Dragon And Soldier

Chapter 19

A quiet alarm bell began jingling in the back of Jack's brain. He tried the access code again. Still nothing.

There were three other codes they'd been taught. He tried each of them in turn, typing slowly and carefully to make sure he wasn't making any mistakes.

None of the codes did anything at all.

The soldiers gathered by the door were beginning to mutter among themselves. Feeling sweat gathering on his forehead, Jack moved over one seat to the next computer in line and tried again. He tried everything again. Still nothing worked.

Lieutenant Cue Ball had started out standing behind Jack, looking over his shoulder. Now, he was crowding so closely against him that Jack could feel him breathing. "What's the matter, Bright Eyes?" he rumbled softly. "Twenty-five thousand suddenly not good enough for you?"

"I don't know what's wrong," Jack protested. "These are the codes they taught us. They worked fine back on Carrion."

"Did they, now," Lieutenant Cue Ball said.

Swallowing hard, Jack attacked the computer one last time. He might as well have saved himself the trouble. "Let rue try one more," he offered, starting to get up from his chair.

A big hand landed on his shoulder and shoved him back down into his seat. "Save it," Lieutenant Cue Ball snarled. "You've wasted enough of my time already."

The pressure on Jack's shoulder shifted to a grip under his arm, and he was hauled bodily out of the chair. "Panto, Crick—put him on ice," the lieutenant ordered, giving Jack a rough shove toward the soldiers at the door. "Number Two storeroom. Then go get the Oriental girl. Maybe she'll be more cooperative."

The Number Two storeroom was the mud hut on the far side of the other human-designed building. It was small, no bigger than the Essenay's cargo hold, with a bare dirt floor. Metal shelves stacked with boxes filled most of the floor space, leaving only a few square feet open in the middle. Panto and Crick sat him down in the middle of the open area and attached his handcuff to one of the lower shelf supports. Then they left, turning off the overhead light and closing the door behind them.

Jack sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly with his free hand. Like the prison cell they'd started out in, this storeroom had no windows, and it was pitch black. "Well," he said aloud. "Here we are."

"Yes," Draycos murmured from his right shoulder. "Can you press up beside these boxes?"

"Yeah, hang on," Jack said, getting up into as high a crouch as he could with his hand chained to the shelf that way. Turning around, he pressed his back against the row of boxes. In their two-dimensional form, K'da had a trick that let them see right through solid objects—though Draycos insisted on saying he was seeing "over" them—provided the walls were thin enough. "How's that?"

There was a sliding sensation on his back as Draycos moved into position. "Anything useful in there?" he asked.

The dragon shifted again, paused, shifted again. Examining all the boxes within reach, probably. There was one final movement, and Jack felt the dragon's head slide back around to rest on his right shoulder. "There is nothing useful to us," he reported. "Two of the boxes contain grenades, while the third contains ammunition. There is nothing that will assist us in a quiet escape."

"Might be helpful in a noisy one, though," Jack pointed out.

"We do not wish a noisy escape, Jack," Draycos said.

"Personally, I don't care what flavor escape we get," Jack grumbled. "You got any ideas?"

"Perhaps," Draycos said. A bit of weight came onto Jack's wrist near the handcuff. "Tell me, what did you do to the computers?"

Jack shook his head. "Not a thing. The codes just didn't work."

"How can that be?"

"Only two possibilities I can think of," Jack said. "Either some idiot got the computers mixed up, or else someone went in and changed all the codes."

Draycos was silent a moment. "Let us follow the chain of reason," he suggested. "Your squad used the computers on the voyage to this world."

"Right," Jack said. "And they were fine during the whole trip."

"They were then transported across the town of Mer'seb to the headquarters building," Draycos went on. "From there they were loaded aboard the Lynx and brought to the outpost at Kilo Seven."

"So if they were switched, it had to have been done in Mer'seb," Jack concluded. "And if they were repro-grammed ..."

He trailed off. "You have a thought?" Draycos prompted.

"I was just thinking," Jack said slowly. "During the trip to Kilo Seven, they were stacked back in the storage compartment with the rest of the baggage. Anyone could have gone back there and fiddled with them."

"How difficult would it be to alter the codes?"

"I don't know," Jack said. "Uncle Virgil always handled any code-switching we had to do. But I suppose if you'd set up a program card in advance, it could be done pretty quickly."

He tried to reach up to scratch his cheek. The hand came up short as it reached the end of the handcuff chain. "In fact, I'll bet it could even have been done at Kilo Seven while the rest of the squad was getting things set up," he added, examining the restraints with his fingertips. The lock pressed up against the underside of his wrist felt like a standard mechanical handcuff lock. With a proper lockpick, he should be able to open it.

Trouble was, he didn't have a proper lockpick with him. Still, maybe he could find something on the floor; a sliver of metal or something else he could bend into the proper shape. With his free hand, he began feeling carefully around the packed dirt beneath the shelves.

"Alison Kayna," Draycos said suddenly.

Jack's fingers paused in their search. "What about her?"

"She was moving around aboard the Lynx," the dragon reminded him. "She came and spoke with you, in fact."

"Yes, I remember," Jack said, frowning. He'd assumed at the time that she'd just noticed him talking with Sergeant Grisko and decided to be nosy.

But what if that wasn't all of it? What if she'd been back fiddling with the squad's computers? She would have had a clear view of his chat with Grisko from there. "Do you remember if she was in her seat when I was talking to Grisko?"

"I was not able to see in that direction," Draycos said. "At all other times I was watching through the window."

And Jack himself was taking a snooze. The rest of Tango Five Zulu could have thrown a dance party back there for all he knew. "But why would she sabotage the computers?" he asked.

"Why would anyone do so?" Draycos countered.

Jack shrugged. "You got me."

"I do not know either," Draycos said. "However, we suspect that Alison has had previous military training. Her own statement is that she was once with a different group. I do not believe she ever stated which one."

Jack blinked in the darkness. "Are you suggesting she's a spy for the Shamshir?"

"I do not suggest anything in particular," Draycos said. "This situation is not like any I am familiar with."

"Yeah, I don't suppose it is," Jack conceded. "These aren't your kind of soldiers, are they?"

"No, they are not," Draycos said, and Jack could hear the contempt in his voice. "These are little more than thieves in uniforms."

Jack grimaced. "In uniforms, and with high-power rifles."

"The weapons do not matter," Draycos said. "What matters is that they are not true soldiers. I do not believe they will think as warriors do. That gives us an advantage."

"Right." Offhand, Jack couldn't think of any advantages they had at this particular moment, but he wasn't going to argue the point.

For a couple of minutes neither of them spoke. The only sounds were the whistling of the wind against the hardened mud swirls on the outside of their hut and an odd sort of scratching noise Jack couldn't identify. "What are the Shon-tine like?" he asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Draycos asked. "Are you asking about their physical form?"

"No, I saw some of their bodies aboard the Havenseeker" Jack said, shivering at the memory of that trek through debris and death. "I meant what are they like as people. Their personalities, culture—that sort of thing. Are they like you, or are they more like humans?"

Draycos seemed to gather his thoughts. "I do not yet know your people very well," he said slowly. "You will therefore need to make your own comparisons. The Shon-tine in general are not violent or aggressive beings. Few indeed are the true warriors born to them, though those few are strongly gifted in their art. Still, even the average Shontin is capable of fighting in his own defense when it becomes necessary to do so."

"But only as a last resort?"

"Mostly," Draycos agreed. "The majority of them prefer to contemplate and appreciate the various forms of their arts, or to create beautiful and useful things with their hands, or to work the soil and bring forth food."

"Sounds like something you'd find on one of the Orion Arm's more backwater worlds," Jack commented.

"I am sure some of your people would consider them primitive and naive," Draycos said, a little stiffly. "Others would recognize their strength of character and purpose as signs of highly advanced beings. Until the Valahgua began their war against us, their greatest heroes were those who throughout history had stood for what was right amid opposition, even to the point of death."

He moved restlessly against Jack's skin. "Now, sadly, their warriors have become the most esteemed among them. I can only hope they will be able to regain the culture and dignity of their race once they are safely here."

"And I suppose when they are that you'll—?" Jack broke off, suddenly embarrassed at what he'd been about to ask.

But Draycos had caught it anyway. "Do you ask if I will be returning to one of them if we should succeed in our task?"

"Don't get me wrong," Jack said quickly. Too quickly, probably. Uncle Virgil had always said that he talked too fast when he was nervous. "I mean, this arrangement is only supposed to be until they get here. And that's fine with me."

"I will not leave until you wish for me to do so," Draycos said quietly. "I promise you that."

"Yeah," Jack said tardy, blinking back sudden moisture in his eyes. "But no one's exactly sent you an engraved invitation to the royal banquet, either. Uncle Virge and I were doing fine before you showed up, and we'll do fine after you leave."

He leaned back stiffly, wincing as his head bumped against the cold metal of the shelves behind him. "Assuming we ever get out of here," he got himself back on track, wishing he'd never brought up the subject of Draycos's future in the first place. The dragon was a temporary associate. Nothing more. "What does a good poet-warrior do in a situation like this?"

"He does his duty, of course," Draycos said. "The duty of all prisoners of war is to escape."

Jack sighed. "One small problem with that," he said. He snapped his wrist out again to rattle the handcuff chain in reminder.

Only this time the chain didn't rattle. At his first tug it clinked once—

And with a soft thud, the chain snapped off at the cuff around his wrist and dropped in a heap onto the dirt floor.

Jack jerked in surprise, grabbing reflexively at the handcuff around his wrist. Or rather, the ordinary bracelet the cuff had suddenly become. "What in—?"

He broke off, his mouth snapping firmly closed. Of course. The dragon's claws. The claws that he'd once seen scratch a K'da letter into the end of a metal cylinder.

Only this time, the dragon hadn't just scratched. This time, so quietly and stealthily that Jack hadn't even noticed, Draycos had cut his way straight through the handcuff chain.

"You were saying there was a problem?" Draycos said blandly.

Jack glared down at his chest in the darkness. It was impossible to tell, but he could swear the other was laughing at him. "Funny dragon," he growled. "Okay, you're so smart. Now what?"

"As I said, our duty is to escape," Draycos said. Sliding up along Jack's skin to his neck, he popped the control collar free. "But our duty is also to our comrades. We must assist in their release."

"Hold on a second," Jack warned, shivering with relief as he dropped the collar onto the floor and pushed it as far away from him as he could. "If you're suggesting we take on Lieutenant Cue Ball and his troops all by ourselves, you've got a serious argument coming."

"I do not suggest that at all," Draycos assured him. "Our chances for success will be much higher if we leave this place and summon help."

"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.