by Timothy Zahn
Draycos was off Jack's skin in an instant, grabbing the boy's arm and pulling him straight down. Jack landed on his chest on the meshwork floor, the impact knocking half the breath out of him. Another second, and he was slammed again as Draycos landed full length on top of him. "Draycos—!" he gasped with what air he had left in his lungs.
"Stay down!" the K'da shouted in his ear, the words barely audible over the gunfire. "Ricochets!"
Jack tensed. With the sound of the firing hammering his ears, he hadn't even heard the quieter impacts of the bullets themselves as they bounced their way between the walls of the tween gap.
A second gun joined the first, this one somewhere behind and above him. "Do we have a plan?" Jack called.
There was no answer, only a strange squirming of Draycos's body on top of his. The K'da's weight was still pressing him against the mesh, making breathing difficult.
A third gun opened up ahead and above him. Then a fourth added its roar to the din, and possibly a fifth. Jack pressed his cheek against the mesh, waiting helplessly for the bullet that he knew was bound to find him.
And then the mesh suddenly gave way beneath him, dumping him sideways toward the deep chasm below.
He yelped with surprise and a flash of panic. But even before the yelp made it out past his lips his fall was stopped short. There was another second of confusion and dizziness.
Then his brain cleared, and he understood. Draycos had cut the mesh floor beneath them on only three sides, and their combined weight had then bent it down like an opening trapdoor. Draycos, all four sets of claws gripping the mesh, was holding them sideways against the open flap. "We must get away from here," Draycos said in Jack's ear.
"I'm with you, buddy," Jack said. "How?"
In answer, Draycos stretched out his top two limbs a few inches, easing the pressure on Jack's body Jack tensed again, but with the K'da's lower legs still hooked to the mesh flap he was in no danger of falling. "Roll over so that you're facing me," Draycos said.
It was tricky to maneuver in the cramped space and with the small amount of slack Draycos had given him. But the guns still thundering all around them made for good inspiration. Jack got himself turned around in Olympic-record time. "Now hold on tightly," Draycos said.
Jack wrapped his arms and legs around the other's torso. Draycos let go with his front paws, lunging forward and grabbing the underside of the mesh just in front of their hanging flap. He walked the paws forward, working his rear paws onto the mesh behind them.
And with that the K'da headed off, moving rapidly along the underside of the mesh.
With the long tween gap yawning under him, the booming gunfire rattling the metal above him, and the violent jostling as Draycos clawed his upside-down way beneath the mesh, all Jack could do was shut his eyes, wish he could shut his ears, and hold on for dear life. The bouncing went on and on. . . .
Abruptly, Draycos stopped. "Hold tighter," he ordered over the noise of the gunfire.
Jack nodded and got a fresh grip on the K'da's torso, pressing the side of his head against the other's scale-covered neck. Draycos let go of the mesh with his rear claws, and once again Jack's stomach churned with the brief sensation of falling. For another second the K'da continued to hang on to the mesh only with his front claws. Then Jack felt the rear paws find a grip, and a moment later he found himself again squeezed between Draycos and cold metal as the K'da climbed rapidly down another of the vertical mesh sections.
The gunfire above them was starting to slow down by the time they reached bottom. Bottom, in this case, was another mesh walkway. For a few seconds Draycos peered into the darkness, as if figuring out exactly where they were. Then, touching Jack's hand, he slid up his sleeve. Straight ahead about fifty feet, he said. There should be another entrance panel on your right.
Got it. Jack set off, his knees feeling a little wobbly.
The gunfire continued to slow down, and by the time they reached the panel it had stopped entirely. Be careful as you open it, Draycos warned. They're undoubtedly listening now front above, hoping to hear what we might be doing.
In that case, let's just hang here a minute, Jack suggested. Sooner or later, they're bound to start making noise again.
Draycos seemed to think about that, and Jack could sense his uneasiness with the situation. They were still very much exposed out here, and his warrior's instincts were probably screaming at him to get them under better cover. Trust me, Jack said.
Very well, Draycos said reluctantly. But if I hear anyone approaching—
He broke off as a soft metallic thud came from somewhere above and forward of their position. Sounds like one of the mercenaries is coming in to look for our bullet-riddled bodies, Jack said, getting a grip on the panel's handles. That's our cue.
He paused, his hands still on the handles, listening hard. Through the mesh he could now see the faint glow of a flashlight peeking through the mesh far above them. The footsteps started up, paused, then started up again, settling into a rhythm.
And with perfect timing, Jack popped the panel exactly as one of the footsteps sent its covering echo through the tween gap.
A minute later, they were through the doorway. Jack got a grip on the edge of the panel and pulled it back into place, again timing the event to coincide with the distant traveler's footsteps. Okay, he said, taking a deep breath. I think we're in.
I believe you're right, Draycos agreed. Well done, Jack.
Years of practice, Jack assured him. With some of the crazy jobs Uncle Virgil had me pull, I had to raise running and hiding to a fine art.
He looked around. The room they were in was long and narrow, with a ten-foot-tall, box-shaped cabinet on each of the fore and aft bulkheads. Control displays on each winked with colored status lights. Connecting the cabinets to the walls and ceiling were more stripe/spot-marked pipes. Another fire control room? he hazarded.
No, this is one of the ship's water-reclamation plants, Draycos said.
Really, Jack said, looking at the cabinets with new interest. The crew drinks the stuff that comes out of these, do they?
From these and nine other plants throughout the ship, Draycos said. Why?
Because there are two ways to keep a gun from going off, Jack said. Wreck the gun, or stop the person from pulling the trigger.
Are you suggesting we poison them? The entire crew?
We don't have to kill them, Jack said hastily. There had been an unpleasant tone in the K'da's mental voice just then. I was thinking we could find a way to knock them out. Or else make them so sick they can't function.
Draycos was silent a moment. We would need to sabotage all ten of the purifiers, he pointed out. And we would have to do all ten simultaneously. Otherwise, once people started getting sick they'd realize something was wrong and guard the rest of the purifiers.
True, Jack said. We'd also have to find something that would affect humans, Brummgas, and Valahgua.
And we'd need to deal with the emergency bottled water, as well, Draycos continued. Those supplies are, unfortunately, scattered throughout the ship.
Which means we'd have to hit them hard and fast, Jack said slowly, trying to think. Uncle Virgil had taught him a fair amount about incapacitating drugs and chemicals. Surely he could come up with something he could make up from stuff already aboard ship.
The big question was whether he could do it in time.
In time? Draycos asked.
We've got less than six days until we hit Point Three, remember? Jack said. At that point, the Brummgas scream for help and Frost throws everything he's got at us.
What if we destroy the radios? Draycos suggested. That might at least buy us another few hours.
Not worth the risks, Jack said. Besides, even if we could take out all the actual radios, anyone with a comm clip will be able to punch a message across the kind of distance we're talking about.
He grimaced. Besides, whatever was going on with the Essenay just before we went on ECHO, there
's a good chance Neverlin and Frost already know we're here. They'll be over as soon as we all come off ECHO.
For a moment Draycos was silent. Jack tried to catch some of the K'da's thoughts, but they flashed by too subtly and too quickly. Then we'll just have to make do with the time we have, he said.
Right, Jack agreed. Are there any other secret ways of getting around this ship besides the tween gap?
There are the ventilation ducts, Draycos reminded him.
I meant for me, Jack said. Unfortunately, my body doesn't compress nearly as well as yours and Taneem's do. He shook his head. I still can't believe she was able to get around the Advocatus Diaboli that way. What in the world did its designers think they were doing, making ducts that big?
Actually, oversized ducts are a fairly standard large-ship design, according to the technical material I read in the Essenay's encyclopedia, Draycos said. If there's a hull breach, you want to be able to deliver massive quantities of air to the affected area, thereby giving anyone trapped there a chance to escape or put on an emergency vac suit. A ship the size of the Advocatus Diaboli usually has plenty of air reserves available for such a purpose.
He flicked his tail against Jack's leg. I'm surprised Virgil Morgan never taught you about that.
I'm not, Jack said sourly. Uncle Virgil was strictly about practical stuff, and I outgrew ventilation ducts when I hit seven.
Of course, Draycos said. My apologies for bringing up an unpleasant subject.
Don't worry about it, Jack assured him, shifting his thoughts firmly away from childhood memories. Okay, we've got six days. Let's start by taking an inventory of what we've got to work with.
CHAPTER 17
For Alison, the next six days went by smoothly and quietly. As near as she could tell, the time had gone equally smoothly for everyone else aboard the Advocatus Diaboli.
Neverlin and Frost met several times, discussing the final details of their plan. Sneaking through the vents, Taneem had managed to get close enough to eavesdrop on one of those talks.
But the two men had kept their voices too low for Alison to pick up more than a few words over Taneem's comm clip. Taneem had tried to repeat some of it to her later, but the conversation had been filled with technical terms that she didn't know and were therefore hard for her to remember.
It was frustrating, but there was nothing Alison could do about it. There were many unanswered questions about the details of Frost's plan, details that could prove critical in the days ahead.
As for Harper, he seemed to be spending most of his time in his stateroom, emerging only for meals or an occasional brief chat with Frost or one of the other Malison Ring mercenaries. Harper did walk around the ship at least once, but as far as Taneem could tell he never approached any of the vital control areas and never left the sight of one of the crew or passengers.
Like Neverlin, Harper seemed perfectly relaxed about the upcoming battle. But maybe that was just the man's personality.
Still, as the hours ticked down toward their arrival at Point Three, even Harper seemed to be picking up some of the tension beginning to pervade the rest of the ship.
Not only the ship but Alison herself. Very soon now she would learn if Jack and Draycos were really aboard the Foxwolf. And if they were, how much damage they had caused.
And at that point, she would have a decision to make.
She didn't want to confront Neverlin and Frost this soon. Not with the K'da/Shontine fleet still several days away.
But if and when Frost took over the job of finding and killing Jack and Draycos, she would have no choice.
The hours became minutes, the voices on the bridge softening as the tension and expectation grew. Taneem lay quietly in the duct, watching Neverlin and Frost and the Valahgua leader through the mesh and reporting as much of the situation as she could to Alison.
Which left Alison absolutely nothing to do except listen to Taneem's whispers, pace restlessly back and forth across the life-pod, and pray that Jack and Draycos had come up with some plan of their own.
And to pray even harder that they were both still alive.
The access crawl space beneath the Foxwolf's main control complex, Jack reflected, was well named.
In his opinion, though, the creatures the ship's designers had expected to be crawling around in here were mice.
Okay, he said, rolling carefully onto his back and shining his light upward. Barely a foot directly above his head was a wide hole in the crawl space ceiling with an orderly tangle of wires and cables of various sizes coming out of it. In ones and twos the cables angled away from the hole, heading off in all directions toward the edges of the crawl space. To his right and left, he could see similar explosions of cables coming from other openings in the low ceiling. Is this the right one?
Draycos's head lifted slightly from his shoulder, peering at the markings by the hole. Yes, he said, sinking back down onto Jack's skin. Do you need me to identify the wires for you?
No, I got it, Jack assured him. A set of soft footsteps angled across Jack's ceiling to his left, reminding him—if he'd needed reminding—that the control complex directly above him was full of bad guys.
With a thick deck between them and him, they weren't likely to hear any noise he might make. Just the same, he was careful not to clink his flashlight as he set it down onto the deck beside his ear.
Reaching into his pockets, he removed his multitool and the cable-and-switch setup he'd put together. Studying the various stripe/spot patterns on the cables above him, he located the ones Draycos had described and set to work.
Jack had been highly trained in the art of bypassing security locks, alarms, and other complex electronics. This job, in comparison, was about as tricky as a walk in the park.
His first task was to connect three of the hyperspace control lines together, being careful not to trigger any flickers the computer might notice. Then he wired in one of the two high-voltage power lines that ran the console's display monitors, running that particular splice through the switch on his cable.
And he was done. That's it, he told Draycos. I flip the switch, and the hyperdrive controls fry. That ought to hold their attention awhile.
Let's hope it's long enough, Draycos said. Moving carefully in the cramped space, he slid out of Jack's sleeve. "I'll signal you when I'm in position," he murmured.
"Watch yourself," Jack warned.
The K'da flicked his tail in acknowledgment as he set off across the crawl space.
Jack watched him go, feeling a frustration that was edging toward despair. Every plan the boy had come up with over the past six days, every scheme he'd hoped to pull, had fallen apart in his hands.
His plan to drug the ship's water supply had come to nothing. There simply weren't enough of the proper chemicals aboard.
His backup plan, to fire a surge through the Death weapons' power lines, had merely ended up popping circuit breakers and getting them chased away again. The Valahgua had responded to that one by taking a bunch of their security cameras from other areas and installing them in the tween gap. By the time the Valahgua finished, all approaches to the two Death weapons were covered.
Draycos's plans hadn't fared much better. He'd tried using the ventilation ducts to approach the weapons, only to discover the Valahgua had tripled the guard. Many of the Brummgas were stationed outside in the corridors, and Draycos had concluded that a surprise attack from the duct would almost certainly succeed.
But with the tween gap now virtually closed to him and Jack, the ventilation system was their only means of traveling invisibly through the ship. With cameras still mounted in the weapons rooms, any attack from the ducts would give that secret away, leaving them nothing. Jack and Draycos had discussed the situation, and decided not to risk that until and unless they were desperate.
Now, with less than an hour before the Foxwolf reached Point Three, they were.
And so Draycos was going to go and try to take out the starboard Death, the o
ne they knew was still operational.
Leaving the one Jack had tried to gimmick when they'd first come aboard. Which, by now. Jack knew, was probably also back to being operational.
He took a careful breath, trying to focus on the positive points. The Valahgua had had four Death weapons to use against the K'da and Shontine refugees. In a few minutes they would have only one. Surely that counted for something.
"Jack?" Draycos's voice came softy from Jack's comm clip. "I'm in the duct. Ten minutes and I should be there."
"Right," Jack said. "Just let me know when you're ready for me to turn their hyperdrive console into toast."
"I will." Draycos paused, and Jack could imagine his jaws cracking open in a grin. "Butter side down, of course."
Despite his gloom, Jack had to smile. "Butter side down," he confirmed.
"And then get out as quickly as you can," Draycos added, going serious again. "I'll meet you back in the recycling room."
"Sure," Jack murmured, his smile fading. Toast, butter side down, had been one of Uncle Virgil's favorite catchphrases.
Uncle Virgil. Virgil Morgan, professional thief, con man, and safecracker. Who had somehow ended up in possession of both Jack and the Essenay after Jack's parents were murdered eleven years ago.
How in the world had that happened?
Jack didn't know. It was possible he would never know. Uncle Virge, the copy of his personality that Uncle Virgil had planted in the Essenay's computer, claimed he had no information about that part of Jack's life.
But Uncle Virge was in control of the Essenay. And despite Jack's instructions, the Essenay had apparently followed him to Point Two and rendezvoused with Neverlin's Advocatus Diaboli.
Neverlin, whose attempted frame-up of Jack for theft and murder had gotten him into this whole thing in the first place. Neverlin, who Jack had only recently discovered had been directly involved with the murder of Jack's parents.
Coincidence? Jack didn't know that, either.
He swallowed against a lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat. It was possible Uncle Virge had betrayed him. Maybe Alison had betrayed him, too. Certainly she wasn't someone he could completely trust.