I didn’t have to look. It was Ssah.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The reappearance of the Empire fleets did not come as a surprise. We had spotted their scout flyers with increasing regularity and realized invasion was imminent. Accordingly, we began to make our preparations.
Our flyers were light enough to be carried easily by two, but that was on level ground. Unfortunately, they were not designed for a takeoff, but rather required a drop or launch to become airborne. As such, it was necessary to carry or hoist them to a higher level of the cavern. By the time our task was complete and five flyers were balanced precariously on the lip of a ledge near the ceiling of the cavern, I had had more than one occasion to question the wisdom of my decision to use the flyers again.
It was our speculation that all or part of the force would be surface troops, roaming the grasslands on foot, hunting the Leaper packs. It would be an easy matter to join up with these forces without freeing our flyers. Still, I reasoned that we could be of greater service acting as air cover for the troops. The Wasps had long since died out, and I wanted to take advantage of the air supremacy that we had fought so hard for. Then again, there was always the chance our speculations would turn out to be wrong. I had no desire to be stranded here again because we had been too lazy to arrange our own transport.
Another major portion of our time was occupied in releasing the warm-bloods we had kept penned for food. This turned out to be a greater task than we had originally planned. We had known it would be necessary to take them some distance from the cavern before releasing them to avoid luring Leapers into the area with a sudden abundance of game. What we had not counted on was the warm-bloods’ reluctance to depart. Apparently they preferred to be penned and fed to having to wander and forage, and resented our attempts to return them to their natural situation. They persisted in attempting to follow us back to the cavern, even when pelted with rocks. In fact, some of them were so stubborn that they would hide themselves and attempt to follow at a distance unnoticed. They were quite crafty at this tactic, and it was not uncommon for a Tzen on a release assignment to arrive back at the cavern with more warm-bloods than he had left with.