device the law mandates for airliners. I'm no engineer, but it seems to me that a passenger module is just the tip of a very large iceberg. Get a team together and let them have at it."

Ronan nodded eagerly, this was the kind of thing his people lived for.

Harry stood and glanced around. "It looks like we're done here unless someone has a question?"

"I do!"

Harry looked at Mildred and Sirius in surprise, then opted for the one who probably had a real question. "Mildred?"

Mildred rubbed her temple for a moment in thought, "This... this changes everything Harry. We had been thinking in terms of satellite launching, but if jumping to the moon really causes no measurable time increase, then jumping to further points is possible. There is a big market and a large number of players in the satellite launching business, but there's no one working anything further out. The technology is just too prohibitively expensive."

Ronan blinked in surprise, "Of course!"

"Ronan?" asked Harry.

"Mildred is right. There is a potential market in mining asteroids, or ferrying supplies to build a moon base, or hell, even Mars is possible. There's a lot of engineering to do, but we could own the market. No one would be capable of competing against a dragon based lift system for deep space projects."

"So we're going to ignore the satellite launching market?" pressed Remus. "From what I've read it's really lucrative."

Ronan looked at Mildred who shrugged. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I'm a scientist, not a business analyst. I do know there are a lot of people planning on entering that market in the coming years."

Harry rapped his knuckles on the conference table. "I will ask Karen to put together a team of our business people to see what the advantages and disadvantages are. I'm not a business man, but like Mildred pointed out, there is a crowded field for low Earth orbit. For now our plans continue unchanged. I also want us to explore passenger modules for DT&T. I think the idea of an ambulance module would be even more attractive and easier to implement."

He looked around and waited as people made notes or typed into their computers, then he turned to Sirius. "Sirius? You had a question?"

Sirius looked at him with a very sad expression. "Can I have the puppy?" he asked with a slight whine.

Harry blinked in shock while the rest of the room broke up in laughter. He glanced over to Ronan who nodded, then he turned back to Sirius. "If you can get Katherine to agree, you can pick her up later."

Sirius hooted and jumped from his chair.

Harry shook his head at his godfather's antics but if there was one person to care for a puppy it would be a dog animagus.

Sirius' & Katherine's quarters, Campbeltown Weyr, March 7th 2006...

Katherine reached for the alarm quickly so she didn't wake her husband. It was just before five in the morning and she needed to get her morning run in before she reported to the base headquarters building.

She was now in charge of base security that included both the Weyr and the adjacent SAS base. It was a promotion of sorts even if she wasn't attached to the SAS regiment that occupied the base right next to the Weyr.

She sat up and turned in the bed. Still half asleep she placed her feet down on the cold hardwood floor and groped around blindly for her slippers. Her eyes flew open and she growled, literally, one of her feet was soaking wet!

Flipping a light on the nightstand on, she looked down to confirm her suspicions then she turned again in the bed and shoved Sirius out of the bed and onto the floor. She had stepped into yet another puddle left by Tweenie and she was sick of it!

Sirius fell to the floor with a meaty thump and a muffled "Oophf!"

"Sirius Black what have I told you about that dog?" she said angrily.

Sirius slowly poked his head over the edge of the bed and blinked at her. "She's not peeing on my side of the bed anymore," he protested.

"NO! She's peeing on my side now! I'm warning you Sirius, if you don't start potty training her properly I'll take Kirstin and we'll spend our nights in the Officer's quarters at the barracks! I agreed to take in the dog because you claimed you could train her!"

"But but."

"No, I mean it Sirius, train her to go outside," she said flatly, then she looked down at her wet foot in disgust. "I'm going to take a shower."

Sirius watched her go into the bathroom, then he reached for his wand and banished the mess. Tweenie stuck her head through the partly closed bedroom doorway and gave a small yip when she spotted Sirius. She bounded into the room and came to a halt in Sirius' lap.

Sirius looked at the puppy and shook his head. "Tweenie girl, you and I have got to have a heart to heart talk," he muttered.

Harry's office, Campbeltown Weyr, March 15th 2006...

Harry and Remus were talking in his office when a knock interrupted their conversation.

Janay stuck her head into the doorway. "Harry, Lord Mills is here," she said.

Harry nodded and smiled at his secretary. "Send him on in Janay."

Janay vanished and James entered a room a half minute later.

"James, just the man I need to talk to," Harry said.

James took a seat next to Remus and nodded in greeting, then he turned back to Harry. "How can I help you Harry?"

"You've no doubt seen the new construction going on just outside the fence. The building going to be a larger and much more capable factory that will be addressing several issues. DT&T has been experiencing some difficulties because few people are willing to experience Between on dragon back. That got our design group thinking and they came up with some ideas that I admit are rather exciting. They are going to make two kinds of passenger modules."

James blinked at him. "Passenger modules?" he repeated as if he didn't understand.

"Yes, two types to start with. Our first idea was to build an air ambulance that was dragon powered. Even if the dragons were restricted to straight flight, they would still be faster than most traditional air ambulances. Think about it James, they'd be able to pop out at an accident scene, load up several patients and either go Between to the nearest Accidents and Emergencies, or straight fly there."

James slowly started to smile as the idea took hold. It was an intriguing use of dragon power.

"That sounds really good Harry, but how can I help?" asked James.

"Well I think we have ambulance idea down pat. Isaac is providing us with information about what a standard ambulance has as well as getting us in touch with the right people to set up a few tests. Its the second type of passenger module that I'm hoping you can tell us who to talk to. You see, we want to use the module for carrying tourists, but since the module never really flies we're not sure if we should talk to the aviation folks or some other department."

"Never flies?"

Remus laughed, "James, the dragons can go Between as soon as they leave the ground. So a passenger module that never gets more than a few feet off the ground can hardly be considered an aircraft."

"We've already proved that someone in a module doesn't experience the same thing as a rider on dragon back," added Harry helpfully.

James nodded, "So that was the purpose behind that thing that looked like an over-sized bathysphere I saw outside the design group's building last week?"

"Thats right, that's our test capsule. You'll probably see more like that in the coming years because this seems like just the tip of a very large iceberg. To be honest, this has us almost as excited as we were once we understood the value of hot rocks."

James paused and looked thoughtful, "But what about the ferry mission Joensuu carried out? I thought a lot of those soldiers were inside the containers with the vehicles?"

Harry looked at James and shrugged. "Those containers had unlit interiors and there was no attempt made to seal them from Between. Our modules will seal the passengers away from Between. Even if we could track down some of those soldiers, they really wouldn't have the answers we needed."

James rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yes I think I can see that. The ambulance sounds like a really great idea. I'll have to ask around about your tourist module idea, maybe someone at number ten might know who to talk to."

"Please do James, our own legal department is unsure of the laws. The module is not an aircraft in the traditional sense, and not a car or bus. Hermione claims it falls outside of most of the laws simply because nothing like this ever existed before," Harry replied.

James nodded, then something caught his attention through the office window and he turned. Harry and Remus looked out the window to see what James was looking at, they both started to chuckle. Sirius was outside, and was obviously trying to explain something to a puppy that didn't seem all that interested in what Sirius had to say.

Remus pulled his wand and cast a spell on the window, suddenly they could hear Sirius as if he were in the room with them.

"Come on Tweenie," Sirius cajoled, "You know you should go potty outside when we take a walk. Katherine doesn't like you making messes in her house and I really want to start sleeping with my wife again."

The puppy looked at Sirius and tilted her head to one side, then a nearby dragon bugled loudly and Tweenie started to prance around Sirius, yipping loudly.

"Oh this is too rich," Remus said with a laugh. "What did he say? 'Who else is better equipped to deal with a dog than a dog animagus?'"

Harry stood and walked over to the window and opened it. "Sirius Black, just why are you arguing with that puppy?" he shouted.

Sirius looked up from his spot and saw Harry leaning out the window grinning at him. He was certain he could hear Remus laughing in the back ground. He stood up straight and said, "I'm sorry Harry, but not being a dog animagus you just wouldn't understand the finer details of dog training."

Behind Harry Remus slid from his chair and howled with laughter. Sirius frowned at his friend's mockery.

"But Sirius," Harry replied mildly. "You're not a dog at the moment. Have you even tried showing Tweenie what needs to be done when you're in your Padfoot form?"

"Wait, Padfoot is potty trained?" asked James with a wide smile.

Remus broke out in laughter again and Sirius scowled at Harry and the others behind him, then he turned to Tweenie. "Come along Tweenie, let Padfoot show you how it's done," he said, then he turned into Padfoot. He grabbed the leash in his mouth and trotted away from the offensive window.

"Yeah, look Tweenie, this is how we hump everything in sight," Remus shouted.

That even set off Chekiath in his stall. Within seconds half the dragons in the Weyr were rumbling with amusement.

Harry shook his head in amusement, then shut the window. Sirius worked very hard for the Weyr and everyone appreciated what he did, but some days everyone wondered if he would ever grow up.

Seattle Washington, USA, April 2006...

Anna sat in a chair facing the front of the small cafe and watched the customers around her warily. She had been on the run since the attack and had only a small amount of cash on her, taken from the safe in the camp before she fled.

Her money was running out and she had taken to robbing various muggles for their cash to help her get by.

She didn't know what had happened, Carlos had been visiting the other camp when they were attacked and she assumed that he had gotten away. All she knew was that they were under attack and she had to flee.

Anna had been running ever since. She had met up with an acquaintance of hers who was now working in Stuttgart Germany and to her horror she discovered that someone was offering ten thousand galleons for her head.

She immediately fled Germany as if the very hounds of hell were on her heels. She knew her 'friend' couldn't be trusted to not turn her in, or try to claim the reward for herself.

Which is why she found herself sitting in a small cafe in Seattle. She had arrived in the city just two days earlier by way of Toronto Canada. She had never been to the Americas and figured that perhaps it was just the place for her to hole up. She still had her magic and the ability to cast a glamour on herself to change her appearance.

Nearby a pair of men watched her closely.

"You are sure this is the one? She doesn't look like our target." asked Marcus Acoperit.

The wizard pretending to be an FIS agent nodded. "Yes, she is the one. Her signature is unmistakable."

"More of that magic stuff?" Acoperit said.

"I have already explained this to you Marcus, she cannot hide from me," the man replied with a touch of impatience. The wizard wasn't especially powerful, but he was an expert aura reader and that was the one thing that no amount of glamour charms or polyjuice could hide.

Acoperit shrugged. "Very well," he replied, then he shouldered the high powered rifle and adjusted the scope.

"Slowly," he muttered to himself as he sighted in on his target. He didn't care for this at all. He had nothing against Anna, she was just another target as far as he was concerned. No what bothered him was the fact that he had been assigned a partner for this mission. A partner that came equipped with specially modified bullets that were supposed to vanish after killing their target.

The FIS man seemed especially concerned that they leave no evidence behind and Acoperit wondered if that also included him.

"Slowly," he repeated. He absently noted his 'partner' had moved closer to him which didn't bother him at all. He was prepared.

For Acoperit time seemed to stand still as he pulled the trigger, then he rolled away from the rifle while reaching for a small pistol. His partner already had his wand out and was tracking Acoperit. "Mgnovennaya smert," the Wizard snarled just as Marcus fired his weapon.

Both men were excellent shots, but Marcus had the disadvantage of being on the floor. The wizard's killing curse struck Marcus in the chest and his back arched violently, then he relaxed into death. The Russian version of the Avada Kedavra curse was no less effective than its UK counterpart.

The wizard had no time to rejoice at the success of his mission. Acoperit's bullet missed his head entirely and tore through his neck, severing both his spine and his aorta. The bulled pushed him back against the wall where he slid down to the floor. He blinked rapidly several times as his brain struggled to understand what was happening.

Acoperit might not have been a wizard capable of killing with a single spell, but he was a wizard with a gun and he invariably killed what he shot. This time was no different.

Down in the cafe a crowd was forming around a cooling corpse. Acoperit had drilled a hole right into her forehead. She had died instantly and never knew what hit her.

Unfortunately for Russia, they had left plenty of evidence for the American's to chew over. Two known Russian operatives involved in a hit on woman in an American city was sure to attract a lot of Federal attention. Especially since neither man had any papers suggesting they had entered the country legally.

Condron Weyr Research and Testing Lab, Condron Weyr, May 16th 2006...

The open topped jeep barreled along the old taxi way towards a new structure that Skip Taylor had put up after the Americans had been kicked out of the Weyr. Occasionally the jeep would be in the shadow of one of the three dragons over head that were lazily following the jeep across the Weyr.

They were heading towards the newest addition to the Weyr, designed by Ronan's design group with the help of the dragons and Gringotts.

Harry was pleased to note that the Weyr had a full wing on patrol overhead and another wing using a mix of Jeeps and riders on dragonback, patrolling the fence-line.

While a bit excessive as compared to Campbeltown, Harry wasn't about to fault Skip over how he handled security in his Weyr. In fact it was the heavy security that enabled Skip to build the Research and Testing lab right under the nose of everyone. It was a Weyr secret that only the Weyrleaders and a few top echelon weyr members and riders knew about.

The Research and Testing Lab, or RTL was strictly off limits to everyone except for riders and even then only those riders that had been authorized by Harry, Skip or Ronan. The building sat nearly a mile away from the main DSL facility where NASA employees worked hand in hand with the riders and scientists employed by the Weyr. Officially the RTL was a warehouse that contained just enough volatile chemicals to warrant it being isolated from the rest of the facility.

It was a cover that few had trouble with. The main research buildings were doing some substantial materials research requiring many dangerous chemicals and the RTL was where they stored all of the materials until they were needed.

Today Skip was showing Harry and Ronan the results of some of the research they had been carrying out. Ronan had finally been cleared for Between by Issac only a month earlier. His injury had slowed his ability to mount his dragon, but once he was on dragon back, he had lost none of his edge.

"I'm glad you were able to make it Ronan," Skip said over the sound of the wind. "I was hoping you would. It's only fair that you can see what we did with your original idea."

Skip released the steering wheel and pointed. "There it is, doesn't look like much does it?"

Harry tried to ignore Skip's hands free driving and concentrated on the building they were approaching. From the outside the building resembled a standard hangar, except that there were no aircraft doors. Harry knew that the looks were deceiving. The Weyr had pulled a fast one on everyone. The RTL was little more than a hollow shell which capped a sloping ramp that descended under the ground and deep into bed rock. They were still adding chambers and delving deeper. The true scope of the RTL complex was only really known to Skip and a team of dragons and goblins hired from Gringotts America.

"It's not supposed to look like much Skip," Harry replied.

Skip shot him a grin and slowed the jeep, pulling up to a door. Next to the people sized door was a dragon door that allowed entry for any of the dragons.

Skip gestured to the building. "Right now we're only using two chambers, but we have a total of four chambers each roughly one hundred meters long by fifty meters wide and ten meters high. Thanks to the Goblins, fresh air is circulated via magic, so we didn't need to install exhaust and intake ventilation ducts at the surface."

"But why would you need such an extensive structure?" Ronan asked. "I originally just wanted a place where we could try out ideas away from prying eyes."

Harry turned to Ronan. "Away from prying eyes Ronan, your idea made sense and it fell in line with another project we had going. Skip helped shape our tactics when dealing with modern fighter jets and he wanted to expand upon that. You remember the report he wrote about the air forces and how we'd need to adjust that jumping technique to keep up with a high speed jet?"

Ronan nodded in confusion.

"Skip wanted to look into other aspects of the various military forces in the world and I agreed. We have a technique for dealing with planes. Its good, but it's not good enough. We got lucky in Saudi Arabia, but we never once landed. A dragon on the ground is at risk and you can't beat a nation by air power alone."

"I hope we never have to face that again," Ronan said darkly.

"I agree," Harry replied mildly, "but let's be realistic. The Saudis were threatened by what the dragons represent. They won't be the last nation to feel that way."

Ronan turned to stare at Harry. "Is this a precaution or are you really expecting some nation to pull another Saudi?"

Skip opened the door for the two men and paused, holding it open. Harry pushed his hair back and he looked intently back at Ronan. "What I hope for and what I believe will happen are two different things. I don't want us to have to fight anyone, but look at our record. So far we've had to threaten one country that we thought was our friend, and fight another that that we knew was hostile to us. How many other countries do we know are hostile to us? What are we going to do when North Korea kills a dragon? Or Russia finally decides to move openly against Joensuu?"

Ronan nodded unhappily, he knew Harry wasn't expecting an answer, there were a number of countries that had come out against dragon-kind, and some of them were quite powerful.

"So better to be safe than sorry. I guess I can understand that."

"Safe," Skip echoed. "That's what we're doing here, experimenting now and hoping that we'll never have to use anything we learn here."

Harry turned and entered the building with both men in tow. Once inside Ronan blinked in the harsh glare of the overhead halogen lamps.

"We actually do use a large part of the building to store stuff," Skip said, then he pointed to several rows of shelves filling one half of the building. "You'll note that the shelves all face the doors. RTL is on the other side of the shelves. This way, even if someone did leave one of the doors open, or worse, the loading bay, all they would see is the interior of a warehouse. All of the riders who work in the warehouse know about the RTL and have been told it's a Weyr secret."

Skip led them around the rows of shelves into an area of reduced lighting. He stopped by a raised panel and grinned at Harry and Ronan. Both looked around in confusion, then Skip fished a slip of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Harry. "My wife thought it would be safer if we hid the entrance under a fidelius charm. The underground complex is too large to hide, but the entrance is just right and without the secret, you could stand on the entrance and never know it was there."

The entrance appeared as soon as they had read the paper.

Skip led them down the ramp and into a huge chamber where a Chinese Fireball dragon was shooting fireballs at a steel plate.

The dragon stopped and turned to acknowledge his Weyrleader when he spotted Harry and Ronan. "Weyrleader," exclaimed the fireball, "I did not know you were bringing important guests."

Harry stepped forward and smiled, "It's all right Smath, what were you doing?"

Ronan and Skip exchanged amused looks. Harry knew every dragon, and generally knew every rider by name, but was notorious for forgetting important dates. It was a source of amusement among the Weyr leaders that without his wives and Janay, his personal secretary, he would be totally lost.

Smath looked over at Skip, "I'm making holes, but Skip can tell you better why, I'm not so sure I understand it."

The three men laughed and Harry turned to Skip for an explanation. Ronan suppressed a smirk. Whenever Harry visited a Weyr, that Weyr's Weyrleader was suddenly called by his first name while Harry was always The Weyrleader.

"You know about the softening/melting point issue?" Skip asked.

Harry nodded, "Yes, the dragons need to make sure their fire is below the softening point when using their everglow fire. Otherwise the object will begin to lose its shape, and they don't want to go beyond the melting point or they will end up with a lava puddle."

The Weyr had learned from experience that when a dragon wanted to create something like a hot rock, they needed precise control over their fire or they would create a puddle of everglowing mess. The Weyrs had started calling such a mess a lava puddle for lack of any better name.

Two factors came into play in creating a usable hot rock for energy production, the dragon had to want to create an everglow rock, and the dragon had to control the temperature precisely. Since dragons had no concept of human temperature scales, each dragon had to be shown the precise temperature while carefully controlling the desire to turn the item into an everglow. Millicent Bulstrode believed that the desire to make an everglow item was a function of the dragon's innate magic. Without that desire the object never retained the heat.

After Campbeltown had created the first couple of lava puddles, it became a priority to find a way to extinguish them. One of Sir Robert's final contributions to the Weyr before retiring was exactly that, he discovered a way of putting out an everglow object or a lava puddle.

The Weyr term 'everglow' was a bit of a misnomer because a hot rock could be extinguished by smothering the rock in a supercooled bath of liquid nitrogen for three days. It turned out that the exact time required to extinguish a lava puddle or everglow object was easily calculable using arithmancy. It was Millicent Bulstrode who calculated the required time to the astonishment of Sir Robert. He had never suspected that it would be possible to apply magical mathematics to real science.

The super cold liquid would cool the puddle and since nitrogen was inert, it wouldn't flash to fire like oxygen would. In fact less than a week after Saudi Arabia surrendered to the Weyr, Harry gave them the information they needed to extinguish the lava puddle the Weyr had made in their runway. It took Saudi Arabia four months to buy up enough liquid nitrogen before they could attempt to put out the lava puddle. They would still need to tear the old runway up and build a new one, but they no longer had the largest open heat source on the planet.

Without a smothering bath of supercooled gas, an everglow item, such as a hot rock would produce heat for years to come.

The trick in making hot rocks was to keep the dragon fire to a temperature below the point where the rock would begin to soften and deform; the dragons turned out to be adept at controlling the temperature and intent of their flames.

In the case of the softening/melting issue brought up by Skip, they had learned that if you turned part of something into everglow, it would spread, but only by a precise amount equaling to half the original diameter of initial everglow blast. That meant that a Chinese fireball hitting a large steel plate with a one foot diameter fireball would initially create a round one foot wide everglow area that would ultimately spread to a foot and a half diameter.

Skip thought this had potential if it came down to a point where the Weyrs were forced into combat with modern machinery.

"Thats right, but for our purposes it gives us an ability to defend ourselves," Skip replied. "After my initial report about air combat you told me to go ahead and look into developing other tactics. I even visited Kenya to view those tanks you slagged."

Harry nodded and motioned for him to continue.

"We have an ability to hurt an opponent greatly, but only with the proper training. Our Fireballs and Vipertooths have the finest control over their fire, but they also have the shortest range. Since you've always stressed taking action that led to the least amount of deaths I let that idea guide our research here," Skip said, then he paused and looked pointedly at Harry.

"It is easier to negotiate with someone if they aren't incensed with rage over the loss of life," Harry said softly. "Its not something we can always guarantee but it is something I think we should strive for."

Ronan nodded and Skip looked relieved. "Thank you Harry, it would be easy for us to kill a battalion of tanks with dragons, but we'd also wipe out the crews doing so. I realize this way puts us at a greater risk..."

"Skip," Harry interrupted. "any conflict is a risk. Your job is to help us be ready if that happens. My job is to try to see that it never does happen in the first place. I am too much of a realist however to think it'll be smooth sailing. Saudi Arabia burned away what little naivety I had left."

Skip nodded, "Well just so you understand, tanks are just one of the weapons we'd face. The US for example uses tanks in conjunction with helicopters to dominate the battlefield. I can't see anyway of disabling a helicopter in flight short of flaming it from the sky."

Harry grunted in agreement, it was an issue they he had already realized. The principle threat facing the dragons came from the air, helicopters, planes and missiles.

"I wish we didn't have to do this," Harry said with a sad sigh, "but I've read enough history to know that if we aren't prepared things can get messy really quick. So tell us why you have Smath punching holes in steel plates."

Skip chuckled, "Well it is more than that. The steel is typical naval grade steel used for hull and deck plating on all but the largest capital ships. We've been trying to determine what would have the most impact, slagging the steel or turning it everglow."

Ronan frowned. "Everglow? On a ship you'd never be able to put it out if the ship sank."

Skip nodded, "Yes we realized that early on. A fireball can make a pass alongside a ship and place four two foot diameter holes in the hull using just regular fire. The problem is that the fireball would be exposed to any close in anti-air weapons the ship might possess."

"So expand the idea of a wing man a little further. Have a couple dragons jump Between to just over any gun emplacements and take them out before the fireball make it's pass," Ronan offered.

"That might work," Harry said softly, "but..."

"Harry, we need you," Trath announced suddenly.

A second later his phone started to ring. He reached for his phone. "May? What is the problem?"

"Harry, Hermione's gone into labor. If you want to remain on speaking terms with her I'd suggest you get back here as soon as possible," May said tensely. "We're waiting for Issac and then we're off to hospital."

Harry's jaw tightened, Hermione wasn't officially due until next week, but Issac had repeatedly warned that the due date was an estimate. He had already put this trip off three times because Hermione hadn't wanted him to leave the Weyr so close to her due date. "It will take me a few minutes to clear the RTL, but I'll be airborne once I do. If I miss you leaving, I'll meet you at hospital."

Harry snapped the phone closed and turned to the others with a grin. "Sorry to cut this visit short Skip, but Hermione's gone into labor."

Ronan whooped and clasped his good hand on Harry's shoulder. "Are you good to give a jump image? Remember how Lee was."

Harry laughed, Lee had been a total mental wreck when his daughter had been born.

"I'm fine for this, but ask me later after the baby is born and I might have a different answer."

Harry turned to Cheki, "I think we better get home Cheki."

"You really don't want Hermione angry with you. And just think, May will be hatching her own young in another month."

Harry grimaced, that was a reminder he didn't need. May was pregnant and the doctors had placed her anywhere from a month to a month and a half behind Hermione.

"Go on Harry, I'm sure I can explain to Ronan what kinds of ideas we've been tossing around."

Harry nodded and motioned for Cheki to follow him out of the room and up the ramp to the surface.

Both men watched Harry and dragon trotting away before turning back to business. Ronan turned to Skip, "So how close are you to working up the drills we'll need?"

Skip grinned. "Kat's printing out several copies of them now for you to take with you, plus she's sending out emails to the Weyrs to include the new drills in our regular in-flight flame training."

"I thought that was the case," Ronan replied with a grin. "Now how goes the foundry construction?"

"Come on, it's on a lower level but I think we'll be ready to start turning out the steel stock you'll need. We had to look hard for the people we needed to teach us, but it was worth the investment if you ask me. Now we'll be able to turn out the stock metals you'll need for any project, and we have retained several people as consultants in case we run across something special."

Ronan chuckled, "Its a good thing we don't have the weight limitations that NASA and the ESA have. The alloys they are forced to use cost a fortune."

"Your welcome," Garanoth said suddenly, "I knew you were complimenting we dragons in a round about way, so I accept for my kind."

Both Skip and Ronan shared a look then burst into laughter.

---

Author's Notes and Mockeries...

* Some people jumped the gun complaining that Harry shouldn't have agreed to help fight that terrorist camp. Well this is what happens when you leap without all of the facts. Hopefully you'll understand now why they agreed. In the meantime we're all laughing at you.

* op1292 left a review complaining about Harry not using magic. After a brief discussion where I tried to explain that I had plotted the story so that magic took a backseat to the dragons, he was kind enough to start swearing at me. I have a policy, I don't feed trolls, so I blocked him from reviewing or even contacting me. If you disagree with something I have done and resort to verbal violence I'll block you. So don't be like op1292, converse in an adult manner and always understand that your vision of how a story goes only matters when you're the one writing the story.

* RedCOE just joins us with a review from chapter 1 of this tale asking if I'll bring Fire Lizards into the story line. For those that do not know, Fire Lizards are miniature dragons that were found on Pern and genetically altered to eventually give us dragons. They had a lot of the dragon's abilities, except for the intelligence and the time traveling. RedCOE, no fire lizards were brought to Earth, so the chances of finding any are zero.

* I find it amusing that people seem to think that Harry sporting a touch of gray hair at his temples is next to impossible. Its not uncommon to find that stress can result in hair color changes. That doesn't mean Harry is ill like some suggested. He's got a touch of gray, he's not going bald, or going to turn into a white haired old man. Hell I had a salt and pepper mustache before I was 30, it happens.

* abc1507, the magical contract will only affect the signatories, including the muggles who will NOT know about the simple compulsion laid into the treaty. It's just a single compulsion that makes anyone signing the treaty reluctant to share the location of the Weyr. It will be signed by Lobsang, who being a wizard and knowing about the compulsion would have no problem overcoming it. The muggles that sign it won't be harmed by it, they just won't see the need to reveal the Weyrs location to anyone.

* Patrick Nakasone, that tip of the iceberg becomes a lot more apparent to the Weyr in this chapter.

* Finally a special note:

Thanks in part to real life crap I have not had as much time as I would have liked to continue writing this story. We are catching up to what I have written and I'm going to have to extend out the publication cycle after this chapter. I am not abandoning this story, there aren't many more chapters to go and they are plotted out. I just need more time to write and less time dealing with the nightmare that has become my father's estate.