Dragonback 06 Dragon and Liberator (34 page)

His eardrums fluttered at the sudden change in pressure as the air
in the preparation room began to flow into the vacuum of the hangar
bay. Draycos waited, crouched against the wind, hoping the oxygen from
the bottles he'd opened would be enough to fill the bay.

It was. A few seconds later, as the pressure between the two areas
evened out and the wind slowed to a stop, he keyed open the inner door.

Jack was watching anxiously as Draycos stepped into the bay. The
boy's worried look changed to one of relief as Draycos hurried over to
him. "I was hoping all that wind was your doing," Jack's voice came
faintly through the helmet.

"All part of the plan," Draycos assured him. Five more slashes of
his claws, and Jack was no longer anchored to the bulkhead.

"It's always nice when these plans work," Jack agreed as he popped
off his helmet. "Come aboard and let's get out of here."

Draycos touched the boy's neck and slithered onto his skin. Jack
hurried toward the main hatch controls, putting his helmet back on as
he jogged across the bay. He reached the controls, double-checked his
helmet seal, and flipped up the opening switch's safety cover. "Get
ready, Uncle Virge," he called. "Here we come."

"Ready, Jack lad."

Getting a grip on the handhold, Jack threw the switch.

The hatch slid open, creating an instant hurricane as the air
Draycos had just poured into the bay went pouring right back out again.
Jack held on gamely until the wind had stopped, then looked out.

Draycos slid up his neck and looked out, too. The
Essenay
was right outside the hatch, pacing the carrier no more than fifty
yards away, its hatch wide open.
I guess we jump
? Jack asked.

Yes, but not too fast
, Draycos said.
Remember that the
only thing available to slow us down is the airlock's back wall
.

Got it
, Jack said dryly. Taking a deep breath, he bent his
knees, leaned halfway out of the hatchway, and shoved off.

"The
Essenay
is still pacing the carrier," the captain
reported. "No indications yet that the prisoner has escaped."

"That won't last long," Neverlin growled, pounding his fist
rhythmically on the edge of the captain's chair back. "All Morgan has
to do is blow the hatch, suit up, and unweld the kid from the bulkhead."

"And then get to the edge of the jamming bubble in time to warn
the refugees," Frost said. "Maybe we
should
detach one of the
Djinn-90s from Backstop and have it deal with them."

"If the Hammerfall Leaders are confused by one ship out of five
being diverted, they have no business being the leaders of anything,"
Neverlin agreed. "Do it."

"Just a minute," Alison spoke up, leaning toward the display. "Are
we sure Virgil Morgan is actually aboard that ship?"

"If it's not Morgan, who is it?" Frost retorted.

"Maybe no one," Alison said. This was one of Jack's deepest
secrets, she knew, and she felt a little funny about revealing it
without his permission.

But she needed to buy him some time, and making his situation look
more hopeless than it really was might do the trick. "I keep thinking
about the fact that in all the time I flew with him Jack never once
called or met up with his uncle."

"Then who's flying the
Essenay
?" Frost persisted.

"I don't know," Alison said. "But didn't Jack say his parents had
been Judge-Paladins?"

"I'll be cursed," Frost breathed, his anger and impatience
suddenly gone. "I'll be double cursed. That's his
parents' old ship
.
Morgan must have stolen it the same time he hooked up with the kid."

Neverlin barked a short laugh. "Well, well. A Judge-Paladin ship,
eh? No wonder we haven't been able to find Virgil Morgan all these
months."

"Explain," the Valahgua demanded.

"We couldn't find him because he isn't aboard that ship," Neverlin
said. "Not anymore. He's dead or just gone—it doesn't really matter
which."

He pointed to the display. "What matters is that that ship is
being run by a very sophisticated computer."

He smiled maliciously. "And a computer can't suit up and cut Jack
free."

"Which means Jack is still out of the picture," Frost said. "He'll
stay chained to the bulkhead until all this is over and we go back and
get him."

"Assuming he lives that long," Neverlin said. "If his ship has
managed to kill all the Brummgas, he and the K'da will die as soon as
their current air tank runs out."

Neverlin looked at Alison. "In which case we'll try to keep one of
the civilian refugee ships intact for your father," he added.

"I'd appreciate that," Alison said, breathing a quiet sigh of
relief. Finally, something she'd done had worked.

"There—see," the Lordhighest put in. "They have increased speed.
The warships are coming to our aid. They will now be the first to die."

"Patience, Lordhighest," Neverlin said calmly. With Jack and
Draycos off the threat list, his plan was back on track again. "We're
going to allow those six ships to go past us unharmed. Perhaps we'll
let the next batch through, too, assuming the Lordover on the
Foxwolf
is able to persuade them to send a second group. We want as many enemy
ships out of position before we show what we have waiting."

Alison gazed at the displays, estimating times and distances. If
every ship kept to its same course and speed, she realized with a
sinking feeling, Neverlin's plan was going to work beautifully. Those
six K'da/Shontine warships would be completely out of the fight by the
time the
Foxwolf
and
Advocatus Diaboli
opened up with
their Death weapons. If the K'da and Shontine detached another group of
warships as well, Neverlin could probably take out a good percentage of
the remaining defenders before they even realized what they were facing.

And then, as she watched, another group of ten K'da/Shontine
warships moved away from the refugee fleet. Forming up into a loose
combat array, they started forward.

And Alison came to a decision.

"I'll be back in a minute," she said, heading for the bridge door.

No one bothered to answer. With their attention on their incoming
prey, possibly no one even heard her. Leaving the bridge, she headed
aft.

Back on Brum-a-dum she had promised Taneem she would help protect
Draycos's people. Up to now, everything she'd done toward that goal had
been relatively safe and easy and ineffective. But all of that was
about to change.

All of it.

The trip across the fifty-yard gap seemed to Jack to take forever.
But then, all at once, the
Essenay
's open hatchway loomed in
front of him.

And then he was through the opening and flying across the airlock
way faster than he'd realized he was going. He threw out his arms and
braced himself.

He hit the far wall, thankfully not as hard as he'd expected. His
arms took the impact with ease, and even as he bounced back again he
felt the flow of air against his vac suit as Uncle Virge closed the
hatch behind him and started filling the airlock.

"Are you all right, Jack lad?" the computer's voice came as Jack
unfastened his helmet. He'd barely gotten it off before Draycos leaped
out of his collar and took off toward the cockpit. "Langston said
Harper got killed ramming the
Advocatus Diaboli
—"

"Later," Jack interrupted. Stripping off the vac suit, he headed|
after Draycos.

He was halfway to the cockpit before Uncle Virge's last comment
suddenly registered.

Harper had been
killed
?

But there was no time to think about that now. He and Draycos had
a fleet to save.

Jack reached the cockpit to find Draycos standing behind the
pilot's seat, his forepaws resting on the back of the chair, his long
neck moving back and forth as he scanned the
Essenay
's
displays. "How's it look?" Jack asked, slipping past him and sitting
down.

"The fleet's still far out of the Death's range," Draycos said.
"But several of the warships have left position and are moving forward.
They seem to be angling toward three areas to the rear of the
Advocatus
Diaboli
."

"Great," Jack grunted, glancing over the
Essenay
's systems
as he strapped in. The only ships he could see ahead of them were the
Advocatus
Diaboli
, the
Foxwolf
, and five of Frost's Djinn-90s. The
latter, to Jack's mild surprise, had spread themselves wide to all
sides instead of flying in a group between him and two bigger ships.
"Uncle Virge, do you have a tag on the rest of Neverlin's fleet?"

"They're about a thousand miles behind us," Uncle Virge said. "In
three different groups, like Draycos said. All three groups are moving
up fast."

"Pretending they're chasing the poor defenseless
Foxwolf
and
Advocatus Diaboli
," Jack said, nodding grimly. "Uncle
Virgil and I ran this scam I don't know how many times."

"How do we defeat it?" Draycos asked.

"All it takes is a toot on the whistle," Jack said, keying the
long-range transmitter. "K'da/Shontine fleet, this is the
Essenay
,"
he said. "Please respond."

There was no answer. "K'da/Shontine refugee fleet, this is Jack
Morgan aboard the
Essenay
," Jack tried again. "I have someone
here who needs to speak to you." He gestured Draycos toward the
microphone. "Draycos?"

Draycos let loose with a torrent of alien speech. Jack listened in
fascination at the flow of the words, regretting the fact that he
wouldn't be able to understand and therefore fully appreciate the
astonishment that would undoubtedly be part of the fleet's response.

But there was no response, astonished or otherwise. "Uncle Virge?"
he asked.

"Radio's working perfectly, Jack lad," Uncle Virge assured him.
"Neverlin must be jamming or bubbling the signal."

"Of course he is," Jack said, disgusted with himself for not
having realized that sooner. "That's why those five Djinn-90s are
flying wide—they're adding their own jamming to the mix."

"What method of jamming is he using?" Draycos asked.

"Either a blank bubble or a jamming static field," Uncle Virge
said. "I can't tell which from this distance. A bubble absorbs or
scatters all radio signals passing through it, while a static field
simply broadcasts noise on all frequencies so as to drown out
everything else."

"It's probably a bubble," Jack said. "It's classier and a lot more
subtle. It's also easier to keep your own communications open with a
bubble than it is with static."

"If the
Advocatus Diaboli
is able to signal through the
bubble, does that mean we can do the same if we use its frequency and
pattern?" Draycos asked.

"In theory, yes," Jack said. "In practice, we'll never find the
pattern in time."

"Then what do we do?"

Jack gazed out the canopy at the drive glows ahead in the
distance. "We get past the bubble," he said, getting a grip on the
control yoke and firing up the main drive. "And since those Djinn-90s
were kind enough to pull way out to the sides out of the way, it looks
like our best bet will be to go straight up the middle."

"Up the
middle
?" Uncle Virge echoed. "Jack, you don't
mean—?"

"I sure do," Jack confirmed as he ran the drive to full power.
"We're taking this crate right up the
Advocatus Diaboli
's
tailpipe."

The
Advocatus Diaboli
's living areas were deserted as
Alison made her way aft from the bridge.

Not surprising, really. All of the crew were at their emergency
stations, and all the Malison Ring mercenaries still on board were
guarding the bridge, the Death, and other vital areas.

One of those areas was Neverlin's office, she saw as she rounded
the final corner and came within sight of the office door. There were
three men on duty: two flanking the door, the third holding station
down the corridor halfway between the office and Alison.

There was no way she could take out all three of them, positioned
as they were, at once, not even with Taneem to help. Alison would have
to play it another way.

"I need to get into Mr. Neverlin's office," she announced as she
strode forward.

The nearest of the guards stirred, as if preparing to move into
her path. Alison gave him a brief, lofty look, and he seemed to think
better of it. "It's a thumbprint lock, Ms. Davi," he said instead.

"I know," Alison said. "He's already programmed me in."

The other's lip twitched. "Colonel Frost left orders that no one
was to be allowed near the office."

"Colonel Frost isn't in charge of Mr. Neverlin's office," Alison
countered as she strode past him. "You can check with Mr. Neverlin if
you want."

She got two more steps before the sergeant at the door worked
through his own hesitation and nodded to the man now behind Alison.
"Give him a call, Halberd," he said.

Alison glanced back over her shoulder as the mercenary tapped his
comm clip. "Halberd for Mr. Neverlin," he called.

Alison kept going, forcing herself to maintain a calm, even pace.
Neverlin hadn't been wearing a comm clip, which meant Halberd's call
would have to go through one of the
Advocatus Diaboli
's crew,
all of whom were rather busy right now. With luck, that would give her
the time she needed.

She reached the door and stepped between the two guards, "A
minute, please, Ms. Davi," the sergeant said, holding his hand out to
block her as she lifted her right thumb toward the waist-high reader.

"Fine," Alison said with an annoyed sigh. Turning around, she
leaned her back against the door.

And as she did, she pressed her left thumb against the base of her
left forefinger and slid her implanted lockpick out from beneath the
fingernail. Keeping the hand behind her back, she eased the pick into
the programming notch beneath the reader.