Dragonback 01 Dragon and Thief (2 page)

Draycos held his breath as the fighter twisted madly to get out of
the way. It successfully evaded most of the missiles; but then the law
of averages caught up with it, and the last two slammed full into its
side just aft of the Death weapon. "Two hits!" Polphir called. "The
Death—" He broke off, sagging slightly in his seat as the rest of his
lungful of air escaped without words.

There was nothing else to say. Despite the torn and blackened
metal on the fighter's side where the
Havenseeker
's missiles
had struck, the violet beam was still twisting its way out into space.
It swiveled down toward the
Havenseeker
, still driving away on
its evasive course, and settled again on the colony ship's side. Almost
as if nothing had happened, the beam resumed its steady progress
forward.

So too did the cries of the dying. With a shudder, Draycos reached
out and shut off the nav bubble's intercom. There was nothing he could
do to help the Shontine and K'da back there. Nothing anyone could do.
The cries continued, more faintly, coming from the intercom speakers on
the control deck below. "This is impossible," Polphir murmured. He
sounded more bewildered than frightened. "How could the Valahgua be
here? How could those ships have the Death?"

"I don't know," Draycos said. "It doesn't look like we'll have the
chance to find out, either."

"No, I suppose not," Polphir said, his voice almost peaceful. A
Shontin unafraid to die, and for a brief moment Draycos envied him that
calm.

The
Havenseeker
was still pitching away from its attacker.
But the enemy was wise to its tricks now. The violet beam remained
steady, continuing its slow sweep forward. In his mind's eye, Draycos
could see his companions' bodies slumped in their seats or lying
crumpled on the deck as the beam snuffed out their lives and then moved
on. The Shontine bodies would linger for awhile; those of the K'da, he
knew, would already be turning two-dimensional and rippling away into
nothingness. A K'da death left no body for his friends to mourn.

The beam was nearly to the control complex now, and Draycos could
feel a slight and unpleasant electric tingle along the scales on that
side. "Here it comes," he said. Oddly enough, his voice sounded almost
as calm and peaceful as Polphir's had, even though he was far from
feeling that way. "It's been an honor to be associated with you,
Polphir—"

"Wait a moment," Polphir cut him off, leaning forward and pointing
toward their attacker. "It sputtered just then—there. Did you see it?"

"Yes," Draycos said, frowning. The yellow source-glow was indeed
flickering; and now so was the violet Death beam itself. Had the
near-misses by the
Havenseeker
's missiles done some damage
after all?

And then, with one final flicker, both the yellow and violet
lights went out.

"They've shut it off," Draycos breathed, blinking in bewilderment.
Was this some kind of cruel trick? One last gasp of false hope for the
few survivors here at the
Havenseeker
's bow before their
unknown enemy turned the Death on them again?

But the weapon remained off. Draycos watched, afraid to believe
it, as the fighter began to pull up and away. "What are they playing
at?" he wondered aloud. "Do they think they got all of us?"

"I would say they're just saving themselves a little trouble,"
Polphir said grimly. "Take a look. That last maneuver put us into the
atmosphere."

Draycos hissed around his tongue. Polphir was right; the thin
white condensation trails were smoking off the tips of the antennas
rising from the hull.

Commander Chayd seemed to have become aware of their danger at the
same time. "Full lateral power," he ordered sharply.

"Not responding," the pilot called back. "Control lines are out."

"Drosh, Mintuk—get to the engine room," Chayd snapped. "You'll
need to operate the drive manually."

"Do you want us to go, too?" Polphir called, starting to unstrap.

"No, you two stay there," Chayd said. "Landing sensors are also
out. We'll need you to guide us in visually."

Polphir glanced over his shoulder, his eyes briefly meeting
Draycos's. Draycos could guess his thought: that such a feat would be
nearly impossible to carry out.

But there was nothing for it but to do their best. "Yes, sir,"
Polphir said, resealing his restraints.

"Everyone to your stations," Chayd said. There was little hope,
Draycos knew, and he had no doubt that Chayd knew it too. But the
commander was a Shontine warrior, and he would never simply give up
without a struggle. Not while any of his crew remained alive. "Prepare
yourselves," Chayd added. "One way or another, we're going down."

"Jack? Come on, lad, rise and shine."

"Yeah, yeah," Jack Morgan muttered, turning over in his narrow bed
and pulling the covers more tightly around his thin shoulders. It felt
early, and he didn't feel much like getting up.

Not much point to getting up, anyway. There was nothing to do
here, not unless he wanted to sit around outside the
Essenay
and pull apart pieces of the grass outside, the stuff that reminded him
of bluish-green curly fries. He'd spent part of yesterday doing that,
and the thrill of it had faded mighty fast.

"Come on, lad, rise and shine," his uncle's voice came again. This
time, the cabin's lights came on, too.

Jack pulled the covers up partway over his head, squeezing his
eyes shut against the light and trying hard to hold onto the quick
temper that had gotten him into trouble so many times on so many
different worlds. Uncle Virgil had been on his case forever about that
temper.

But then, Uncle Virgil had also been on his case about his lack of
respect for authority, too. Which was kind of funny, considering Uncle
Virgil's chosen profession.

"Come on, lad, rise and shine," Uncle Virge said again.

It was insulting, too, on top of everything else.
Rise and
shine
was how you woke up a five-year-old, not someone who'd turned
fourteen a full month ago. On some worlds out there you could be a
soldier at age fourteen, for Petey's sake. He would bet long odds that
soldiers didn't get
rise and shine
as
their
wake-up
call.

"Come on, lad, rise and shine."

"Why should I?" Jack growled, trying to burrow deeper beneath his
covers. "What, the cows need milking? I'm going to be late for school?
What?"

"There's something outside you need to see," Uncle Virge said.
"Come on, lad, rise—"

"Okay, okay, I'm up, I'm up," Jack snapped the magic words,
throwing off the covers and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed
as he sat up. The sudden change in altitude made his head go woozy, and
he sat there rubbing his eyes until the feeling passed. "You want to
maybe turn the lights down a little?"

The light obediently faded from painful to merely annoying.
Cautiously, he pried open his eyelids.

The first thing in his line of sight was the display screen on the
far wall of his cabin. Normally, the screen was set to show engine
status or current nav data or some such ship's function. With most of
the
Essenay
's systems shut down since landing here two days
ago, he had reset the screen to show the lush green Iota Klestis
landscape stretching out beyond the main airlock hatchway. It was sort
of like having a window in his room, though it had been so long since
he'd had a normal groundside room with a normal window that he could
hardly remember what it was like.

At least, the screen was supposed to show the outside view. At the
moment, all it showed was black.

He turned to look at the clock built into the bulkhead beside his
bed. No wonder there was nothing to see out there: the glowing numbers
read 4:57
a.m.
"Are you
out of your shrink-wrapped mind?" he demanded. "It's five o'clock in
the morning!"

"Go outside," Uncle Virge said. "There's something out there—"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you," Jack sighed, plucking his jeans from
the swing-out arm where they were hanging and pulling them on. Arguing
with Uncle Virgil had never been a very rewarding pastime. Arguing with
Uncle Virge was even less so. "This had better be good."

He was retrieving a set of electronic binoculars from the
airlock's storage cubbyhole when Uncle Virge suddenly cut in again.
"Uh-oh," he said, his voice coming now from the airlock intercom
speaker. "Get outside, Jack lad. Quickly."

The hatch popped and the gangway slid out to the ground below.
"Where?" Jack asked, turning on the 'nocs and peering cautiously out
the hatch. He hadn't run into any serious predators since landing, but
the planet was bound to have some stashed away somewhere. Was that what
Uncle Virge was all worked up about?

"Not there," Uncle Virge said urgently. "Up. Go down the ramp and
look up, toward the eastern horizon. Hurry."

Grimacing, Jack trudged down the ramp. If Uncle Virge had hauled
him out of bed to show him some cool aurora borealis or something, he
was going to take him apart molecule by molecule. Lifting the 'nocs, he
focused on the sky to the east.

There were flickers of light up there, all right. But it was no
aurora.

It was a space battle.

"Oh, no," Jack groaned, his heart jumping suddenly into his
throat. A space battle over his nice, quiet, out-of-the-way hiding
place?

"My words exactly, lad," Uncle Virge said, his voice grim. "There
were only those four big ships showing when I woke you. I thought we
might have stumbled in on a smugglers' rendezvous."

"Terrific," Jack muttered, adjusting the focus as best he could.

Along with the four big ships were four little ones—he could
barely make them out at this range, but the glowing light from their
drives was easily visible. They were definitely the attackers, firing
flurries of missiles as they charged the big ships. He could see some
missile trails going the other direction now.

"They're starting to shoot back," Uncle Virge commented. "Seem a
bit slow on the uptake."

"Maybe they weren't expecting trouble," Jack said. "You have a
make on any of them?"

"Not the big ones," Uncle Virge said. "They look like long-haul
freighters, but I don't recognize the design. The little ones are
Djinn-90 pursuit craft. A favorite of mercenaries, planetary
militaries, and dockyard police throughout the Orion Arm."

Police
. Jack had gotten so he cringed even at the word. "So
are you saying those
are
smugglers up there?"

"Not saying they are; not saying they aren't," Uncle Virge said.
"Could be it's pirates attacking mining ships."

"You told me there weren't any mines here."

"I said there was nothing on the books on this place," Uncle Virge
corrected. "Doesn't mean some ambitious citizen isn't doing something
on the quiet. Hold on a minute—what's that?"

Jack frowned, pressing the 'nocs harder to his eyes. In exact
unison, something that looked like a slender purple tornado had erupted
from each of the four small ships. "Plasma bursts?" he suggested.

"If they are, it's not like anything on the books," Uncle Virge
said. "Not like anything else I've ever heard of, either. Doesn't seem
to be doing any damage, though."

"Better check that," Jack advised, the back of his neck feeling
the strain as the ships' paths carried them higher and higher in the
sky over his head. "One of them's dropping out of orbit. Either it's
hurt, or else it's trying to get away."

"It might as well save itself the effort," Uncle Virge said. "A
ship that size and shape maneuvers like a sleepy brick. There—you see?
They've got it targeted again."

Jack nodded silently as the purple tornado caught up with the
dodging freighter and began raking across it again. "You think
anybody's going to notice us down here?"

"Not likely," Uncle Virge assured him. "We're not putting out any
power to speak of, and I've got the chameleon hull-wrap going. Besides,
this world is supposed to be uninhabited. Who'd think of looking for
anyone here?"

"Right," Jack said. That was, after all, the whole reason he and
the
Essenay
were on Iota Klestis in the first place.

Unless . . .

"Unless this is some kind of sneak trick," he suggested slowly. "A
fake battle they're hoping will smoke us out?"

Uncle Virge gave a clearly audible snort. "You want subtlety, lad,
you'd better look someplace besides Braxton Universis. Megacorporations
are by definition big, slow, and obvious."

"StarForce, then?" Jack persisted. "Or Internes Police?"

"Megacorporations by a different name," Uncle Virge said.
"Besides, we're talking a pretty expensive trick here. Show me
any
law enforcement agency that has that much spare cash lying around."

Jack made a face. "So it's a real battle."

Earlier, the purple tornadoes had fired out from the small ships
at exactly the same time. Now, again in exact unison, they shut off
again. "Well, it
was
a real battle," Uncle Virge corrected. "It
may be over now. Uh-oh."

"What?"

"The ship that tried to dodge," Uncle Virge said. "Looks like it's
headed for a crash landing."

Jack adjusted the range finder on his 'nocs. Uncle Virge was
right; the big ship was falling. Already he could see the shock-wave
distortion as it dipped ever deeper into the atmosphere. "Is it under
power?"

"Limited power, yes," Uncle Virge said. "Also limited control.
Doesn't look like he'll have nearly enough of either, though."

Jack squeezed the 'nocs hard, feeling sick as he watched the ship
trying valiantly to maneuver. They weren't headed for any crash
landing, not at that speed and angle. They were headed for a crash,
period. "Nothing we can do for them, I suppose," he murmured.