I Am A Flyer

II: Dinner with the Enemy

Kairshii Ridge was a huge upheaval of rock and hard-packed dirt. It rose up into a long, flat plateau, then abruptly cut off into a sharp cliff's edge. The cliff edge plummeted straight down for two hundred feet, then leveled out into the flat, barren plain. The Ridge stretched out for nearly a full mile, and more or less maintained the same width.

Raven stood on this ridge with two other men. One was a Scout, who nearly blended into his surroundings due to the coloring of his suit. The second was a well-built flyer wearing a gray Talon suit.

"So," Raven said. He stared out at the gigantic, ugly compound that marred the flat plain. Someone had made an attempt at camouflaging it, because some buildings had been painted a dull gray-brown colour, and a net made of tans, grays, and browns had been laid over others. However, it didn't make much of a difference, since it was nearly impossible to hide such a giant fortress. Nearly impossible, because Raven was sure that there some technologies that would be able to the the job. But this fortress belonged to Ra'Skevvor's main operations, and Ra'Skevvor didn't really bother with hiding his headquarters. He was too confident in his defense systems.

"Have you discovered anything, Gray?" Raven finally shifted his gaze to the gray-colored Talon. In response, Gray's helmeted head swiveled to look at him.

"Not really," he shrugged. "I'm not much of a scout. Besides, what can one discover just by watching a bunch of boring buildings?"

Raven rolled his eyes. "Forget I asked. I forgot you were here just for bodyguard duty." He pointed at the Scout. "You – what's your name?"

"Fent," replied the Scout. His voice was oddly high-pitched for a male.

"Right, Fent. Can you tell me what you've found out?"

Fent's manner became serious. "There's been a lot of activity lately. Lots of troops coming and going – and even worse, a lot more of those war machines have been turned out. I asked Gray to follow one regent out, and he found that they just camped several miles out, along with a large number of soldiers, and three or four flyers. Ra'Skevvor's been planting these camps here and there, but I have no idea as to what he's plotting. The guy's an enigma."

Fent fell silent, so Raven asked, "Is that all?"           

"Well, I recorded the location of each camp, and so far there's nine in all. More keep going out, though, and little groups of Kairg keep coming, so it's difficult to keep track of the numbers. . ."

"Well, to keep it simple, let's just say that there's a lot of bad guys," Gray put in. Both Fent and Raven ignored him, and the Scout went on.

"Other than that, I can't really tell you anything else. I'm sorry; we've been here for a long time, and we haven't -"

"It's fine, Fent." Raven dropped a hand onto the Scout's shoulder. "You've done a lot and I appreciate it."

"Heh," Gray snorted. "You sure wasted your time. You just got here, and now you have to go back with basically nothing!"

"Nah, not really. The ol' geezers sent me here to find out what Ra'Skevvor's up to, so that's what I'm going to do."

"Oh yeah? How're you going to do that?"

A smile spread behind Raven's helmet. A chilling type of smile. "I'm going to go ask him, Gray. I find you get more answers if you ask the questions face to face. Works much better than this spying business."

"Oh no. . ." Gray immediately understood what the dark Talon was planning. The Scout, however, didn't know Raven very well, and remained clueless.

"What do you mean, 'go ask him'? You can't -"