Kellarn leaned back in his lounge chair, stretching and shaking his neck. It hurt, still, from the four hour flight; his species was not one whose wings were suited for long flights. The bones and tendons in that area couldn't take the strain of holding the entire body aloft. Not to say that they were vestigial. The dragon grinned as he was that Brown Dragons were the fastest land animal on the planet. Their 'full' name was the Tan Mottled Forest Runner, and for good reason. They could reach speeds of 90 miles per hour in a sprint, and the world record holder for sprinting was Heitul Grandth, who could reach an amazing 143.2 mph. There were faster animals in the air of course, but the wings Kellarn bore were not meant to fly; rather, they lifted jus enough weight off the ground so that a Brown Dragon could put all of their considerably powerful leg muscles towards going forward, rather than up as well. The drakes ran remarkably similarly to cheetahs, and...Kellarn ruffled his spines as he tried to get off that train of thought. He had more important things to do than daydream.
"Culisse? Can you book a flight to Kymore for tomorrow? I need to conduct some diplomacy there." he said in a normal tone of voice. For a dragon, that is. The girl, two rooms away and behind three doors, could hear him easily, though. "And fetch me my head-set, please. Thank you, love." Kellarn smiled gratefully as she obeyed swiftly, though the teeth and odor didn't help. Dragons brushed their teeth, of course, but Brown Dragons never quite stopped breathing poison, and though you could build a resistance to it if you lived around them long enough, nothing could get rid of the stench.
The drake settled back, feeling the sun on his scales a bit too much, and they rippled through several shades of gray, blue, and brown before settling on a dim, but pale, gold. Dragons were warm-blooded, but as most lacked fur, they tended to live in more tropical climates. Forest Runners had developed a different way of regulating their body heat. Setting the device onto his head, he felt his spines flinch involuntarily as the cold metal touched, looking for the implant jack. When it found it, he didn't gasp, as the jack was made of metal, and he couldn't feel it sliding in until the faint mental hum told him it was ready to go. Quickly accessing the net with practiced eye movments and tongue twitches, Kellarn composed an email swiftly, and sent it to various nations. Within it was a generalized wish for new meetings and talks between the UNNE and the other draconic nations, in the face of these new rebellious threats and terrorist organizations.
Kellarn detached from the set with a grimace, looking through his mind to ensure no hackers had managed to corrupt his memories. All agents of the Crown were trained and proficient cyber-hackers, and they knew how to protect themselves and ensure they hadn't been compromised by potentially deadly inter-viruses. Satisfied, the dragon rose up and began the lumbering walk to his large computer screen, which he used when he needed to make a video call. More expressive than most species of dragon, brown dragons liked visual communications as much as or more than most humans. He needed to talk with the RSE, or more specifically their research and development section. They were always researching countless things, but he wanted to know the progress on some of the more outstanding projects. One of their scientists even claimed he'd found a way to reverse gravity. As his test material had simply exploded, it was yet to be determined whether his claim as true, and if so, whether it would be at all useful.
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Elsewhere...
Northern Norway, 4:37 AM.
"...it Steve, we all know you're full of it." "I'ss true! A Himalayan dragon, too!" A third man interjects above the two, manning the turret of the vehicle. "Steven Jfordlager, you're a liar, and a bad one at that. You did not have sex with a shifted dragon, of any kind." "Now now, Joseph, let's be fair. Maybe he found a Komodo at the zoo." As Steve turned bright red and drew in a breath to protest, a blazing streak of light flashed across the dark village, and struck the Scorpio class walker in it's tail turret, where the three of them were talking. They died instantly, and as the rest of the crew struggled to find where the attack had come from, two more warheads burst out of hidden positions, one of which was fooled into striking an automatically deployed decoy and exploded harmlessly. The other hit the munitions storage. A brilliant ball of fire illuminated the are, showing several dozen humans and two dragons with assault weapons and armor overwhelming a small group of vehicles and infantry accompaniment. After the fighting ended, one of the dragons looked down at a surviving UNNE soldier, and crushed his head beneath a claw. "Operation Aurora Phoenix 4 is a go, sir."