Dragon And Soldier

Chapter 5

Reveille came precisely at four-thirty, a raucous trumpet blare that sent bunks jerking all through the barracks. Thirty seconds later, Sergeant Grisko himself came striding through the door, bellowing for all the greasy maggot-infested sacks of lard to get their hind ends out of bed and stand at attention.

"Sloppy, maggots," he growled when the teens were standing stiffly at the ends of their bunks. "What do you think this is, summer camp? Well, it's not. Who do you think I am, your mother? Well, I'm not."

He stomped slowly down the room between the lines, looking each recruit up and down as he went, describing in vivid detail exactly what he thought of them, their parents, their expectations, and their chances of becoming successful soldiers. It was highly intimidating, as it was no doubt meant to be.

At the same time, Jack couldn't help but admire the range of the man's vocabulary. He'd spent a fair amount of time over the years in the company of Uncle Virgil's associates, and he'd always assumed their language was as vile as it got.

Grisko's loud defense of the cooking staff the previous evening had already put him in the same high-level cursing league as those men. Only now did Jack realize how restrained the sergeant's mess hall tirade had actually been.

And this was just the first early-morning wakeup. He wondered how much the man still had in reserve.

He reached Jack ... and suddenly stopped cold. "What in the name of Cutter's Hind End are you supposed to be?" he demanded, looking Jack up and down. "Sir?" Jack asked between stiff lips. "Is this some kind of joke?" Grisko bit out, waving a hand at him.

Jack looked down at Draycos, back in his proper place wrapped around his body. "It's a tattoo, sir."

"It's a tattoo, sir," Grisko mimicked. "Get rid of it." Jack blinked. "Sir?"

"I said get rid of it," Grisko snapped. "Wash it off, sandblast it off—whatever it takes."

"But it's a tattoo," Jack protested. "It doesn't come off." Grisko had been starting to turn back toward the door. Instead, he turned back to Jack, gazing down his nose directly into Jack's face. "Are you arguing with me, Montana?" he asked, his voice suddenly very quiet. "Are you disobeying a direct order?"

"No, sir," Jack said, thinking fast. "Request permission to return home to visit a removal clinic."

The corner of Grisko's mouth twitched into something that was probably as close to a smile as he ever got. "That's better," he said. "When I give you an order, you jump to obey it. Clear?"

"Yes, sir," Jack said.

"Good," Grisko said. "Permission denied. You don't skip out on basic for anything. You'll get it removed during first liberty."

He made a precise about-face, just like the ones Jack and the others had practiced the previous afternoon, except that Grisko got it right. "All right, maggots," he announced, starting back down the line. "You've got five minutes to suit up in fatigues and report to the mess hall. Thirty minutes from right now, you will have eaten and assembled on the Number Three parade ground. Now move!"

They spent the morning practicing more drills and formations. By the time the lunch trumpet sounded some of them were nearly as good at turns and about-faces as Grisko.

Not that Grisko would ever admit that, of course. To hear him talk and complain, they would never be anything more than undisciplined, incompetent maggots.

Though as Jack watched some of his fellow recruits fumbling around, he had to admit the sergeant might have a point.

After lunch it was more drills, this time with their candy-cane weapons. The extra weight didn't seem that important at first, but after the first hour of spinning it back and forth the Gompers flash rifle in particular began to feel like it was made of solid lead. By midafternoon, whatever crispness had been in their movements was long gone. An hour after that, a couple of the younger kids were whimpering under their breath with the effort.

That was a mistake. Sergeant Grisko disliked whimpering even more than he disliked full-body dragon tattoos. Each time he caught even a hint of it, he stopped the drill flat and laid into the offender.

One of them was Rogan Mbusu, the eleven-year-old masquerading as fourteen who had so admired Jack's dragon back at the recruitment center. By the time Grisko finished with him and stalked away, Rogan was nearly in tears.

There were, however, two notable exceptions to the group's overall fatigue and clumsiness. One of them was Jommy Randolph, the boy who had complained to Jack about his indenture at the recruitment center. For all his dread back then, he seemed to be quickly settling into the role of the perfect trainee.

Maybe he was good at this. Or maybe he was simply fighting hard to keep from getting shown up.

Because the other exception was Alison Kayna.

Jack found himself watching her as they went through the drills. She was two rows up from Jack's position in the formation and a little to the right, easy enough for him to see without turning his head. Like Jommy, she was quick to pick up the techniques and routines. Unlike Jommy, she didn't seem to be working all that hard at it.

Uncle Virgil had often said that there were only two types of people who could pick up a skill at the drop of a hat. One group was people who already had some idea what they were doing, while the other was natural con artists with an inborn knack for learning new skills. Natural con artists like Jack himself.

Of course, Uncle Virgil had only brought that up when trying to talk Jack into an especially tricky job. But the point was still valid. Either Alison had already had some military training, or else she was one of those very special people.

The first possibility seemed ridiculous. She was only fourteen, after all, hardly ex-StarForce material. But the second wasn't any better. If she was that special, what was she doing in the middle of a small-time mercenary training camp?

The more Jack thought about it, and the more he watched her, the more it bothered him. But there was nothing specific about her behavior that he could put his finger on. He thought about discussing it with Draycos, but aside from the few minutes between lights-out and Draycos taking off for the evening's observation duty there wasn't much time for them to talk.

So he kept his thoughts to himself, and waited for a chance to talk to Alison directly. After all, he was a pretty good thief and con artist, too. With a little luck, he should be able to figure out what she was up to.

To his surprise, it wasn't that easy.

It should have been. It really should have. After all, he and Alison were two of a couple hundred teenagers who'd been thrown into the close quarters of basic training. They were living this soldier stuff; living it, breathing it, dreaming it, and if you globbed enough ketchup on it you could choke it down in the mess hall. It should have been simple to find a way to bump into her during a free moment and strike up a conversation.

There was certainly no lack of possible topics. Sergeant Grisko alone took top three places on any likely list.

But as that first full day turned into the second, and then dragged into the third, Jack discovered the recruits were being allowed very few free moments.

Most of their time was taken up by organized group activities like calisthenics or marching and field drills. At those times he could see Alison, but there was no chance of talking to her. Most of the rest of their day was spent reading from their manuals or sitting in classrooms quoting sections of those manuals back to their instructors.

Mealtimes, which were about as close to free time as they got, were also no good. There weren't a lot of girls in the group to begin with, and they all seemed to cluster together at the same three tables at every meal. Alison, naturally, sat at the center table, which meant Jack would have to push his way through everyone else to get to her.

Which pretty much left the middle of the night. With the barracks blacked out and roving patrols moving around the camp, that was a dead end, too. Even if he had been willing to try, he desperately needed the sleep.

By the fourth day he was half inclined to just give it up. Every muscle ached from the calisthenics, his head hurt from all the technical information he was cramming into it, and he was starting to do parade-ground drills in his dreams. If Alison was pulling some scam on this bunch, he was about ready to sit back and cheer her on.

On the other hand, his own goal here wasn't simply to survive basic training, either. He couldn't afford to trip over some scheme of Alison's while he was trying to break into the Edge's computer records. One way or another, he had to find out what she was up to.

And so he waited, and watched, and tried to be patient. And on the fifth day, that patience was finally rewarded.

"The targets are set up over there," Sergeant Grisko told them, pointing as the trainees filed by the weapons table that had been set up in the woods. Through the trees, a hundred yards away, Jack could see a ragged edge of rocks. "Go pick a firing position and have at it."

The trainees fanned out through the trees. Gingerly hefting his Gompers flash rifle, Jack headed off toward the right flank. "This is a different style of weapon than the one carried by the Brummga we saw aboard the Havenseeker" Draycos murmured from beneath his shirt.

"That one was some kind of machine gun," Jack told him. "It fired bullets. Little projectiles, driven by small explosions."

"I understand the concept."

"Okay. This thing is a chemically pumped laser. Big difference. Hurts just as bad if it goes off in your face, though."

Draycos stirred against his skin. "You seem uncomfortable with it."

"Try scared to death," Jack growled back. "Two hours' worth of training, and we're supposed to know how to fire these things?"

"You are not familiar with this weapon?"

Jack snorted. "You kidding? I don't even like looking at it."

"Yet you were carrying a hand weapon when we first met."

"I was carrying a tangler," Jack corrected tartly. "There's about fifty light-years' difference between that and one of these."

"You!" Grisko called from behind him. "Dragonback!"

Confused, Jack swiveled around. "Sir?"

The sergeant was standing back by the weapons table, his fists resting on his hips. "Someday, if you're really, really good at this, maybe they'll issue you a weapon with a vocal rangefmder chip," Grisko told him. "Until then, don't talk to your gun. It won't talk back."

Jack felt his ears reddening. "Yes, sir," he said. Turning around again, he stalked off through the trees. "Thanks, Draycos," he muttered under his breath. "Like I needed more trouble."

"My apologies," the dragon said quietly.

Jack sighed. "Forget it."

He got a few more steps before Draycos spoke again. "I am still confused."

"A tangler is a nonlethal weapon," Jack explained tiredly. Draycos could go off on bunny trails of his own all day, but once he got an idea or question stuck between those pointy ears, you couldn't shake it loose with a pry bar. "That means it doesn't kill anyone. Hey, you used the thing—you saw what it did."

"I understand the difference," Draycos said, a little stiffly. "I am a K'da warrior. My surprise is that someone from your former profession would not be familiar with many different styles of weapons."

Jack shook his head. "You've got it backwards," he said. "Someone in my former profession couldn't afford not to be choosy about his choice of guns. Ever hear of felony murder?"

"No."

"A felony is a major crime," Jack explained. A few trees ahead, he could see a section of jagged rocks. It looked like as good a place as any for target practice. "Like armed robbery or kidnapping or something."

"Or murder," Draycos added quietly.

Jack shivered. He'd already seen what Draycos and his K'da warrior ethic thought about murderers. "Anyway, felony murder is when someone dies while you're committing a crime like that."

"Even if you did not intend for it to happen?"

"Even if it wasn't even your fault," Jack said. "No matter how it happens, if you were the one committing the crime, you can be charged with murder. That's why Uncle Virgil and I never, ever carried weapons that could kill."

"Interesting," Draycos said thoughtfully. "K'da and Shon-tine law requires intent to be considered. Is this universal in the Orion Arm?"

"On most Internos planets it is," Jack told him. "A lot of the alien worlds do things differently."

"Stop," Draycos said suddenly.

Jack froze, half concealed behind a particularly large tree. "What?" he demanded, his eyes nicking around.

"Beyond this tree is open ground," Draycos said. "You must go low to cross it."

"Oh, for—" Jack threw a glare down at his shirt. "It is only a training exercise, you know."

"Then let us properly train you," Draycos said. "Go low."

Jack sighed. "Just what I've always wanted," he muttered, slinging the Gompers over his back and getting down on his hands and knees. "My own personal drill sergeant."

"Use your center joints," Draycos advised. "You will stay lower and be able to move more quickly."

"My center—? Oh. Knees and elbows."

"Correct. I am surprised they have not already taught you that."

Jack frowned as he started across the patch of open ground toward the rocks ahead. Come to think of it, why hadn't they?

The knees-elbows waddle was easier than he would have expected. It was still a lot more awkward than just walking, though. Reaching a convenient notch in the rocks, he carefully eased his head up for a look.

He was at the edge of a large gravel pit that stretched out for probably a hundred yards, maybe fifty feet deep at its lowest point. A dozen electronic targets had been set up at various places in the pit.

"Nothing like starting us off at long-range work," Jack muttered, unlimbering his rifle and flipping off the safety. "Whatever happened to 'Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes'?"

"Pardon?"

"Skip it." At least there was a conveniently shaped notch on top of one of the rocks where he could brace the rifle. Setting the muzzle into the notch, he started to get to his knees.

"Keep your head down," a girl's voice ordered.

Frowning, Jack rolled over onto his side and looked behind him.

It was Alison Kayna.