Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (7 page)

"Is that your ship?" Draycos murmured as Jack crouched down behind
one of the bushes and gave the area a quick study. "The group of bushes
at the far edge of the clearing against a line of trees?"

"That's it," Jack said sourly. "Only it's not supposed to be that
easy to see."

It certainly wasn't to him, anyway. To his eyes, the
Essenay
's
outline was only barely visible along the edges of what seemed to be a
group of bushes and grasses swaying gently in the breeze. The only
reason he could see it at all was because he knew exactly where to look.

So naturally Draycos, freshly arrived in the Orion Arm and who
knew nothing about anything, had picked it out of the background
without a second glance. So much for the big, fancy chameleon hull-wrap
Uncle Virgil had installed two years ago.

"It is quite well concealed," Draycos assured him. "My eyes accept
slightly different wavelengths of light than yours do, and your
camouflage does not exactly duplicate them. Also, as a warrior, I am
trained to search for hidden objects."

"A handy talent," Jack growled. "Let's just hope our buddies back
there don't include anyone like you."

Still no one in sight. Either they were all off searching a
different part of the forest, or they'd already found the
Essenay
and were lying in ambush for whoever might show up there.

Either way, there was nothing to be gained by sitting here
waiting. "Okay, we're going whole hog," he muttered to Draycos. "Hang
on."

Taking a deep breath, he gathered his feet under him and sprinted
toward the ship.

If there was an ambush waiting, it was a rotten one. No one shot
at him as he slipped between the trees and pounded into the open area
of the clearing. He kept going, hoping he wouldn't catch a foot on
something hidden in the grass and end up face-first on the ground.

He was about thirty feet from the
Essenay
when the airlock
hatch slid open and the gangway extended itself outward. Jack braced
himself, wondering if that was the signal the hidden attackers had been
waiting for.

But there was still no reaction from the surrounding forest. A
second later he was charging up the gangway, ducking his head under the
hatchway, trying to skid to a halt before he slammed full-tilt into the
bulkhead on the far side of the narrow airlock.

Draycos had already anticipated the problem. Again, the sudden
telltale weight appeared on his chest as Draycos came up and off him,
putting all four legs straight out in front of Jack like gold-scaled
shock absorbers to help absorb the impact.

Between the four K'da legs and two human arms, they bounced safely
together off the bulkhead. "Close the hatch," Jack snapped as he
regained his balance. Draycos dropped all the way off him, his long
neck swiveling around as he checked things out. "Uncle Virge?" Jack
called again.

"All right, all right, I'm not deaf," Uncle Virge said, his voice
sounding odd as the hatch slid closed. "I take it this is your new
friend?"

"Draycos, meet Uncle Virge," Jack said, slapping the door pad. The
inner hatch slid open, and he headed forward at a dead run. A glance
over his shoulder showed Draycos was right behind him.

He reached the cockpit, tossed his leather jacket and the
slapstick in a corner, and slid into the pilot seat. The preflight had
been done, he saw, and Uncle Virge had computed an ECHO course for use
once they were outside the atmosphere.

The weapons panel, he noted with decidedly mixed feelings, had
also been activated. Uncle Virgil had taught him how to use it, but
he'd never even had to turn it on, let alone actually shoot at anyone.

"How may I best serve?" Draycos asked. He was standing behind Jack
on his back paws, his body stretched upward with his front paws braced
on the back of the chair. His pointed snout was swinging back and forth
over Jack's shoulder as he studied the controls.

"You can't," Jack said, getting a grip on the Y-shaped control
yoke. "This is a one-man operation. Hang onto something; here we go."

Without waiting for a reply, he threw power to the antigrav
lifters. The
Essenay
shuddered once, then lurched up and out of
the clearing. They cleared the trees, Jack switched over from the
lifters to the main drive, and they were off.

As the ship headed up through the drifting smoke, he felt a brief
weight on his shoulders, then nothing. The dragon had found something
to hang onto, all right. Him.

"They will send ships to intercept," Draycos warned from Jack's
right shoulder. "Is this vessel armed?"

"Right here," Jack said, letting go of the yoke with his left hand
long enough to tap the weapons panel. Getting a two-handed grip on the
yoke again, he turned the
Essenay
into a tight right-hand
curve. "We've got two meteor-defense lasers and a short-range
particle-beam shredder. And four small missile launchers."

"Jack!" Uncle Virge protested. "The missiles are privileged
information, lad."

"What, you think he's not going to notice when we fire them?" Jack
retorted.

"Instruct me in its operation," the dragon said, the top of his
head rising up out of Jack's skin for a better look.

Jack shook his head. "No, that's all right," he said, risking a
quick look at the aft sensor display. Was that a small ship rising from
the forest near the wrecked freighter?

"Instruct me in its operation," Draycos insisted. "I am a warrior
of the K'da—"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," Jack cut him off. No, it wasn't a small
ship coming up from the forest. It was
two
small ships.
Terrific. "No offense, but so far all I've seen you do is grab other
people's weapons. Any good pickpocket could do that."

"Have you ever engaged in combat?" Draycos countered. "Have you
ever flown this spacecraft in combat?"

"No, and no," Jack ground out. Already the two ships were gaining
on him. Fighter-sized, he could see now. Probably fighter-armed, too.
"Now shut up and let me fly. This is hard enough as it is."

In answer, his open shirt was suddenly shoved back off his left
shoulder, and a pair of golden legs sprouted from his skin there.
"Hey!" he snapped as the unexpected weight translated into a brief
wobble of the control yoke. "Watch it!"

"You cannot fly and defend together," Draycos said firmly, the
extended paws poised over the weapons panel. "You are not trained, and
these controls are not well laid out. Now instruct me."

Jack muttered a word that had once cost him a week of desserts. To
trust his life to someone else, and an alien newcomer at that . . .

But the dragon was right. Besides, he could hardly be any worse at
this than Jack was. "All right, fine," he said, trying to coax a little
more speed out of the engines. "The left section handles targeting. The
way you work it . . ."

The quick course took a minute and a half, about the same time it
took the two fighters to close to firing range. Jack could only hope
the dragon was a quick study.

"Interesting," Draycos commented as the fighters approached. "They
are using a classic
chiv-nez
maneuver."

"I guess word gets around," Jack said, squeezing the control yoke
hard as he studied the aft display. The fighters weren't going to wait
long before making their move, he knew. Probably deciding how best to
disable the
Essenay
without blowing it completely out of the
sky.

Unless, of course, Snake Voice had changed his mind about wanting
his prisoners undamaged. In that case, the fighters' job was going to
be a whole lot easier.

"You mistake my point," Draycos said. "I do not know whether they
borrowed the maneuver from the K'da or created it themselves. What I do
know is how to deal with it. At my command, make the tightest turn to
the left this ship is capable of."

Jack frowned. Turning left would put them directly into the path
of one of the fighters. "Uncle Virge?"

"Sorry, lad, but I can't see anything better to suggest," Uncle
Virge said. "We'll never make it out of the atmosphere before they
catch us. Let's see what tricks our K'da warrior can pull out of his
hat."

Jack took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Very well," Draycos said, his breath uncomfortably hot on Jack's
cheek. On the aft display the fighters had finished their study of the
situation and were starting to move in. "Prepare . . . now."

Jack twisted the yoke all the way to the left, leaning into the
turn as the
Essenay
skidded hard to the side. At the same time,
he heard the short spitting hiss of one of their missiles being
launched.

"Draycos!" Uncle Virge shouted. "Idiot—you fired too low!"

Draycos didn't reply. The
Essenay
started to buck inside
its own shock wave; Jack leaned hard on the yoke to control it, his
full attention on the wind-skid indicators. If they went into a stall
now, the ship would be a sitting duck.

From the weapons board came another spitting hiss, followed
immediately by the flicker of the cockpit lights that meant the lasers
were firing. "Draycos, either learn to shoot straight or stop wasting
our missiles," Uncle Virge snapped. "All you're doing is—"

He broke off suddenly. Jack had just enough time to frown; and
then, from the corner of his eye he saw a brilliant flash. "What
happened?" he snapped, shifting his attention back to the aft display.
The explosion was already starting to fade, and in its light he could
see scattered bits of debris flying outward in all directions.

"I will be dipped in butter and rolled in bread crumbs," Uncle
Virge said, sounding awed. "It worked. It actually worked."

"What worked?" Jack demanded. "I wasn't watching. What happened?"

"Your gold-plated friend and his near-misses suckered one of the
fighters into flying straight into his friend, that's all," Uncle Virge
said. "Amazing."

"They were too close together," Draycos added, his forelegs
pulling back and settling flat onto Jack's skin. "The
chiv-nez
maneuver has always had that weakness."

On the ECHO section of the board, a green light flashed. "We're
clear of atmosphere," Jack announced. "Should I put us on ECHO?"

"By all means," Uncle Virge said. "Before they get something else
into the air after us."

Jack nodded and pulled the short lever. The shimmering rainbow
effect flashed in front of them and became the blue of hyperspace.

For the moment, at least, they were safe.

Dinner that evening was a simple affair.

It was simple for Jack, anyway. It was somewhat hit-or-miss for
Draycos. The dragon had never sampled human fare before, and even with
the
Essenay
's food synthesizer churning out small test samples
at its usual speed and efficiency, the process took quite awhile.

Fortunately, basic nutrition wasn't going to be a problem.
According to Draycos, the K'da body could synthesize all the vitamins
he needed from the basic proteins and carbohydrates of a standard human
diet. The trick was more a matter of finding something he wouldn't turn
up his pointy snout at.

They finally hit on a combination of hamburger and tuna fish,
mixed together with chocolate sauce and a dash of light-grade motor oil
from the
Essenay
's engine room. Draycos ate dog-style, scooping
the meal up with teeth and tongue from a soup bowl at one end of the
short galley table.

Jack sat at the other end, eating his cheeseburger and trying hard
not to think about the weird combination the dragon was chomping down.

When dinner was over, it was time to retire to the dayroom with a
glass of fizzy-soda for Jack and a bowl of orange-flavored water for
Draycos. For a long, hard discussion.

"I'm sorry," Jack said after the dragon had related his version of
the battle. "I know you want to get back at the people who killed your
friends. But I really can't help you."

"You misunderstand me, Jack Morgan," Draycos said. He was lying on
the dayroom floor on his stomach, his posture halfway between that of a
dog and a cat. "I do not seek revenge. I do not even seek justice."

"Then what
do
you want?" Jack asked.

"I have told you already," Draycos said. "I must find those who
used the Death against us."

"But if you don't want revenge—"

"Tell us more about this Death weapon," Uncle Virge's voice came
from the intercom speaker. "You say it kills other beings besides K'da
and Shontine. How do you know?"

"We have seen it used against others," Draycos said, the tip of
his tail lashing restlessly through the air behind him. "The Valahgua
are a vicious people who seek total domination of our region of space.
They have already destroyed one species and scattered two others who
stood in the way of that goal. The K'da and Shontine are only their
most recent victims. Why do you not believe me?"

The intercom gave a soft sigh. "We find it hard to believe for the
simple fact that it sounds unbelievable," Uncle Virge said candidly. "I
mean, come
on
. A weapon that goes straight through a ship's
hull without damaging it, yet kills everyone inside? How can that be
possible?"

"I do not know the science," Draycos said. "It is said that the
Death is a vibration of space itself, which seeks out the center core
of all living beings and destroys that connection and their harmony
with the universe."

"That must be the poet part of the poet-warrior coming out," Jack
murmured, sipping his fizzy-soda.

"I do not know the proper words," Draycos said impatiently. "I
know only the reality. If the Death has come to this region of space,
your people are in great danger. Why can you not understand that?"

"We understand just fine," Uncle Virge said quietly. "Trouble is,
there's something you're holding back. Something important that you're
not telling us."