Alex was giddy about the idea, but she figured she’d come back to that later. The mission needed to be their priority. “All right, Jollies, we’re looking for a giant holomap. Can you take a look around so I can get a better view?”
Jollies and Alex slowly scanned the war room. Like the stables, the war room looked like it hadn’t been used much in ages. What had happened to this facility?
It was obvious where the holographic map was supposed to be. There was a large platform in the middle of the room where it would have been projected. It would have been easy for everyone in the room to see it from that vantage point.
“That’s where it should be,” Alex said. “That spot right there.”
Jollies flew to the platform and looked around, taking her time when Alex reminded the pixie that she needed to concentrate on not moving too fast. Alex could see the spot had been outfitted for a projection. “Hey, Jollies, can you test the lights in the room?”
Jollies replied, “Sure,” as she zoomed over to the light switch on the wall. She flipped the switch. The lights remained off.
Alex switched back to her own eyes, jumped up, and leaped back into the main section of the stables. “Hey! Gill! Is the electricity running to this room?”
Gill whirled around from the computer he was tinkering with. “Let me check,” he replied as he pulled up his HUD visor. After a couple of seconds, he pushed his visor back down and said, “Nope! It looks like most of the power’s being routed to other parts of the facility.”
“Route the power back to this room and to the war room. That should fix Jollies’ problem, at least.”
Gill flashed Alex a thumbs-up and started messing around on his dragon anchor. After a couple of seconds, the power cut back on, and the lights turned on in the stables.
Alex closed her eyes and concentrated until she felt the tickle in the back of her head. When she opened her eyes, she was seeing through Jollies’ eyes, and she was looking at a bright green holographic map. “Perfect,” Alex said. “Jollies, can you upload the map to your dragon anchor? Along with any important information?”
Jollies nodded, disorienting Alex. “Yeah, I can manage that.”
“Let me know if you have any more problems. Head back to the stables after you get it.”
Alex returned to her own vision. “All right, Jollies has the map,” Alex told everyone. “Now all we have to do is get these dragons taken care of. How are things going, Gill?”
Gill stood up from the computer system, sighing and shaking his head. His face looked grim. “Not good. Even with power routed to the stables, we aren’t going to have enough to get any of the augment stations working.”
“Can you explain what that means in English?”
Gill jumped down onto the main platform of the stables. “It means we can remove what we’ve put on our dragons, but we aren’t going to be able to replace the weapons—and that creates a problem. The longer those augments are on are dragons, the more damage there’s going to be.”
“Wait, what? I thought if we did the maintenance, it wasn’t going—”
“That’s not how it works. The augments aren’t meant to stay on for extended periods of time. That’s why you have to do maintenance.”
Alex threw her hands up in frustration as she paced. “Okay, Gill, I’m hearing a lot of problems, but I’m not hearing any solutions,” she moaned. “I just don’t know enough about this stuff.”
Gill placed his hand on Alex’s shoulder and smiled at her reassuringly. “We aren’t screwed,” he said. “The power’s back on. We can still take care of the dragons, and I’ll work at seeing if I can get any more systems back online. Until then, though, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty.”
The rest of the dragonriders had come over to Alex and Gill. As Gill was preparing to speak, Jollies rushed through the door, almost flying into Alex’s face. “I got the map!” she squeaked.
Alex gave Jollies a high five and said, “That’s great,” as Gill cleared his throat to speak. “Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to steal your thunder,” Alex apologized.
Gill replied, “You didn’t. And it wasn’t going to be an exciting statement. Have any of you performed maintenance on your dragons before?”
None of the team said anything. Gill sighed. “Have any of you read through the manual on performing maintenance? Did any of you do any research after our initial lessons?”
More silence. Brath awkwardly coughed, which only made the silence more uncomfortable. “All right,” Gill went on. “It’s going to be pretty simple. You’re going to use your dragon anchors to drain the draconian fluid from where the augments rest on your dragon’s skin. The fluid will be stored in your anchor. The fluid has a myriad of different—”
Alex interrupted Gill, saying, “Uh, do we really need the science lesson right now? How about you give us the CliffsNotes so we can get up and running.”
Gill nodded and continued, “All right, you’re going to drain the fluid, store it in your anchor, and reattach the augments. If I can get the system going, we’ll put some new ones on, but it’s unnecessary. They’ll be good after being drained. We should get to it.”
The riders split up, looking for their dragons in the stables, which didn’t take long. Alex jumped down into Chine’s holding area and reached out to his mind. So, you know the drill, right? she asked.
Chine raised his wings as he stood, allowing Alex easier access to his chest and claw augments. Ah, yes, my favorite part of my service to the realms—being taken care of and groomed like common livestock.
Alex approached Chine and stood in front of his chest. She looked down at her dragon anchor, uncertain of how she was going to detach Chine’s armor and how she was going to scoop out the draconian fluid.
Waiting was unnecessary, though, because Alex’s
