by Timothy Zahn
"Yes, sir," Jack said.
"Good," Grisko said. "Permission denied. You don't skip out on basic for anything. You'll get it removed during first liberty."
He made a precise about-face, just like the ones Jack and the others had practiced the previous afternoon, except that Grisko got it right. "All right, maggots," he announced, starting back down the line. "You've got five minutes to suit up in fatigues and report to the mess hall. Thirty minutes from right now, you will have eaten and assembled on the Number Three parade ground. Now move!"
They spent the morning practicing more drills and formations. By the time the lunch trumpet sounded some of them were nearly as good at turns and about-faces as Grisko.
Not that Grisko would ever admit that, of course. To hear him talk and complain, they would never be anything more than undisciplined, incompetent maggots.
Though as Jack watched some of his fellow recruits fumbling around, he had to admit the sergeant might have a point.
After lunch it was more drills, this time with their candy-cane weapons. The extra weight didn't seem that important at first, but after the first hour of spinning it back and forth the Gompers flash rifle in particular began to feel like it was made of solid lead. By midafternoon, whatever crispness had been in their movements was long gone. An hour after that, a couple of the younger kids were whimpering under their breath with the effort.
That was a mistake. Sergeant Grisko disliked whimpering even more than he disliked full-body dragon tattoos. Each time he caught even a hint of it, he stopped the drill flat and laid into the offender.
One of them was Rogan Mbusu, the eleven-year-old masquerading as fourteen who had so admired Jack's dragon back at the recruitment center. By the time Grisko finished with him and stalked away, Rogan was nearly in tears.
There were, however, two notable exceptions to the group's overall fatigue and clumsiness. One of them was Jommy Randolph, the boy who had complained to Jack about his indenture at the recruitment center. For all his dread back then, he seemed to be quickly settling into the role of the perfect trainee.
Maybe he was good at this. Or maybe he was simply fighting hard to keep from getting shown up.
Because the other exception was Alison Kayna.
Jack found himself watching her as they went through the drills. She was two rows up from Jack's position in the formation and a little to the right, easy enough for him to see without turning his head. Like Jommy, she was quick to pick up the techniques and routines. Unlike Jommy, she didn't seem to be working all that hard at it.
Uncle Virgil had often said that there were only two types of people who could pick up a skill at the drop of a hat. One group was people who already had some idea what they were doing, while the other was natural con artists with an inborn knack for learning new skills. Natural con artists like Jack himself.
Of course, Uncle Virgil had only brought that up when trying to talk Jack into an especially tricky job. But the point was still valid. Either Alison had already had some military training, or else she was one of those very special people.
The first possibility seemed ridiculous. She was only fourteen, after all, hardly ex-StarForce material. But the second wasn't any better. If she was that special, what was she doing in the middle of a small-time mercenary training camp?
The more Jack thought about it, and the more he watched her, the more it bothered him. But there was nothing specific about her behavior that he could put his finger on. He thought about discussing it with Draycos, but aside from the few minutes between lights-out and Draycos taking off for the evening's observation duty there wasn't much time for them to talk.
So he kept his thoughts to himself, and waited for a chance to talk to Alison directly. After all, he was a pretty good thief and con artist, too. With a little luck, he should be able to figure out what she was up to.
To his surprise, it wasn't that easy.
It should have been. It really should have. After all, he and Alison were two of a couple hundred teenagers who'd been thrown into the close quarters of basic training. They were living this soldier stuff; living it, breathing it, dreaming it, and if you globbed enough ketchup on it you could choke it down in the mess hall. It should have been simple to find a way to bump into her during a free moment and strike up a conversation.
There was certainly no lack of possible topics. Sergeant Grisko alone took top three places on any likely list.
But as that first full day turned into the second, and then dragged into the third, Jack discovered the recruits were being allowed very few free moments.
Most of their time was taken up by organized group activities like calisthenics or marching and field drills. At those times he could see Alison, but there was no chance of talking to her. Most of the rest of their day was spent reading from their manuals or sitting in classrooms quoting sections of those manuals back to their instructors.
Mealtimes, which were about as close to free time as they got, were also no good. There weren't a lot of girls in the group to begin with, and they all seemed to cluster together at the same three tables at every meal. Alison, naturally, sat at the center table, which meant Jack would have to push his way through everyone else to get to her.
Which pretty much left the middle of the night. With the barracks blacked out and roving patrols moving around the camp, that was a dead end, too. Even if he had been willing to try, he desperately needed the sleep.
By the fourth day he was half inclined to just give it up. Every muscle ached from the calisthenics, his head hurt from all the technical information he was cramming into it, and he was starting to do parade-ground drills in his dreams. If Alison was pulling some scam on this bunch, he was about ready to sit back and cheer her on.
On the other hand, his own goal here wasn't simply to survive basic training, either. He couldn't afford to trip over some scheme of Alison's while he was trying to break into the Edge's computer records. One way or another, he had to find out what she was up to.
And so he waited, and watched, and tried to be patient. And on the fifth day, that patience was finally rewarded.
"The targets are set up over there," Sergeant Grisko told them, pointing as the trainees filed by the weapons table that had been set up in the woods. Through the trees, a hundred yards away, Jack could see a ragged edge of rocks. "Go pick a firing position and have at it."
The trainees fanned out through the trees. Gingerly hefting his Gompers flash rifle, Jack headed off toward the right flank. "This is a different style of weapon than the one carried by the Brummga we saw aboard the Havenseeker" Draycos murmured from beneath his shirt.
"That one was some kind of machine gun," Jack told him. "It fired bullets. Little projectiles, driven by small explosions."
"I understand the concept."
"Okay. This thing is a chemically pumped laser. Big difference. Hurts just as bad if it goes off in your face, though."
Draycos stirred against his skin. "You seem uncomfortable with it."
"Try scared to death," Jack growled back. "Two hours' worth of training, and we're supposed to know how to fire these things?"
"You are not familiar with this weapon?"
Jack snorted. "You kidding? I don't even like looking at it."
"Yet you were carrying a hand weapon when we first met."
"I was carrying a tangler," Jack corrected tartly. "There's about fifty light-years' difference between that and one of these."
"You!" Grisko called from behind him. "Dragonback!"
Confused, Jack swiveled around. "Sir?"
The sergeant was standing back by the weapons table, his fists resting on his hips. "Someday, if you're really, really good at this, maybe they'll issue you a weapon with a vocal rangefinder chip," Grisko told him. "Until then, don't talk to your gun. It won't talk back."
Jack felt his ears reddening. "Yes, sir," he said. Turning around again, he stalked off through the trees. "Thanks, Draycos," he muttered under his breath. "L
ike I needed more trouble."
"My apologies," the dragon said quietly.
Jack sighed. "Forget it."
He got a few more steps before Draycos spoke again. "I am still confused."
"A tangler is a nonlethal weapon," Jack explained tiredly. Draycos could go off on bunny trails of his own all day, but once he got an idea or question stuck between those pointy ears, you couldn't shake it loose with a pry bar. "That means it doesn't kill anyone. Hey, you used the thing—you saw what it did."
"I understand the difference," Draycos said, a little stiffly. "I am a K'da warrior. My surprise is that someone from your former profession would not be familiar with many different styles of weapons."
Jack shook his head. "You've got it backwards," he said. "Someone in my former profession couldn't afford not to be choosy about his choice of guns. Ever hear of felony murder?"
"No."
"A felony is a major crime," Jack explained. A few trees ahead, he could see a section of jagged rocks. It looked like as good a place as any for target practice. "Like armed robbery or kidnapping or something."
"Or murder," Draycos added quietly.
Jack shivered. He'd already seen what Draycos and his K'da warrior ethic thought about murderers. "Anyway, felony murder is when someone dies while you're committing a crime like that."
"Even if you did not intend for it to happen?"
"Even if it wasn't even your fault," Jack said. "No matter how it happens, if you were the one committing the crime, you can be charged with murder. That's why Uncle Virgil and I never, ever carried weapons that could kill."
"Interesting," Draycos said thoughtfully. "K'da and Shontine law requires intent to be considered. Is this universal in the Orion Arm?"
"On most Internos planets it is," Jack told him. "A lot of the alien worlds do things differently."
"Stop," Draycos said suddenly.
Jack froze, half concealed behind a particularly large tree. "What?" he demanded, his eyes nicking around.
"Beyond this tree is open ground," Draycos said. "You must go low to cross it."
"Oh, for—" Jack threw a glare down at his shirt. "It is only a training exercise, you know."
"Then let us properly train you," Draycos said. "Go low."
Jack sighed. "Just what I've always wanted," he muttered, slinging the Gompers over his back and getting down on his hands and knees. "My own personal drill sergeant."
"Use your center joints," Draycos advised. "You will stay lower and be able to move more quickly."
"My center—? Oh. Knees and elbows."
"Correct. I am surprised they have not already taught you that."
Jack frowned as he started across the patch of open ground toward the rocks ahead. Come to think of it, why hadn't they?
The knees-elbows waddle was easier than he would have expected. It was still a lot more awkward than just walking, though. Reaching a convenient notch in the rocks, he carefully eased his head up for a look.
He was at the edge of a large gravel pit that stretched out for probably a hundred yards, maybe fifty feet deep at its lowest point. A dozen electronic targets had been set up at various places in the pit.
"Nothing like starting us off at long-range work," Jack muttered, unlimbering his rifle and flipping off the safety. "Whatever happened to 'Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes'?"
"Pardon?"
"Skip it." At least there was a conveniently shaped notch on top of one of the rocks where he could brace the rifle. Setting the muzzle into the notch, he started to get to his knees.
"Keep your head down," a girl's voice ordered.
Frowning, Jack rolled over onto his side and looked behind him.
It was Alison Kayna.
CHAPTER 6
She was coming from the trees behind him, wriggling across the open ground using the same elbows-and-knees crawl Draycos had just taught him. Naturally, she was doing it better. "What did you say?" he asked.
"I said keep your head down," she repeated, angling toward a section of rock near Jack's. "They'll have snipers targeting us from the far side of the gravel pit."
Jack shrunk down a little behind the protection of the rocks. "Snipers?"
"You don't think this is just target practice, do you?" Alison asked, puffing a little as she reached the rocks. "You've seen the games Grisko likes to play. You think he'd pass up a golden opportunity like this?"
"A golden opportunity for what?" Jack demanded. Suddenly the rock he was leaning against didn't feel nearly so solid and secure anymore. "Blowing our heads off?"
"Oh, get real," she scolded, unslinging her Gompers from across her back. "They'll just be using marker lasers."
"Never heard of them."
"They cause a mild skin reaction. You don't even feel it, but the mark shows up like a spot of sunburn."
Jack began to breathe a little easier. "Temporary, I hope."
"It lasts a day or two." Alison eased an eye up into a gap between two rocks. "Shows where you got careless."
"Nice of them to tell us about this," Jack grumbled, rolling back onto his stomach and sidling his way over toward a lower and better protected gap in the rocks. "Good thing you know your way around this stuff."
"I did some research," Alison said. "I gather you didn't."
"Not really," Jack said. He lined up his sights on one of the distant targets, wondering if someone across the way was lining up sights on him. "I figured they'd be giving us all the training we needed."
"I wasn't talking about training," Alison said. "But that's another point."
Carefully, Jack squeezed the trigger. There was a brief flash of laser light accompanied by a soft hiss, and the spent power cartridge ejected from the chamber. It rolled across the grass, trailing the stink of chemical reactant behind it. "What's another point?"
"The training." There was a hiss from her direction as she squeezed off a shot of her own. "Doesn't it strike you as odd that we haven't even gotten to look at real weapons until now?"
Jack shrugged, lining up on another target. "It's only been five days," he pointed out.
"Out of a total of ten," she countered. "Ten days of basic training, then off we go. With most armies, this would run six weeks or more."
"Yeah, but most of them would be going off to real wars," Jack reminded her. "We'll just be doing garrison support duty."
"That's what Grisko says," she said ominously. There were two more hisses from her position. "You run into a boy named Rogan Mbusu yet?"
"Sure," Jack said. "Short kid, big ears. Claims to be fourteen."
Alison snorted. "Yeah, I've talked to him," she said scornfully. "He's lucky if he's even seen twelve. Legally, you know, you're only supposed to indenture kids fourteen and older."
"So the Edge bends the rules a little," Jack said. "What's your point?"
"My point is I don't want to do even garrison duty with some kid who's too young to know which end of his rifle goes where," she said darkly. "Garrison workers can get just as dead as regular troops, you know."
Jack grimaced. "You sound like my uncle. How come you know so much?"
"Like I said, research," she said.
"Like my Aunt Fanny," Jack retorted. "Come on, you didn't get this from any book."
Her lips compressed into a thin line. "If you must know, this is my second try at this," she said. "I washed out of the first merc group I was indentured to."
"And you came back for more?"
She shot him an icy glare. "My parents need the money. Yours don't?" Without waiting for a reply, she turned back to her shooting.
Which was just as well, since Jack didn't have a ready answer for that one.
For a few minutes they shot side by side in silence. Jack alternated between several targets, wondering how he was doing. Probably pretty lousy. Grisko would have a way of matching up the hits to each of the trainees' guns after they were all done, but that didn't do Jack any good right now.
"Why 'D
ragonback'?" Alison asked suddenly.
Jack frowned. "What?"
"Grisko called you Dragonback earlier. When you walked off talking to your gun."
Jack's ears reddened again. Probably the whole group had heard that. Terrific. "I have a tattoo of a dragon across my back," he said. "A big one."
"Something to do with the old Dragonback warriors?"
"Nope," Jack assured her. "In fact, I never even heard of them until a month ago."
She grunted and resumed her firing. Five minutes later, her clip of cartridges was empty. "I'm off," she announced, slinging the Gompers over her back again and starting backwards in a reverse elbows-and-knees crawl. "Make sure you fire your whole clip before going back if you don't want Grisko to scorch your ears off. Hitting the targets once in awhile would be nice, too."
"Thanks," Jack said dryly. "I'll see what I can do."
"And keep your head down," she warned.
A minute later, she was gone, vanished into the cover of the trees. "Well, that was fun," he muttered.
"She has great courage," Draycos said. "I can hear it in her voice."
"Or else she's just plain stupid," Jack said, picking a target and firing off a round at it. "Her and her family both. How do people let themselves get so desperate for money?"
"Many times it is not their fault."
"Most of the time it is," Jack said stubbornly.
"That sounds like your Uncle Virgil's philosophy."
"Leave Uncle Virgil out of this," Jack said, firing two more shots. Missing both, probably. "Anyway, he knew how the real world worked."
There was a short silence, just long enough for Jack to realize that Draycos could easily have reminded him what Uncle Virgil had done for a living. "Have you no compassion for the weak?" the dragon asked instead.
"Compassion wasn't a big priority where I grew up," Jack said. "And I never saw it do anyone any good."
"No one?"
Jack glanced a glare down at him. "How come we only have these big moral discussions when Uncle Virge isn't around to help me defend myself?"
