Chapter 6

“I’m really glad that you’re back,” Miranda told us in greeting in a harried voice, as we exited the truck in our parking lot.

“What’s happened?” both the Colonel and I asked.

“Our Partners’ cage arrived at about 0900 this morning. Later another two cages arrived. They were followed by a Team with two Mountain Lions and two Falcons, plus their five human Partners,” she explained.

“Anyone that we know?” Luther asked before Bob broke into the conversation.

“Smell Mountain Lion,” he sent as soon as my Partners exited the truck.

“Yes, they are in their cage,” Miranda answered before turning to Luther.

“No, I’ve never seen any of them before,” she told him.

“So they aren’t either of the Teams that we met when we arrived?” the Colonel asked.

“No, and they haven’t said much since they arrived. They seem very tight lipped,” Miranda told her, before adding, “Doyel took their orders and had them sign in.”

“Dohla and I took them upstairs and assigned them rooms. Their luggage and equipment arrived with them. They took the luggage up with them, and their equipment is sitting in the warehouse along with ours,” she finished.

“Let’s get inside and meet these people,” the Colonel told us. “You had better have Bob and Susie stay in their home until we get things straightened out, Cleve,” she added.

“What about the Eagles?” Luther asked, as their nest hadn’t arrived yet, and we didn’t have a crane to lift it up to the roof plus there wasn’t a structure there to receive it either.

“Where are the Falcons?” the Colonel asked.

“The Falcons are in the second cage that arrived with the Team. It’s their home,” Miranda told us.

“I’ll bet they are happy about that,” Luther said with a frown, but this didn’t solve our problem with the Eagles.

“Are there any perches here?” the Colonel asked.

“I believe there are a couple,” I told her.

“They’ll just have to use them until we can get the nest set up on the roof,” she said in a discouraged voice.

“There are some trees behind the building,” Luther pointed out. “They might be more at home there.”

“We’ll need to check. Sara used a perch on Addison III until I got the nest set up. Hopefully, it won’t take long here,” the Colonel told us.

We didn’t have a chance to enter the building, before the new Team came out to meet us.

“Good afternoon, sir. Master Sergeant Haddrell reporting with Team A-23,” the Team Leader said standing at attention with a salute. They had all stopped four feet from the Colonel with Haddrell in the front and the remainder of the Team behind him.

“Welcome Master Sergeant Haddrell and Team A-23. Your arrival is a bit of a surprise. We weren’t informed that we would be receiving any Teams yet. As you have no doubt noticed, we are a bit shorthanded presently,” the Colonel told him after returning his salute. “Stand at ease,” she added following that.

“Thank you, sir. We were a bit surprised ourselves when we received the orders last Friday,” Haddrell told her before turning toward me.

“Hi Cleve,” he said before his mouth fell open in surprise.

“Sorry, Captain,” he quickly apologized.

“How are you, Phil?” I asked with a smile.

“About the same as always, sir,” he replied, recovering from his shocked surprise. “Congratulations,” he added.

“We’ll meet the rest of your Team in a bit. We need to move inside and see about getting our Partners settled,” the Colonel said next, and we prepared to move into the rear or warehouse portion of the building.

Sara and Samson returned to the Colonel and Luther from their survey of the area and landed on their outstretched arms. Bob and Susie moved up on either side of me.

“You still have those two Tigers as Partners,” Haddrell said as my Partners joined us. I just smiled in answer.

“Your Team has two Eagles?” a Sergeant First class from the new Team asked.

“Yes, they had chicks on Addison III where they met,” the Colonel told them. This news seemed to surprise those on Team A-23.

“Chicks?” one of the female Team members asked. “Did they survive?”

“Yes, both survived and are in training over on Continent 2. I saw them just before leaving there today,” Luther told her.

“Our Falcons have never had chicks. It’s one of our biggest problems,” the woman told us.

“That’s the problem with our Mountain Lions also. They have never been able to have cubs,” another Team member told us.

“We can discuss all of this after we get things set up,” the Colonel told them, as we moved toward the building.

The back portion of our building was a warehouse. Fortunately, it is a large three-story open space warehouse, as it was presently a disaster of boxes and crates stacked haphazardly everywhere. There were also now three cages in there. They were situated near one of the large roll-up doors. Two of the cages were normal Partners’ cages with food storage.

The third cage was also large and housed the two Falcons of Team A-23. The cage was divided into two areas, each about 8 x 8 feet in size. There were closely spaced round vertical bars across the entire front of the cage. The bars were about an inch in diameter and were spaced about two and a half inches apart. Additionally, there were panels that could be fitted to the front of the cage to provide dark places or different size windows when desired. The top of the cage also had an area of round bars to allow more light in. It could also be covered when needed. The floor of the cage was covered with a mixture of pea gravel and sand. This was in sliding drawers that could be withdrawn and emptied to clean them out. There were several perches on each side of the cage, and the center divider could also be covered so the birds couldn’t see each other. There was a food locker in the back part of the cage and a door on each end of the cage for access and egress. There was a Falcon currently sitting in each of the two areas.

“They are hybrid Gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus),” Haddrell told us. “The original Gyrfalcons were mainly cold climate dwellers. Some time ago scientists located the remains of an ancestor from the late Pleistocene era that they were able to successfully extract some DNA from. Those ancestors were larger and adapted to warmer climates. Gyrfalcons are the largest members of the Falcon family, and those ancestors (Falco rusticolus swarthi) were even larger. Our Gyrfalcons are hybrids of the two other groups of Gyrfalcons and are even larger. They are also enhanced,” he informed us.

“Our birds are very large for Falcons. The male is 25 inches long and weighs 3.5 pounds. He has a wingspan of 56 inches. The Female is bulkier and larger at 28 inches long with a 65 inch wingspan and weighs nearly 5 pounds. Their tail feathers are 13 inches long and their wing cords are 16.8 inches. As you can see, they are part white with brown spotted feathers on their upper side,” he finished.

“What are their names?” the Colonel asked.

“The male is John, and the female is Jen,” he told us.

One of the normal cages housed their two Mountain Lions. It too was divided to keep the two Partners apart.

“Our feline Partners are Mountain Lions or Cougars (Puma concolor cougar). Again, they are enhanced and are larger than Cougars in the wild. Mike, the male, is 8’-4’’ long from nose to tail tip. He weighs 250 pounds and has a 36 inch tail. Mindy, the female, is 7’-2’’ long, nose to tail tip with a 33 inch tail. She weighs 170 pounds. They are both 33 inches tall at the shoulder. They like deer meat and are very agile. They can jump over 20 feet into a tree or over an obstacle. They don’t roar like your Tigers do,” Haddrell informed us.

Cougars are a tawny tan color similar to lions with lighter patches on their underside including the areas around the jaws, chin, and throat. They have large paws and proportionally large hind legs allowing them to jump so high. They are also good sprinters but not long-distance runners, I knew. The second normal cage was Bob and Susie’s old home, which had been repaired and updated.

The two Mountain Lions had become alert as soon as they detected Bob and Susie, who had also detected both them and the Falcons. There was some hissing and raised backs for a short time until we quieted all four of them down. Bob and Susie went over to check out their updated home. They weren’t happy with what they found.

“Home stinky from paint and workmen,” Bob complained to me.

“Make the best of it for now. The Colonel and I need to deal with this other Team and their Partners,”I sent to him. They both entered their cage and proceeded to roll around in it marking it as theirs before going to their favorite spots and taking a nap.

“Why is there a divider in your feline Partners’ cage?” the Colonel asked.

“It’s necessary to keep them apart at times, especially when the female is in heat, sir,” Haddrell told her.

“Are they that antagonistic?” she asked.

“Yes, sir,” he admitted.

“And the Falcons?” she asked. Luther had found a couple of perches while we were occupied and had set them up for the Eagles. Both Sara and Samson took flight from their human Partners shoulders just as the Colonel finished her question, and they flew around the interior of the warehouse a couple of times before landing on the perches.

“You don’t cage them?” Haddrell asked instead of answering her question.

“No, they have a large nest which will go on the roof shortly. Until then, they can use the perches, or the trees behind the warehouse,” she told him, before asking, “Are your Falcons always kept in a cage? Most birds don’t like them.”

“We have no way to provide them a place to nest. Gyrfalcons don’t build nests but sometimes use other birds’ nests. We also couldn’t afford to have one of them hatching eggs and caring for chicks while on deployment, as I have said previously,” Haddrell told us.

“Yes, you did. We will need to develop a solution, but later. We need to get this organization set up and operating. That will require a lot of work plus a supply person to set up the property book and issue all of these supplies. It’s too late today to start on that, but first thing tomorrow, I’ll start on it,” she told him and everyone else who was listening.

“Hungry,” Bob sent, as the Colonel finished. After checking the time on her PDU, the Colonel agreed.