Revived by the hot meal and a generous beaker of a very smooth quikal fermented by Chaila Xavior-Kimmage from local fruits, Paul and Emily quietly organized a discreet council, which they held in one of the unscathed Malay outbuildings. Besides the admiral and the governor, Ongola, Drake, Kenjo, Jim Tillek, Ezra Keroon, and Joel Lilienkamp attended.

“We’ll do better next time, Admiral,” Drake Bonneau assured Paul with a cocky salute. Kenjo, entering behind him, regarded the tall war ace with amused condescension. “Today taught us that this Thread requires entirely different flight and strike techniques. We’ll refine that wedge maneuver so nothing gets through. Sled pilots must drill to maintain altitude patterns. Gunners must learn to control their blasts. It’s more than just holding the button down. We had some mighty close encounters. We lost some of the little dragonets, too. We can’t risk so many lives, much less the sleds.”

“We can repair the sleds, Drake,” Joel Lilienkamp remarked dryly before Paul spoke, “but power packs won’t last forever. We can’t afford to expend them uselessly on drills. Despite our resupply system, which I bet I can improve, nine pilots had to glide-land at Maori. That’s clumsy management. That wedge formation, by the way, Drake, is economical on the packs. But it still takes days to recharge exhausted ones. How long will this stuff keep falling, Paul?” Joel looked up from his calculating pad.

“We haven’t established that yet,” Paul said, his left thumb rubbing his knuckles. “Boris and Dieter are collating information from the pilot debriefing.”

“Hellfire, that’s not going to tell us what we need to know, Paul,” Drake said, his weary tone a complaint. “Where does this stuff come from?”

“Probe’s gone off,” Ezra Keroon said. “It’ll be a couple a more days before any reports come back.”

Drake continued almost as if he had not heard. “I want to find out if the stuff mightn’t be more vulnerable in the stratosphere. Even if we only have ten pressurized sleds, would a high-altitude strike be more effective? Does this junk hit the atmosphere in clumps and then disperse? Can we develop a defense less clumsy than flamethrowers? We need to know more about this enemy.”

“It doesn’t fight back,” Ongola remarked, rubbing his temples to ease the pounding sort of headache that battle had always given him.

“True,” Paul replied with a grim smile as he turned to Kenjo. “I wonder if we would gain any useful data from an orbital reconnaissance flight? How much fuel in the Mariposa’s tanks?”

“If I pilot it, enough for three, maybe four flights,” Kenjo replied, deliberately avoiding Drake’s eyes, “depending on how much maneuvering is required and how many orbits.”