OPERATION: RAINMAKER

Chapter Four: The Summit Meeting

"Where you successful in getting the Queen to call a summons?" Ensign asked Captain Velklædd as they all waddled back to HQ.

"What? Oh yeah, totally. We're meeting tomorrow nine hundred sharp." He spoke in a bit of a sing song voice.

"Ohhhhhohohoh," Quinnley grinned. "It must have been difficult, getting her Majesty to make room in her busy schedule on such short notice."

"Not that hard." The captain retorted. "I have my ways."

"That's right, he's a real charmer." Ensign giggled.

"Did you bat your eyes?"

"Say pretty please?"

"Zip it. Both of you and that's an order."

Usto ran ahead and smashed down a door made from half of an unsuccessful liferaft.

"Tada!"

"Welcome to our HQ. Consider yourself privileged among Chipperguins and sky dragons alike; for few have ever entered this highly secured facility and lived to tell the tale."

His three soldiers looked sadly to the ground. "Poor Hans."

The captain took a rectangularish rock from inside, whipped out a starfish of his own and waved the rock over it.

"Beep!" He squeaked. He gestured the others.

Ensign, Usto, Quinnley and Reign gave him their starfish to scan before entering. Once everyone was in they picked up the door and put it back in its place.

Reign stared.

So many strange things. Some gleamed, some looked pointy, others boxy. There were shiny clear things that had water in them, and long wooden things that had hard, sharp metal ends.

"This is Quinnley's corner. Most these things he swiped from passing ships."

Three of the four Chipperguins wandered around the small room until they found a comfortable place to sleep. Once settled, they stretched like cats and stopped glowing. Only Ensign was left standing.

"Here," he said, handing their guest a furry blanket. "I took this off a traders' boat. It's very warm and nice to sleep on."

"Thank you Ensign," Reign said. "You're very kind."

"You're welcome. Sleep well, I'll see you on the 'morrow."

He stretched and curled up a short distance away.

The room filled with Chipperguin snores. Reign made three circles on the furry blanket and rolled up in a tight ball. She sighed. Trapped in an underwater cave with a colony of crazy Chipperguins, of which the craziest were the four sleeping in this same room. Was it really better than being alone up top?

A shudder ran down her spine. Crazy or not they at least they weren't ghosts in the night. Eventually she fell asleep.

...

Water lapped gently at the sleeping skrill. It splashed up on his nose and made him sneeze.

"Ohhh my head."

Perun rubbed his eyes and blinked. He woke to a splendid dawn, tied to a drifting raft in a still sea. On one side he had two pales of fresh water, on the other a pile of shellfish.

"What? Where...???"

Using his teeth, he cut himself loose and turned in every direction. Not a speck of land to be seen.

A piece of birch bark, stuck to his forehead fluttered in the breeze and he pulled it off with a wing-claw.

"To Russia with love," The skrill read aloud. It all came back to him, the cocky little black and white lizard and his little friends, who dared to defy the great Perun.