Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier (20 page)

"I do not think so," Draycos said, his voice as strange as
Grisko's. "Are there emergency escape devices aboard this aircraft?"

Jack frowned. "What in the world—?"

"Do not argue," Draycos snapped, shooting out of Jack's collar to
land on the deck behind him. Suddenly the dragon seemed charged with
energy and nervous tension.

"We must leave this vehicle at once. Are there escape devices
aboard?"

"I can check," Jack said, the urgency in the dragon's voice
silencing all questions. "Can you fly this thing?"

"Yes," Draycos said, moving aside to let Jack out of the pilot's
seat. "Go. Quickly."

There was a tall storage cabinet built into the wall beside the
exit hatchway. Jack started toward it, then changed his mind and
instead got down on his knees beside the nearest row of seats.

His second hunch turned out to be right. Strapped beneath each
seat was the orange-striped plastic bag of a drop-pack. "Got it," he
reported, pulling one free.

"How high must we be to use it?" Draycos asked. He was, Jack saw,
curled partially on his side in the pilot's seat, his paws on the
transport's controls.

"As high or as low as you want," Jack told him. "It's not like a
parachute or hang glider where you need altitude for it to work."

"Then prepare yourself and wait by the door."

"Right," Jack said, ripping open the package tab and heading aft.
The drop-pack was similar to the ones he and Uncle Virgil had used once
in a midnight skulk onto the roof of a high-rise bank, except that this
one had the typical drab-ness of military surplus. By the time he
reached the hatchway, he had it on. "Ready," he called.

"Stand prepared to open the hatchway," Draycos ordered. "When I
come to you, we will jump."

Jack took a deep breath, checking all the drop-pack's straps one
final time. The scariest part was that he still didn't know what had
spooked the dragon so badly. But anything that worried a poet-warrior
of the K'da was definitely something he wanted to be worried about, too.

His eyes fell on the cabinet beside the hatchway. On impulse, he
pulled it open.

Originally, he'd thought to find the drop-packs in there. What he
found instead was actually more reasonable considering the Flying
Turtle's owners.

The cabinet was a weapons locker. The entire top half was filled
with the sort of small machine guns Lieutenant Cue Ball and his men had
been carrying, with the middle part taken up by shelves full of ammo
clips for the guns. At the bottom, looking almost like an afterthought,
was a rack holding six slapsticks.

Jack hesitated. The heavier weapons were tempting, but only for a
second. Machine guns were mid-range weapons, which was good; but they
were also lethal and very noisy, neither of which was what he wanted
right now. The slapsticks, on the other hand, were dead quiet and did
nothing but knock out your target with an electric shock.

Of course, you also had to get close enough to physically touch
him. But you couldn't have everything. Pulling out one of the
slapsticks, he made sure it was fully charged, checked to see that the
safety catch was on, then stuck it in his belt.

"Prepare," Draycos called.

"Ready," Jack called back, getting a grip on the drop-pack rip
cord with one hand and resting the other on the hatchway release pad.

And suddenly, in a flash of golden scales, Draycos spun around and
dived out of the pilot's chair. Hitting the top of one of the rows of
seats, he shoved off it and bounded toward the hatch.

Jack was ready. He slapped the release; and as the sudden
hurricane of wind tore at his hair and clothes he stretched his hand
out toward Draycos.

The outstretched forepaws struck his palm and the dragon melted up
his sleeve. Pulling the rip cord, Jack pushed off backwards into the
night.

The wind grabbed him, and for a horribly tangled second it threw
him around, turning him upside down and twice slapping him in the face.
It was like being thrown into a raging river made up of air instead of
water.

Then the tiny thrusters built into the drop-pack kicked into
action. They turned him upright, slowing both his descent and his
forward motion. The wind faded, one last set of tree branches grabbed
at his sleeve as he passed, and then his feet slapped more or less
gently into the crunchy mat of leaves.

"Whew!" he puffed, regaining his balance and looking around. They
had landed in a reasonably clear area on a small rise, giving him a
good view forward.

There, fading into the distance, he could see their transport. It
was still skimming cheerfully away into the night, with no hint of
mechanical trouble that he could see.

He shook his head, wondering how many miles they were now going to
have to walk. "I don't suppose you happen to know where we are?" he
asked.

And then, before Draycos could answer, there was a flicker of
light in the distance. Something dark and half-seen seemed to curve up
from the forest.

And with a brilliant flash, it exploded against the underside of
the Flying Turtle.

The air went out of Jack as if he'd been kicked in the stomach.
"Wha—?" he gasped, staring in disbelief at the fireball still hugging
the underside of the transport. No—it was impossible.

But even as he watched, even as his mind tried to convince itself
that he wasn't seeing what he was seeing, a second object rose from the
forest, and a second explosion blasted at the transport's underside.

"That attack was meant for us," Draycos said, his voice low and
grim as his head rose from Jack's shoulder. "I see your military
vehicles are well equipped with ventral armor."

The words seemed to bounce around Jack's brain like angry hornets
trying to get through a window. "What are you talking about?" he heard
himself say.

"Ventral armor," Draycos repeated. "Protection for the underside
of the craft. Designed to protect the troops being carried."

Jack tore his eyes away from the Flying Turtle, wavering but still
holding together, and stared at the dragon's face. "Are you insane?" he
demanded. "Someone just tried to kill us, and you're talking equipment
specs?"

"Be calm, Jack," Draycos advised. With a surge of weight and
pressure, he leaped out of Jack's collar and landed on the ground in
front of him. "I do not believe they intended to kill you. I believe
they meant only to disable the craft, so that you could be taken
prisoner."

A distant clattering sound wafted toward them on the night air,
like a bunch of spoons that had been dropped into a sausage grinder.
Jack looked over, to find that the Flying Turtle had finally given up
and disappeared into the trees.

He didn't have any trouble seeing where it had landed, though. The
reddish glow of the fire from its burning fuel tanks was plainly
visible.

"I don't believe this," he muttered. "They shot down one of their
own transports just so they could grab me again? That's crazy. They
already know I can't get them into our computers."

Draycos twisted his long neck. "You misunderstand, Jack," he said
darkly. "It was not the Shamshir who did this."

Jack frowned at him. "You can't be serious."

"I am very serious," Draycos assured him. "It was the Whinyard's
Edge who shot down the transport."

"But that doesn't make sense," Jack protested. "I was already on
my way to meet them. Why shoot at me?"

"I do not know," Draycos said. "But remember: Sergeant Grisko
asked if you were strapped in. And he instructed you to keep your
course steady."

"That was just a figure of speech," Jack muttered. But even as he
argued, he knew down deep that he was batting at flies here. He'd spent
over two weeks with Grisko, and never in that time had he heard the man
utter a single word of concern for anyone's safety. Plus, there'd been
that odd tone in his voice just before he signed off.

And he and Uncle Virgil had been betrayed too many times over the
years for him not to know what it felt like to be stabbed in the back.

"But why?" he asked. "What did I ever do to him?"

"That is what we must find out," Draycos declared.

The dragon had been gazing out at the sky as if trying to find
constellations in the unfamiliar star patterns. Now, he looked back at
Jack and flipped his tail up in front of the boy's face. "The sky is
clear of watchers. Take hold."

"Wait a second," Jack protested even as he got a grip on the end
of the dragon's tail. "Where are we going?"

Draycos lifted a forepaw. "The transport is there," he said,
pointing a forepaw toward the glow. "The Kilo Seven outpost is there,"
he went on, shifting his forepaw about forty-five degrees to the right.
"Between them is the sentry cage you occupied earlier this evening. I
wish to intercept them near there."

"Yeah, well, just wait a second," Jack said cautiously. This whole
thing had to be some kind of huge misunderstanding. The last thing he
wanted was for a gung ho K'da warrior to go off the high dive into the
revenge pool. "They didn't kill anyone. Right? No hospital, no foul."

Draycos tossed his head. "You misunderstand, Jack," he said. "I do
not seek vengeance, but information."

"And how exactly do you expect to get it?"

"We shall see," Draycos said. "Now. Let us go."

Earlier that night—was it still just the same night?—Jack had
hurried back from the sentry cage to the outpost. At the time, he would
have sworn that that was as fast as it was possible for him to travel
through a dark forest without breaking a leg or clotheslining himself
on a low-hanging branch.

He'd been wrong. He'd been very wrong.

They raced through the forest. Not a quick walk, not a cautious
jog, but a flat-out run. Draycos was in a hurry; and a K'da warrior in
a hurry was a sight to behold.

And the most astonishing part of it was that Jack never even so
much as twisted an ankle.

He never did figure that one out. Yes, he knew that Draycos had a
different kind of eyesight than humans, which clearly included better
night vision along with the rest of the package. And yes, the dragon
also had training and experience in moving around different types of
terrain.

But that only explained how Draycos kept from hurting himself. How
he managed to also keep Jack's feet from finding any dips or tree roots
along the way remained a mystery.

For the first ten minutes or so Draycos kept the pace as fast as
Jack could manage, stopping every couple of hundred yards for a quick
breather. Or at least, that was what Jack first thought the rest stops
were for. It was only after the third one that he realized the dragon
wasn't so much calling a time-out as he was pausing to listen for signs
of their opponents.

It was at the ninth rest stop that those sounds began to be heard,
at least by K'da ears. From that point on, they walked quietly instead
of running.

There was no conversation. There was no need for any. Jack might
not have K'da military training, but he knew all about sneaking through
hostile territory trying not to be noticed.

They had gone another ten minutes, and Jack had just about gotten
his breath back from that mad dash, when Draycos abruptly came to a
halt. Jack froze in place beside him, listening hard.

For a moment there was nothing. Then, from somewhere ahead, he
heard it: a quiet voice, two more acknowledging voices, and then a
faint crackle of leaves. Slowly, the crunching sounds moved
off
.

"Careful," he whispered into Draycos's ear as the sounds faded
away. "They might have left a guard behind."

The dragon's tongue flicked out twice, tasting the air. "No," he
whispered back. "All three have gone ahead. But others are moving up
behind them."

Jack swallowed. Terrific. "What now?"

"We need information," Draycos said. "We must therefore set a
trap. You spoke earlier of electronic detectors?"

Abruptly, belatedly, Jack remembered the slapstick at his side.
"Oh, geez," he breathed, snatching it out of his belt like he'd
suddenly found a snake riding his hip. "I wasn't even thinking."

"Calm yourself," Draycos assured him. "I allowed you to bring it
because it may now be useful. Come."

He headed off at an angle. Gripping the slapstick in one hand and
Draycos's tail in the other, Jack followed.

The dragon led him in a curving path, stopping at last beside a
small tree with slender, multiple trunks poking out from a twisted root
system. "Here," he said. "You may put the weapon down."

Jack obeyed. As he did so, something set between two of the thin
trunks caught his eye. It was a small plastic object, shaped like a
curved cone with a flat piece of glass or plastic on the side facing
away from him. A thin metal rod connected it to one of the trunks, and
he could see a double cable attached to the cone's pointy end hanging
down to the ground.

And suddenly he realized what it was. "That's one of the Argus
eyes!"

"Yes," Draycos agreed. "Do not worry. We have come up behind it."
He reached out a claw and deftly sliced one of the two cables near
where it went into the cone. "At any rate, they cannot see from it now."

"Yes, but—" With an effort, Jack choked back his protest. If
anyone had been looking at the monitor when Draycos cut the cable, he
might just as well have sent up a flare announcing where they were.
"Fine. What now?"

The dragon's jaws opened slightly. "Now," he said, "we find you a
tree."

Jack blinked. "A tree?"

"One which will hide you, but which they will not expect you can
climb," Draycos continued, looking around. "One which therefore they
will not think to examine. Ah— there. Come."

He headed off toward a smooth-sided tree that showed a hint of a
bush-like branch structure beginning about fifty feet up. Rather like a
giant dandelion, Jack thought as they approached. "Hold tightly,"
Draycos ordered, leaping a few feet up onto the side of the tree and
again wagging his tail into Jack's face.