He checked his own weapons. Blade carried his Enfield 7 rifle, now fitted with infrared telescopic sights, a heavy revolver, hand grenades, and a flare pistol.

More minutes, more reports. Then suddenly the lieutenant pointed a shaking hand upward into the darkness. Blade raised his eyes from the man's pale face and also stared upward.

Dim but unmistakable in the night, three dragons were gliding in across the river. They came and went so fast that they might have seemed ghosts if the radar operator hadn't called in.

«Sir, it looks like they're heading upriver. Estimate landing point about ten miles west.»

«Very good. Keep tracking them until they go off the screen.»

Before the first three dragons went off the screen more swept in from the sea, three, six, ten at a time. All were following nearly the same path as the first three.

The lieutenant smiled shakily. «The buggers are going to be landing right on top of each other if they aren't careful.» It was a weak joke delivered in a weak voice. Blade said nothing.

Still more minutes, more reports, and more dragons. Blade found himself coming alert at the slightest noise. His reason told him that the dragons could not attack the boat from a thousand feet up. His instincts told him that it would be death to attract the notice of a single one of those monsters gliding eerily overhead.

Blade stopped thinking of minutes. Time became something long and formless, without beginning or end.

Then the speaker crackled. «Radio message, sir. Dagger to Buckle Teams. Hollyhock.»

Blade grinned. «Dagger» was R, and the «Buckle Teams» were his own striking force in their helicopters and boats. «Hollyhock» was the order to move in. R had reached his decision about where the dragons were landing. Now the trap was going to close.

Blade slapped the lieutenant on the shoulder. «Let's get underway. Up the river, standard cruising speed.»

«Aye, aye, colonel.»

The engines rumbled into life and the deck began to vibrate, then tilted gently aft as the boat got underway. Blade clung to the bridge railing and the grin on his face grew broader.

It felt good to be springing the trap, instead of having one sprung on him.

Elva Thompson straddled the branch, counting dragons. She stopped when she'd counted a hundred, landing in the field or passing so low overhead that they were certainly about to land. Then she scrambled down the tree, so fast that she tore her slacks all along the inside of one thigh.

She ran quickly to the transmitter. The dials showed that everything was still working, and the batteries had a good hour's life still in them. That would be more than enough time to finish her work.

She lifted the transmitter and hooked the carrying straps over her shoulders and around her waist. Her hand reached for the main knob that would turn the broadcast wavelength from pleasure to pain, turn the dragons from docile to furious. The hand wavered for a moment, then twisted the knob.

Pain roared and thundered in the brains and along the nerves of all the dragons. They roared and thundered in turn. Elva clapped her hands over her ears as the sound filled the darkness all around her. It seemed that the ground itself was shaking so that the trees might fall down on top of her and crush her into the earth.

Then the roaring and thundering of the dragons started finding echoes. Elva listened, in surprise and confusion and mounting fear. There shouldn't be any such thing as the sounds swelling in the air high above.

Then fear swamped her as she recognized the sounds. Rockets were coming down out of the sky at the dragons-at her. They might have been launched from the air, from the ground, even from the sea that was so close and had promised a road to safety. She didn't know or care. She only knew that the rockets had been launched, and now they were about to land.

She would have broken into a run, dashing in panic for the river or anyplace else away from the sound of the rockets. But her legs would not move. She pressed herself against a tree for support-transmitter, dragons, mission and everything else but the rockets totally forgotten.

Then the night was full of flame and thunder, as the rockets landed.

The bridge of the torpedo boat wasn't high enough to give Blade the view he wanted. He climbed up the mast and braced himself on the mounting for the radar. It was a precarious perch. The torpedo boat was working up to more than thirty knots, vibrating wildly and lurching sickeningly from side to side every time it rounded a bend in the river. Blade had to cling with both hands to the mast to keep from being shaken to the deck or even straight over the side.

He was holding on when the rockets arched across the sky and exploded among the dragons. He saw the yellow flames of the explosions and the blazing silver trails of white phosphorus. He saw dragons thrown into the air, some whole, some in pieces. He saw others knocked out of the air by the concussion, to land among the writhing remains of their comrades. He saw the orange fire-breath of the dragons, now pitiful instead of terrifying. He saw all this, and he wondered if there was going to be anything for his own men to do. It looked as if the salvos of artillery rockets R had called in on the dragons' main landing site might do nearly all that would be needed.

There was no way to be sure about that, not without men going over the ground with weapons in their hands to deal with whatever might be left. Blade scrambled down the mast and into the radio room to get reports from the other Buckle Teams.

One by one they checked in. One by one they reported dead dragons all over the place, but plenty of live ones as well. They were going into action, and Blade wished them good luck and good hunting. He didn't need to do anything else. Picked men from Special Operations and the Imperial Marine Commandos could fight anything, without officers looking over their shoulders.

The rocket trails flamed across the sky for a few more minutes, then stopped. R didn't want to risk hitting the Buckle Teams as they moved in against the dragons. Then the radio crackled again, and it was R's own voice that Blade heard coming over the air.

«Dagger to Buckle One. We have reports of an unidentified small craft seen heading upriver about half an hour ago. Also, Imperial Navy Patrol Craft 991 reports a probable submarine contact off the estuary. Suggests possible attempt to land or extract saboteurs under cover of dragon operations.»

«Buckle One to Dagger. Description of small craft.»

«Dagger to Buckle One. Estimate is standard Russland folding assault boat with outboard motor. Crew and armament unknown. Continue to give first priority to operations against dragons in your area.»

As Blade hung up the earphones, he heard the torpedo boat's engines suddenly slow. A moment later he had to grab the battle light to brace himself as the boat swung into a sharp turn. He was still holding on for balance when both bow and stern guns cut loose with an ear-splitting pom-pom-pom. Smoke swirled in through the hatch as Blade hauled himself furiously up the ladder.

As his head thrust into the open, he saw the whole deck lit up by the streams of tracer spewed out by the boat's deck guns. The light shells were tearing into a dragon lurching along the bank. It dragged itself a few more yards, then collapsed and rolled into the water with a sullen splash.

Another dragon reared up from behind a line of trees, flame licking out from its mouth. The jet of flame leaped across the water toward the boat, but couldn't reach all the way. Two of the rocket launchers went off together and both rockets took the dragon in the mouth. The dragon's long neck still heaved up and down, but suddenly there was no longer a head on it. The guns swung toward the maimed dragon, chopping into its body.