Dragon and Thief

Chapter 24

With Vance in the lead, Braxton, Jack, and Raven behind him, and Myers bringing up the rear, they headed out.

The two guards Jack had run into earlier were still on the job, and they stepped out of their rooms as the parade came by. Jack held his breath; but Braxton merely waved them back to their posts. Jack looked at their faces as he passed, but there was no suspicion there that he could see.

They might be suspicious later, of course. But by then it would be too late. Or so Raven probably hoped, anyway.

He might be right, too. True, Jack still had Draycos hidden away. But even under ideal conditions it would still be three armed men against a single unarmed K'da.

And the conditions here were anything but ideal. Raven walked close behind Braxton and Jack as they made their way along, his gun pressing through his coat into Braxton's back whenever someone came close. Draycos could easily take him out, probably before the man even knew what had hit him.

But Vance and Myers were keeping their distance. No matter how fast he was, the dragon could never get to both of them before the shooting started.

The group was soon out of the high-class living section and into the Star of Wonders main eating and entertainment area. More and more people were milling around here, and Jack waited expectantly for Vance and Myers to close the gap between them. Surely they would want to prevent any chance of Braxton or Jack darting off and losing themselves in the crowds.

But they still kept their distance. It was almost as if they were expecting an attack... and it wasn't until the group had passed the central elevator bank that Jack suddenly realized that that was exactly what they were expecting. Not from a hidden K'da warrior, of course, but from Uncle Virgil.

Back in Braxton's suite, dropping all those vague hints and threats had seemed like a clever thing to do. Now, Jack wasn't so sure about that.

"We'll be passing the casino soon," Braxton murmured from beside him. "That may be your best hope."

For a couple of steps Jack was strongly tempted. Raven's gun was stuck in Braxton's back, after all, not his. If he could make it into the casino, there were all those game tables and chance machines for him to duck and dodge among. There were bound to be security people on duty there, too.

But there were still Vance and Myers to think about. Braxton didn't seem the type to hire bodyguards who couldn't shoot straight. "Thanks for the offer," he murmured back. "But I think I'll stick it out."

"They're going to kill me, Jack," Braxton reminded him. "As Raven said, I really don't want to die with other lives on my conscience."

Jack frowned sideways at him. Braxton's face was set in hard lines; but at the same time Jack could tell that the man meant it.

It seemed a far cry from the hard, cold, merciless industrial giant that everyone thought of when Cornelius Braxton's name was mentioned. Maybe Braxton was rearranging his way of thinking now that he could see his own death approaching.

Or maybe the public image wasn't what the man was really like at all.

"It's okay," he told Braxton. "And don't give up hope. Not yet."

Braxton glanced around. "All right," he said. "If you say so."

"Over here," Raven said, taking Braxton's shoulder and guiding him into a right-hand turn. They went through a door with the now familiar—at least to Jack—Authorized Personnel Only sign on it. A short corridor away, they reached a large elevator door.

"Say good-bye to civilization," Raven advised as the elevator doors slid open. "Next stop'll be the cargo section."

Jack had held out some hope that in the confined space of an elevator car Draycos would finally have a chance to act. But accidentally or otherwise, Raven had neatly squashed that one. The car he ushered them into wasn't one of the regular passenger elevators, but instead a cargo lift. It was nearly the size of Jack's stateroom, and Vance and Myers went immediately to opposite corners.

Raven stepped well back, too. Now that secrecy wasn't important anymore, all three men drew their guns out of hiding. Myers touched the button, and the car started down.

"Jack?" a voice murmured in Jack's right ear.

Jack measured the distances with his eyes. Too far. Besides, there was no cover anywhere for him and Braxton to duck behind when the shooting started. "Not here," he murmured back, keeping his lips motionless.

"We are running out of time," Draycos pointed out.

"Don't you think I know that?" Jack retorted quietly. "It just won't work in here."

"Hey," Myers said, jabbing his gun toward Jack. "Did anyone think to check this clown for a comm clip?"

"Harper ran him," Raven told him. "He was clean."

"Then who's he talking to?" Myers demanded. "Maybe I ought to do a little more thorough search, if you know what I mean."

"He was talking to me," Braxton spoke up. "Is that a problem?"

"What about?" Myers asked.

"None of your business," Braxton said calmly. "Most condemned men are allowed a last meal. You should at least be gracious enough to allow us a last conversation."

"Yeah?" Myers growled, starting forward. "Maybe we're not feeling gracious today, huh?"

"It's all right, Myers," Raven said, waving the other back. "Let them talk."

Myers glared some more, but he returned to his corner without argument. "Thanks," Jack murmured to Braxton.

Braxton nodded, his eyes on Raven. "You know, Mr. Raven, there's no reason you have to kill our young friend here," he commented. "There are several techniques that can be used to block his memories of this entire trip."

"Sorry," Raven said, shaking his head. "I know all about those techniques. I don't trust any of them."

"I could make it worth your while," Braxton offered.

Raven grinned evilly. "Thanks, but I think Mr. Neverlin already has enough of the pie to outbid you. He sure will after today."

"This is an account Neverlin doesn't know about," Braxton persisted. "One he'll never find on his own. A little extra money never hurt anyone."

"A little extra loose end can hurt plenty," Raven retorted. "Now shut up."

Braxton looked at the other two. "Myers? Vance? Either of you interested?"

"I said shut up!" Raven snarled, gesturing with his gun. "Or I'll drop you right here."

Braxton gave up. The rest of the elevator ride was made in silence.

The doors opened onto a corridor that was clearly one of the ship's working areas. No fancy carvings or carpeting or even textured wall coverings here. Everything was plain synth-wall and scuffless flooring, with wires and conduits running in plain sight along the ceilings.

It was better than a lot of places Jack had been in. Still, coming from the fancier parts of the liner, it seemed shockingly bleak and shabby. A very depressing place to have to die in.

Raven was obviously thinking the same thing. "Sorry about the decor," he said as Vance led them around a corner into a cross-corridor. "I would have ordered flowers, only you weren't supposed to go down for another couple of weeks."

"You didn't get any flowers for those Wistawki, either," Jack murmured. If he was going to get Raven to confess to the murders, this was the time for it. "The ones you shot on Vagran. You didn't seem to care at all about them, in fact."

Raven snorted. "What, get misty-eyed over a bunch of dumb animals? Who cares if a couple of them get shot?"

"You thought enough people would care to make it worth framing me for their murders," Jack reminded him.

"I probably still will, too," Raven said with a shrug. "Might as well get that off the books, and you're as good a fall guy as anyone. Especially since you won't be around to tell your side of it."

"Unless Drabs turns on you," Jack pointed out.

"Don't worry, Drabs knows what side of the bread gets the butter," Raven assured him.

"Maybe," Jack said. "But like you, he was willing to stab Mr. Braxton in the back. Maybe he'll do the same to you if he gets the chance."

Raven snorted. "Nice try. I can handle Drabs."

"Well, then, maybe the Brummga will turn," Jack said. "He was a witness, too, remember."

"A Brummga?" Braxton asked, frowning. "There aren't any Brummgas in my security force."

"You know, kid, you talk way too much," Raven growled. "How about you shut up for the rest of the trip?"

Jack sighed. "Sure."

Three minutes and two corridors later, they reached the cargo hold.

Like everything else on the Star of Wonder, it was a pretty impressive place. It was big, for starters, built more along the lines of a warehouse than a simple storage room. The ceiling was high, maybe twenty feet up, with a grid of lifter-crane rails crisscrossing it and at least three heavy-duty cranes riding them. Hanging a few feet below the ceiling between the rails was another grid, this one a network of service catwalks. Rows of lights set into the ceiling made the room almost as bright as day.

Over the door they'd entered by, and clustered together into four more groups in different parts of the ceiling, were the familiar battery-equipped emergency lights. There were, unfortunately, almost certainly no security cameras hidden inside them as there had been in those in the purser's office.

Stacked neatly on the well-lit floor were piles of crates, protected by acceleration webbing, with open aisles between them. All of the stacks were too tall to see over; most of them reached nearly to the catwalks overhead.

It reminded Jack of the Vagran spaceport, and for that first hopeful moment he wondered if he might be lucky enough for the cargo to be laid out in the same sort of maze. If it was, and if he and Braxton could get just a few seconds ahead of their captors, they might at least have a chance of making a game of hide-and-seek out of this.

But then he got a second glance, and the brief hope melted away. The Vagran warehouse floor had been laid out in randomly sized rectangles, which was what had accounted for the crooked walkways. Here, though, the rectangles were all the same size, with the aisles between them as straight as Parprin city streets. Anyone trying to escape down one of them would be shot in the back before he got fifteen feet.

Unless they didn't know anyone had escaped....

"Nice," he commented, looking around. "A lot roomier than my place upstairs."

"Glad you like it," Raven said. "Myers, where's this airlock?"

"Far side," Myers said, gesturing straight ahead with his gun. "Maybe a little to the right."

"Okay, you take point," Raven said, nudging Braxton forward. "Move. And remember to keep quiet if you don't want us burning innocent bystanders."

The aisles were just wide enough for two people to walk comfortably side by side. With Myers in the lead and Vance now bringing up the rear, the group headed in.

Quietly, Jack reached down to his right jacket cuff and casually unsnapped it. The last time Draycos had tried to go out that way through the jacket, he'd nearly broken Jack's wrist. He just hoped the dragon would remember that, and pick up on the hint.

He did. Jack could feel him sliding along his body, easing as much of himself as he could onto Jack's right arm, getting ready to spring.

"Easy," Jack muttered. "You'll know when." Ahead, they were coming up on one of the cross aisles. Jack took a deep breath, watching Myers's back and counting his own steps. This was going to take some careful timing if he didn't want to get himself shot.

Myers walked past the cross aisle, glancing both ways as he passed it, and continued on. Jack focused on the aisle, estimating how many steps ahead of him it was. Three, he decided, would be the magic number. When he was three steps away, he would go.

Five steps away. Four. Three.

Jumping away from Braxton's side, he sprinted forward. The move caught everyone by surprise. He'd made it one step before Raven even got out a startled curse; two steps before Myers started to twist back around; three steps before he heard the sound of Braxton being shoved aside as Raven tried to bring his gun to bear.

And then he was at the cross aisle. Leaning his weight to the left, he threw himself hard into it.

Threw himself a little too hard, in fact. As he tried to make the turn his feet skidded out from under him. He grabbed for the side of the nearest stack of crates, missed, and toppled over hard onto his side. From the aisle he'd just left, the aisle his feet were still sticking out into, came the sound of curses and orders as Raven and his men scrambled to catch up with him. Two seconds, maybe, and they would be on top of him.

But for those precious two seconds, the top half of his body was out of their sight.

Draycos came out of the end of Jack's right sleeve like a black thundercloud twisting over a prairie town. He caught the webbing on the side of the stack with his claws and skittered up the side. By the time Raven and Myers spun madly around the corner, he had vanished over the top.

"You little snot," Raven snarled viciously, grabbing Jack by the front of his jacket and hauling him up onto his feet. Before Jack could get his balance, the man slammed him up against the stack of crates. "I ought to kill you right here," he threatened, his face three inches from Jack's, the muzzle of his gun jammed hard into Jack's stomach. "I ought to burn your fingers off, then kill you right here."

"You start burning me and I probably won't be able to keep from screaming," Jack said, his voice trembling with reaction. "Someone might hear. How many people can you toss out an airlock before people start wondering where they all went?"

For a long, terrifying moment he thought Raven was going to decide he didn't care. But even seething with anger, he could apparently see the reason in that. Slowly, reluctantly, he moved back. "Vance?"

Vance appeared, his gun pressed warningly into the back of Braxton's neck. "Yeah?"

"You stay on Braxton," Raven ordered. "I'll take the kid personally. Let's go."

Jack took a deep breath as they all moved back into the aisle and continued on their way. He had done all that he could.

Now it was up to Draycos.