Dragonback 06 Dragon and Liberator (25 page)

Two minutes later, as Jack finished setting up his additional
sabotage, the word came through.

"It's here," Draycos's voice murmured from his comm clip. "Eight
guards on duty, all Brummgas, with another bank of video displays
showing the approaches and the other weapon's room."

"Any humans or Valahgua in sight?" Jack asked.

"Neither here nor in the corridor," Draycos confirmed. "And the
weapon is definitely pointed at the other one."

Jack smiled grimly. He'd called it, all right. Langston's Death
weapon was the bait, and this one was the hunter.

Only the Valahgua had been smart enough to hedge their bets in the
other direction. If Draycos went for the more obvious bait, fine. But
if he somehow sniffed out the location of this one, the result would be
the same. The minute he appeared at either end of the shooting gallery,
the other end would open fire.

No doubt the Valahgua had given clear and explicit instructions to
the Brummgas manning the weapons. Though they'd possibly neglected to
mention the fact that each group was in the other's sights.

But plans and instructions had a bad tendency to change in
midstream. The Valahgua, clearly uninterested in risking their own
precious skins, had pulled back to a cautious distance and left the
front lines to the Brummgas.

That mistake was going to cost them.

"Okay," Jack said, working his way back to his original spot and
the power line switch he'd wired into—now—three different consoles.
"Touch-off in fifteen seconds, with diversion kicking in probably three
minutes later. Listen for the signal, and don't go to sleep on me."

"Don't worry," Draycos said dryly. "And be careful."

"You, too."

Jack checked his pockets, making sure he had the two wire-wrapped
bottles he'd managed to rig in the past few minutes. There was nothing
but water in them, but the Valahgua leaning over their monitors
wouldn't know that. Then, opening his flight suit collar to midchest
level, he crossed his fingers and flipped his switch.

It was reasonably spectacular, as such things went. There was a
multiple flash of muted sparks from the various sets of rigged wires,
though most of the action was taking place up inside the consoles where
he couldn't get much of a view. There was a soft hiss from one of the
consoles, accompanied by the acrid stink of burned insulation and
electronics.

And above him, dimly heard through the thick deck, the control
complex erupted in chaos.

Thirty seconds later he was at the far end of the crawl space.
With multiple footsteps now thudding back and forth over his head, he
pushed open an access panel and climbed through into the midaft
expansion conduit.

Two minutes after that, he had made it back into the starboard
tween gap. "Here we go," he murmured toward his comm clip as he closed
the panel behind him. "Look sharp."

Turning on his light, he headed forward at a dead run. Fifty yards
ahead, Langston and his team of Brummgas were waiting expectantly
around their Death weapon. Between Jack and them were the spy cameras
the Valahgua had planted inside the tween gap one room over from them.

One room over from the waiting Death weapon. Distantly, Jack
wondered whether anyone would be watching the camera monitors.

Draycos's count had just reached three minutes when the Brummgas
in the room beneath him reacted. "There!" one grunted, pointing toward
the bank of displays. "The boy!"

One of the others slammed a massive hand across the room's
intercom switch. "Control; Mrishpaw," he called. "The boy is in the
hull-gap near the starboard weapons bays."

There was no reply. Draycos peered through the grate as Jack's
image hurried up to the camera. His foot loomed suddenly huge—

Abruptly, the image gave a wild twist and went black. The other
monitor's image lasted perhaps half a second longer; then it, too,
gyrated and went black.

"Control, the boy has destroyed the starboard cameras, Mrishpaw
reported urgently. "Instructions?"

The intercom remained silent. But through the comm clip attached
to his ear Draycos now heard a second call. "Control, Langston,"
Langston's voice came faintly from the comm clip hidden in the
ventilation duct. "Morgan's in the hull-gap—starboard side near the
weapons bays—and he's wrecked the cameras. Repeat: we've lost him."

Below Draycos, the two Brummgas at the Death's controls looked
uncertainly at each other. Apparently, their instructions hadn't
included this possibility. "Control; Mrishpaw," Mrishpaw tried again.
"The boy is somewhere in the hull-gap, perhaps still near the starboard
weapons bays. Instructions?"

"Control," a dark voice came over the speaker. "Was the K'da with
him?"

Draycos felt a shiver of anger and disgust ripple through his
scales.
That
was a voice and a tone he knew all too well.

Whatever damage Jack's sabotage had inflicted on the control
complex, at least one of the Valahgua was still on top of the situation.

"I could not see him," Mrishpaw said, a note of relief in his
voice. Finally, someone was there to tell him what to do.

"Instructions?" one of the Brummgas at the Death's controls called.

For a few seconds the speaker was silent. Draycos felt his claws
sliding restlessly in and out of their sheaths as he watched the
Brummgas fidgeting below him. If Jack's attack on the control complex
had made the Valahgua too nervous, they might take the cautious way out
and simply order the Death to be swept across the ship's bow.

If they did, Jack would die.

"Watch the monitors," the Valahgua ordered. "Let me know when the
boy reappears."

Draycos breathed a silent sigh of relief. So the Lordover wasn't
going to panic and blindly open fire.

But Draycos could also hear the suspicion in his voice. He knew
there was some sort of plan going on here, and he was determined not to
be taken in by it.

Unfortunately for him, he would be measuring the possibilities
against what he knew about K'da battle tactics. Jack's conman tactics
might be something new.

"Control; Langston," Langston's voice came again in Draycos's ear.
"Repeating: Morgan has passed by the starboard weapons bays and we've
lost him. Do you have any orders?"

There was no answer. Either the Lordover was ignoring him or else
Jack's sabotage had damaged the intercom to that area of the ship.

"I see him!" one of the Brummgas called, stabbing a finger at one
of the other monitors. "There!"

"Lordover, the boy has reappeared," Mrishpaw said excitedly, "He
is approaching the port-side weapons bay cameras."

"And he is carrying something," the first Brummga added, leaning
close to the monitor. "Two bottles with something wrapped around their
necks."

"They see you, Jack," Draycos murmured toward his comm clip. "Get
ready."

"Control; Langston," Langston's voice came again, starting to
sound agitated. "Morgan's coming up on the port-side weapons bays.
Control, do you copy?"

Now
, Draycos silently urged him.
Do it now
.

"Blast it," Langston snarled. "Intercom must be out. Vimpru—you
and Galcra find a working intercom and let control know that Morgan's
on the loose."

Draycos held his breath. If the two Brummgas obeyed Langston's
order . . .

"We cannot leave," Vimpru said flatly. "Our orders are to stay and
guard the weapon."

"Well, blast you, too," Langston snarled. "Fine—
I'll
go."

Draycos listened hard, and a moment later heard the sound of the
door opening and closing. "He's clear," he murmured into his comm clip.

"Bottoms up," Jack murmured back.

Draycos peered through the grille at the monitors. The tiny figure
that was Jack moved closer to the cameras, filling one of two displays
as he leaned over it.

And suddenly both displays went black.

"He has destroyed the port-side cameras as well," Mrishpaw said
urgently into the intercom. "Instructions?"

"Hold position," the Valahguan voice said, and there was no
mistaking the satisfaction there.

Because he'd figured it out. Leaning over the camera with his
flight suit collar open, Jack had clearly demonstrated that Draycos
wasn't riding his skin.

And if Jack was approaching the port-side weapons bay, where the
second Death weapon had been located until a few hours ago, Draycos
must therefore be preparing to attack the starboard weapon. A
straightforward, coordinated two-prong attack, of the sort the Valahgua
had seen a thousand times before.

Or else possibly Draycos was being subtle, with Jack merely a
diversion to get their attention while Draycos launched a single-prong
attack.

Fortunately, it didn't matter which of those conclusions the
Valahgua jumped to. Jack's destruction of the starboard cameras as he
passed was all the confirmation he needed that Draycos was lurking in
the tween gap waiting for the moment to attack the bait.

And with the trap already set and primed, the Valahgua could
afford the minor effort required to also eliminate the lesser of his
two enemies. "Prepare to fire," the Valahgua ordered Mrishpaw. "As soon
as the K'da has reached the weapon."

The voice went silent; and then, from the hidden comm clip, the
voice came again. "Readjust your aim to the boy's last position," he
ordered Langston's crew. "Fire on my command."

"I obey," the response came. On the monitor below him, Draycos saw
two of the Brummgas grab the front end of the other Death weapon and
begin to swing it ponderously toward the port-side weapons bay.

And as its aim moved away from the room below him, Draycos pounced.

He shoved open the grille with his front paws and pushed the
duct's back wall with his hind paws, hurling himself out of the opening
like a black-scaled missile. The Brummgas had just enough time to start
to turn, their mouths dropping open.

And then Draycos was among them, slashing with his paws to stagger
back the nearest alien, then slapping away the one behind him, clearing
himself a path to the obscene killing machine mounted in the center of
the room. From the intercom speaker he heard a Valahguan scream of
fury, and through his comm clip he heard the Lordover howling at the
Brummgas in the other room to stop what they were doing and turn the
Death back toward the threat that had suddenly appeared behind them.

But it was already too late. Even as the Brummgas threw their
weight against the weapon's muzzle, Draycos reached the center of his
room. He ducked beneath the rear of the Death and came back up behind
it.

And twisting back around to face the control panel, he keyed the
firing button.

From its muzzle came a sickly yellow flash, and the
all-too-familiar cone of violet light lanced out like the limb of some
alien creature stretching out toward its prey. The violet light hit the
bulkhead, and in his mind's eye Draycos could see it passing through
the next room, and the next, and the next.

And on the monitor, the Brummgas still trying to wrestle the other
Death weapon back into place collapsed to the deck.

The rest of the Brummgas in Draycos's room had recovered from
their shock and were starting forward. But Draycos didn't have time to
deal with them now. Giving the Death a quick but crippling double
slash, he ducked under the charging Brummgas and made for the door. A
flick of one paw at the control, a blind back-forth whipping of his
tail to brush back pursuit, and as the door opened he slipped out.

He set off down the corridor at a dead run. All around him, the
various room and corridor intercoms were alive with Valahguan and human
voices shouting orders as they tried to get their troops to the scene.

But all the troops had been carefully moved out of the trap's line
of fire, and it was an eternity too late to bring them back. Draycos
took the corridor's turns at full speed, his paws climbing halfway up
the walls as he did so.

Seconds later, he stood beside the fourth and final Death weapon.

Draycos had seen countless dead bodies during his people's war
against the Valahgua. But there was something about bodies killed by
the Death that especially sickened him. Keeping his eyes away from
them, he slashed at the weapon itself, expending his fury and tension
as he turned it into scrap metal.

"Draycos?" Jack's voice came in his ear.

Draycos took a careful breath. "I'm all right," he assured the
other. "Get back to base. I'll meet you there."

"Make it quick," Jack warned. "I'm guessing they're not too happy
with us just now."

Draycos looked down at the remains of the Death, scattered over
the remains of the Brummgas the Death had killed.

The Brummgas
he
had killed with the Death.

Whatever is necessary
. . .

"No," he agreed quietly. "I don't think they're happy with us at
all."

After only two months of being fully awake, as Alison sometimes
referred to it, Taneem didn't consider herself very good at reading
human expressions. But after these last few days aboard the
Advocatus
Diaboli
, she
was
getting reasonably good at identifying
anger.

And Neverlin was angry. Probably as angry as she'd ever seen a
human being get.

"Unacceptable, Lieutenant," he ground out. He was standing behind
his desk, glaring across the polished surface at the young man standing
stiffly in front of him. "Completely unacceptable."

"I agree, sir," the other said, his voice as stiff as his body.
"The conduct and performance of the Brummgas and Valahgua left a great
deal to be desired."

"That's not what I meant." Neverlin glared at Frost, who was
standing silently at the other side of Neverlin's desk, then shifted
the glare to Harper, standing a little ways to Frost's right. "But as
long as we're on the subject. Harper?"