Book 5: Chapter 59: Showdown
Howard
September 2344
Jabberwocky
Icame in fast just over the trees and landed hard on the beach in front of my assassins. A real dragon probably would have sprained or broken both ankles. My dranny interface merely sent me a mild rebuke about abusing the warranty, which I ignored.
I’d been trying for the “superhero landing,” and I like to think I pulled it off, as the members of my former military escort all jumped and then looked very alarmed.
“So who did the actual dirty?” I asked casually, scanning their faces. No poker players here—three of them were unable to suppress quick eye movements, all directed at the fourth. Gerrard, my translation interface had dubbed him.
I smiled thinly in his direction. “Well, Gerrard, I know you were just following orders, so I’m not going to rip your head off and use it for soccer practice.” I made a note to myself to look up how the interface translated soccer. “But there will be a reckoning, once all the excitement is over.” Then I changed the subject. “Meanwhile, how are we doing on preparations?”
The soldiers glanced at each other in confusion. I was not behaving as expected. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t as dead as expected, either.
Finally, Gerrard decided to just go with the flow. “Uh, we’ve got the fires started, stocked up some spare kindling, and we’ve mapped three lakes in the area that have good food stocks. Not trout exactly, but pretty good. Bigger, on average.”