Dragon and Thief

Chapter 9

It was early evening, local time, when the Essenay put down at the main Vagran Colony cargo spaceport.

Or, rather, when the light freighter Donkey's Age put down there. Rather than risk bringing the police or Braxton Security down on their heads right from square one, Jack had decided to use a fake ship ident. It was one of a set of four fakes that Uncle Virgil had bought the same time he'd installed the chameleon hull-wrap.

He used a fake ID for himself, too, and got through customs without raising any alarms. A few minutes later he was walking along the high-ceilinged tube that led inward toward the central terminal building. "You're being very quiet," he commented as he walked. "Do I take it a K'da warrior would never do anything so dishonorable as sneaking in under a phony name?"

"The warrior code recognizes that camouflage is often necessary," Draycos said from his right shoulder.

"But you still don't like it."

Draycos hesitated, just enough. "I am still learning the ways of your society," he said.

"In other words, you don't like it," Jack concluded, wondering vaguely why he was even arguing the point. Certainly Draycos didn't want to argue it. Was he actually trying to push the dragon into telling him he'd done something wrong?

If he was, he was wasting his time. "This place is not as I expected," Draycos said, again ducking the question. "Why are there no other beings here? I understood this to be the chief cargo area for this world."

"Doesn't say much for the world, does it?" Jack agreed, giving up the argument. The tube they were walking along was dirty, as if it hadn't been cleaned or even swept in weeks. Embedded in the graytop beneath their feet, the cargo-carrier monorail tracks looked a little rusty, as if they hadn't been used in years. "And I've been to worse places than this, too."

"Yet an important corporation like Braxton Universis had an assembly plant here?"

"Cheap labor, probably," Jack said. "Humans and lots of different aliens, too. There's also tons of raw materials out beyond the settlements. The place hasn't been developed very much."

"They are unfair to their workers?"

"No idea, really," Jack said. "Anyway, the tubes Braxton used are in much better condition. This place is laid out like a lopsided starburst. There's a big three-story warehouse and terminal building in the middle, with all these tubes leading off to the different landing pads. You bring stuff into the warehouse by rail, pass it through customs if you have to, then rail it out these tubes to the ships."

He pointed ahead. "The tube and landing pad I used with the Braxton cargo is on the far side of the warehouse."

"Should you not have landed us closer to it?"

Jack came to an abrupt halt. "Look, pal, if I had enough money to swim in I wouldn't be in this trouble in the first place," he growled. "You've already cost me a lot of fuel burning ECHO to this place. Now you want me to pop for the expensive landing pads, too?"

"My apologies," Draycos said. "I did not realize there would be extra cost involved."

"There's always extra cost involved," Jack muttered, starting up again. "Be happy I even got us a pad at the same spaceport."

They continued on in silence, the clunk of Jack's boots on the graytop the only noise. Ahead, the tube widened as it entered the main warehouse building. Jack went in, his footsteps echoing softly now from the distant walls and high ceilings. The middle part of the floor was marked off into different-sized rectangles, with walkways wide enough for loading-carts running between them.

A few of the rectangles were empty, but most were piled with stacks of shipping crates of various sizes and colors. The narrow and rather crooked walkways between the piles made quite a maze. Twenty feet up, catwalks and cranes formed their own maze, some of the walkways connecting with small offices that lined the walls of the second floor. One or two of the office doors were showing lights, but most of the spaceport's staff seemed to have quit for the day. The overhead lights were set at nighttime levels, giving the whole place a rather gloomy air.

The simplest route to the tube they wanted, he knew, would be around the edge of the warehouse. But going that way would mean a longer walk, and Jack was already feeling jumpy about being here. Navigating the maze of boxes would be quicker, and would offer the extra bonus of keeping him out of sight. Picking out a gap between two sets of greenish-brown boxes, he headed toward it.

"Is it always this quiet?" Draycos asked.

"In case you hadn't noticed, it's evening out there," Jack reminded him. "Vagran ports usually aren't busy enough to need a late shift."

He glanced around. No one was visible, but there could easily be groups of workers out of sight in the maze of stacks. "And keep your voice down," he added. "Bad enough to look like I'm talking to myself. I don't want to look like I'm answering back, too."

"I will be more careful," Draycos promised, lowering his voice to a level where Jack could barely hear it himself. "What exactly was the cargo that vanished?"

Away to their left, near the entrance to one of the other tubes, a group of chattering Jantris in maintenance coveralls appeared. "The invoice called it a molecular stress-gauge some-thing-or-other," Jack said, picking up his pace a little and keeping a wary eye on the Jantris. That particular species loved to talk, especially to strangers, and the last thing he wanted was to get trapped into some rambling conversation with them.

The concern turned out to be unnecessary. The Jantris went to the next tunnel around the edge and disappeared down it, still chattering among themselves. Taking one last look around, Jack stepped between the greenish-brown stacks and headed into the maze. "And you saw this device?" Draycos asked.

"Of course not," Jack said impatiently. "I already told you the boxes were sealed. But there was something in there. And that something was gone when I got to Cordolane."

"Did the police have any thoughts?"

"If you think I waited around to hear what the cops had to say, you're nuts," Jack said darkly. "I just unloaded the boxes where they'd told me to put them and took off."

"That may have been foolish," Draycos pointed out. "Running creates the appearance of guilt."

Jack snorted. "What kind of appearance does standing there like an idiot with an empty cargo box create?"

"Perhaps you do not understand my question," Draycos persisted.

"You're the one who doesn't understand," Jack retorted. He took a deep breath. "Look. Our law says a person is innocent until proven guilty. Doesn't mean a thing. Uncle Virgil is on their books as a thief, and I fly with Uncle Virgil. They smell even a hint of trouble near me, and they won't stop to wonder if there might be some other explanation. You think I'd be able to prove my innocence from jail?"

"But you told me you have changed your life."

"Sure I have," Jack said bitterly. "But who knows that? No one, that's who. You may not realize this, noble K'da poet-warrior that you are, but it's a lot easier to hang onto a good reputation than it is to tear down a bad one and start over from scratch."

"Perhaps I can assist you with that process," Draycos said.

"Yeah, thanks," Jack said. "I'll settle for you helping me out of this particular mess."

"I will do my best." Draycos's head lifted slightly from the skin of Jack's shoulder, his eye ridges and spiny crest pushing up against the shirt and leather jacket. His tongue flicked out twice. "As to smelling trouble, what is that odor?"

Jack inhaled slowly. There was something in the air, all right. Faint, but tart and vaguely disgusting. "I don't know," he said, sniffing again. "Doesn't smell like any normal spaceport stuff."

"No," Draycos agreed, his tongue darting out again. "It smells like something dead."

Jack hissed softly between his teeth as the smell suddenly clicked. "You're right," he said. "It's dead meat. Freshly dead meat, in fact."

And where there was freshly dead meat... "Let's get out of here," he muttered, throwing a quick look around as he broke into a jog.

"Is there danger?" Draycos asked, his head rising up farther out of Jack's shoulder.

"Stay down, will you?" Jack growled as he drew his tangler. The extra weight whenever Draycos went three-dimensional always threw him off balance. "Yeah, there's danger. Dead meat means scavengers. Fresh dead meat means scavengers who don't mind killing." He reached the edge of a stack of crates and carefully looked around it.

There they were: at least a dozen cat-sized animals with dirty black-and-white speckled fur, ratlike faces, and wicked-looking teeth and claws. Most of them were gathered around an unidentifiable carcass, still chewing away. Others squatted a little ways off, busily grooming themselves after their meal.

The carcass, he noticed with a sick feeling in his stomach, was wearing the remains of a maintenance coverall.

"Heenas," he whispered to Draycos. He backed carefully away from the corner, feeling sweat gathering on his forehead.

There was a sudden weight on his shoulder. He glanced around to find Draycos's head rising up from his back, twisted to look behind them. "Draycos—"

"Behind you!" the dragon snapped.

Jack spun around, the tangler swinging around with him.

Ten feet away, moving silently toward him like miniature lions stalking their prey, were eight more heenas. Their yellow eyes looked impossibly bright in the dim light. Their fur stuck straight out from their bodies, making them look even bigger than they already were. The three in front were already crouching, ready to spring.

Lowering his aim, Jack fired.

The tangler cartridge caught two of the front three heenas in its milky-white threads. The third was too fast, managing to jump sideways out of range. The two trapped animals squealed as the tangler's shock capacitor sparked, putting them out of the fight.

The other heenas, without any sound or reaction, continued toward him.

Jack backed up to the stack of crates, his heart pounding in his ears as he did the math. There were six heenas in front of him, plus the dozen he'd already spotted just around the corner. That made eighteen, plus any more that might be skulking around somewhere else.

Problem was, there were only seven cartridges left in his tangler. He had a spare clip, but he doubted he'd get a chance to use it. The dead maintenance worker was grisly evidence of how fast a pack of heenas could move when they wanted to.

"Do not fire," Draycos said from his shoulder. Jack had just enough time to frown—

And then, with the usual surge of weight, the dragon sprang off his chest and shoulder, shoving aside shirt and jacket as he emerged.

Only this wasn't the nice shiny golden dragon Jack had rescued from the wrecked K'da ship.

This dragon was pure black.

Jack gasped with surprise. Draycos landed on the graytop directly in front of the heenas, his head and forelegs low, his tail arched over his head like a scorpion's. For maybe half a second they all just stood there, the six vicious pack animals and the single K'da warrior facing them. The heenas bared their teeth; Draycos gave a low, warning growl.

As if that was the signal they had been waiting for, the heenas attacked.

The one in the lead leaped directly toward Draycos's snout, its claws extended toward his face. The other five charged toward the dragon's sides, two toward his left and three toward his right, veering wide to keep out of reach of his forelegs. Jack had been right; the heenas were fast.

But Draycos was faster.

The heena going for the dragon's face went first, spinning away with a single startled squeak as Draycos batted it aside in midair with his paw. Even before it disappeared around the side of a stack of crates, the dragon had jumped sideways over the two heenas coming in toward his left, escaping from the center of their encircling maneuver.

They spun around and shifted direction. This time, all five charged him together.

Slashing with his forelegs, moving almost too fast for Jack to see, he batted them away one by one into the gloom.

Jack stood with his back against the stack of crates, his tangler hanging almost forgotten in his hand as he watched Draycos send them flying. His mind flashed back to the leaps the dragon had made aboard the Havenseeker; clearly, K'da had tremendous muscular strength.

Draycos was down to his last enemy when the ones that had been feeding around the corner came charging at him, probably alerted by the noise. Two broke off from the pack and veered toward Jack, who snapped out of his paralysis in time to get them with another tangler shot. The rest headed straight for Draycos.

Six-to-one odds had been no contest. It was now quickly apparent that even at twelve to one the heenas didn't have a chance. Draycos waded into the pack, slashing and biting, his tail whipping about with blinding speed and deadly accuracy. Twice it looked to Jack as if they were surely going to overwhelm him, but both times he leaped out of their midst just in time. Landing outside their circle, he continued his slashing attack at the ones on the edge, throwing the whole pack into confusion.

And then, without warning, he leaped straight back toward the stack of crates behind Jack. Automatically, Jack ducked; and as he glanced up, he saw a heena dropping toward him from the top of the stack. Before he could even start to bring up his tangler, Draycos intercepted the attacker, batting it away with his tail.

The dragon's momentum carried him back into the crates, but like a cat he twisted around and got his feet up in time. For a second he hung there on the boxes the way he had from the tree outside his wrecked ship, his brilliant green eyes looking brighter than ever against the black scales. Then, shoving himself off the crates, he landed again on the graytop between Jack and the heenas. Crouching down with his tail raised, he gave another growl.

That was enough for the heenas. Still without a sound, they turned and scattered, scurrying around the stacked crates and vanishing into the dark.

Jack hadn't realized he was holding his breath. Now, he let it out in a huff. "Wow," was all he could think to say.

Draycos's neck twisted around, his eyes searching the shadows for more enemies. Then, slowly, he straightened up and turned back to Jack. "Are you injured?" he asked.

"No," Jack said, gazing at the dragon in fascination. At close range, he could see now that the scales weren't entirely black: the little sliver of red at the edge of each one was still there. "No. I'm fine. Thanks to you."

Draycos cocked his head to the side. "Yet you seem disturbed."

"Just a little sandbagged, that's all," Jack assured him. Was the gold color starting to creep back into the dragon's scales? "You've been calling yourself a warrior; but up to now all I've seen you do is zap people with their own weapons and fire missiles from the Essenay's control board. I didn't know you could fight like that."

"A warrior must be adept in all forms of combat," Draycos said.

"I guess so," Jack said. No mistake; Draycos's scales were definitely turning gold again. "That color change is pretty cool, too."

"It is a side effect of K'da combat rage," Draycos told him, lifting up a foreleg to study it. "Our blood is black. As it flows more strongly to our muscles, some of it displaces the color in our scales. Do humans not have a similar danger response?"

"Not really," Jack said. "Well, maybe a little," he corrected himself. "Our faces get hot when we're mad or scared. On some people it shows a little."

"Ah. Interesting."

"Yeah," Jack said, glancing around. "Can we get out of here now?"

"Do not worry." Draycos peered one last time into the shadows, then suddenly turned and leaped. Reflexively, Jack jerked back, whapping his head against the crates. The dragon hit his upper chest above his shirt and melted back onto his skin. "They will not bother us again," he said, sliding along Jack's body until his head was back in its usual place on his right shoulder. "Shall we continue?"

Jack rubbed the back of his head. He was never, ever going to get used to this. "Yeah," he said. "Sure."