He'd been wrong. He'd been terrifyingly wrong.
It was as if someone had dropped a black-scaled threshing machine on top of the Brummgas. Draycos was everywhere, leaping and diving and twisting across their heads and shoulders like an insane cat on hot metal. He never seemed to touch the same Brummga more than once. But each time he did, his claws slashed, or his paws slammed, or his tail whipped.
And when the Brummga fell, he didn't get up again.
They never had a chance. This kind of fighting wasn't in any of their training manuals, and there was no time to improvise. Drawn slapsticks were knocked aside; hastily drawn guns were ducked beneath.
And the attack went on. They didn't know how to stop him, or how to get out of his way. They never even knew which direction he would be coming from next, as he shoved randomly off their fellow soldiers or the ceiling into each new attack.
It was over almost before Jack could catch his breath. Certainly it was over before he could move. The last Brummga slammed backward to the deck; and with a
final spin and leap, Draycos again shot past overhead. Jack spun around, suddenly remembering Gazen and Neverlin.
He needn't have worried. Both men were still by the door, frozen in place like a
pair of well-formed ice sculptures. Draycos was standing on the deck in front of Gazen, stretched up on his hind paws with his head so close to the slavemaster's that his snout nearly touched the other's nose.
One set of claws pressed against the side of Gazen's neck.
Jack cleared his throat. In the sudden deadly silence, the noise sounded like distant thunder. "If I were you, gentlemen," he advised, "I'd be real careful right now."
"Mother of..." Neverlin whispered, the words trailing off as he stared at Draycos. His eyes flicked to Jack, back to the K'da. "But it's..."
"It's a poet-warrior of the K'da," Jack confirmed. Stepping over to Castan's limp body, he pulled out the bodyguard's gun. "You and the Valahgua missed one."
Neverlin twitched violently at the name Valahgua. He threw another look at Jack, then focused again on Draycos.
And suddenly, the stunned and disbelieving panic vanished. "So it was you," he said, his voice almost calm again. "You were the boy who escaped us on Iota Klestis."
"Right again," Jack said, stepping up and pressing his borrowed gun into Neverlin's stomach. "Either of you carrying any weapons? Or shall I ask Draycos to search you?"
"What is this?" Gazen hissed. Unlike Neverlin, he was trembling visibly.
But then, Neverlin didn't have K'da claws pressing against his throat. "This is your life in your hands," Jack told him, taking the slavemaster's extendable slapstick from its holster. "How badly do you want to live today?"
Gazen swallowed hard. "What do you want?"
"Let's start by telling your snipers to back off," Jack said. "I want those slaves out there free to join me without getting shot."
Slowly, Gazen reached toward the comm clip on his shoulder. He stopped short as Draycos gave a soft warning growl. "It's all right, Draycos," Jack soothed.
"Gazen wouldn't try to pull a fast one by using code words or anything like that. He'll give the right order, and all the Brummgas will go away, and everyone will live through this. Isn't that right, Gazen?"
The slavemaster's eyes flicked past Draycos to the Brummgas lying in crumpled heaps on the deck. "Yes," he whispered.
"There, you see?" Jack said. "Okay, Gazen, go ahead. Oh, and you will make it sound like everything's all right out here, won't you? Like this is just a simple, minor change in the plan?"
Gazen took a deep breath. "Of course."
The performance was not exactly up to Stellar Award standards. But it was probably good enough. Especially since most of those on the far end would be Brummgas.
"Good," Jack said after he'd shut off Gazen's comm clip and slipped it into his own pocket. "Now, I guess the question is what exactly to do with you."
Beside him, Draycos's ears twitched. "Listen," he said.
Jack strained his ears. "What is it?"
"The sound of weapons fire," Draycos said grimly. "The fighters have arrived."
CHAPTER 35
Like the rest of the shuttle, the cockpit was a miniature version of a larger spaceship's flight deck. It was a three-seater, too, with copilot and system monitor stations in addition to the usual pilot's chair.
"Have a seat," Jack ordered his two prisoners as he closed the cockpit door halfway and slid into the pilot's station. "This'll only take a minute."
"You really think you have that long?" Neverlin asked.
Jack peered out the canopy, a tight knot in the pit of his stomach. The two Djinn-90s had indeed arrived, and were engaged in combat with the Essenay.
And for all the Essenay's speed and Uncle Virge's computerized skill, it was clear the ship was fighting for its life. It wove and dodged madly through the sky, trying to stay out of the fighters' sights while at the same time having to keep from straying over the deadly wall.
And for the moment, at least, there was nothing Jack could do to help.
Tearing his eyes away from the view, he started keying in the sewer-rat program.
"I say we let them take him out," Gazen said blackly. "The kid and his uncle have become way more trouble than they're worth. There has to be another safecracker somewhere you can use for this job."
"I'm sure there is," Neverlin agreed. "But I have no intention of letting Virgil Morgan die before he's told us who else knows about this."
"What do we need Morgan for?" Gazen argued. "We've got the kid, right?"
"You've got a really strange definition of ownership," Jack put in, keying the last part of the sequence. Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the program to do its job.
"You can't escape, you know," Gazen warned. "Sooner or later, they'll come out here and close you down."
"Like your other Brummgas did?" Jack asked pointedly.
"Sheer weight of numbers will eventually take you down," Neverlin said calmly.
"Even a K'da warrior can only do so much."
"You might be surprised," Jack said, trying to match the other's confidence.
The computer locking system was starting to waver now under the sewer-rat's attack.
Should be any minute. "But no matter what happens here, you're still in big trouble."
"Really," Neverlin said. "How do you figure that?"
"Because your bid to grab control of Braxton Universis has gone smokers,"
Jack told him. "That means that when you go up against the main K'da and Shontine refugee fleet, you won't have the Braxton security forces to draw on."
He nodded toward the mansion. "Or do you think the Chookoock family and their ten-thumbed Brummgas can do the job all by themselves?"
Gazen snorted. "Look, kid—"
"What's your point?" Neverlin cut him off.
"My point is that you're finished," Jack said flatly. "You're a sinking ship; and you, Gazen, are going to go down with him if you're not careful. But if you call off those Djinn-90s and open the gate, that'll be the end of it.
StarForce never has to know you were ever involved with this."
Neverlin actually laughed out loud. "StarForce? You expect us to believe Virgil Morgan would go to StarForce for help?" "Gazen?" Jack asked, ignoring him. "Last chance to join the winning side."
"Your last chance to surrender and maybe live through this," Gazen countered.
Abruptly, Draycos's head twitched toward the half-open door. "Footsteps," he warned.
Jack nodded. "And that ends the negotiations," he said, pulling out the slapstick he'd taken from Gazen and keying it to full power. Whether the newcomers were Maerlynn's group or more Brummgas, he didn't want his prisoners blurting out anything about Draycos. "Nighty-night."
He flicked the tip at Gazen, then at Neverlin. A pair of brilliant sparks later, both men were down for the count.