Marek's voice sounded over the speaking tubes, "Should I follow it captain?"<br/><br/>Doxi, a captain used to making quick decisions answered back into the speaking tube, "No... no picking a fight with it, or risking getting caught."<br/><br/>Marek's usual silence was all the confirmation that Doxi needed that he would steadfastly do his duty.  The next few minutes were nail bitingly tough on the crew.  No one was sure if the dragon was going to swoop back down out of the clouds and attack.   Gondrith's voice, high and pure, so unusual for a dwarf came over the tube, "Capn, I'm at the starboard side ballistae now.  Cassie stayed at port side."<br/><br/>Doxi made sure the cannon was ready to fire and then gripped the railing of the deck.  The heart beating in her chest, fueled by adrenaline, sent her blood singing through her veins.   The wyrm may have hurt the Virtuous Maiden, but she'd heal, she'd be fine.  That dragon on the other hand... if it showed it's face again.  Doxi found her fingers drumming on the metal cannon barell.  She stopped herself and wondered for only a moment, how amazingly bad ass she looked.  She was standing in a gauzey, see through shirt, sans any underwear, thigh high leather boots, one up on the bottom part of the railing.  The wind generated by the slowly moving airship tossed her wavy coal black hair behind her, and she had one hand gripping the railing and the other on the still warm cannon next to her that had almost just shot a dragon out of the sky.<br/><br/>A completely self centered and perverse thrill ran down her spine from her head to her toes and then back up again.  This was living, one person in a million might have a life like she did.  She'd have to remember to say a thank you prayer to Shoni later.  Eventually it became clear that the dragon was gone.  Doxi went back up on the main deck and found Janmorel, strapped into a saftey harness, crawled halfway out the elemental strut.  She was tied in safely, but the ship wasn't moving very fast without the complete ring powering it.  Doxi watched for a while as Janmorel did... something... some sort of arcane artificer thing, to the strut.  Then she crawled back onto the main deck.  Snapping a salute at the captain, Doxi could see that the futa had been sweating.  "Capn," she said as she saluted, "The strut is patched, but I really need a few hours on the ground or in water to work on it... some time when Zephyr isn't being used for propulsion or shielding.   As it stands now the patch should hold at around half speed, but if you want to play it safe, I'd say go 1/3rd speed.  That will get us to dragons roost right around sunset.   Then if you want I can work with Zephyr through the night to get us up and running again?"<br/><br/>The futa knew her craft, that much was true.  Doxi looked at the strut, and as far as she could tell, it looked as good as new, or at least like it always did, though Doxi knew better than to doubt Janmorel's word.