Phoebe

A gust of wind caught Soot as he turned tightly round the headland and up over the cliffs to the fifth ring. Phoebe felt it as a sudden forward tug on her stirrups, followed by a wave of tension through the dragon’s spine as he shortened his stroke, braking to sharpen their climb. White cliff gave way to rippling grass beneath them and they just made it over the bottom of the ring.

Then it was the steady straight climbing over the town to the sixth and seventh, and Soot settled stately into the tailwind, his stroke eating up the yards. The first practice session was going well, and despite the turbulence, it hadn’t rained yet. Phoebe's exposed chin tingled, but visibility was good and Soot seemed comfortable.

That left her a moment to address the other source of turbulence this weekend. “Adelie, are we on-model?”

“I think it looks pretty good,” the vet radioed, “the numbers aren’t very steady with the weather, though, what do you think, Stefan?”

That was exactly what Phoebe had been trying to avoid. The purpose of this practice run was to check how Soot's real in-flight performance matched with a computerised model that McCaffreys had derived from the last race’s data, gathered through the web of sensors stitched through the harness that the sponsor had provided for the team. The model was Stefan’s work, but the tech’s eagerness to contribute sometimes overbore Adelie's leadership.

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Now, Stefan’s voice was measured and deep in Phoebe's ear. “Given the available data I think the fit is very good. At least, we have the safe ranges tuned in for the thermometers.”

“You sure?” The thin, crisp voice that cut in belonged to Ches, who Phoebe had plucked away from his previous role in a wyvern racing team only a week ago. Soot braked hard through the sixth ring, and Phoebe lunged left in the harness to help him wheel and slide tightly around to face the seventh, right beside the sixth but facing the opposite direction. While they were doing that, Ches went on, “’s a lot of flickering in the model numbers on ascent and levelling out of dives. Could hide a bunch of problems.”

“Any model this thin will flicker at extremes, I wouldn’t worry.” That was Elice, whose Nordin accent was barely detectable through the slight fuzz of the radio. Of the trio, she was the one Phoebe knew least well, but Niki and Lyonne had spoken highly of her work for their old drakelets team from the previous race season.

Before Stefan or Ches could prolong the argument, Phoebe cut in. “Guys! Radio discipline! Report to Adelie, and she’ll tell me.”

That quieted them, but it wouldn’t necessarily help Adelie stamp her authority on the stats team. All three had more experience than Adelie and their own egos and sense of status. They didn’t know Soot as well, though, and that was what counted for Phoebe as she swung herself back and forth across his back through the chicane between rings 8 and 9. Another teething trouble for the team as it grew.