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Night Patrol Alternate Version
🕑 Added 2016-11-01 14:22:11 +0000 UTC Captain Helena Pryce, astride Lynceus, her Crested Shrieker. Named for their distinctive crest, which acts as a receiver for the echoes bouncing off their prey and their environment, Crested Shriekers are erratic flyers, uninterested in maintaining formation and unable to maintain any target discipline. Thus, they proved unsuitable for use in any attack sorties, but invaluable as flying radar, given their unique echolocation abilities and ability to stay aloft all night long patrolling the territory around their nests. They proved such adept sentries that the nighttime Axis firebombing raids over British cities soon became largely ineffective wastes of dragons and ordinance, the element of surprise effectively lost once Shrieker nests were moved into a picket formation around Great Britain.Captain Pryce epitomized the ideal sentry dragon captain; cool, focused and unflappable, the ideal counterbalance to the impulsive, distractible species. The first priority of such a captain was to reign in her dragon's impetuous desire to attack the interlopers long enough to radio in the attackers' position and vectors, then hold off his aggression enough to remain a harassing presence for the enemy dragons without endangering her crew, until the intercepting flight of allied dragons arrived to drive the enemy off. To maintain such discipline required an intense mastery of her own passions, which she found to be most easily achieved by allowing her other passions utterly free reign on the ground. The sight of Captain Pryce striding up to any aviator who caught her eye, directly and confidently telling the lucky aviator what she wanted to do to him (and what she expected of his performance in return) was a common one, and many aviators ached for an opportunity to earn her approval.
