Chapter 84: Testing the drones
"Kulu," Hana called out, stepping through the waterfall’s mist and holding up one of the sleek, matte-black quadcopters. "Before you take off with that haul, we’re doing a speed test. I want to see if these four drones can keep up with you."
Kulu shifted his weight under the heavy load of the Aegis batteries, his massive red wings rustling. He looked at the compact machine in her hand, his head tilting slightly as his amber eyes narrowed in confusion.
"This thing... it has no feathers, Hana," Kulu noted, his voice low and steady. "No flesh. How does it stay in the air if the wind does not carry it?"
"It doesn’t need feathers. It runs on electricity and programming," Hana replied, not bothering to explain the aerodynamics of carbon-fiber rotors to a beastman.
She tapped a command into her tablet, and the four drones suddenly beeped, their small green status lights blinking to life as the blades began to spin with a low, aggressive whine.
"Just trust me on this. Fly the way you usually fly. But if you notice you’re completely leaving them in the dust, slow down. If you get too far ahead, the homing signal will cut and they’ll get lost."
Kulu looked from the buzzing machines to Hana’s face. The confusion vanished from his eyes, replaced by that absolute, unyielding devotion. "I trust you, Hana."
With a powerful downward sweep of his crimson wings, Kulu launched himself from the wet ledge of the Great Divide.
The sudden gust of wind pushed the mist back, and he shot into the morning sky like an arrow, the heavy crate of batteries secured to his harness trailing right behind him.
Hana didn’t wait. Her thumbs moved quickly across the tablet’s joystick interface, sending the four drones shooting upward in a tight formation, their high-pitched buzz cutting through the roar of the waterfall.
As they cleared the ravine, Hana watched the screen intently. Part of her wondered if Kulu would lag under the immense weight of the Aegis cargo and mess up the efficiency data, but she had completely underestimated the raw, terrifying strength of this falcon warrior.
Even with dozens of pounds of military-grade metal strapped to his torso, he cut through the air with effortless grace. It was as if the load didn’t weigh a single thing.
"Wow, look at him go," Raiden murmured, leaning over her shoulder so closely that his ears brushed against her cheek.
He was staring at the tablet screen with wide, completely fascinated green eyes.
The monitor was currently splitting the feed, showing the back of Kulu’s broad shoulders and the steady, rhythmic beat of his red wings as the lead drone trailed a few meters behind him.
"He’s like a stubborn red rock with feathers. But this view... it’s incredible, Hana. It feels like I’m flying right behind him without having to do any of the actual flapping."
"The drones are falling slightly behind, but the tracking algorithm is holding," Hana muttered, her fingers making micro-adjustments to the altitude controls.
The wind currents near the mountain peaks were harsh, but the old-world tech was handling the stabilization perfectly.
Curious about the perimeter below, Hana flicked her thumb, shifting the camera angle of the third drone downward. The lens tilted, revealing a dizzying, crystal-clear view of the Emerald forest stretching out like a vast green carpet thousands of feet below them, the bone-white trees of the Fox Tribe territory shrinking into tiny specks.
"Whoa!" Raiden let out a sudden, involuntary yelp, his hand instinctively gripping her tactical harness for balance as if he were the one looking over the edge of a cliff. "That is... terrifyingly cool, sweet-eyes. Is that what the world looks like to the bird all the time? No wonder he acts like he’s better than everyone else."
I believe Kulu is the most modest among you three air heads. She thought.
"Don’t touch the gear, Raiden," Hana grumbled, though she didn’t shove him away this time. "And didn’t you already ride with Capsian?"
"You mean hang from his talons, yes." Raiden corrected. "But I was too busy admiring my reflection to admire the one below me. You can’t blame me."
Her eyes narrowed. Of course you would.
She quickly swiped the screen, taking the camera view right back to Kulu’s backside.
In this terrain, she couldn’t afford to lose sight of her primary asset or her cargo. The quadcopter locked back onto the falcon’s heat signature, the live feed stabilizing as Kulu maintained a steady, blistering pace toward the glowing beacon of their den.
With the surveillance network successfully trailing the transport line, Hana adjusted her grip on the tablet.
With this, no one was going to catch her off guard again
But no more than a second had she thought that when she spotted a tiny black dot in front of them, approaching with projectile speed. It was black and majestic and it was a male named Caspian.
He swooshed past them without even looking back, or catching a glimpse of the drones, as if he was in a hurry to take a shit.
Hana’s brow twitched. "That lizard really has zero situational awareness," she muttered, watching the screen as Caspian’s massive black silhouette vanished from the lead drone’s peripheral camera angle just as quickly as it had appeared.
"Oh, the Lizard King seems eager to get back to his favorite perch," Raiden snickered, his breath warm against her ear as he leaned in even closer to peek at the display. His pink tails swished with an amused rhythm.
"He’s going to mess up the flight data if he creates a draft like that again," Hana grumbled. She didn’t have time to worry about Caspian’s lack of manners; her main focus was ensuring Kulu and the heavy-capacity batteries arrived without a scratch.
On the screen, Kulu didn’t even flinch at the sudden wind resistance his brother had left in his wake. His crimson wings adjusted with millimeter precision, cutting right through the turbulent air currents like a knife through butter.
The lead drone wobbled for a fraction of a second, its internal gyroscopes whining as it stabilized, before locking back onto the heat signature of the falcon’s back.
"He really is reliable, isn’t he?" Raiden mused, pointing a clawed finger at the image of Kulu’s broad, unmoving shoulders. "No drama, no complaints. Just straight lines and heavy lifting. You should reward him with a shiny rock, Hana. Birds love shiny things."
"He’s my mate, Raiden, not a pet," Hana snapped, though she kept her eyes glued to the changing metrics on her HUD.
