A Sinner's Eden

***Tirnanog, Aerie Scoutship***

***Magnus***

The caravan consisted of five adult saherna and seven juveniles. However, it had to be said that the juvenile’s size still rivalled buildings with four or five levels. Seeing a herd of those monsters made me question all over again how creatures of such size could even exist without crumbling beneath their weight.

On the other hand, questioning their size went with the assumption that their body plan followed what I was used to. Too large to pump all that blood with a single heart? Just use more hearts! Regular bones can’t carry the weight? Have them reinforced with ceramics... or whatever... I wasn’t so savvy in biology.

This reminded me that since my bones were using the saherna mutation, Astra and I should probably do a little research into how much punishment we could take. She went to extreme lengths with her stupid experiment to break her arm.

“If our information is correct, then this would be the Southikes,” Vanya commented while looking through a spyglass. Her set of mutations wasn’t suited for long-range information gathering.

That said, neither was mine, so I too had to rely on tools. In my case, it was the range finder of the anti-air gun I liberated from one of Thich’s airships.

I knew a simple spyglass would have fulfilled the same purpose while being smaller, but the range finder was so retro that I could not avoid using it when I got the chance. The thing was cool and after a bit of trial and error, I found out how to use it correctly. All I had to do was to adjust the central scale on an object with a known size, for example, a human, and done. Approximately 4.9 kilometres. It wasn't super exact, because it was dependent on the accuracy of my reference point, but it got the job done well enough.

Next to us, seekers Holly and Luka voiced their affirmations for Vanya.

Luka pointed out the largest saherna’s flank. “See the white stripes they painted down the sides with lime? That’s something only the Southikes do. It's their signature.”

Vanya lowered her spyglass. “To be honest, I am still somewhat dubious about whether this will work out. If anyone at Thich uses their head for a second, they will realize there is no way the caravan reaching Thich City is legit.”

She shook her head. “The caravan routes are well known, so there is no way we wouldn’t check them once our forces reach this area. Travelling other less-known paths might be possible, but it would be very dangerous. The Caravaners paid for their knowledge with blood throughout generations. There is a reason why there are established routes. And let us be honest here, it is not like a saherna caravan can be overlooked, even if a drake rider doesn’t pay attention.”

Vanya pulled a face. “The more time I have to think about this, the more holes I find. It might be possible for the Caravaners to hold off a group of scouting drake riders, but once their position is known, our fleet would easily catch up to them. They are hardy people, but they would have no chance against a single troop carrier. We would have to take the caravan entirely intact and pretend they had never been found. A very unlikely scenario.”

“That’s why we will stage a mock fight between them and a sufficiently small scouting party of ours once they are within reach of a Thich outpost. The Thich will want the resources the caravan carries, so they will send reinforcements. Once they fought us off, it will be unlikely for people to question whether the caravan is genuine,” Gunner explained. “It would even explain possible damage and losses for the caravan. It's all about giving them something which allows them not to question what happened.”

Gunner nodded to himself. “You have no clue what kind of tricks I pulled on people to get to places I had no business being in. As long as you give people an explanation, no matter how implausible, they don't question it. Especially not if they are presented with ‘presumably’ verified evidence. Which will be the caravan itself in this case. It is sad, but the simple truth is that most people just avoid using their brain to think about stuff whenever they believe there is a chance to get away with it.”

Vanya pulled a face. “A single Thich scout spotting the caravan with our forces nearby or them having one of those alien communication devices and the jig is up.”

“That’s why we have our psybomb here.” I clapped Mark on his back. “Assuming they have one of the communication devices, they will have it on the leading saherna. So he will shut them down.”

“I don’t even know whether I can do this,” Mark complained. “I know Thalia said emotion-blasting is the easiest technique, but I have only done it in training so far. I am glad I can control the ability to a degree so I don’t have to endure the mushy feelings of all the people around me.”

“Don’t worry. You are just an additional insurance measure,” I reassured him. “I will go ahead and thrash every electronic device I can find. I will have no trouble spotting it once I am within a few dozen metres. If they even have one.”

“There is one,” Vanya said with absolute conviction. “If not backup too. Thich gave one to their ambassadors at Hochberg and one to some random spy. While it can be argued that both cases have the potential for great return in such an investment, it also means they have no shortage of those things. If they had only a limited number, their priority would be airships and hidden outposts. They wouldn’t allow lone operatives to carry such incriminating devices on missions where their loss is guaranteed as soon as they are found out.”

We kept arguing the case as the fleet slowly caught up with the Caravaner traitors. In the end, we could only do our best and see whether something would come of it. There was a time for planning and there was a time for action.

Our drake riders had been ranging out further and further from the fleet’s main body, doing their best to keep enemy scouting parties as far away as possible. Giving our scouts the order to actively engage any hostile forces they found meant losing a steady number of people, but in this case, it didn’t only mean preventing Thich from finding out what we were up to, it also prevented them from knowing the exact position of our fleet. Which was a crucial point of this operation.

We needed them to be uncertain about what was going on out here.

Currently, we were on one of the smaller scouting vessels which was hugging the crest of a hill, so there was a decent chance we hadn't been spotted yet.

Being so close to the target also meant there was no more time to spare. It was time for Mark and me to depart on Loopsfast. Together with us, more teams of similar makeup and mission profiles would speed towards the enemy.

My drake was now the proud father of several hatchlings and could leave their care-taking to his females. At least for a few hours of the day. If I understood Loops correctly, then leaving hatchlings to female supervision wasn't ideal.

We went outside to start our mission and I patted the drake's head after flash-stepping onto his back. “Let's get the party rolling, Loops. The faster you get us above those saherna, the faster you can go back to your hatchlings.”

'Fast, yes. Bring rider fast and fly back home before hatchlings annoy the females. One bite and the littles are done.'

“Dude, do you mean they would eat their young?” Mark asked as he landed behind me with a flap of his wings. “That's dark.”

“They eat plants!” I countered. “Why would they eat their babies?”

Mark shrugged. “Hey, some animals just do that. Have you never watched documentaries when you were a kid?”

'They will, but only if they get hungry and the hatchlings are annoying. So Loopsfast has to be back quick!'

The drake’s admission reminded me that we had a job to do.

“Right. Then let’s do this quick.” I pointed into the distance. “So let's get goooing!”

I screamed as the drake catapulted itself into the air and began a rapid, almost vertical ascend.

The plan was simple.

Loopsfast would fly Mark and me in at high altitude. We would then jump off and aim for the lead saherna while Mark used the psychic abilities he had gotten from his union with Thalia. He would blast the entire area with as much psychic influence as possible to confuse the Caravaners and delay their reaction. Meanwhile, I would rely on my high psychic resistance and use the chaos to search for any communication device I could find and destroy it.

Meanwhile, Mark would give his best to induce feelings in the Caravaners which would raise their fighting spirit. Feelings of rage and euphoria. The idea was to delay rational thinking as much as possible so they wouldn’t think of communicating with Thich.

Now I will admit, involving Loops for such a short-distance flight wasn’t strictly necessary for us. Mark could fly and I could teleport, but I wanted to involve my drake in something for once and there was no obvious downside. Had I known Loops needed a proper babysitter, I wouldn’t have asked.

As soon as we started the operation, our fastest airships would hurry to catch up with the caravan while an entire contingent of drake riders sped ahead.

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it would be a chaotic mess as soon as all those involved got moving. The goal was to engage the Southikes as quickly as possible and overwhelm them with pure numbers.

As promised, Loops went up high and fast, giving me the feeling of riding on the outside of a fighter jet. All Mark and I could do was hold onto the drake with all our might.

It took Loops only about two minutes to cover the distance and gain several kilometres in altitude before both Mark and I jumped off the drake.

We fell side by side until Mark spread his wings to slow his fall while I flash-stepped ahead to cancel out my inertia.

I headed right for the lead Saherna’s head. On top, there was supposedly a form of control centre for the creature. Though calling it such was probably taking it a bit far. Saherna had a certain sensory organ there, allowing them to sense the direction of the wind. It was akin to an antennae with flappy skin. By pushing it in one direction or the other, the Caravaners could ‘influence’ the creature. Though it wasn’t a foolproof method. If the saherna decided it didn’t want to go somewhere for one reason or the other, then that was that.

The method nonetheless worked well enough.

I landed right on top of some poor guard who was standing watch on a railing. Not caring for people, I rushed into the small building while relying on my Second Sight to seek out any sources of energy. Unless there was anyone who could keep up with my speed, I decided I would ignore everyone.

Dashing into some kind of central office, my trusty axe went through a box on a desk with many maps laid out on top of it. Several large men and women who rivalled the Northroutes in phsique stood around the table.

Thankfully, only one of them was fast enough to react to my entry and she was a precognition type. While the white-haired woman managed to move to a defensive stance which would have likely sufficed to block me, my goal wasn’t her. The box was crushed within a second, revealing innards which might have been one of the communication devices or not. It didn’t matter. I was already out of the room and moving towards the next energy source by the time all the slow pokes in the room rationalized what had happened.

I gave myself about thirty seconds to check the lead saherna’s head for more potential communication devices before I had to make a decision.

There was no question from the beginning that no matter how fast I was, I couldn't check everything due to Second Sight’s limited vision distance through obstacles. So the gamble was where communication devices could be kept. I had decided right from the beginning that checking a saherna’s entire back was not feasible. Even at my considerable speed, it would take minutes which was ample time for anyone with a device to call Thich and inform them of what was happening.

The gamble was to assume that any communication devices would be kept at the control stations on top of the saherna’s heads. If this was the case, then I could reasonably check all the saherna within a few minutes.

I flash-stepped over to the next saherna in the herd, but couldn't find a fitting signature so I moved on.

Less than two minutes had passed and I checked four of the creatures when I ran into a problem.

Upon entering the fifth control centre, I found myself face to face with a woman who was fumbling with what was without doubt one of the communication devices.

Raising my axe, I flash-stepped forward, fully intending to chop the thing out of her hand – appendage included.

But the woman moved, half dodging, half stumbling out of the way. She repeated this two more times as I followed her. She wasn’t quite as fast as me, but there was an uncanny luck to her movements as she kept out of harm’s way by a hair’s breadth. Without doubt, it was Precognition which kept her alive.

I growled at the delay. As long as I kept hunting her I couldn't look for more devices, but I also couldn’t let her be.

She leapt over a table and passed one of her comrades whose head went flying as he took the axe which was intended for her. Within moments she was running out the door and slammed it in my face as I barrelled through it, relying purely on my armour and brute strength.

Splinters went flying as I caught up to her and she finally realized what I was after.

With a shriek, she threw the device to her left, out of a window, while she dodged to the right.

For a moment, some of my sub-personalities wanted to go after the woman before the majority won out and cursing, I followed the device out of the window to ensure it was taken care of.