Dragon And Soldier

Chapter 17

"Walk inside," a hard, flat voice growled from somewhere to his right. "No noise."

Carefully, trying not to make anything that looked like a suspicious move, Jack turned his head that direction.

Standing in the corner of the room, positioned where he could guard the doorway Jack was still standing in, was a Brummga.

Jack stared at the wide alien, his mouth dropping open a little. Suddenly, it was like he'd gone back in time to the ruins of the Havenseeker and his first meeting with Draycos.

But this Brummga wasn't wearing the same mismatched collection of clothing and combat gear. He was dressed in the same camouflage outfit as the other Shamshir mercenaries, with the same curved-sword patch on his shoulder. And the gun he was holding was smaller and sleeker than the shiny black monstrosity the other Brummga had pointed at Jack back then.

Different Brummga. Different group.

Worse situation.

The Brummga twitched his weapon, emphasizing his order. Shaking away the uncomfortable feeling of deja vu, Jack took another step into the room. Just to prove he knew how to behave in a situation like this, he carefully closed the door behind him.

"Anyone else?" one of the men across the room asked.

Jack opened his mouth to tell him he had no idea— "Okay," the man said. "Keep sharp."

Jack closed his mouth again. Of course; the man hadn't been asking him. He'd been talking to a spotter outside on a comm clip.

For a moment he wondered if the spotter might have caught a glimpse of Draycos. Maybe even have seen the dragon go two-dimensional and slide onto Jack's skin.

But no. If he had, he surely would have said something. And the guy in here didn't seem like he was that good of an actor.

"This the last of your tech squad?" one of the other men asked, slinging his gun over his shoulder and striding over to Jack. He had thrown back the hood of his camo jacket, and Jack could see that his head was totally bald beneath it. Like a billiard cue ball with a face painted on it, he thought irreverently.

"Yeah, that's him," Jommy said, his voice low and surly. "He was on sentry duty."

"Didn't do a very good job," Cue Ball commented, taking Jack's Gompers rifle away from him.

Jack thought about it a second and decided he wasn't going to let that one pass. "Oh, I don't know," he objected calmly. "I spotted the eight guys you've got coming in from the south."

He had the minor satisfaction of seeing Cue Ball's face flicker with surprise. "Sure you did," the other said suspiciously. "How many of them were human?"

There were five quick taps on the back of Jack's arm. "Five," Jack said. "Why? You taking inventory?"

Cue Ball snorted. "Get over there," he growled, jerking his head toward the other teens. "Join your buddies."

Jack did as he was told, crossing the room and kneeling down between Brinkster and Li. He could feel Brinkster's body trembling where her shoulder touched his. Li, on his other side, seemed in shock, as if refusing to believe this was really happening.

"Come on, you know the drill," Cue Ball prompted, jabbing Jack's own gun into the back of his neck. "Hands on your head; fingers laced together."

Again Jack obeyed, glancing around at the others. Jommy's surly tone, he could see now, hadn't been entirely honest. The kid was angry, all right, and trying hard to look brave and tough. But he was also scared. Very scared.

Eleven-year-old Rogan Mbusu wasn't even trying to put up a good front. He was crying openly, tears streaming down his cheeks, his body shaking with silent sobs. Beside him, Alison knelt without moving, her face expressionless.

Stunned by it all, like Li? Or was she simply better at burying her emotions than the others?

It was only then that he realized Alison was staring back at him. Staring very intently.

He frowned back at her. Was she trying to ask him something? Tell him something?

Concentrating on Alison, he jerked as a pair of hard hands slipped around his neck. Before he could react further, the hands were gone.

Leaving something hard and cold snugged up around his throat.

"All right, listen up," Cue Ball said. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the man fasten a gray metal collar around Li's neck. "These things are called control collars." He moved on to Alison. "In case the famous Whinyard's Edge ten-day training course didn't cover them, let me explain. Their sole purpose in life is to choke the living daylights out of you if you try to run or make trouble."

He stepped behind Rogan. The kid nearly collapsed at his touch; Cue Ball merely propped him up with one hand and put on his collar with the other. "They can get triggered one of two ways," he said. "First, if you wander too far from the tether marker. One of us has that. I'm not going to tell you which one."

He slid on Jommy's collar. "The other way is for one of us to fire 'em directly. That'll happen if we decide somewhere along the way that you're not worth the trouble of taking back with us. And we're easily convinced. So don't try."

"This guy's just a bundle of charm," Jack muttered under his breath.

Cue Ball, now standing behind Brinkster, apparently had good ears. The next thing Jack knew, the big man had slapped him hard against the side of his head. "Watch your mouth, kid," he growled.

Jack grimaced. "Yes, sir," he said, trying to sound meek and subdued and feeling annoyed with himself. He'd forgotten Uncle Virgil's first rule of being a prisoner: always look as helpless and harmless as you possibly can. It tended to make the enemy overlook you.

And if there was one thing he really wanted right now it was to be overlooked.

"One more thing," Cue Ball added as he snapped Brinkster's collar around her neck. "All six of these collars are keyed together. Plus side for us: we don't have to fumble for six different buttons if we have to drop a troublemaker. Minus side for you: if one of you gets the chop, all of you do. Think about that if you're tempted to be a hero."

"We're set here, Lieutenant," one of the other men reported.

Jack glanced that direction. The men had the squad's fold-top computers packed into a couple of backpacks, and were hoisting them up onto their backs.

"Right," Cue Ball said. Lieutenant Cue Ball, rather. "We're heading out now, kiddies. Keep it nice and easy and quiet. We've got people positioned all around the camp, just like Sentry Smart Mouth here said. You whisde up an alarm, and all you'll do will be to get the rest of your buddies slaughtered in their bunks. Understood? Good."

They left the HQ building, the prisoners in single file, the Shamshir troops spread out on both sides around them. It wasn't until they were halfway across the silent encampment that Jack suddenly caught the full significance of that last comment.

Lieutenant Cue Ball had just threatened to shoot up the camp. But the threat didn't make sense, because Jack already knew that the rest of the Edgemen had disappeared.

Which meant that Lieutenant Cue Ball didn't know that.

He puzzled at it all the way to the empty guard post and on into the woods. Okay. So the Edgemen were gone. But the Shamshir raiders hadn't made them go away. Not by killing them, or kidnapping them, or luring them out of camp.

So where had they gone? And why?

He still hadn't come up with any answers by the time they met up with the eight soldiers Draycos had spotted earlier. The group was spread out near Jack's sentry cage, clearly waiting for Lieutenant Cue Ball and his prisoners to show up. A backup force, undoubtedly, in case something had gone wrong.

Jack found a minor bit of satisfaction in the fact that there were indeed five humans in the group.

They continued on down the slope. Some clouds had rolled in, cutting off most of the already dim starlight, and Jack found himself in a continual struggle with underbrush that wanted to trip him up and low-hanging tree branches that wanted to take his forehead off.

But the darkness also provided an unexpected plus. With visibility near zero, he could feel Draycos carefully probing at the collar with his claws, searching out its operation.

And then, the pressure around his neck disappeared.

The dragon had popped the collar.

Jack tensed, trying to decide which way he should jump. A second later he nearly yelped in frustration as the pressure came back again.

A very rude word flashed across his mind. But Draycos was right. Walking through the middle of an unfamiliar forest, with armed enemies all around, was not exactly the ideal spot to make a break for it.

He just hoped they would find a better opportunity before Lieutenant Cue Ball stood all of them in front of a firing squad.

Ten minutes later they reached a small clearing. An unmarked Flying Turtle 505 transport sat there, a much smaller vehicle than the Lynx the squad had arrived in earlier. It was guarded by two more Brummgas with Shamshir shoulder patches. The whole crowd piled aboard, and they headed up into the sky.

And finally Jack had it figured out. The whole thing was a clever trap, with Tango Five Zulu and their computers as the bait. They'd been sent out here to draw Lieutenant Cue Ball and his men into grabbing range. Now, as they lifted out of the woods, the hidden Edge forces would spring their trap.

Only they didn't. The Flying Turtle slid along under the cloudy sky at treetop level, without a single other vehicle in sight.

All right, then, Jack decided as the minutes slipped by and nothing happened. Change in plan. The Edge wasn't out to trap Lieutenant Cue Ball at all. Instead, they were looking for some secret Shamshir base. It was still a trap, Tango Five Zulu was still the bait, only now the Edgemen would wait until they reached their destination to spring it.

He was still holding firmly to that idea fifteen minutes later when the transport settled into a landing.

"Let's go, puppies," Lieutenant Cue Ball said, stepping to the hatchway and waving his gun toward it. "Don't forget about your collars."

Jack was third in line out the door. He glanced first at the sky, to see if the Edge fighters were on their way.

They weren't. Trying hard to keep his hopes up, he lowered his gaze to the area around them.

And with that all of his secret hopes dropped straight into his boots, chewed their way through the soles, and disappeared into the ground beneath him. If this was a secret military base, then he was Draycos's maiden Aunt Matilda.

For starters, the place wasn't even remotely secret. It was completely out in the open, without any large trees, overhanging cliffs, or even camouflage screens to protect it. The Edge training camp on Carrion would have been harder to spot than this place.

It was also very definitely not a military base. The only vehicles in sight were two more Flying Turtles, neither of which looked even slightly armed. A couple of human-style buildings squatted at the edge of the landing area, probably service areas for the transports, probably courtesy of the Shamshir. The rest of the town seemed to be composed entirely of mud huts of various sizes.

"Welcome to Dahtill City," Lieutenant Cue Ball announced as the prisoners looked around them. "Regional capital of this part of Agrist territory, and where this whole thing started."

He smiled, possibly the most unfriendly smile Jack had ever seen. "And for you, puppies," he added, "where it's all going to end."