Dragon And Soldier

Chapter 25

With Dahtill City five more minutes away, Jack took the Lynx down to treetop height. "I take it we're not jumping out this time?" he asked Draycos.

"Correct," Draycos called from the back, where he was rummaging through the various storage lockers. "We may require this vehicle to move the prisoners. Is its ventral armor as strong as that of the Flying Turtle we used earlier?"

"They're similar models, so probably," Jack said. Not that any amount of armor would do them any good if the Shamshir knocked out the lifters. "Any luck back there?"

"Very little," Draycos reported. "The soldiers must have taken most of the weapons with them on their search for you. I have found only two small MP-50 machine guns, with two spare clips each."

Killing weapons, the kind Jack had spent his life avoiding. "Nothing else?" he asked. "No sopor gas or slapsticks or anything like that?"

"The only other weapons are nine Class II explosive grenades," Draycos said. "There are no nonlethal weapons of the sort you prefer. I am sorry."

Jack grimaced. "Me, too. Well, I guess we'll have to do what we can. Maybe we can just pin the Shamshir down while Uncle Virge swoops in and—"

"What was that?" Draycos cut him off.

Jack threw a quick look toward the horizon, then checked his sensor displays. There was nothing unusual that he could see. "What was what?"

"A small flash of light directly ahead," Draycos said, covering the length of the transport in two bounds to land at Jack's side. "There—it came again."

"I didn't see anything," Jack said, learning forward and staring out into the night. "What did it look like?"

"Like the discharge of a Gompers flash rifle," Draycos said. "As if far in the distance—"

And then, faintly, it came again. A flicker of light, like a small flash of lightning coming from below the horizon. "You mean like that?" Jack asked.

"Exactly," Draycos said. "There—another."

"Someone's doing some shooting," Jack muttered, watching the flashes. "A lot of shooting."

"The Shamshir would not execute their prisoners, would they?" Draycos asked, his voice dark and ominous.

"I hope not," Jack said, studying the flickers of light. There didn't seem to be any pattern to them, no nice neat one-two-three sequence. "Anyway, that doesn't look like a firing squad."

"Then there is a battle," Draycos concluded. "I will fly. You will shoot."

"Wait a second," Jack objected. "I will shoot what?"

"We will know when we arrive," Draycos said, nudging Jack impatiently with the side of his head. "Go. You must prepare."

"But the Essenay's not here yet."

"We have no choice," Draycos said firmly. "We must see what is happening. Go."

Reluctantly, Jack climbed out of the pilot's seat. "I don't like this," he said. "Why don't we land someplace near the city and take a quiet look instead of charging blindly in?"

"There is no time," Draycos said, sliding into Jack's seat and gripping the controls with his paws. "Whether the Agri are fighting the Shamshir, or whether the Whinyard's Edge has launched their own strike, we cannot afford a delay."

"What makes you think that?"

"Call it warrior's instinct." Draycos turned his green eyes on Jack, "Go. Prepare."

"Terrific," Jack muttered, heading aft to where Draycos had laid out the MP-50s. Why the Agri should suddenly have risen up against the Shamshir he couldn't imagine. And the idea that the Edge would have gotten involved was completely ridiculous.

Unless they'd gone to Dahtill City looking for him. Maybe Colonel Elkor was madder at getting stuck up that tree than he'd thought.

He reached the back and picked up one of the MP-50s. For such a relatively small gun, it was awfully heavy. Fortunately, Draycos had already loaded the ammo clip into it, since Jack couldn't remember exactly how to do that. "Any particular side you want me on?" he called.

"Use the right-hand side," Draycos said.

"Okay." Grabbing two spare clips and stuffing them into his jacket pockets, he crossed to the right-hand hatchway.

Unlike the Flying Turtle they'd escaped in earlier, the Lynx had a pair of safety harnesses attached to the bulkhead beside each of the side hatches. Designed for soldiers to use while shooting outside, he decided as he slipped one of them on and tightened it into place. "How am I supposed to know what to shoot at?" he called to Draycos.

"I will direct your fire," the dragon said. "We have cleared the last trees now and are approaching the city from the southwest. Prepare."

Taking a deep breath, Jack got a firm grip on his gun and hit the hatchway release. The panel slid up into the ceiling, and for the second time that night he found himself standing at the edge of a hurricane.

He took another deep breath, his mind flashing back to some of the stupider jobs he and Uncle Virgil had pulled when he was little. Back then, he'd often felt himself standing just like this, balanced at the edge of disaster, waiting for Uncle Virgil to give the signal. Wondering the whole time whether either of them would be alive to see another sunrise.

Here, the sun wouldn't be up for at least a couple more hours. He wondered if he would be alive to see it.

And then, from the cockpit, he heard a startled bark. "What?" he demanded, his heartbeat suddenly thudding extra hard in his throat.

"They are free," Draycos called back. "Observe." He twisted the transport around, sending Jack swinging on his harness halfway out the hatchway.

And as he hung balanced there, he was treated to a bird's-eye view of an amazing scene.

Directly ahead was the landing area at the edge of the city, the one he and Draycos had escaped from. The two Flying Turtles he'd left behind were still there, facing the two Shamshir buildings. From the windows of those buildings a hail of machine gun bullets was blasting out at one of the transports, accompanied by an occasional flash of laser fire.

And at the focus of all that fury, firing gamely back at their attackers, was the rest of Technical Squad Tango Five Zulu.

Jommy and Li were crouched in the open hatchway, Jommy with some kind of machine gun, Li firing blasts with a Gompers flash rifle. Below them, lying flat on the ground behind one of the transport's landing skids, were Rogan and Brinkster, also with machine guns.

Alison was nowhere in sight, but it wasn't hard to guess where she was. Ten to one she was already inside the transport, trying to get it started.

Jack shook his head, half amazed, half annoyed. Here he'd come all this way back to rescue them, and they'd already gotten out on their own.

"You must give covering fire," Draycos called from the cockpit.

Jack took another look. The dragon was right. The squad was fighting back well enough, but unless Alison could get the Flying Turtle started real soon, they were going to run out of ammunition long before the Shamshir gave up and went away. "Right," he called back between clenched teeth. "What do I do?"

A second later he was thrown back inside as the dragon swung them around in a tight circle. Just in time; even as he grabbed for a strap to steady himself, a burst of gunfire raked across the side of the transport, some of the rounds chewing up the ceiling and far wall. "Stay clear!" Draycos shouted.

"You bet," Jack ground out, suddenly remembering what exacdy it was he had gotten himself into. This wasn't some practice drill, and those Shamshir soldiers out there weren't firing marker lasers.

Draycos straightened the Lynx out, and Jack pulled himself cautiously back to the door. They had overshot the scene of the battle, he saw, and were coming back around behind the buildings. Apparently Draycos meant for him to shoot at the Shamshir from behind.

That was fine with him. He'd just as soon fire from a direction the other guys' guns weren't pointed at. He flipped the firing lever like the Whinyard's Edge manual had showed, pointed the gun in the general direction of the buildings, and pulled the trigger.

If it hadn't been for the harness holding him up, he would have instantly found himself flat on his back. As it was, he nearly wound up there anyway. The MP-50 had a kick like an angry Brummga, a hundred times more powerful than the simple little tangler gun he was used to.

The weapon also had a definite mind of its own. Even as he staggered backward, the muzzle seemed to jump upward, and before he could get his finger off the trigger his burst had chewed up a little more of the transport's ceiling.

"Jack!"

"I'm okay," Jack called back, struggling back to his feet and trying to salvage some shreds of dignity. "I've never fired one of these things, that's all."

"Come up here," Draycos ordered. "You will fly. I will shoot."

So much for dignity. So much, too, for any possible career as a soldier. Just in case he'd been interested in one. "Sure," Jack muttered, untangling himself from his harness and running forward.

They were nearly back to the edge of the forest now, Jack saw as Draycos hopped out of the pilot's seat and he hopped in. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"Take us behind the Shamshir buildings," Draycos instructed. Snatching the MP-50 from Jack's hands, he headed aft, loping along on three legs as he hugged the machine gun to his belly with the other.

"Pvight," Jack said, sending the transport around again in a smooth curve. He caught a glimpse of the darkened mine buildings as he swung past, and then they were sweeping back toward the firefight.

There was a fresh sound of wind behind him. He glanced back, saw that Draycos had opened the left-hand hatchway door and was crouching beside it. "Better use the safety harness," Jack called.

"I will be all right," the dragon replied. "Just keep your flight movements smooth."

Jack turned back to his flying, feeling his stomach trying hard to turn itself inside out. Now that the element of surprise was gone, the Shamshir weren't going to just sit there and let the intruder take potshots at them.

And indeed, the transport's bow and windscreen were already starting to crackle with the impact of bullets. Biting down hard on his lip, trying to remember Draycos's optimistic assumptions about the Lynx's armor, he forced himself to ignore the deadly hail and to keep his head high enough to see where he was going. From the rear he could hear the chatter of Draycos's gun as they buzzed past the building.

And then, even as he cautiously lifted his head, the landscape ahead of him suddenly flared with light.

For that first awful second, he thought the Shamshir had blown up the Flying Turtle, killing the rest of his squad. Heart pounding in his ears, he swung the Lynx around.

It hadn't been the Flying Turtle that had blown up. Instead, it was one of the Agri hardened-mud huts that was now blazing furiously away. The very hut, in fact, that he'd been locked into after his little chat with Lieutenant Cue Ball.

The hut that had contained, among other things, grenades and spare ammunition.

"Did it work?" Draycos asked. He was at Jack's side now, peering over his shoulder.

"I don't know," Jack said. "How exactly was it supposed to work?"

The dragon's tongue flicked out. "Like so."

To Jack's amazement, the Shamshir soldiers were on the move. Not toward the transport, like they had decided to rush it, but away.

All of them. Running away from the two buildings like the whole Whinyard's Edge was after them.

Jack cleared his throat. "You think they're running because of the risk of burning explosives next door?" he asked carefully.

"Of course," Draycos said, a distinct note of satisfaction in his voice.

"Not maybe because there might be something else in the hut?" Jack went on. "Something maybe a little nastier than grenades?"

"I—" Draycos broke off. "I do not know."

"Me, neither," Jack said grimly. "What do you say we get the squad aboard and get out of here?"

"Agreed," Draycos said. Setting his gun onto the deck, he leaped up and vanished down the back of Jack's shirt. "And Jack?"

"Yes?"

The dragon's head rose a little from his shoulder. "Do not land us too close to the fire. Just in case."