BAEN - Key Persons

Note: This short story is set after the events of The Road to Hell (Multiverse #3) by David Weber and Joelle Presby. In the Multiverse of those series novels, two worlds spanning human civilizations occupy their own chains of Earths connected through naturally occurring portals. They have been at war since first contact on Hell's Gate when a powerful telepath, the daughter of the Sharonan Cetacean Ambassador Shalassar, broadcast the defeat of her Sharonan unit of explorers by an Arcanan military exploration force. The Arcanans have magic, often placed in crystals and used to control magically created animals from dragons and griffins to three-headed hydras. The Sharonans have telepaths and steam power level technology. While the Arcanan magic beasts have been an aerial force and a logistical powerhouse, the intelligent whales, dolphins, and orca back on the Sharonan home world have not previously involved themselves in the humans' conflict. Joelle Presby was born in France, raised in Cameroon, and now lives in the United States. She writes science fiction and fantasy. Her web site can be found here.

Sharp Sharp supplied a fuller account of Arcana's oceans. The dragon type hydra, also called seadrakes, tasted much like moose. (On Sharona, a lucky orca might sometimes catch moose swimming between islands off the coast of north western New Ternathia. Arcanan orca had the same experience though Sharp Sharp's pod rarely traveled to that ocean, preferring to stay nearer the coast of the human nation called Mythal.) Hydra meat was rich and gamey, but its scale hide was tougher than alligator. So, one needed a good angle to chew all the way through it. Sharp Sharp had swum quickly past a sliver of an apology for the multiple bite attempts and moved on to more interesting things, specifically: tactics. Sharp Sharp made a complete barrel roll of contempt. ::Of course not. You can eat your way in. Tear through the stomach lining to reach the other organs. Get the heart, or at least the liver. They have three heads, usually, but only one heart. Get it, even a small bite of it, and they die. The pod lives.::