Dragonback 06 Dragon and Liberator

by Timothy Zahn

  The subtle approach was definitely over. Half of the Death weapon was already scattered across the deck in mangled pieces. Draycos was still working on the other half, quickly but methodically shredding it with his claws. "There," the K'da said, flicking his tail toward the hull-side bulkhead.

  Jack frowned. Then he spotted it: a narrow, rectangular section of wall that was a slightly different color from the plates around it. It was small, extending vertically only from his eyes to his knees, its width slightly less than that of his shoulders. "What do I do?" he asked as he stepped over to it.

  "Push at the top and bottom and slide it to your left."

  Jack gave it a try. The panel resisted his first attempt. He tried again, pressing harder. This time it gave way and obediently slid away to the left, revealing a narrow passageway. "Got it," he called, easing his head into the opening. It was hard to tell in the faint light leaking in from their room, but the passageway seemed to go a considerable distance in both directions, bending visibly to the right as it followed the curve of the hull.

  The floor wasn't solid but was made of a thin, fragile-looking meshwork, with a lot more of the narrow passageway directly below it. If the passageway had a ceiling, he couldn't see it in the dim light.

  "Inside," Draycos said, loping over from what was left of the Death. He reached Jack's side and turned to face the door, crouched ready to leap. "Hurry—I can feel footsteps approaching."

  Ducking his head, Jack turned sideways and got one leg through the opening, easing his weight onto the meshwork. To his relief, it was stronger than it looked. He got his other leg in and held out his arm. "Ready," he said.

  Still watching the door, Draycos flipped his tail onto Jack's hand and slithered backward onto his arm. That was different, Jack commented. The panel, he saw, had a pair of handles on the inside. Gripping them, he gave the panel another sideways shove. It slid back into position and closed, cutting off the light from the room and leaving Jack in pitch-darkness.

  Just in time. Pressing his ear to the panel, he heard the faint sound of the room door opening, followed by the much louder noise of thudding Brummgan feet.

  Hold still, Draycos ordered. His head and part of his upper body rose from Jack's shoulder, the passageway picking up a faint green glow as the K'da's eyes rose from the concealment of Jack's flight suit. Draycos reached up with a paw and with two quick slashes cut off a section of bar running along the inner side of the passageway. Brace it against the entrance, he instructed, passing it down to Jack's hand. He sank back onto the boy's skin, leaving only his eyes and the top of his head still three-dimensional.

  Silently, Jack moved the bar into place, wedging it between the movable panel and the rear of the passageway. Draycos had cut the bar perfectly, he noted, even to the point of angling the ends slightly so that it would lie flat against both sides. Got it, he said. Where now?

  To your left, toward the bow, Draycos instructed. The hull curves inward more strongly in that direction.

  Do we care how strongly the hull curves? Jack asked as he set off. The corridor was just a little wider than his shoulders, allowing him to walk straight instead of having to sidle.

  The Brummgas and Valahgua are too big to fit in here, Draycos said. But they can still reach in and shoot.

  Jack swallowed. Oh.

  Ahead, the light from Draycos's eyes showed their path blocked by a fat metallic cylinder decorated with a pattern of angled stripes and spots. It was nearly three feet high and filled the corridor's entire width. Between the sections of stripes and spots Jack could see multiple holes dotting its surface. What is this place, anyway? he asked as he got one leg up over the top of the cylinder.

  It's called the tween gap, a space between the inner and outer hulls, Draycos explained. In an emergency—either serious combat or an imminent crash situation—the gap can be flooded with a material called ghikada. It comes out as a vaporized fluid, solidifying quickly and filling the gap.

  We have something like that, Jack said, nodding as he shifted his weight onto the cylinder. It was like riding a short but very fat horse. It's called crash foam. It's designed to absorb some of the impact in an accident.

  This is somewhat different, Draycos said. Solid ghikada is stronger even than hull metal. Its function is not to absorb damage but to provide an extra shell of protection around most areas of the ship. It was the reason the Havenseeker survived its crash landing on Iota Klestis as well as it did.

  Handy stuff, Jack said as he dismounted off the far side of the cylinder. How come you wait to the last minute before using it? Why not keep the tween gap filled all the time?

  Because ghikada is strong but unstable, Draycos said. It holds its full strength for only about two hours. After that it begins to soften, and after a few more hours it has melted completely into a liquid form.

  From somewhere behind them came the metallic sound of something hammering against the inner hull wall. Sounds like they've figured out where we've gone, Jack said. You say this tween gap goes everywhere in the ship?

  Everywhere except the weapons bays themselves and the three navigational bubbles, Draycos said. Those areas need to be open to the outer hull in order to function.

  In other words, those sections of the tween gap would be dead ends. We should probably avoid those places, Jack said. Getting trapped with your back to a wall is generally considered bad form.

  Don't worry; I have an entirely different refuge in mind, Draycos assured him. We'll need to go up a level to reach it.

  Jack looked at the sheer walls beside him. How do we do that?

  Just past the next ghikada cylinder will be a vertical section of mesh I'll be able to climb.

  They reached the mesh a few minutes later. Draycos came off Jack's back, and with Jack gripping his tail he began to climb.

  By now the hammering behind them had stopped, but Jack thought he could hear the hiss of a cutting torch. Apparently, the Brummgas and Valahgua had given up trying to get the door open and had decided on the more direct approach.

  They reached the next level up, and with Draycos again on Jack's back they continued heading forward. A few minutes later, they reached another of the tween gap access doors.

  Draycos spent a few minutes with his ear pressed against the wall, listening for signs of activity. Then, at his direction, Jack pulled on the handles and slid the panel open.

  The room beyond was unlit, but in the glow from Draycos's eyes Jack could see that it was long and narrow and low ceilinged. Nearly the entire floor space was filled with cylinders, longer but thinner than the ghikada containers and sporting a different stripe/spot pattern. They were connected to each other and the deck by a confusing array of pipes, all of which seemed to have unique stripe/spot patterns of their own.

  Wait here, Draycos said. Again bounding out of the boy's collar, he made his way nimbly across the cylinders and piping to another small door at the far end of the room. There he again pressed his ear against the panel and listened.

  A minute later, he straightened and crossed back to Jack. "The area outside appears to be deserted," he murmured. "We should be safe here for a while."

  "Good," Jack said. Gingerly, he stepped into the room, trying not to slip on the cylinders. "What is this? More ghikada?"

  "Fire suppressant," Draycos identified it. "This room handles fire control for most of the upper/forward sections of the ship."

  "And the Brummgas and Valahgua don't know about it?"

  "They may," Draycos said. "But only if they bothered to examine the rest of the data diamonds Alison retrieved from the safe at the Chookoock family estate."

  Jack frowned. "You kept your ships' schematics in a safe?"

  "The complete schematics, yes," Draycos said with a sort of grim amusement. "The set freely available on the ship's computers has certain gaps and omissions."

  "Such as this room?"

  "Such as several of these rooms, the tween gap areas, and most of the equipment crawl spaces,"
Draycos said. "They also indicate the ventilation ducts are narrower than they actually are."

  "Too narrow for K'da to get through, I suppose," Jack said. "Man, you guys really planned ahead."

  "We were traveling to unknown space, to meet peoples we knew little about," Draycos reminded him quietly. "We had to be prepared for attack and betrayal."

  Jack felt a shiver run up his back. "I'm glad we're on the same side," he said. "Still, even if they found the actual schematics, I doubt the Brummgas and Valahgua could squeeze in here anyway. I just wish I knew how many humans Frost has aboard."

  Draycos was silent a moment. "Actually, no one has to come in here after us," he said reluctantly. "The Death, as you'll recall, can penetrate any thickness of material."

  Jack felt his stomach tighten. "That does kind of put a damper on things, doesn't it?"

  "Though it's not necessarily as bad as it sounds," Draycos assured him. "For one thing, the weapons below us are long-range models, hardly suitable for lugging around the ship."

  "True, but they hardly need to move them, do they?" Jack countered. "All they have to do is get everyone out of the way and sweep the whole hull area right from where they are."

  "That is a possibility," Draycos conceded. "However, recall the situation at Iota Klestis. There, according to Alison's theory, each Death weapon was programmed with a limited amount of operational time. If that's still the case, they may hesitate to waste any of that time and energy on us. Certainly not with major combat still lying before them."

  "Sure, but who says they've got that same setup here?" Jack asked. "Our theory was that the weapons at Iota Klestis were gimmicked because the Valahgua didn't want Neverlin and Frost double-crossing them and getting hold of functioning Death weapons. Going into full-blown combat is an entirely different scenario."

  "Not necessarily," Draycos said. "The Death is their sole advantage over the peoples they've destroyed or conquered. Without it, they would have been victorious over few, if any of their victims."

  He lashed his tail contemptuously. "They certainly would never have driven us from our homes without it. No, they can't afford for its secret to escape their control."

  "That's good to hear," Jack said. "Paranoia can be useful, as long as it's in the other guy."

  "True," Draycos said. "Though that doesn't mean that they might not feel it worthwhile to spend a few seconds of power if they should locate us. We must continue to be quiet and vigilant."

  "I'm with you on that," Jack said.

  "The other reason not to worry overly much," Draycos continued, "is that I'll be doing everything in my power to destroy the remaining Death weapons as quickly as I can."

  "I'm with you there, too," Jack said. "Do bear in mind, though, that they're on to us now. It's not going to be nearly so easy to get access to the blasted things."

  "We'll find a way," Draycos promised. "Meanwhile, we need supplies. You stay here while I go find food and water."

  "You want some company?"

  "Thank you, no," Draycos said. "There are ways about this ship that only a K'da can travel. You just rest. I'll be back soon."

  "Fine," Jack said. "But don't get greedy and go after any of the Death weapons alone. I want a piece of them."

  "Don't worry," Draycos promised grimly. "You'll have your full share."

  He crossed to the door and again listened for a minute. Carefully opening it, he peered outside and then slipped out into the corridor beyond.

  Jack took a deep breath, let it out in a long sigh. He was tired, he realized suddenly. Tired, and tense, and worried.

  But not worried about himself. He had Draycos at his side, after all, a trained poet-warrior of the K'da.

  Instead, to Jack's mild surprise, he discovered he was worried about Alison.

  And Taneem, too, of course. But mostly he was worried about Alison.

  It was a rather annoying discovery, actually. Alison herself, he knew, was probably not worried about him. And she certainly gave the impression that she knew how to take care of herself, as well as knowing everything else.

  Still, he couldn't help feeling some concern.

  With an effort, he pushed the thoughts away. They were probably Draycos's fault, he decided, these unwanted feelings about Alison. He'd probably picked them up while the K'da was riding his skin. Draycos worried about everyone, even Alison.

  Meanwhile, Jack had more urgent things to spend his mental energy on. Carefully, he laid himself down between two of the cylinders, his shoulders and legs straddling them. It was, he discovered, a more or less comfortable position.

  He didn't know the ship like Draycos did. But he had seen the rooms where the Valahgua had set up their precious Death weapons.

  And Uncle Virgil had taught him all the best ways of getting into locked and guarded rooms. It was about time he put all those long years of criminal training to some use.

  Lacing his fingers together behind his head, he closed his eyes and settled down to think.

  CHAPTER 16

  Back in the monitor room Jack had noticed that the two remaining Death weapons were in the same rooms on the starboard side of the ship as the two he and Draycos had already hit on the port side. One of those rooms had the same direct access to the tween gap as the last room they'd been in.

  They would have to do it quickly, of course, before the Brummgas and Valahgua had time to figure out how the whole tween gap thing worked and come up with a way to block it.

  Accordingly, as soon as Draycos returned with their supplies Jack laid out his plan. Draycos approved, and they headed out.

  They reached the back-door entrance without incident. Draycos did his looking-over-the-wall trick, pinpointing the positions of all eight Brummgas who had taken up guard positions around the weapon.

  With the previous attack still fairly recent, Jack figured the aliens would still not be completely up to speed. He was right. Draycos popped the door and Jack instantly opened fire with his tangler, nailing all eight aliens before they could do more than draw their weapons.

  Still, they were more alert than he'd hoped. Even as the last one hit the floor the door across the room slid open and the backup group charged in.

  Or at least, they tried to charge in. Jack had another clip in his tangler in time to nail the first two as they started through the doorway. They went unconscious as the shock capacitor knocked them cold, and sagged still more or less upright as the milky white tangler threads glued them to the sides of the doorway.

  The rest of the Brummgas behind them howled in rage and frustration. A couple of the nearest lifted their guns over the heads of their unconscious comrades and blindly opened fire into the room.

  Jack responded by shooting at the flailing arms with more tangler cartridges. That silenced the guns and added a couple more bodies to his makeshift roadblock.

  He had drained that clip and was grabbing for a third when Draycos leaped back through the opening beside him. "Go," the K'da said, stretching his forelegs up toward the overhead bar.

  Jack grabbed the panel's handles and shoved. As the panel slid shut, he caught a single glimpse of the pile of rubble that was the remains of the Death weapon.

  Draycos had the bracing bar ready by the time the panel was back in place. Even so, they nearly didn't make it. A fraction of a second after Jack slid the bar into place there was a terrific thud that seemed to shake the whole bulkhead.

  The impact jarred the bar partially loose. Jack and Draycos got to it at the same time, and with two hands and two paws tugging at it they managed to get it back in place before the next blow came. "Head aft," Draycos murmured, touching Jack's hand and sliding up his sleeve. I want to take a different route back to the fire control room, Draycos added as his contact reestablished their telepathic link. There's another section of climbable mesh about twenty feet back.

  Jack nodded and headed down the narrow space. That seemed to go well, he commented, wincing at the blows still slamming into the panel behind them
. They do seem a mite perturbed, though.

  As well they should, Draycos agreed. Three Death weapons down. Only one to go.

  Jack grimaced. Actually, it's probably more like two to go, he said reluctantly. Now that they're on to us, they're going to take a hard look at the one I gimmicked.

  Will they be able to fix it?

  Theoretically, yes, Jack said. Unless they're complete idiots, they'll certainly spot the first booby trap I set. The only question is whether they'll be happy with that, or whether they'll delve deeper and find the other one, too. I'm sorry—I should have tried to do more.

  You had limited time and opportunity, Draycos reminded him calmly. If you'd taken too long, either the Brummgas with us or the watchers in the monitor room might have become suspicious. That would have ended the subtle approach right there.

  I suppose, Jack conceded. I was still hoping I could do something more permanent to it.

  Things don't always work out as we hope, Draycos said. That's the way with many endeavors, and warfare is no different. The warrior must always be ready to adapt to the unexpected. The K'da paused, and Jack could almost see one of his open-jawed grins. Wasn't that also true in your previous profession?

  Jack had to smile. Believe it, buddy, he agreed. I can't even count how many times Uncle Virgil had to scramble like crazy to fix some plan that was about to go gunnybags on us.

  Then this is merely standard procedure for both of us, Draycos said. Very well then. Two Death weapons to go. We'll leave yours for last, since there's a chance they won't find the damage—

  Hold it, Jack interrupted, frowning. Was that a light he was seeing in the distance ahead? Close your eyes a second, will you?

  Obediently, Draycos shut his eyes, cutting off their green glow. It was a light, all right, Jack decided as he peered down the tween gap. Had the Brummgas found one of the other entrances?

  A second later, he got his answer. With a thunderous roar that was even louder than usual in the confined space, someone ahead opened fire.