Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (10 page)

"Should you not have landed us closer to it?"

Jack came to an abrupt halt. "Look, pal, if I had enough money to
swim in I wouldn't be in this trouble in the first place," he growled.
"You've already cost me a lot of fuel burning ECHO to this place. Now
you want me to pop for the expensive landing pads, too?"

"My apologies," Draycos said. "I did not realize there would be
extra cost involved."

"There's always extra cost involved," Jack muttered, starting up
again. "Be happy I even got us a pad at the same spaceport."

They continued on in silence, the clunk of Jack's boots on the
graytop the only noise. Ahead, the tube widened as it entered the main
warehouse building. Jack went in, his footsteps echoing softly now from
the distant walls and high ceilings. The middle part of the floor was
marked off into different-sized rectangles, with walkways wide enough
for loading-carts running between them.

A few of the rectangles were empty, but most were piled with
stacks of shipping crates of various sizes and colors. The narrow and
rather crooked walkways between the piles made quite a maze. Twenty
feet up, catwalks and cranes formed their own maze, some of the
walkways connecting with small offices that lined the walls of the
second floor. One or two of the office doors were showing lights, but
most of the spaceport's staff seemed to have quit for the day. The
overhead lights were set at nighttime levels, giving the whole place a
rather gloomy air.

The simplest route to the tube they wanted, he knew, would be
around the edge of the warehouse. But going that way would mean a
longer walk, and Jack was already feeling jumpy about being here.
Navigating the maze of boxes would be quicker, and would offer the
extra bonus of keeping him out of sight. Picking out a gap between two
sets of greenish-brown boxes, he headed toward it.

"Is it always this quiet?" Draycos asked.

"In case you hadn't noticed, it's evening out there," Jack
reminded him. "Vagran ports usually aren't busy enough to need a late
shift."

He glanced around. No one was visible, but there could easily be
groups of workers out of sight in the maze of stacks. "And keep your
voice down," he added. "Bad enough to look like I'm talking to myself.
I don't want to look like I'm answering back, too."

"I will be more careful," Draycos promised, lowering his voice to
a level where Jack could barely hear it himself. "What exactly was the
cargo that vanished?"

Away to their left, near the entrance to one of the other tubes, a
group of chattering Jantris in maintenance coveralls appeared. "The
invoice called it a molecular stress-gauge some-thing-or-other," Jack
said, picking up his pace a little and keeping a wary eye on the
Jantris. That particular species loved to talk, especially to
strangers, and the last thing he wanted was to get trapped into some
rambling conversation with them.

The concern turned out to be unnecessary. The Jantris went to the
next tunnel around the edge and disappeared down it, still chattering
among themselves. Taking one last look around, Jack stepped between the
greenish-brown stacks and headed into the maze. "And you saw this
device?" Draycos asked.

"Of course not," Jack said impatiently. "I already told you the
boxes were sealed. But there was
something
in there. And that
something was gone when I got to Cordolane."

"Did the police have any thoughts?"

"If you think I waited around to hear what the cops had to say,
you're nuts," Jack said darkly. "I just unloaded the boxes where they'd
told me to put them and took off."

"That may have been foolish," Draycos pointed out. "Running
creates the appearance of guilt."

Jack snorted. "What kind of appearance does standing there like an
idiot with an empty cargo box create?"

"Perhaps you do not understand my question," Draycos persisted.

"You're the one who doesn't understand," Jack retorted. He took a
deep breath. "Look. Our law says a person is innocent until proven
guilty. Doesn't mean a thing. Uncle Virgil is on their books as a
thief, and I fly with Uncle Virgil. They smell even a hint of trouble
near me, and they won't stop to wonder if there might be some other
explanation. You think I'd be able to prove my innocence from jail?"

"But you told me you have changed your life."

"Sure I have," Jack said bitterly. "But who knows that? No one,
that's who. You may not realize this, noble K'da poet-warrior that you
are, but it's a lot easier to hang onto a good reputation than it is to
tear down a bad one and start over from scratch."

"Perhaps I can assist you with that process," Draycos said.

"Yeah, thanks," Jack said. "I'll settle for you helping me out of
this particular mess."

"I will do my best." Draycos's head lifted slightly from the skin
of Jack's shoulder, his eye ridges and spiny crest pushing up against
the shirt and leather jacket. His tongue flicked out twice. "As to
smelling trouble, what is that odor?"

Jack inhaled slowly. There was something in the air, all right.
Faint, but tart and vaguely disgusting. "I don't know," he said,
sniffing again. "Doesn't smell like any normal spaceport stuff."

"No," Draycos agreed, his tongue darting out again. "It smells
like something dead."

Jack hissed softly between his teeth as the smell suddenly
clicked. "You're right," he said. "It's dead meat. Freshly dead meat,
in fact."

And where there was freshly dead meat . . . "Let's get out of
here," he muttered, throwing a quick look around as he broke into a jog.

"Is there danger?" Draycos asked, his head rising up farther out
of Jack's shoulder.

"Stay down, will you?" Jack growled as he drew his tangler. The
extra weight whenever Draycos went three-dimensional always threw him
off balance. "Yeah, there's danger. Dead meat means scavengers.
Fresh
dead meat means scavengers who don't mind killing." He reached the edge
of a stack of crates and carefully looked around it.

There they were: at least a dozen cat-sized animals with dirty
black-and-white speckled fur, ratlike faces, and wicked-looking teeth
and claws. Most of them were gathered around an unidentifiable carcass,
still chewing away. Others squatted a little ways off, busily grooming
themselves after their meal.

The carcass, he noticed with a sick feeling in his stomach, was
wearing the remains of a maintenance coverall.

"Heenas," he whispered to Draycos. He backed carefully away from
the corner, feeling sweat gathering on his forehead.

There was a sudden weight on his shoulder. He glanced around to
find Draycos's head rising up from his back, twisted to look behind
them. "Draycos—"

"Behind you!" the dragon snapped.

Jack spun around, the tangler swinging around with him.

Ten feet away, moving silently toward him like miniature lions
stalking their prey, were eight more heenas. Their yellow eyes looked
impossibly bright in the dim light. Their fur stuck straight out from
their bodies, making them look even bigger than they already were. The
three in front were already crouching, ready to spring.

Lowering his aim, Jack fired.

The tangler cartridge caught two of the front three heenas in its
milky-white threads. The third was too fast, managing to jump sideways
out of range. The two trapped animals squealed as the tangler's shock
capacitor sparked, putting them out of the fight.

The other heenas, without any sound or reaction, continued toward
him.

Jack backed up to the stack of crates, his heart pounding in his
ears as he did the math. There were six heenas in front of him, plus
the dozen he'd already spotted just around the corner. That made
eighteen, plus any more that might be skulking around somewhere else.

Problem was, there were only seven cartridges left in his tangler.
He had a spare clip, but he doubted he'd get a chance to use it. The
dead maintenance worker was grisly evidence of how fast a pack of
heenas could move when they wanted to.

"Do not fire," Draycos said from his shoulder. Jack had just
enough time to frown—

And then, with the usual surge of weight, the dragon sprang off
his chest and shoulder, shoving aside shirt and jacket as he emerged.

Only this wasn't the nice shiny golden dragon Jack had rescued
from the wrecked K'da ship.

This dragon was pure black.

Jack gasped with surprise. Draycos landed on the graytop directly
in front of the heenas, his head and forelegs low, his tail arched over
his head like a scorpion's. For maybe half a second they all just stood
there, the six vicious pack animals and the single K'da warrior facing
them. The heenas bared their teeth; Draycos gave a low, warning growl.

As if that was the signal they had been waiting for, the heenas
attacked.

The one in the lead leaped directly toward Draycos's snout, its
claws extended toward his face. The other five charged toward the
dragon's sides, two toward his left and three toward his right, veering
wide to keep out of reach of his forelegs. Jack had been right; the
heenas were fast.

But Draycos was faster.

The heena going for the dragon's face went first, spinning away
with a single startled squeak as Draycos batted it aside in midair with
his paw. Even before it disappeared around the side of a stack of
crates, the dragon had jumped sideways over the two heenas coming in
toward his left, escaping from the center of their encircling maneuver.

They spun around and shifted direction. This time, all five
charged him together.

Slashing with his forelegs, moving almost too fast for Jack to
see, he batted them away one by one into the gloom.

Jack stood with his back against the stack of crates, his tangler
hanging almost forgotten in his hand as he watched Draycos send them
flying. His mind flashed back to the leaps the dragon had made aboard
the
Havenseeker;
clearly, K'da had tremendous muscular strength.

Draycos was down to his last enemy when the ones that had been
feeding around the corner came charging at him, probably alerted by the
noise. Two broke off from the pack and veered toward Jack, who snapped
out of his paralysis in time to get them with another tangler shot. The
rest headed straight for Draycos.

Six-to-one odds had been no contest. It was now quickly apparent
that even at twelve to one the heenas didn't have a chance. Draycos
waded into the pack, slashing and biting, his tail whipping about with
blinding speed and deadly accuracy. Twice it looked to Jack as if they
were surely going to overwhelm him, but both times he leaped out of
their midst just in time. Landing outside their circle, he continued
his slashing attack at the ones on the edge, throwing the whole pack
into confusion.

And then, without warning, he leaped straight back toward the
stack of crates behind Jack. Automatically, Jack ducked; and as he
glanced up, he saw a heena dropping toward him from the top of the
stack. Before he could even start to bring up his tangler, Draycos
intercepted the attacker, batting it away with his tail.

The dragon's momentum carried him back into the crates, but like a
cat he twisted around and got his feet up in time. For a second he hung
there on the boxes the way he had from the tree outside his wrecked
ship, his brilliant green eyes looking brighter than ever against the
black scales. Then, shoving himself off the crates, he landed again on
the graytop between Jack and the heenas. Crouching down with his tail
raised, he gave another growl.

That was enough for the heenas. Still without a sound, they turned
and scattered, scurrying around the stacked crates and vanishing into
the dark.

Jack hadn't realized he was holding his breath. Now, he let it out
in a huff. "Wow," was all he could think to say.

Draycos's neck twisted around, his eyes searching the shadows for
more enemies. Then, slowly, he straightened up and turned back to Jack.
"Are you injured?" he asked.

"No," Jack said, gazing at the dragon in fascination. At close
range, he could see now that the scales weren't entirely black: the
little sliver of red at the edge of each one was still there. "No. I'm
fine. Thanks to you."

Draycos cocked his head to the side. "Yet you seem disturbed."

"Just a little sandbagged, that's all," Jack assured him. Was the
gold color starting to creep back into the dragon's scales? "You've
been calling yourself a warrior; but up to now all I've seen you do is
zap people with their own weapons and fire missiles from the
Essenay
's
control board. I didn't know you could fight like
that
."

"
A
warrior must be adept in all forms of combat," Draycos
said.

"I guess so," Jack said. No mistake; Draycos's scales were
definitely turning gold again. "That color change is pretty cool, too."

"It is a side effect of K'da combat rage," Draycos told him,
lifting up a foreleg to study it. "Our blood is black. As it flows more
strongly to our muscles, some of it displaces the color in our scales.
Do humans not have a similar danger response?"

"Not really," Jack said. "Well, maybe a little," he corrected
himself. "Our faces get hot when we're mad or scared. On some people it
shows a little."

"Ah. Interesting."

"Yeah," Jack said, glancing around. "Can we get out of here now?"

"Do not worry." Draycos peered one last time into the shadows,
then suddenly turned and leaped. Reflexively, Jack jerked back,
whapping his head against the crates. The dragon hit his upper chest
above his shirt and melted back onto his skin. "They will not bother us
again," he said, sliding along Jack's body until his head was back in
its usual place on his right shoulder. "Shall we continue?"

Jack rubbed the back of his head. He was never,
ever
going
to get used to this. "Yeah," he said. "Sure."