Trip’s smile widened. “Only because you haven’t seen what I’m working on yet.”
He waved for her to join him.
“Which dragon was in the office?” Rysha asked, knowing Shulina Arya seemed to prefer lawns, and it had looked like the bronzes had been up all night too.
“Phelistoth. He gave me a baleful look when I asked if I could use the office. Sardelle mentioned that he’s cranky before he’s had his coffee. And also after he’s had it. And during all the times in between.”
“He’s not as amenable a soul as Shulina Arya.” Rysha picked her way down the crooked aisle between the drawings strewn about, trying to guess what he was designing. A building? An airship? A combination of both?
“I don’t think anybody is.” Trip wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her.
Before Rysha could get excited about that kiss and wrap her arms around him to lengthen it, he drew back and pointed at the drawing in progress. It seemed he was too excited about his project for extended smooching. That was what she got for falling in love with an aspiring engineer. Maybe it was for the best. Sooner or later, the military police would think to look here for him. If he was building something important, he had better do it before they came.
Although… as she looked at the schematic or blueprint or whatever this was shaping up to be, she couldn’t imagine the actual structure being built in anything less than months. That would be a long time to evade the police.
“These are remarkably detailed.” Rysha glanced at the pencil on the table and pen in his hand. “Are you doing it all freehand without any tools?”
“I have a tool.” Trip leaned over and pulled something pink off the shelf next to a stack of diaper cloths. A six-inch ruler with a pink-spotted mushroom on the top.
“Ah, a staple for every architect. I’m impressed with how much you’ve done, but what is it exactly? It looks like a large building, but there’s a runway, and an engine room and propellers… Those aren’t balloons, are they? They look more like poofy pontoons.”
“Poofy? That can’t be an academic term.”
“If you want me to check your math, you’ll let me use whatever terms I wish.”
“So long as you don’t call my integers cute.”
“Can they be handsome? I’ve always been inordinately attracted to the number seven. Primes are sexy in general, don’t you think?”
Trip smirked. “You truly are as odd as I am. Are you sure you don’t have any dragon ancestors?”
“You’d be the one to know. There is a portrait in my father’s study of the original Lord Ravenwood, and people have compared him to an aardvark. It’s a good thing he was granted land and a title, because I don’t think he would have attracted the original Lady Ravenwood otherwise.”
Rysha eyed the drawings on the floor more carefully, gradually getting a feel for what he was designing. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t done a basic overview sketch, but… “Some kind of flying fortress?”
“More of a weapons platform, though I was thinking of a Cofah flying fortress that attacked the city three years ago. I remember seeing a sketch of it in the Charkolt Reader and then researching everything I could about it because I was fascinated. I was a little disappointed that it employed magic—dragon blood to be exact—and couldn’t have flown without it. Though since I’m planning to use magic in this, I can’t be an engineering elitist, I suppose.”
“Magic? Like artifacts you create or dragon blood?”
“I will likely end up using a lot of my own power to create energy supplies for the engines, but I was actually planning to ask one of the dragons for some vials of blood, yes. And to see if I can pull in Dr. Targoson for this, as he has a lot more experience with making things from their blood than I do.”
“Have our dragon allies proven willing to give blood before? I remember Kaika and Blazer taking vials from the silvers that attacked us in the Antarctic because there wasn’t any left back here.”
“I don’t think they have, no, but it’s possible the tart bribe wasn’t high enough when they were asked previously. But if they’re not so inclined, there’s a relatively fresh dragon carcass in the yard beside your castle. My understanding is that the blood stays viable for weeks after a dragon’s death, and months if it’s bottled in something airtight. Actually, that’s Jaxi’s understanding. I’m quite ignorant on the matter. I just draw things.” He waved the pink ruler. “So, the plan is to create this fortress that can hover indefinitely over the harbor or out at sea—it’ll be fully mobile so it can be moved if necessary—and to mount weapons on it capable of tracking and shooting dragons.”
“What about their barriers? Even the acid-bullets bounce off, right? Until the barriers are down? And what would keep the dragons from destroying your fortress?”
Trip grabbed a pad of paper with a bunch of arithmetic on the top page and a number circled at the bottom. “I’ll need to do some testing—or maybe someone without dragon blood who wouldn’t be bothered by it will need to do some testing—but that’s about how many pounds of metal I believe we’ll need from the banded iron quarry in Rakgorath. I’m basing my guesses on what I saw in Bhodian’s floating palace. He didn’t actually have that much of the tainted iron mixed in with the building materials, but I think it would have repelled dragons as well as sorcerers. As you remember, it nullified my powers when I was completely surrounded by it.”
Rysha well remembered unlocking the cage she’d found him trapped inside. “But how will you make magic-based power sources if the banded iron will be integrated into the weapons platform? Wouldn’t they simply go out? The way your flier crystals did when we approached the quarry?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Magic and the tainted iron were used together in creating the chapaharii blades, and I got a chance to study yours closely that night we altered the command words. I believe I can design the power sources to be immune to the influence of the iron. And I’ll only be using a small amount of it. It won’t be as deleterious to magic and magic users as that quarry itself was.”
“This is an ambitious project, Trip.”
“I know. And like I said, I’ll need some help, but I think I can handle creating the majority of the weapons platform.” Trip waved at the sketches. “And hopefully General Zirkander can put together a team to go collect some of the ore. As for the weapons themselves, I believe if we use the tainted iron for the casings of rockets that contain Dr. Targoson’s acid, the weapons will pierce the dragons’ magical barriers, allowing them to get through to break open on their scales.”
“And they wouldn’t be able to easily destroy the rockets because of the ore,” Rysha said. “Much like our chapaharii swords.”
“Yes.”