by Timothy Zahn
For a long moment Jack just stood there staring. Twelve bunk beds. Twenty-four beds. All empty.
All of them?
All of them.
He stumbled back outside, to find Draycos lurking beside the corner of the tent. "You did not alert them?" the dragon asked.
"There isn't anyone to alert," Jack told him tightly. "They're gone."
The dragon's long neck arched back. "Gone? Gone where?"
"How should I know?" Jack countered, looking around the encampment. Everything was dark and silent.
Everyone asleep, he had thought. Now, he wondered if anyone was even here.
"Shall we try the other tent?" Draycos asked.
"Let's try the HQ first," Jack said. "It's on the way, and the rest of the squad should still be setting up."
"Yes," Draycos agreed. He leaped up to Jack's shoulder and disappeared down the back of his neck. "Hurry. The Shamshir are still approaching."
With its windows shielded, the headquarters building was as dark as the rest of the camp. But as Jack approached, he saw to his relief that there was a narrow sliver of soft light coming from under the door. At least someone was home there.
Unless the rest of Tango Five Zulu had carelessly left the lights on before they vanished into the night with everyone else. Mentally crossing his fingers, he pulled open the door.
The rest of Tango Five Zulu hadn't vanished. They were all still there, kneeling in a circle in the center of the room, their faces bowed toward the floor, their hands clasped behind their necks. Two men in full nighttime camouflage outfits were standing behind them, their weapons leveled at their backs.
But Jack only saw that out of the corner of his eye. His full attention was on the other two men in the room, standing beside the squad's stack of fold-top computers.
Their guns pointed directly at Jack.
Chapter 17
"Walk inside," a hard, flat voice growled from somewhere to his right. "No noise."
Carefully, trying not to make anything that looked like a suspicious move, Jack turned his head that direction.
Standing in the corner of the room, positioned where he could guard the doorway Jack was still standing in, was a Brummga.
Jack stared at the wide alien, his mouth dropping open a little. Suddenly, it was like he'd gone back in time to the ruins of the Havenseeker and his first meeting with Draycos.
But this Brummga wasn't wearing the same mismatched collection of clothing and combat gear. He was dressed in the same camouflage outfit as the other Shamshir mercenaries, with the same curved-sword patch on his shoulder. And the gun he was holding was smaller and sleeker than the shiny black monstrosity the other Brummga had pointed at Jack back then.
Different Brummga. Different group.
Worse situation.
The Brummga twitched his weapon, emphasizing his order. Shaking away the uncomfortable feeling of deja vu, Jack took another step into the room. Just to prove he knew how to behave in a situation like this, he carefully closed the door behind him.
"Anyone else?" one of the men across the room asked.
Jack opened his mouth to tell him he had no idea— "Okay," the man said. "Keep sharp."
Jack closed his mouth again. Of course; the man hadn't been asking him. He'd been talking to a spotter outside on a comm clip.
For a moment he wondered if the spotter might have caught a glimpse of Draycos. Maybe even have seen the dragon go two-dimensional and slide onto Jack's skin.
But no. If he had, he surely would have said something. And the guy in here didn't seem like he was that good of an actor.
"This the last of your tech squad?" one of the other men asked, slinging his gun over his shoulder and striding over to Jack. He had thrown back the hood of his camo jacket, and Jack could see that his head was totally bald beneath it. Like a billiard cue ball with a face painted on it, he thought irreverently.
"Yeah, that's him," Jommy said, his voice low and surly. "He was on sentry duty."
"Didn't do a very good job," Cue Ball commented, taking Jack's Gompers rifle away from him.
Jack thought about it a second and decided he wasn't going to let that one pass. "Oh, I don't know," he objected calmly. "I spotted the eight guys you've got coming in from the south."
He had the minor satisfaction of seeing Cue Ball's face flicker with surprise. "Sure you did," the other said suspiciously. "How many of them were human?"
There were five quick taps on the back of Jack's arm. "Five," Jack said. "Why? You taking inventory?"
Cue Ball snorted. "Get over there," he growled, jerking his head toward the other teens. "Join your buddies."
Jack did as he was told, crossing the room and kneeling down between Brinkster and Li. He could feel Brinkster's body trembling where her shoulder touched his. Li, on his other side, seemed in shock, as if refusing to believe this was really happening.
"Come on, you know the drill," Cue Ball prompted, jabbing Jack's own gun into the back of his neck. "Hands on your head; fingers laced together."
Again Jack obeyed, glancing around at the others. Jommy's surly tone, he could see now, hadn't been entirely honest. The kid was angry, all right, and trying hard to look brave and tough. But he was also scared. Very scared.
Eleven-year-old Rogan Mbusu wasn't even trying to put up a good front. He was crying openly, tears streaming down his cheeks, his body shaking with silent sobs. Beside him, Alison knelt without moving, her face expressionless.
Stunned by it all, like Li? Or was she simply better at burying her emotions than the others?
It was only then that he realized Alison was staring back at him. Staring very intently.
He frowned back at her. Was she trying to ask him something? Tell him something?
Concentrating on Alison, he jerked as a pair of hard hands slipped around his neck. Before he could react further, the hands were gone.
Leaving something hard and cold snugged up around his throat.
"All right, listen up," Cue Ball said. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw the man fasten a gray metal collar around Li's neck. "These things are called control collars." He moved on to Alison. "In case the famous Whinyard's Edge ten-day training course didn't cover them, let me explain. Their sole purpose in life is to choke the living daylights out of you if you try to run or make trouble."
He stepped behind Rogan. The kid nearly collapsed at his touch; Cue Ball merely propped him up with one hand and put on his collar with the other. "They can get triggered one of two ways," he said. "First, if you wander too far from the tether marker. One of us has that. I'm not going to tell you which one."
He slid on Jommy's collar. "The other way is for one of us to fire 'em directly. That'll happen if we decide somewhere along the way that you're not worth the trouble of taking back with us. And we're easily convinced. So don't try."
"This guy's just a bundle of charm," Jack muttered under his breath.
Cue Ball, now standing behind Brinkster, apparently had good ears. The next thing Jack knew, the big man had slapped him hard against the side of his head. "Watch your mouth, kid," he growled.
Jack grimaced. "Yes, sir," he said, trying to sound meek and subdued and feeling annoyed with himself. He'd forgotten Uncle Virgil's first rule of being a prisoner: always look as helpless and harmless as you possibly can. It tended to make the enemy overlook you.
And if there was one thing he really wanted right now it was to be overlooked.
"One more thing," Cue Ball added as he snapped Brinkster's collar around her neck. "All six of these collars are keyed together. Plus side for us: we don't have to fumble for six different buttons if we have to drop a troublemaker. Minus side for you: if one of you gets the chop, all of you do. Think about that if you're tempted to be a hero."
"We're set here, Lieutenant," one of the other men reported.
Jack glanced that direction. The men had the squad's fold-top computers packed into a couple of backpacks, and were hoisting them up on
to their backs.
"Right," Cue Ball said. Lieutenant Cue Ball, rather. "We're heading out now, kiddies. Keep it nice and easy and quiet. We've got people positioned all around the camp, just like Sentry Smart Mouth here said. You whisde up an alarm, and all you'll do will be to get the rest of your buddies slaughtered in their bunks. Understood? Good."
They left the HQ building, the prisoners in single file, the Shamshir troops spread out on both sides around them. It wasn't until they were halfway across the silent encampment that Jack suddenly caught the full significance of that last comment.
Lieutenant Cue Ball had just threatened to shoot up the camp. But the threat didn't make sense, because Jack already knew that the rest of the Edgemen had disappeared.
Which meant that Lieutenant Cue Ball didn't know that.
He puzzled at it all the way to the empty guard post and on into the woods. Okay. So the Edgemen were gone. But the Shamshir raiders hadn't made them go away. Not by killing them, or kidnapping them, or luring them out of camp.
So where had they gone? And why?
He still hadn't come up with any answers by the time they met up with the eight soldiers Draycos had spotted earlier. The group was spread out near Jack's sentry cage, clearly waiting for Lieutenant Cue Ball and his prisoners to show up. A backup force, undoubtedly, in case something had gone wrong.
Jack found a minor bit of satisfaction in the fact that there were indeed five humans in the group.
They continued on down the slope. Some clouds had rolled in, cutting off most of the already dim starlight, and Jack found himself in a continual struggle with underbrush that wanted to trip him up and low-hanging tree branches that wanted to take his forehead off.
But the darkness also provided an unexpected plus. With visibility near zero, he could feel Draycos carefully probing at the collar with his claws, searching out its operation.
And then, the pressure around his neck disappeared.
The dragon had popped the collar.
Jack tensed, trying to decide which way he should jump. A second later he nearly yelped in frustration as the pressure came back again.
A very rude word flashed across his mind. But Draycos was right. Walking through the middle of an unfamiliar forest, with armed enemies all around, was not exactly the ideal spot to make a break for it.
He just hoped they would find a better opportunity before Lieutenant Cue Ball stood all of them in front of a firing squad.
Ten minutes later they reached a small clearing. An unmarked Flying Turtle 505 transport sat there, a much smaller vehicle than the Lynx the squad had arrived in earlier. It was guarded by two more Brummgas with Shamshir shoulder patches. The whole crowd piled aboard, and they headed up into the sky.
And finally Jack had it figured out. The whole thing was a clever trap, with Tango Five Zulu and their computers as the bait. They'd been sent out here to draw Lieutenant Cue Ball and his men into grabbing range. Now, as they lifted out of the woods, the hidden Edge forces would spring their trap.
Only they didn't. The Flying Turtle slid along under the cloudy sky at treetop level, without a single other vehicle in sight.
All right, then, Jack decided as the minutes slipped by and nothing happened. Change in plan. The Edge wasn't out to trap Lieutenant Cue Ball at all. Instead, they were looking for some secret Shamshir base. It was still a trap, Tango Five Zulu was still the bait, only now the Edgemen would wait until they reached their destination to spring it.
He was still holding firmly to that idea fifteen minutes later when the transport settled into a landing.
"Let's go, puppies," Lieutenant Cue Ball said, stepping to the hatchway and waving his gun toward it. "Don't forget about your collars."
Jack was third in line out the door. He glanced first at the sky, to see if the Edge fighters were on their way.
They weren't. Trying hard to keep his hopes up, he lowered his gaze to the area around them.
And with that all of his secret hopes dropped straight into his boots, chewed their way through the soles, and disappeared into the ground beneath him. If this was a secret military base, then he was Draycos's maiden Aunt Matilda.
For starters, the place wasn't even remotely secret. It was completely out in the open, without any large trees, overhanging cliffs, or even camouflage screens to protect it. The Edge training camp on Carrion would have been harder to spot than this place.
It was also very definitely not a military base. The only vehicles in sight were two more Flying Turtles, neither of which looked even slightly armed. A couple of human-style buildings squatted at the edge of the landing area, probably service areas for the transports, probably courtesy of the Shamshir. The rest of the town seemed to be composed entirely of mud huts of various sizes.
"Welcome to Dahtill City," Lieutenant Cue Ball announced as the prisoners looked around them. "Regional capital of this part of Agrist territory, and where this whole thing started."
He smiled, possibly the most unfriendly smile Jack had ever seen. "And for you, puppies," he added, "where it's all going to end."
Chapter 18
The mud hut Lieutenant Cue Ball led them to was larger than most of the ones around it, with wide, fan-shaped leaves stuck into its sides at various spots. The doorway was low, and all of them except Rogan had to duck to keep from hitting their heads.
Experimentally, Jack brushed his hand against the outer wall as he went through the doorway. It might look like fresh mud, but it was as hard and unyielding as stone.
A single room took up the entire interior of the hut. There were three aliens seated behind a table in the center: short, pale, hairless beings with round but hollow faces and bright silvery eyes. Agri, Jack decided, though he'd never actually seen any of this particular species up close before. Two of them were wearing the same camouflage military clothing as the Shamshir mercenaries, while the third was dressed in a long white robe with narrow red stripes.
The robe, in Jack's opinion, definitely suited them better. The ones playing soldier looked ridiculous.
"Then tell me what it is this time," the robed Agrist said. His voice was a lot more melodious than Jack would have guessed from the almost skull-like face. "Yet another crushing defeat against the thieves? Another step toward total victory against our oppressors?"
Jack frowned, taking another look. Even given that he didn't know the first thing about reading Agrist faces, the robed guy did not seem very happy. In fact, from the tone of the comments, he seemed downright angry. Not exactly the attitude he would have expected.
Unlike Jack, Lieutenant Cue Ball didn't seem surprised by the tone. "I don't blame you for being skeptical, Your Honorest," he said, his voice calm and earnest. "But this time, we have the key."
"These are children," one of the uniformed Agri said harshly. "Human children. Did you think we would not know?"
"Even children can fight, Defense Master," Lieutenant Cue Ball pointed out. "In the hands of capable soldiers like those of the Whinyard's Edge, they can be molded into mighty warriors indeed."
Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Alison stir. Probably thinking about their ten whole days of training, he decided, and wanting very much to say something sarcastic. But she remained silent.
"But that's not why these particular prisoners are important," Lieutenant Cue Ball went on. "These six are far more valuable than mere warriors. They've been trained in Whin-yard's Edge communications and computer access codes. And we've also taken their computers intact. Soon we'll be able to break both their real-time tactical data and also learn their long-term plans."
"And this will gain us what?" the robed Agrist asked.
Lieutenant Cue Ball seemed taken aback. "Why, victory, of course, Your Honorest."
"Will it?" His Honorest asked. "Will it really?"
He turned his silvery eyes on Jack. "Will it force the Whinyard's Edge to abandon their attacks on our mine? Will it persuade the Parprins to accept the ruling of the courts that our min
e is indeed ours? Will it finally persuade the Trade Association to send a Judge-Paladin to confirm and enforce that ruling?"
Jack felt a funny tingling at the pit of his stomach. Lieutenant Basht had told them that it was the Agri who had jumped the Parprins' mining claims. But according to this Agrist, it was the other way around.
Which was none of his business, of course. He had no particular interest in local politics, or what exactly was going on with a small-time mine that probably no one else in the whole Orion Arm cared about. The only reason he was here was to try to collect information on Djinn-90s, so that he could find out who had attacked Draycos's ships, so that eventually he could get Draycos off his back.
Unfortunately, Draycos wasn't likely to see things quite that simply. Draycos and his K'da warrior ethic were going to be very unhappy if it turned out that they were fighting on the wrong side of this war.
Sure enough, he could feel the dragon moving softly along his skin. That was a sign that usually meant he was uncomfortable or annoyed.
Jack could only hope he would keep his annoyance to himself long enough for them to get out of this mess.
"The only reason the Parprins are still pushing this is because the Edge is backing them," Lieutenant Cue Ball said. "And the only reason they're still on Sunright is that they don't think we can beat them."
"You told us this afternoon's attack in Mer'seb would persuade them to leave," His Honorest said.
"I said it would be the first step," Lieutenant Cue Ball corrected. "What we need now is to bloody them in half a dozen places at once."
He slapped his fingertips at the Edge patch on Jommy's shoulder. "This is our key."
"I do not like this," His Honorest said flatly. "They are children. It is not right to make war against children."
"But it's all right for those same children to make war against us?" Lieutenant Cue Ball demanded, starting to sound impatient. "Come on, think. Use those heads of yours for a change."
"What do you require of us?" the Defense Master asked.
Lieutenant Cue Ball gave a sound that was almost a sniff. "Nothing at all," he said. "We'll get what we need by ourselves. I just thought you'd like to be brought up to speed on what was happening, that's all."
