Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier (19 page)

"Now you're talking," Jack said, pushing himself to his feet and
brushing the dirt off his hands. "Any idea how we manage that without
someone objecting?"

"We begin by opening the door," Draycos said. "Quietly, of course."

"Thanks," Jack said dryly, finding the door handle and easing it
open a crack. When it came to sneaking, at least, the noble K'da
warrior and the lowly human thief were thinking alike.

Everything seemed quiet outside. Jack stood without moving for a
moment, listening to the sounds of the night and watching all the
shadows he could see from his angle. Most of the faint background noise
seemed to be coming from the Agrist huts in the distance behind them,
with nothing closer. Nothing moved, either, at least nothing that he
could see. "Looks clear," he murmured. "We going for the Flying
Turtles?"

"Would you rather walk?"

Jack rolled his eyes. Draycos was in rare form tonight. Very
pleased with himself over the handcuffs, no doubt. "No, let's travel in
style, shall we?" he said. "You want to watch our backs?"

A weight formed on his shoulders in response, his jacket pulling
tight against his throat as Draycos's head rose up from his shoulder,
facing backwards. "Ready."

"Okay." Bracing himself, Jack pulled the door all the way open and
stepped into the doorway. He paused there for a moment, watching and
listening some more. Still nothing. Closing the door behind him, he
slipped out into the night.

He had just reached the first human building, the one where the
rest of Tango Five Zulu were handcuffed to the floor, when a slab of
light suddenly cut through the darkness ahead.

He dropped into a crouch at the corner, pressing himself against
the building. The light, he saw, was coming from the doorway of the
second human building. As he watched, two Shamshir soldiers came
striding out, supporting a staggering Li between them.

Jack felt his muscles tense. If they took her to the same hut
they'd just locked him into, the mustard was about to hit the wiener,
big time.

But no. They turned the other direction, their backs to him, and
headed toward another row of the small mud huts on the other side of
the building.

There was a soft hiss in his ear. "Easy," Jack soothed. "They're
not coming this way."

"She has been tortured," Draycos murmured back. There was an edge
of barely controlled fury in his voice. "Can you not see that?"

Jack frowned, studying Li's back as she stumbled along. "No, I
don't think so," he said. "I remember her looking like she was in shock
earlier. I think she's still just not clicking on all chips."

"She does not look right," Draycos insisted. "How can you be
certain?"

"Trust me," Jack assured him. "I've seen people scared out of
their braincases before."

He nodded toward Li and her escorts. "Besides, look where they're
taking her. They're putting her in isolation, same as they did me. That
proves she wasn't tortured." "I do not understand."

Jack sighed. "They're trying to get one of us to break. Right? So
they want the ones who are left to be as scared as possible. If they'd
really tortured Li, they'd put her back in with the others instead of
off by herself." "Why?"

"So everyone could see firsthand all the gory details," Jack said.
"The more scared they are when their turns come, the more likely
they'll be to give Lieutenant Cue Ball what he wants."

Draycos's tongue flicked out restlessly. "They put you by
yourselves so as to frighten the others?"

"You got it," Jack said. "See, when people keep getting taken away
and no one comes back, the ones who are left start wondering what's
happened to them. Sometimes that's a whole lot scarier than anything
they could dream up on their own."

Draycos was silent a moment. "It is barbaric."

"I suppose," Jack admitted. "But it's better than beating the sand
out of someone. Don't your people ever use psychological warfare?"

"I do not know that term," Draycos said stiffly. "But if it is
like this, I am certain we do not."

"Figures," Jack murmured. Sometimes the K'da were too noble for
their own good.

The two Shamshir emerged from the hut, minus Li, and turned
purposefully toward the building Jack was crouched beside. Going to
collect the next contestant in Lieutenant Cue Ball's little game, no
doubt. "Keep quiet," he warned Draycos, easing back from the corner out
of their sight. "And get ready."

The soldiers reached the door and disappeared inside.

And the second they were out of sight, Jack sprinted for the
Flying Turtle they'd been brought here in.

He had estimated he would have about a minute to pop the hatchway
and get inside before the soldiers reappeared. As it turned out, the
hatchway wasn't locked, and he made it with a good twenty seconds to
spare. He was already in the cockpit, studying the control board, when
the soldiers came back outside.

With Alison Kayna striding along between them.

"They have taken Alison," Draycos murmured, his head rising from
Jack's shoulder for a better look.

"Yeah, I saw," Jack grunted, still sorting out the board. This
thing wasn't going to fly much like the
Essenay
, but the
controls were similar enough. "Was there something you wanted me to do
about it?"

"I was merely observing," Draycos said mildly. "She is not being
treated as a fellow Shamshir soldier."

Jack looked up again. The dragon was right. As far as he could
tell, she was being marched along the same way he had been earlier,
like any other prisoner Lieutenant Cue Ball was hoping to squeeze for
information. "Okay, so maybe it isn't the Shamshir she's working for,"
he conceded. "Maybe it's some other group. Maybe she scrambled the
computer codes so that she could be the only one who could pull out the
data for them."

"Why?"

"How should I know?" Jack growled. "Maybe she was hired to get in
good with the Shamshir. Maybe she was hired to chase the Whinyard's
Edge off Sunright. Maybe she just wants to make a cash deal, like I
tried to."

Alison and the soldiers disappeared into the building. "And right
now, I don't much care," Jack added, keying for startup. "All I want is
to get out of here."

The weight on his shoulder shifted as Draycos looked around the
cockpit. "Will there not be a recognition code required to start the
engines?"

"Probably." Jack gestured to the board. "Conveniently for us, the
pilot left this one on standby. I was hoping he had."

Draycos cocked his head. "Careless of him."

"Agreed," Jack said. "But like you said, these guys aren't really
soldiers."

He eased in the lifters, and the Flying Turtle rose gently into
the sky. "Keep your claws crossed," he warned. "If anyone's going to
object, now's the time they're going to do it."

But no one challenged them as they headed off into the night. No
one challenged, or signaled, or even seemed to notice. Jack kept the
transport close to the ground, putting distance between them and
Dahtill City as quickly as he dared, wondering how in the world it was
they were getting away so easily.

"It would seem that proper military procedure does not exist
here," Draycos commented. "Perhaps the Agri have not allowed their city
to be turned into a base for the Shamshir."

"Maybe," Jack said. "Or maybe it's simpler. If this is where the
mine is that everybody wants, neither side will want to have any
serious fighting nearby."

"Perhaps." Draycos's head rose up higher, his snout pointing past
Jack's nose to the left. "Could that be the mine?"

Jack looked that direction. A mile or so past the edge of the city
were three dim structures. The center one was much taller than the
others, clearly built to house the kind of crane and digging equipment
necessary for a deep-ground mine shaft. The other two buildings seemed
to be support structures, probably containing supplies and extra
equipment. There were only a few lights in evidence, just enough to
keep aircraft from running into them. Apparently, the Agri weren't
working a night shift.

"Probably," he confirmed. "I seem to remember that daublite is
usually deep enough that you have to sink a pretty long shaft to get
anywhere near it."

"That sounds expensive."

"Expensive and time-consuming both," Jack agreed.

"The Agri have probably been at this project for years. Maybe even
generations."

"Only to then have others try to steal it away from them," Draycos
said, sounding disgusted. "Those structures are built over vertical
shafts, then?"

"Just the one in the middle," Jack said. "It looks like the
pictures I've seen of deep mines."

"A delicate operation," Draycos murmured. "Easily destroyed by
accident, or by falling debris collapsing the shaft. I can understand
why they do not wish battles nearby."

His head swiveled back toward the view ahead. "This is not the
direction to Mer'seb," he said. "From Dahtill City we must turn
southwest."

"Right," Jack agreed. "
If
we were heading for Mer'seb. But
we're not. We're going back to Kilo Seven."

The dragon's head pulled far enough away from Jack's skin that he
could peer at his face. "Is that wise?"

Jack snorted. "In my occasionally humble opinion, 'wise' hasn't
been part of the equation since we started this whole job," he said.
"But yes, I think it'll get us what we want."

"Explain it to me."

And convince him that Jack was acting like a properly noble K'da
warrior? Probably. "First off, the only things the Shamshir took were
our squad's own computers," Jack said. "That means all the rest of the
Edge stuff is still there. Computers
and
comm equipment.
Alison, or whoever, couldn't possibly have sabotaged all of it."

"Then your codes will still allow you access."

"Right," Jack nodded. "So the first thing we'll do is call Mer'seb
and whistle up a rescue team. After that, we'll tap into their
mainframe and try to pull up the Djinn-90 information that was the
reason we came here in the first place."

"You will do that directly?" Draycos asked. "I thought your plan
was to use the
Essenay
's equipment and thereby protect yourself
from discovery."

"It was," Jack said. "Problem is, the
Essenay
is way to
the south somewhere right now."

"Can you not summon it with your comm clip?"

Jack shook his head. "If Uncle Virge is still waiting at November
Six, he's way out of comm clip range."

"What about the transmitter in this vehicle? It is more powerful
than your comm clip. Could you not tune it to the correct frequency?"

"Sure, but then the conversation wouldn't be encrypted," Jack
pointed out. "That means anyone and his toy poodle Mitsy would be able
to listen in."

"Perhaps we can use another form of coding," Draycos suggested.

"I don't know how," Jack said. "But it doesn't really matter. I
wanted to do a gentle tap into their records so that I could then do a
quiet sneak away. But with the Shamshir raid, there's no chance of a
quiet sneak anyway. I might as well just bulldoze my way into their
mainframe, pull the records, and make a run for it."

"With the
Essenay
still at November Six?"

"Right, but we've got this now," Jack reminded him, tapping the
edge of the control panel. "If we're quick, we should be able to get
ourselves down to Uncle Virge before the balloon goes up."

Draycos digested all that. "And you believe you will be able to
locate the Kilo Seven outpost?"

"Piece of Boston cream pie." Jack pointed to one of the displays
on the board. "Along with not shutting down the transport, the pilot
also didn't bother to erase the course memory."

"I see," Draycos murmured. "Convenient."

"And sloppy," Jack said. "But then, they're not real soldiers, are
they?"

It had taken Lieutenant Cue Ball fifteen minutes to get them from
Kilo Seven to Dahtill City. Ten minutes into the return flight, just as
Jack was thinking about cutting their altitude a little, the comm
suddenly twittered. "About time," he muttered. "Draycos, how are you at
imitating voices?"

"Not very good, I'm afraid," the dragon said.

"Me, neither," Jack said, reaching for the transmission switch.
"But maybe I can buy us at least a little more time."

He keyed on the microphone. "Yeah, what do you want?" he demanded
in the best imitation of Lieutenant Cue Ball's voice he could manage.

But it wasn't, as he'd expected, some Shamshir flunky wanting to
know who had borrowed their transport. "Flying Turtle 505, identify
yourself," came an all-too-familiar voice.

Draycos's ears went straight up. "It is Sergeant Grisko," he
whispered in Jack's ear.

Jack nodded, feeling suddenly limp with relief. The good guys had
finally arrived.

Or at least, the side that wasn't going to be shooting at him had
arrived. There were no actual good guys anywhere in this game. "Sir,
this is Private Montana," he said, switching back to his normal voice.
"Squad Tango Five Zulu. Our group was captured by the Shamshir. I've
just escaped."

"Really," Grisko said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, sir," Jack said. "But they've still got the others. We
have to get them out."

"Of course," Grisko said. "Come on in and we'll set something up.
You can fly that thing all right?"

"Reasonably well, yes, sir."

"And you're all strapped in?"

"Yes, sir," Jack said, frowning at the speaker. That was a strange
question. Come to think of it, Grisko's whole voice was sounding
strange. "Shall I put down where our Lynx landed earlier?"

"Sounds good," Grisko said. "Keep 'er steady, and come on in."

The speaker clicked off. "Okay," Jack said, shutting off the comm
at his end. "We're set."