DRAGON AND LIBERATOR

TIMOTHY ZAHN

To Anna—

For all you do, and for all you are

  Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 1

One month.

The words echoed through Draycos's mind as he lay in his two-dimensional form against Jack Morgan's back, arms, and legs. One month.

One month left until the refugee fleet carrying the remainder of his K'da people and their Shontine symbionts arrived here in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. One month until their long, wearying journey would be over.

One month until they flew into the ambush that Arthur Neverlin and the Valahgua were preparing for them.

Or perhaps even less than that. After two years in hyperspace, they could easily be a week or two early for their rendezvous.

Draycos raised his head a little from Jack's shoulder, his eyebrow ridges and spiny crest pressing up against the boy's shirt. Through the windshield of the car Jack had borrowed from a used-vehicle lot, he could see the Brummgan town of Ponocce City laid out in front of them. Its ugly color scheme, thankfully, was shrouded by the darkness of night and the city's mediocre streetlight system. Three miles straight ahead, its lights reflected against the low clouds, was the spaceport where some of the enemy forces were even now being gathered together.

Draycos swiveled his head around, lifting his eyes over the back of Jack's shirt. Directly behind the car, rising over the low houses around it like a breaking ocean wave, was the tall ceramic wall that surrounded the Chookoock family estate.

There were some very unpleasant memories tied up with that wall and the evil people who hid behind it. Draycos could imagine how Jack must be feeling right now as the memories of his brief time as a Chookoock slave were forced back upon him.

Draycos? Jack's thought flowed into the K'da's mind along the strange telepathic link the two of them had somehow developed. You okay?

Yes, Draycos replied. Why do you ask?

You're twitching your tail against the back of my knee, Jack told him. I thought maybe you were nervous.

Draycos hadn't even realized he'd been doing that. My apologies, he said, bringing his tail to a halt.

No problem

, Jack assured him. It tickled, that's all.

In the distance behind them, Draycos caught a flicker of reflected streetlight from the gate set into the white wall. "The gate's opening again," he said aloud.

"Got it," Jack said, picking up the portable sensor he'd brought from the Essenay and pressing it against the side window. "Geez, how many soldiers have they got in there, anyway?"

"Well, we've had around three hundred come through here, if that helps any," Alison Kayla's voice came from the comm clip attached to Jack's left shirt collar.

"Yes, thank you, I can do basic math," Jack growled. "You want to keep it down?"

"Relax—they can't possibly hear me," Alison said. Her tone managed somehow to be reassuring and sarcastic at the same time. "We're all the way up at the top of the hangar on one of the loading-crane supports."

"Good," Jack said tartly. "Keep it down anyway."

They'll be all right, Draycos assured him. I know, Jack said.

But the boy's words couldn't hide his tension. Especially since it was the same tension Draycos himself was feeling.

Because it should be him and Jack skulking around the Chookoock family's main shuttle hangar. It should be him and Jack watching the Brummgan mercenaries gathering for transport to the ambush point. It shouldn't be Alison and Taneem.

Especially not Taneem. The young female K'da was intelligent and likable, and she'd certainly shown herself willing to put herself at risk for Draycos and his people.

But she'd spent most of her life as little more than an animal. Her transformation to full, sentient being was less than two months old. She still needed more learning and experience before she would be ready for even a normal K'da life.

And the circumstances she and Alison were in right now were anything but normal.

Restlessly, Draycos lashed his tail. He should have put all four feet down right from the start and insisted that he and Jack take this part of the plan.

The problem was that Alison was just as stubborn as Draycos was. And, unfortunately, she'd also had logic on her side. She and Taneem had already successfully opened one of the K'da/Shontine safes, and that experience was worth more than any coaching that Alison could give Jack. Even Jack had admitted that. And to be fair, she had proved she was capable of handling herself.