It had been over three hours since that last communication with Langston and Harper, and Jack had heard nothing else from anyone.
He'd tried to ask for details from the next Brummga who came to change his oxygen tank, hoping to find out what all that had been about. But his vac suit radio was still shut off, and he doubted the big alien had even noticed the prisoner's lips moving.
And then, even as he and Draycos were trying to decide whether it was finally time for Draycos to go on the offensive, the troop carrier gave a lurch and began to move.
Any ideas? Draycos asked.
None whatsoever, buddy, Jack answered grimly, pressing his helmet against the bulkhead behind him and trying to decipher the hums and crinkles he could hear through the metal. It sounds like we're under way, but at only half speed. Maybe less.
More maneuvers?
Could be, Jack conceded. You getting anything?
There was a brief sense of movement as Draycos leaned off his back and peered over the bulkhead. The preparation room is still deserted, Draycos reported.
For a few minutes they listened together in silence. The carrier had turned slightly to port side, Jack decided, and was now heading straight forward. If this was some kind of maneuver, it was a pretty simpleminded one.
And then, the faint engine and maneuvering-jet sounds were abruptly drowned out by a much louder thud. It was followed by another, then another, then by a quick one-two pair.
Those are missile impacts, Draycos said suddenly. Someone is shooting at us.
Are we shooting back? Jack asked, straining his ears. To him, all the pounding just sounded like someone taking a large hammer to the carrier's hull.
Yes, Draycos said. But too little and too late. It sounds like the attacker has finished with the defenses and has moved on to the bridge—
"Jack?" Uncle Virge's voice came from Jack's comm clip. "Jack lad? Can you hear me?"
It took Jack a second to find his voice. "Uncle Virge? Where are you? What are you doing?"
"At the moment, beating the stuffing out of the troop carrier you're on," Uncle Virge said with clear satisfaction. "You're still in the starboard scout ship bay, right?"
"Fine time to ask, but yes," Jack said. "How did you know?"
"Langston told me," Uncle Virge said. "He has your comm clip's frequency and pattern—did you know that?"
"Yes, I gave them to him," Jack said. "How did you get in so close without being spotted?"
"I just drifted in nice and slow with the hull-wrap going," Uncle Virge said. "Turns out it works even better in space than it does on the ground, provided you don't lean on the drive. There we go—all finished."
The impacts, Jack realized suddenly, had stopped. So had the sound of the carrier's drive. "Great," he said. "Now all we need to do is figure out how to get me out of here."
"Leave that to me," Draycos said. "Uncle Virge, bring the Essenay to the starboard scout ship hatch and wait."
You sure you know what you're doing? Jack asked.
Very sure, Draycos said. Back to the bulkhead, please. I'm getting off.
"Destroy them!" Neverlin snarled. "You hear me, Frost? I want Morgan and that blasted kid killed."
Alison felt Taneem stir nervously on her skin. Those were her friends out there. . . . "No," Alison spoke up firmly. "Dad wants the K'da alive."
"To hell with the K'da," Neverlin said, throwing her a quick glare. "Frost?"
"We can't reach them," Frost ground out between clenched teeth. "They're out of range."
"Don't be ridiculous," Neverlin snapped. "Turn a couple of Backstop's Djinn-90s around and deal with them."
"We can't move the Backstop ships," Frost said. "They're the ones the Hammerfalls are watching, remember? You want them to end up falling back, then surging forward, then falling back, then surging forward again?"
"If you think I'm going to let them get away now—"
"Enough," the Valahgua cut him off. "The K'da and his boy cannot harm us. Merely jam all communications so he cannot speak to the fleet."
Neverlin took a deep breath, his eyes burning as he glared at the alien. "Full-spectrum radio bubble, Captain," he ordered. "Lock out everything except ours."
"First signal the Backstop ships to go wide and institute bubbles of their own," Frost added. "And have them spread outward to the sides as far as they can and still keep their bubbles overlapping ours. If we're going to make a blank spot, we might as well make it a good, wide one."
"Yes, sir," the captain said. He tapped a key and started giving orders.
As he did so, Alison felt a movement on her skin. She looked down as Taneem's head slid up her shoulder and neck just far enough to see through the opening in her collar. "Hey," Alison whispered, tapping urgently on her shoulder. If Frost or Neverlin should happen to glance over here, the whole game would be up.
The captain finished relaying the orders and keyed another pair of switches. "Bubble activated," he reported.
Alison tapped again on her shoulder. This time, to her relief Taneem slid back down out of sight.
"Fine," Neverlin said, still glowering at the Lordhighest. "Continue the operation."
With a shove from his hind paws, Draycos leaped off Jack's shoulders, through the vac suit and bulkhead, and into the preparation room next door.
The question of how to take over the troop carrier had occupied most of Draycos's thoughts for the past three days. Without knowing the ship's layout or crew complement, he'd known from the beginning that such an undertaking would have only a small chance for success.
Now, to his relief, all those thoughts and concerns had become irrelevant.
Bounding across the room, he reached the rack of oxygen tanks fastened to the sidewall. There were exactly twenty-eight of them, he noted in passing as he began slashing through the metal with his claws.
Within a minute the rack was wobbling violently back and forth as the compressed air spewed out into the room. Crossing to the airlock that led into the hangar bay, Draycos keyed open the inner door. Waiting until the extra air pressure in the room began to hurt his ears, he slashed through the airlock's inner door.
His eardrums fluttered at the sudden change in pressure as the air in the preparation room began to flow into the vacuum of the hangar bay. Draycos waited, crouched against the wind, hoping the oxygen from the bottles he'd opened would be enough to fill the bay.
It was. A few seconds later, as the pressure between the two areas evened out and the wind slowed to a stop, he keyed open the inner door.
Jack was watching anxiously as Draycos stepped into the bay. The boy's worried look changed to one of relief as Draycos hurried over to him. "I was hoping all that wind was your doing," Jack's voice came faintly through the helmet.
"All part of the plan," Draycos assured him. Five more slashes of his claws, and Jack was no longer anchored to the bulkhead.
"It's always nice when these plans work," Jack agreed as he popped off his helmet. "Come aboard and let's get out of here."
Draycos touched the boy's neck and slithered onto his skin. Jack hurried toward the main hatch controls, putting his helmet back on as he jogged across the bay. He reached the controls, double-checked his helmet seal, and flipped up the opening switch's safety cover. "Get ready, Uncle Virge," he called. "Here we come."
"Ready, Jack lad."
Getting a grip on the handhold, Jack threw the switch.