Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier (18 page)

Jack sighed. Maybe Uncle Virge was right, after all. Maybe looking
out for yourself was all you could expect to do in this life. Trying to
do anything else was inviting a whole water buffalo stampede to charge
right down on top of you.

And at the moment, looking out for himself meant getting out of
here. Draycos would understand. In fact, Draycos was probably tugging
at the leash to get away from this soggy mess himself.

Anyway, the whole only reason they'd come here in the first place
was to track down those Djinn-90s. Twenty-five thousand in Shamshir
cash would give them whole new ways to continue that search. That ought
to calm the dragon's conscience.

He hoped.

"Deal," he said, stepping to the nearest computer and sitting down
on the chair in front of it. Briefly, he wondered if Draycos would
consider this a betrayal of his soldier's oath. But there was nothing
he could do except hope the dragon understood. Taking a deep breath, he
keyed in the main access code they'd been taught. Nothing happened.

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 reprogrammed . . ."

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 Shontine 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 Shontine 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."