Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (24 page)

Raven was obviously thinking the same thing. "Sorry about the
decor," he said as Vance led them around a corner into a
cross-corridor. "I would have ordered flowers, only you weren't
supposed to go down for another couple of weeks."

"You didn't get any flowers for those Wistawki, either," Jack
murmured. If he was going to get Raven to confess to the murders, this
was the time for it. "The ones you shot on Vagran. You didn't seem to
care at all about them, in fact."

Raven snorted. "What, get misty-eyed over a bunch of dumb animals?
Who cares if a couple of them get shot?"

"You thought enough people would care to make it worth framing me
for their murders," Jack reminded him.

"I probably still will, too," Raven said with a shrug. "Might as
well get that off the books, and you're as good a fall guy as anyone.
Especially since you won't be around to tell your side of it."

"Unless Drabs turns on you," Jack pointed out.

"Don't worry, Drabs knows what side of the bread gets the butter,"
Raven assured him.

"Maybe," Jack said. "But like you, he was willing to stab Mr.
Braxton in the back. Maybe he'll do the same to you if he gets the
chance."

Raven snorted. "Nice try. I can handle Drabs."

"Well, then, maybe the Brummga will turn," Jack said. "He was a
witness, too, remember."

"A Brummga?" Braxton asked, frowning. "There aren't any Brummgas
in my security force."

"You know, kid, you talk way too much," Raven growled. "How about
you shut up for the rest of the trip?"

Jack sighed. "Sure."

Three minutes and two corridors later, they reached the cargo hold.

Like everything else on the
Star of Wonder
, it was a
pretty impressive place. It was big, for starters, built more along the
lines of a warehouse than a simple storage room. The ceiling was high,
maybe twenty feet up, with a grid of lifter-crane rails crisscrossing
it and at least three heavy-duty cranes riding them. Hanging a few feet
below the ceiling between the rails was another grid, this one a
network of service catwalks. Rows of lights set into the ceiling made
the room almost as bright as day.

Over the door they'd entered by, and clustered together into four
more groups in different parts of the ceiling, were the familiar
battery-equipped emergency lights. There were, unfortunately, almost
certainly no security cameras hidden inside them as there had been in
those in the purser's office.

Stacked neatly on the well-lit floor were piles of crates,
protected by acceleration webbing, with open aisles between them. All
of the stacks were too tall to see over; most of them reached nearly to
the catwalks overhead.

It reminded Jack of the Vagran spaceport, and for that first
hopeful moment he wondered if he might be lucky enough for the cargo to
be laid out in the same sort of maze. If it was, and if he and Braxton
could get just a few seconds ahead of their captors, they might at
least have a chance of making a game of hide-and-seek out of this.

But then he got a second glance, and the brief hope melted away.
The Vagran warehouse floor had been laid out in randomly sized
rectangles, which was what had accounted for the crooked walkways.
Here, though, the rectangles were all the same size, with the aisles
between them as straight as Parprin city streets. Anyone trying to
escape down one of them would be shot in the back before he got fifteen
feet.

Unless they didn't know anyone had escaped . . ..

"Nice," he commented, looking around. "A lot roomier than my place
upstairs."

"Glad you like it," Raven said. "Myers, where's this airlock?"

"Far side," Myers said, gesturing straight ahead with his gun.
"Maybe a little to the right."

"Okay, you take point," Raven said, nudging Braxton forward.
"Move. And remember to keep quiet if you don't want us burning innocent
bystanders."

The aisles were just wide enough for two people to walk
comfortably side by side. With Myers in the lead and Vance now bringing
up the rear, the group headed in.

Quietly, Jack reached down to his right jacket cuff and casually
unsnapped it. The last time Draycos had tried to go out that way
through the jacket, he'd nearly broken Jack's wrist. He just hoped the
dragon would remember that, and pick up on the hint.

He did. Jack could feel him sliding along his body, easing as much
of himself as he could onto Jack's right arm, getting ready to spring.

"Easy," Jack muttered. "You'll know when." Ahead, they were coming
up on one of the cross aisles. Jack took a deep breath, watching
Myers's back and counting his own steps. This was going to take some
careful timing if he didn't want to get himself shot.

Myers walked past the cross aisle, glancing both ways as he passed
it, and continued on. Jack focused on the aisle, estimating how many
steps ahead of him it was. Three, he decided, would be the magic
number. When he was three steps away, he would go.

Five steps away. Four.
Three
.

Jumping away from Braxton's side, he sprinted forward. The move
caught everyone by surprise. He'd made it one step before Raven even
got out a startled curse; two steps before Myers started to twist back
around; three steps before he heard the sound of Braxton being shoved
aside as Raven tried to bring his gun to bear.

And then he was at the cross aisle. Leaning his weight to the
left, he threw himself hard into it.

Threw himself a little too hard, in fact. As he tried to make the
turn his feet skidded out from under him. He grabbed for the side of
the nearest stack of crates, missed, and toppled over hard onto his
side. From the aisle he'd just left, the aisle his feet were still
sticking out into, came the sound of curses and orders as Raven and his
men scrambled to catch up with him. Two seconds, maybe, and they would
be on top of him.

But for those precious two seconds, the top half of his body was
out of their sight.

Draycos came out of the end of Jack's right sleeve like a black
thundercloud twisting over a prairie town. He caught the webbing on the
side of the stack with his claws and skittered up the side. By the time
Raven and Myers spun madly around the corner, he had vanished over the
top.

"You little snot," Raven snarled viciously, grabbing Jack by the
front of his jacket and hauling him up onto his feet. Before Jack could
get his balance, the man slammed him up against the stack of crates. "I
ought to kill you right here," he threatened, his face three inches
from Jack's, the muzzle of his gun jammed hard into Jack's stomach. "I
ought to burn your fingers off, then kill you right here."

"You start burning me and I probably won't be able to keep from
screaming," Jack said, his voice trembling with reaction. "Someone
might hear. How many people can you toss out an airlock before people
start wondering where they all went?"

For a long, terrifying moment he thought Raven was going to decide
he didn't care. But even seething with anger, he could apparently see
the reason in that. Slowly, reluctantly, he moved back. "Vance?"

Vance appeared, his gun pressed warningly into the back of
Braxton's neck. "Yeah?"

"You stay on Braxton," Raven ordered. "I'll take the kid
personally. Let's go."

Jack took a deep breath as they all moved back into the aisle and
continued on their way. He had done all that he could.

Now it was up to Draycos.

Draycos leaped from Jack's sleeve as high as he could. His
outstretched claws caught the side of the boxes, and the netting that
held them in place. The netting was a perfect grip, and he ran up the
side of the stack, going nearly as fast as he could have on flat ground.

He scrambled over the edge onto the top, and immediately twisted
around to cautiously look down.

The caution wasn't necessary. The three humans below weren't
looking around for him, but had eyes only for Jack and Braxton. Most
likely, they were completely unaware of what had just taken place.

He pulled back from the edge, giving the room a quick look. There
was a series of narrow walkways hanging from the ceiling above him. He
leaped to the nearest of them, managing to get over the safety railing
and onto the walkway itself without making any noise. Keeping his claws
withdrawn, running silently on the soft pads of his paws, he headed
back toward the door they'd come in through.

Twice now Jack had stopped him when he was preparing for action.
The first time, two Wistawki had died because of it. The second time,
up in Braxton's suite, he would probably have succeeded.

But at a cost that he now realized could have been disastrous.
Because there was more at stake here than Braxton's life. More even
than Jack's life, and that was saying a great deal. Jack was his host,
and there was a high debt of honor between a K'da warrior and his host.

But even that honor could not balance against the lives of the
entire K'da race. The human who had spoken to Jack aboard the
Advocatus
Diaboli
had been part of the plot against his people; and whether
Cornelius Braxton himself was part of it or not, it was likely that
some of those around him were.

Which meant he could not permit Braxton to know of his existence.

Even if it cost Jack his life?

Draycos felt a knife-point of guilt digging beneath his scales as
he raced along the hanging walkway toward the door. What had Jack
intended him to do just now, he wondered? Had he expected him to leap
onto Raven and the others as they came around the corner?

Because he could have done exactly that. Jack's risky break for
freedom had startled the enemy into carelessness, causing them to bunch
together. He could have taken all three of them without trouble.
Probably before any of them had even known they were under attack.

But then Braxton would have seen him. And if he had, the K'da race
might have died.

So instead Draycos had hidden out of sight on top of the boxes.
Jack had been recaptured, and would now suffer whatever punishment
Raven demanded for his action.

Soon, perhaps, he would die.

What did Jack think Draycos was doing now? Did he think Draycos
was preparing a trap? Did he expect to suddenly have a K'da warrior
drop into their midst, slashing and clawing?

Or did he think Draycos might be running away?

Thoughts of Uncle Virgil flickered through Draycos's mind. Uncle
Virgil, and his ghostly echo inside the
Essenay
's computer.
That human had taught Jack to think only about himself, to do only that
which benefited him. Was the boy even capable of thinking about higher
things? Would he understand the idea of sacrificing something you
valued, or someone you cared about, for something even more valuable?

Even if he did, would he think the K'da and Shontine worth the
sacrifice of his life?

Probably not. Given time, Draycos knew he could teach the boy
about such things as honor and integrity and justice. Jack had the
potential to stand with the very finest of the K'da and Shontine.

But he wasn't there yet. Would he be able to find the strength to
calmly die so that the K'da and Shontine might live? Draycos didn't
think so.

But if he did his job right, neither of them would have to find
out.

He reached the end of the walkway above the door. Fastened to the
wall just below the ceiling was his target: the now-familiar square box
of an emergency lighting system. From the battery pack a thick wire
rose to each of the system's two lights. Two quick slashes of his
claws, and the wires were cut.

He spun around on the walkway and headed back. There were four
other clusters of emergency lights on the ceiling, each of the groups
arranged in a circle with the lights facing outward. Moving along the
grid, he made his way to each cluster in turn. Slashing systematically
at the wires, he quickly disabled them.

And with that, everything was ready. He headed for the far end of
the room, hoping he would be in time.

The sound of the humans' footsteps had stopped, but his view of
them was still blocked. He sped along the walkway, blood tingling
through his muscles and scales with his fear of what he would see. He
passed the last stack of boxes and looked down.

The humans had reached the far wall and were standing near a heavy
door with a control panel and status board beside it. Jack and Braxton
stood together with their backs to the wall near the door. Raven stood
facing them, his weapon pointed at Braxton. Vance stood a few paces
away in guard position, his weapon also ready, while Myers worked at
the control panel.

Draycos slowed to a silent trot, studying the lights overhead as
he moved toward the humans. The power wires weren't buried inside an
outer wall, as they were in the public areas of the ship, but were
merely fastened in plain sight against the ceiling.

He wondered how much electrical power those wires contained. But
it didn't really matter. Whatever was necessary, he would do it.

Below him, the airlock door swung open. "This is it," Raven said.
"Get in."

Braxton took a step toward the door. Jack didn't move. "What,
already?" the boy asked. "No chance for last words? A blindfold?
Anything?"

Raven stepped over to him. Draycos couldn't see the human's
expression, but his voice was suddenly vicious as he pressed his weapon
into Jack's throat. "I hear death by asphyxiation isn't a bad way to
go," he bit out. "Death by laser is. Now get
in
."

Jack still didn't move. "I think you're forgetting one thing,
Raven. Mr. Braxton's DNA cylinder—well, the fake one, but you know what
I mean. It's still in the purser's safe. If he disappears now, aren't
they going to wonder why he didn't take it with him?"

Draycos smiled grimly. That was Jack, all right. Comments,
complaints, objections, questions—the boy was stalling for time.
Squeezing out every extra heartbeat he could to give his companion time
to act.