Dragon And Soldier

Chapter 20

He had just reached the first human building, the one where the rest of Tango Five Zulu were handcuffed to the floor, when a slab of light suddenly cut through the darkness ahead.

He dropped into a crouch at the corner, pressing himself against the building. The light, he saw, was coming from the doorway of the second human building. As he watched, two Shamshir soldiers came striding out, supporting a staggering Li between them.

Jack felt his muscles tense. If they took her to the same hut they'd just locked him into, the mustard was about to hit the wiener, big time.

But no. They turned the other direction, their backs to him, and headed toward another row of the small mud huts on the other side of the building.

There was a soft hiss in his ear. "Easy," Jack soothed. "They're not coming this way."

"She has been tortured," Draycos murmured back. There was an edge of barely controlled fury in his voice. "Can you not see that?"

Jack frowned, studying Li's back as she stumbled along. "No, I don't think so," he said. "I remember her looking like she was in shock earlier. I think she's still just not clicking on all chips."

"She does not look right," Draycos insisted. "How can you be certain?"

"Trust me," Jack assured him. "I've seen people scared out of their braincases before."

He nodded toward Li and her escorts. "Besides, look where they're taking her. They're putting her in isolation, same as they did me. That proves she wasn't tortured." "I do not understand."

Jack sighed. "They're trying to get one of us to break. Right? So they want the ones who are left to be as scared as possible. If they'd really tortured Li, they'd put her back in with the others instead of off by herself." "Why?"

"So everyone could see firsthand all the gory details," Jack said. "The more scared they are when their turns come, the more likely they'll be to give Lieutenant Cue Ball what he wants."

Draycos's tongue flicked out restlessly. "They put you by yourselves so as to frighten the others?"

"You got it," Jack said. "See, when people keep getting taken away and no one comes back, the ones who are left start wondering what's happened to them. Sometimes that's a whole lot scarier than anything they could dream up on their own."

Draycos was silent a moment. "It is barbaric."

"I suppose," Jack admitted. "But it's better than beating the sand out of someone. Don't your people ever use psychological warfare?"

"I do not know that term," Draycos said stiffly. "But if it is like this, I am certain we do not."

"Figures," Jack murmured. Sometimes the K'da were too noble for their own good.

The two Shamshir emerged from the hut, minus Li, and turned purposefully toward the building Jack was crouched beside. Going to collect the next contestant in Lieutenant Cue Ball's little game, no doubt. "Keep quiet," he warned Draycos, easing back from the corner out of their sight. "And get ready."

The soldiers reached the door and disappeared inside.

And the second they were out of sight, Jack sprinted for the Flying Turtle they'd been brought here in.

He had estimated he would have about a minute to pop the hatchway and get inside before the soldiers reappeared. As it turned out, the hatchway wasn't locked, and he made it with a good twenty seconds to spare. He was already in the cockpit, studying the control board, when the soldiers came back outside.

With Alison Kayna striding along between them.

"They have taken Alison," Draycos murmured, his head rising from Jack's shoulder for a better look.

"Yeah, I saw," Jack grunted, still sorting out the board. This thing wasn't going to fly much like the Essenay, but the controls were similar enough. "Was there something you wanted me to do about it?"

"I was merely observing," Draycos said mildly. "She is not being treated as a fellow Shamshir soldier."

Jack looked up again. The dragon was right. As far as he could tell, she was being marched along the same way he had been earlier, like any other prisoner Lieutenant Cue Ball was hoping to squeeze for information. "Okay, so maybe it isn't the Shamshir she's working for," he conceded. "Maybe it's some other group. Maybe she scrambled the computer codes so that she could be the only one who could pull out the data for them."

"Why?"

"How should I know?" Jack growled. "Maybe she was hired to get in good with the Shamshir. Maybe she was hired to chase the Whinyard's Edge off Sunright. Maybe she just wants to make a cash deal, like I tried to."

Alison and the soldiers disappeared into the building. "And right now, I don't much care," Jack added, keying for startup. "All I want is to get out of here."

The weight on his shoulder shifted as Draycos looked around the cockpit. "Will there not be a recognition code required to start the engines?"

"Probably." Jack gestured to the board. "Conveniently for us, the pilot left this one on standby. I was hoping he had."

Draycos cocked his head. "Careless of him."

"Agreed," Jack said. "But like you said, these guys aren't really soldiers."

He eased in the lifters, and the Flying Turtle rose gently into the sky. "Keep your claws crossed," he warned. "If anyone's going to object, now's the time they're going to do it."

But no one challenged them as they headed off into the night. No one challenged, or signaled, or even seemed to notice. Jack kept the transport close to the ground, putting distance between them and Dahtill City as quickly as he dared, wondering how in the world it was they were getting away so easily.

"It would seem that proper military procedure does not exist here," Draycos commented. "Perhaps the Agri have not allowed their city to be turned into a base for the Shamshir."

"Maybe," Jack said. "Or maybe it's simpler. If this is where the mine is that everybody wants, neither side will want to have any serious fighting nearby."

"Perhaps." Draycos's head rose up higher, his snout pointing past Jack's nose to the left. "Could that be the mine?"

Jack looked that direction. A mile or so past the edge of the city were three dim structures. The center one was much taller than the others, clearly built to house the kind of crane and digging equipment necessary for a deep-ground mine shaft. The other two buildings seemed to be support structures, probably containing supplies and extra equipment. There were only a few lights in evidence, just enough to keep aircraft from running into them. Apparently, the Agri weren't working a night shift.

"Probably," he confirmed. "I seem to remember that daublite is usually deep enough that you have to sink a pretty long shaft to get anywhere near it."

"That sounds expensive."

"Expensive and time-consuming both," Jack agreed.

"The Agri have probably been at this project for years. Maybe even generations."

"Only to then have others try to steal it away from them," Draycos said, sounding disgusted. "Those structures are built over vertical shafts, then?"

"Just the one in the middle," Jack said. "It looks like the pictures I've seen of deep mines."

"A delicate operation," Draycos murmured. "Easily destroyed by accident, or by falling debris collapsing the shaft. I can understand why they do not wish battles nearby."

His head swiveled back toward the view ahead. "This is not the direction to Mer'seb," he said. "From Dahtill City we must turn southwest."

"Right," Jack agreed. "If we were heading for Mer'seb. But we're not. We're going back to Kilo Seven."

The dragon's head pulled far enough away from Jack's skin that he could peer at his face. "Is that wise?"

Jack snorted. "In my occasionally humble opinion, 'wise' hasn't been part of the equation since we started this whole job," he said. "But yes, I think it'll get us what we want."

"Explain it to me."

And convince him that Jack was acting like a properly noble K'da warrior? Probably. "First off, the only things the Shamshir took were our squad's own computers," Jack said. "That means all the rest of the Edge stuff is still there. Computers and comm equipment. Alison, or whoever, couldn't possibly have sabotaged all of it."

"Then your codes will still allow you access."

"Right," Jack nodded. "So the first thing we'll do is call Mer'seb and whistle up a rescue team. After that, we'll tap into their mainframe and try to pull up the Djinn-90 information that was the reason we came here in the first place."

"You will do that directly?" Draycos asked. "I thought your plan was to use the Essenay's equipment and thereby protect yourself from discovery."

"It was," Jack said. "Problem is, the Essenay is way to the south somewhere right now."

"Can you not summon it with your comm clip?"

Jack shook his head. "If Uncle Virge is still waiting at November Six, he's way out of comm clip range."

"What about the transmitter in this vehicle? It is more powerful than your comm clip. Could you not tune it to the correct frequency?"

"Sure, but then the conversation wouldn't be encrypted," Jack pointed out. "That means anyone and his toy poodle Mitsy would be able to listen in."

"Perhaps we can use another form of coding," Draycos suggested.

"I don't know how," Jack said. "But it doesn't really matter. I wanted to do a gentle tap into their records so that I could then do a quiet sneak away. But with the Shamshir raid, there's no chance of a quiet sneak anyway. I might as well just bulldoze my way into their mainframe, pull the records, and make a run for it."

"With the Essenay still at November Six?"

"Right, but we've got this now," Jack reminded him, tapping the edge of the control panel. "If we're quick, we should be able to get ourselves down to Uncle Virge before the balloon goes up."

Draycos digested all that. "And you believe you will be able to locate the Kilo Seven outpost?"

"Piece of Boston cream pie." Jack pointed to one of the displays on the board. "Along with not shutting down the transport, the pilot also didn't bother to erase the course memory."

"I see," Draycos murmured. "Convenient."

"And sloppy," Jack said. "But then, they're not real soldiers, are they?"

It had taken Lieutenant Cue Ball fifteen minutes to get them from Kilo Seven to Dahtill City. Ten minutes into the return flight, just as Jack was thinking about cutting their altitude a little, the comm suddenly twittered. "About time," he muttered. "Draycos, how are you at imitating voices?"

"Not very good, I'm afraid," the dragon said.

"Me, neither," Jack said, reaching for the transmission switch. "But maybe I can buy us at least a little more time."

He keyed on the microphone. "Yeah, what do you want?" he demanded in the best imitation of Lieutenant Cue Ball's voice he could manage.

But it wasn't, as he'd expected, some Shamshir flunky wanting to know who had borrowed their transport. "Flying Turtle 505, identify yourself," came an all-too-familiar voice.

Draycos's ears went straight up. "It is Sergeant Grisko," he whispered in Jack's ear.

Jack nodded, feeling suddenly limp with relief. The good guys had finally arrived.

Or at least, the side that wasn't going to be shooting at him had arrived. There were no actual good guys anywhere in this game. "Sir, this is Private Montana," he said, switching back to his normal voice. "Squad Tango Five Zulu. Our group was captured by the Shamshir. I've just escaped."

"Really," Grisko said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir," Jack said. "But they've still got the others. We have to get them out."

"Of course," Grisko said. "Come on in and we'll set something up. You can fly that thing all right?"

"Reasonably well, yes, sir."

"And you're all strapped in?"

"Yes, sir," Jack said, frowning at the speaker. That was a strange question. Come to think of it, Grisko's whole voice was sounding strange. "Shall I put down where our Lynx landed earlier?"

"Sounds good," Grisko said. "Keep 'er steady, and come on in."

The speaker clicked off". "Okay," Jack said, shutting off the comm at his end. "We're set."

"I do not think so," Draycos said, his voice as strange as Grisko's. "Are there emergency escape devices aboard this aircraft?"

Jack frowned. "What in the world—?"

"Do not argue," Draycos snapped, shooting out of Jack's collar to land on the deck behind him. Suddenly the dragon seemed charged with energy and nervous tension.

"We must leave this vehicle at once. Are there escape devices aboard?"

"I can check," Jack said, the urgency in the dragon's voice silencing all questions. "Can you fly this thing?"

"Yes," Draycos said, moving aside to let Jack out of the pilot's seat. "Go. Quickly."

There was a tall storage cabinet built into the wall beside the exit hatchway. Jack started toward it, then changed his mind and instead got down on his knees beside the nearest row of seats.

His second hunch turned out to be right. Strapped beneath each seat was the orange-striped plastic bag of a drop-pack. "Got it," he reported, pulling one free.

"How high must we be to use it?" Draycos asked. He was, Jack saw, curled partially on his side in the pilot's seat, his paws on the transport's controls.

"As high or as low as you want," Jack told him. "It's not like a parachute or hang glider where you need altitude for it to work."

"Then prepare yourself and wait by the door."

"Right," Jack said, ripping open the package tab and heading aft. The drop-pack was similar to the ones he and Uncle Virgil had used once in a midnight skulk onto the roof of a high-rise bank, except that this one had the typical drab-ness of military surplus. By the time he reached the hatchway, he had it on. "Ready," he called.

"Stand prepared to open the hatchway," Draycos ordered. "When I come to you, we will jump."

Jack took a deep breath, checking all the drop-pack's straps one final time. The scariest part was that he still didn't know what had spooked the dragon so badly. But anything that worried a poet-warrior of the K'da was definitely something he wanted to be worried about, too.

His eyes fell on the cabinet beside the hatchway. On impulse, he pulled it open.

Originally, he'd thought to find the drop-packs in there. What he found instead was actually more reasonable considering the Flying Turtle's owners.

The cabinet was a weapons locker. The entire top half was filled with the sort of small machine guns Lieutenant Cue Ball and his men had been carrying, with the middle part taken up by shelves full of ammo clips for the guns. At the bottom, looking almost like an afterthought, was a rack holding six slapsticks.

Jack hesitated. The heavier weapons were tempting, but only for a second. Machine guns were mid-range weapons, which was good; but they were also lethal and very noisy, neither of which was what he wanted right now. The slapsticks, on the other hand, were dead quiet and did nothing but knock out your target with an electric shock.

Of course, you also had to get close enough to physically touch him. But you couldn't have everything. Pulling out one of the slapsticks, he made sure it was fully charged, checked to see that the safety catch was on, then stuck it in his belt.

"Prepare," Draycos called.

"Ready," Jack called back, getting a grip on the drop-pack rip cord with one hand and resting the other on the hatchway release pad.

And suddenly, in a flash of golden scales, Draycos spun around and dived out of the pilot's chair. Hitting the top of one of the rows of seats, he shoved off it and bounded toward the hatch.

Jack was ready. He slapped the release; and as the sudden hurricane of wind tore at his hair and clothes he stretched his hand out toward Draycos.

The outstretched forepaws struck his palm and the dragon melted up his sleeve. Pulling the rip cord, Jack pushed off backwards into the night.

The wind grabbed him, and for a horribly tangled second it threw him around, turning him upside down and twice slapping him in the face. It was like being thrown into a raging river made up of air instead of water.

Then the tiny thrusters built into the drop-pack kicked into action. They turned him upright, slowing both his descent and his forward motion. The wind faded, one last set of tree branches grabbed at his sleeve as he passed, and then his feet slapped more or less gently into the crunchy mat of leaves.

"Whew!" he puffed, regaining his balance and looking around. They had landed in a reasonably clear area on a small rise, giving him a good view forward.

There, fading into the distance, he could see their transport. It was still skimming cheerfully away into the night, with no hint of mechanical trouble that he could see.

He shook his head, wondering how many miles they were now going to have to walk. "I don't suppose you happen to know where we are?" he asked.

And then, before Draycos could answer, there was a flicker of light in the distance. Something dark and half-seen seemed to curve up from the forest.

And with a brilliant flash, it exploded against the underside of the Flying Turtle.