Dragonback 06 Dragon and Liberator

by Timothy Zahn

  But he had Draycos.

  He could only hope that he could still say that fifteen minutes from now.

  As part of their overall plan for the Gatekeeper's air ducts to double as back-door access routes, the ship's designers had made sure that the ventilation grilles would be difficult to see through from inside the rooms. Draycos was therefore able to move silently and invisibly toward his goal.

  To his surprise, the invisibility part proved less important than he'd expected it to. At first there were plenty of Brummgas striding through corridors or lounging about the various rooms he passed. But as he approached the Number Four weapons bay, that number became less and less. The last three rooms he passed, in fact, were completely deserted.

  Something was wrong.

  He took the last stretch of duct at a careful crawl, his tongue flicking out as he went, trying to analyze the scents of Brummga and human and Valahgua drifting on the air around him.

  And it was no doubt because he was taking such care that he spotted the small object sitting just inside the weapons bay's auxiliary control room grille.

  He froze in place ten feet away, peering hard at the object. It looked like a tube or perhaps a section of thick cable, about six inches long and one inch in diameter. It was too wide to have gotten through the small holes in the grille, which meant someone must have opened the grille in order to put it there.

  He flicked out his tongue again. This close to the grille, he should be able to pick out the specific scents coming from that room. There was one human in there, he decided, plus four or five Brummgas. No Valahgua.

  He frowned, his tail arching with sudden suspicion. Only a handful of defenders for one of the precious remaining Death weapons?

  Not a chance. Especially since his earlier checks had showed guard contingents three times that size. Could the rest of them be spread out in the corridor, where they would have a better field of fire?

  Backing up, he slipped into the duct that paralleled the corridor outside the room. He flicked his tongue at the nearest grille, looking for the scent of nervous Brummgas.

  But it wasn't there. The corridor was deserted, or nearly so.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  He returned to the room's duct again and took a cautious pair of steps toward the object lying inside the grille. From here he could see that it was vibrating slightly with the air flowing across it. Something light, then. Something light that had been rolled up into a cylindrical shape?

  A piece of paper?

  Carefully, he continued forward. It was a rolled-up piece of paper, all right, which had partially unrolled to its current diameter. Picking it up, he looked cautiously through the grille into the room beyond.

  The room had changed since his quiet reconnaissance two nights ago. As he'd already surmised, the crowd of guards that had lined the bulkheads was gone. Instead, the walls were lined with a double bank of video monitors. It was hard to tell at his distance, but they seemed to be carrying the feeds from various security cameras. One group of monitors, he saw, showed images from the tween gap area.

  As he'd also surmised, there were only five Brummgas in the room. Three of them were standing around the control end of the Death weapon, their backs to Draycos behind his grille. Two more were standing watchful guard by the door, with the grille at the edge of their peripheral vision.

  Standing two paces behind the three at the controls, the stiffness of his back betraying his tension, was Wing Sergeant Langston.

  Draycos eyed the group, his warrior's instincts tingling. Five Brummgas out of over three hundred, and a human whom they clearly didn't trust. Bait, if he'd ever seen it.

  Which meant that this whole thing was a trap.

  Taking one last look through the grille, Draycos picked up the rolled-up paper and retreated quietly along the duct.

  He found a hidden spot away from any of the grilles, one where he had three different escape routes available to him. Crouching down, he unrolled the paper.

  It was a note, as he'd expected, written in small but precise letters. Leaning close to give it all the light from his eyes that he could, he began to read.

  Draycos:

  I hope you get this message. I don't have much real information for you—they still don't completely trust me—but rumor is that the Valahgua are expecting you and Jack to try to hit the last two Death weapons before we reach Point Three.

  They've now got cameras inside all the hull-gap access doors near both weapons bays to watch for your arrival. The ventilation system seems untouched so far—I don't think they realize you'll fit in there. I'm hoping that's the approach you'll use, since I can't get this note into any of the hull-gap doors without making a lot of noise.

  Draycos nodded grimly to himself. Nothing really new, except that Langston had figured out the designers' system of back doors.

  Unfortunately, as soon as he hit this particular Death weapon, the Valahgua would know about it, too. That would leave him only the equipment crawl spaces, which covered limited areas of the ship, and didn't reach the weapons bays at all.

  They also fixed the Death weapon that you and Jack sabotaged. Not the two you shredded—they were furious about that, by the way—but the first one you hit, in the port-side weapons bay.

  Again, nothing new there. The heavy guard on the other Death weapon alone had pretty well proved it had been fixed.

  On the other hand, just because the Valahgua thought they'd fixed it didn't necessarily mean that they had. If they'd missed Jack's secondary sabotage, the weapon could still blow up in their faces when they tried to fire it. He could hope, anyway.

  Speaking of that port-side weapon, rumor is that the Valahgua moved it sometime during ship's night. I don't know where.

  Draycos frowned. They'd moved it? But it was already in as secure and inaccessible a place as the Gatekeeper had to offer.

  And then, suddenly, he understood.

  Langston and a handful of Brummgas, alone in a critical part of the ship. Bait for a trap, Draycos had already suspected.

  Now he knew what the trap was.

  "Jack, we're in trouble," he said quietly into the comm clip. "The Valahgua have moved the other Death weapon to cover this one.

  "The minute I come into the open, they're going to kill me."

  CHAPTER 18

  For a few seconds Jack lay motionless in the crawl space, staring at the low ceiling above his head as he silently berated his carelessness. He'd gotten so used to dealing with Brummgas and their slow and unimaginative brains that he'd forgotten there were also humans and Valahgua in the mix.

  Apparently, one of them had come up with something clever.

  "Jack?"

  "Yes, I'm here," Jack said, kicking his brain into gear. "Start at the beginning."

  He listened as Draycos read Langston's note and then gave his own observations and conclusions. "They're learning, anyway," Jack said when the K'da had finished. "Okay, let's think this through. First of all, I don't suppose you have any idea where they might have put the second Death, do you?"

  "Jack, it could be literally anywhere aboard the ship," Draycos said heavily. "As I've told you, its beam can penetrate any number of decks and bulkheads."

  "Right, but it'll also kill everyone in its path," Jack said. "I presume the Lordover won't want to sacrifice any more of his allies than he has to."

  "Probably, but that's not much help," Draycos said. "He can easily move all the Brummgas and humans out of the line of fire."

  "Except for those they can't move," Jack said. "What kinds of duty stations are there around the starboard weapons bay? Anything that absolutely has to be manned? Especially now, as We're about to come off ECHO?"

  "There's nothing forward of the main control complex," Draycos said. "All the duty station functions in the bow can be handled from somewhere else. That leaves over a quarter of the ship as possibilities."

  "Okay, then, how about power supplies?" Jack suggested. "You hinted ear
lier that the things had originally been set up in the weapons bays because they needed more power than your average crew mess or monitor station could deliver."

  "True, and that does limit their choices somewhat," Draycos said, a cautious hope starting to filter into his voice. "But I'd need to either visit each room or else find a monitor station in order to find out which one they're using."

  "Where's the nearest power monitor?" Jack asked, focusing on the ceiling over his head. "Better yet, can I tap into the one here in the control complex?"

  "Theoretically, yes," Draycos said. "But you'd need a portable monitor, which we don't have. Other than that, the only centralized monitors would be in auxiliary control, just forward of the engine control complex."

  Jack grimaced. The engine complex was way back in the aft section of the ship. "No good," he said. "It'd take you as long to get back there as it would to scope out all the possible rooms in the first place."

  "Or at least nearly as long," Draycos conceded. "Perhaps we need to abandon the idea of attacking these weapons before we reach Point Three."

  "No," Jack said firmly. "The minute we come off ECHO we're going to have Frost breathing down our necks. If he doesn't catch us, he's sure going to pin us down. If we're going to take out this thing, we need to do it now."

  "In that case, I'd best get started checking rooms," Draycos said. "If I find it quickly enough, I should at least be able to guarantee that that one's out of action."

  "Assuming that isn't where they've shifted all the Brummgas that used to be guarding this other—" Jack broke off, his breath catching in his throat.

  "Jack?"

  "It's okay, buddy," Jack said, his brain suddenly racing. "I just had a sudden revelation. Did you actually see the Death weapon in the weapons bay?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "What direction was it pointing?"

  There was a short pause. "It was pointing a hundred and ten degrees port side from the bow," the K'da said slowly. "Just aft of straight across. Odd. They've always been pointed forward, or a few degrees outward from forward."

  "All aimed and primed and ready for their upcoming attack, in other words," Jack agreed. "Now, suddenly, they've got one pointed back inward toward the middle of their own ship."

  "It's pointed at the other Death weapon," Draycos said, his voice suddenly charged with energy. "They're protecting each other."

  "Like a pair of chess knights in mutual guard positions," Jack said. "Now, knowing that, can you tell where the other one's been stashed?"

  "Knowing that, there are only two possibilities," Draycos said slowly "The forward machine shop, or the port-side power substation."

  "Are both of them close enough?" Jack asked. "Back on Rho Scorvi, you said something about atmosphere limiting the Death's range."

  "It's not the atmosphere itself but the density of life within it," Draycos corrected. "As the Death kills, some of its energy is absorbed by the life it's destroying. The atmosphere of a typical planet is full of microorganisms, spores, insects, and other life."

  "And we were in a forest at the time," Jack said. "Probably one of your higher-density locations."

  "Correct," Draycos said. "Also, the nearness of a planetary mass affects the Death in a way that the artificial gravity of a ship does not. As a result, on a planet the Death has a much smaller range."

  "But none of that applies here."

  "Correct," Draycos said. "Here the Death will have no problem cutting completely through the ship. However, in a choice between the machine shop and the substation, I would vote for the latter. It has more power available."

  "Let's try that one first, then," Jack said. "How long will it take you to get there?"

  "At least ten minutes," Draycos said. "The route isn't very straight."

  Jack chewed at his lower lip. The idea that was taking shape in the back of his mind was straightforward but tricky.

  It was also dangerous. And not just for him and Draycos.

  "Shall I get started?" Draycos prompted.

  "Better idea," Jack said. "See if Langston can give you a lift."

  "You are joking, right?"

  "Not at all," Jack said. "If you can get onto his skin without any of the Brummgas in there noticing, he can stroll down the corridor faster and easier than you can travel through the ducts."

  "The ducts would be safer."

  "Not necessarily." Jack hesitated. "Besides, we owe it to him let him know what's coming."

  There was another short silence. "Is there something coming that I don't know about?" Draycos asked.

  "I think there is, yes," Jack hedged. "Let me think it through a little more. Meanwhile you go see if you think it's possible to get to Langston."

  "Very well," Draycos said. "I'll speak to you again when I can." The comm clip went silent.

  For another moment Jack lay where he was, gazing at the floor above him. Then, rolling over, he started crawling toward the next nearest group of wires and cables.

  This was going to take more of a diversion than he'd originally thought.

  The Brummgas hadn't moved from the positions where Draycos had left them a few minutes earlier. Langston, in contrast, had abandoned his place behind the Death weapon and was moving slowly around the room, gazing at each of the security camera monitors as he passed them.

  His path, Draycos saw, would bring him directly beneath the ventilation grille. Keeping an eye on the Brummgas, Draycos got ready.

  And as Langston passed beneath the grille, Draycos extended a claw and gave the edge of the grille three quiet scratches.

  Langston paused, his head cocked. Draycos repeated the scratching. Langston half-turned to look at the Brummgas standing by the door, then turned back, leaning toward whatever equipment was directly beneath the grille as if he were studying it. "Hello?" he murmured just loud enough for Draycos to hear over the quiet hum of the equipment.

  "I'm here" Draycos murmured back, watching the guards closely. There was no reaction there that he could see. "I need to find the other Death weapon."

  "I heard someone say they'd moved it to the conference room off the main control complex," Langston offered, pretending to make an adjustment.

  "No, it's somewhere nearby," Draycos told him. "The Valahgua expect me to attack this weapon. When I do, they plan to use the other one to kill me."

  Langston stiffened. "I see," he muttered. "I wondered why I'd been trusted with this job." He took a deep breath. "Okay. What do you need?"

  "Jack has a plan," Draycos said, hoping it was true. "But I need to locate the weapon. I think I know where it is, but it'll be faster if you can carry me part of the way."

  "Okay," Langston said. "You ready?"

  "One moment." Pulling the comm clip off his ear, Draycos set it beside the grille. It would have been nice to be able to take it with him, but there was no way for a K'da to carry anything while in two-dimensional form. Another thought occurred to him, and he set the clip on mute so that Jack could still hear but not transmit. "Ready."

  Langston turned toward the two Brummgas standing guard by the door. "Hey—Vimpru," he called. "How'd you like to hop over to the mess and get me a drink?"

  All five Brummgas in the room turned to face him, identical expressions of disbelief and contempt on their faces. The two at the door looked at each other, then deliberately turned their faces away from him. The three at the Death's controls gazed at him a moment longer, then did likewise.

  Smiling tightly, Langston lifted his hand and poked a finger through the grille. Draycos touched it and slid up the man's sleeve onto his arm.

  Draycos felt a shiver run through Langston's skin as he settled himself across the other's back, legs, and arms. "Whoa," Langston murmured. "That's . . . interesting. Out of sight, now."

  Turning on his heel, he headed for the door. "Fine—I'll get it myself," he said as he passed between the two guards. "Lieutenant Pickering won't be happy to hear you weren't being helpful."

  Neither Br
ummga bothered to answer. Keying the door, Langston exited the room.

  The corridor outside was very quiet. "I see they've moved everyone else out of the line of fire," Langston commented. "Which way?"

  "To the right," Draycos said, flicking out his tongue. There was nothing nearby but Langston's own scent and that of distant Brummgas. "We're heading toward the forward power substation on the port side."

  "Got it."

  Langston started down the corridor, his footsteps sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet. Easing his head along the other's chest, Draycos peered out through his collar.

  This wasn't one of the main cross-ship corridors that cut a nice straight path between starboard and port-side hulls. This was instead one of those that meandered all over the place, angling and teeing every thirty feet or so as it worked its way around the more oddly shaped rooms at the ship's bow.

  "It's forward to that T-junction, left, right, and left again, correct?" Langston asked.

  "Yes, but I can't let you go that far," Draycos told him. "You told the Brummgas you were going for a drink. Just take me to the nearest mess room and I'll be gone."

  Langston continued on in silence another few steps. "I think I can do a little better than that," he said. "What's Jack's plan?"

  "I don't know yet," Draycos admitted. "I'll need to get back in the ducts before I can find out."

  "He's in the ducts, too?"

  "No, but my comm clip is," Draycos said. "I can't carry anything in two-dimensional form."

  "No problem." Langston dug something out of his side pocket and pressed it against the base of his throat. "Here."

  Draycos lifted his head slightly and focused on it. "Your comm clip?" he asked, frowning.

  "A spare, actually," Langston said. "You can reset it to your private frequency and pattern specs and call Jack without having to go back into the ducts."