Dragon And Soldier

"Yeah, I'll bet you do," Grisko grunted. Reaching to a small rectangular plate beneath the monitors, he flipped up its protective cover. Underneath was a glow-in-the-dark schematic of the area, with Jack's outpost in the middle and the edge of the main camp behind him along the bottom. "Here's where your eyes are located," he said, tapping the map in four places. "You'll be relieved at midnight. Don't fall asleep."

He turned back toward the camp. "What if there's trouble?" Jack asked.

Grisko frowned. "Like what?"

"Like the enemy shows up," Jack said. "Do I get a comm clip or something to call in an alarm?"

Grisko was looking at him as if he was crazy. "Don't be absurd," he said. "The enemy doesn't even know we're here."

"But—"

"Tell you what," Grisko cut him off. "If they come this way, you haul out your Gompers and start shooting. We'll notice. Trust me."

With that he stalked off into the growing darkness, the matting of dead leaves crunching under his feet. He disappeared from sight, leaving only the sound of his footsteps to mark where he was. A dozen seconds later, even those had faded into silence.

And Jack and Draycos were alone.

Chapter 15

Jack had never liked the woods. He'd never much liked the outdoors in general, for that matter. Nearly all of his life had been spent in cities or spaceports, or in spaceships like the Essenay. Places with bright lights, and people, and no strange noises.

Occasionally when he and Uncle Virgil had been ru

His last brush with nature had been on Iota Klestis a month and a half ago. He'd taken a few short trips outside the ship, mostly during the day but once or twice at night. That was how bored and restless he'd been.

But at least there he'd had the comforting bulk of the Es-senay at his back, and Uncle Virge's watchful eye on the surrounding terrain.

Uncle Virge.

He stared out into the woods, an all-too-familiar pang of uncertainty and loss and fear whispering through him. The first time he'd felt it was back when he was three years old and finally realized that his parents weren't coming back to him. He'd felt it again a year ago at Uncle Virgil's death, when he'd suddenly found himself alone in the universe with nothing but a computerized personality to look after him.

Now, here in the darkness of the night, he was feeling it for a third time. Because whatever happened with Draycos, he knew down deep that his relationship with Uncle Virge had been changed forever.

The thought was as frightening and alien as the dark woods around him. Up to the time when he'd met Draycos, Jack's life had been fairly simple and more or less comfortable. For all the a

More to the point, he was the only friend Jack had.

The strange noises of nature were begi

And then, suddenly, something big and heavy landed on the back of his neck.

He jerked away with a gasp, his hand reaching automatically to swat it away, even as he realized it was just Draycos popping out from his jacket collar. "Geez!" he hissed. "Don't do that."

"Do not do what?" Draycos asked, landing on the leaves beside him with a soft crunch.

"Never mind," Jack growled, feeling like an idiot. "You startled me, that's all."

The dragon cocked his head. "You do not like it out here," he declared.

Jack snorted. "No kidding, Sherlock."

"Pardon?"

"Skip it." Shaking away the introspective thoughts, Jack stepped over to the Argus monitors for a closer look. There were two filters on each, he saw, either of which could be slid over the image. Experimentally, he tried one.

The image didn't change much. He tried the other, and suddenly, the darkness was pockmarked with scattered bits of light. "Ah-ha," he said, feeling about as pleased as he could under the circumstances. "That's the infrared. The other one must be deep UV."

"Pardon?"

" 'UV' is short for ultraviolet," Jack explained, sliding the infrared filters over the rest of the monitors. "It's a kind of light we can't see directly, but there are some species and some kinds of equipment that show up real well with it."

"And infrared?"

"Infrared is heat," Jack told him, peering at each of the monitors in turn. Nothing but small animals and birds, at least as far as he could see. "Anything warm gives that off. Those thugs who were looking for us back on Vagran were using IR detectors. Back when we were hiding out on that Wistawki balcony, remember?"

"Yes," Draycos said. "I was somewhat surprised at the time that they did not locate us."

Jack shrugged. "You probably don't look like anything anyone's ever seen before. Matter of fact, you might not even look alive—we'd have to do a heat profile on you to know for sure. Either way, I guarantee you don't look like a human."

"That could be useful."

"It already has been," Jack pointed out.

"True." Draycos studied the monitors. "The images are not very clear."

"They sure aren't," Jack agreed. "I guess that's the best you can do without electronics and power sources."

The dragon hopped up onto a nearby stump and craned his neck. "Perhaps I should explore the perimeter."

"Oh, no," Jack said quickly. "Forget it. You just stay put, right here."

Draycos twisted his head around to look back at him. "You do not need to be afraid, Jack," he said, his voice low and soothing. "I am a poet-warrior of the K'da. I will protect you."

"I appreciate your confidence," Jack said. "But Good Intention Highway isn't one I want to travel just yet."

The tip of Draycos's tail twitched. "Do you refer to the saying, 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'?"

Jack frowned. "Yeah. Where did you hear that?"

"Uncle Virge quoted it to me," the dragon said. From his stump he jumped up onto the side of one of the trees and clung there by his claws, gazing out into the night.

"During one of your late-night poetry sessions?"

"Yes. He has many such sayings with which to illustrate his points."

Jack felt his mouth twist. "Let me guess. His main point is that he wants you to go away and leave us alone."

"That is the core of it," Draycos confirmed. "He does not feel that the survival of my people should be any concern of yours."

Somewhere ahead, a twig suddenly snapped. Jack jerked, snatching up his Gompers and pointing it into the darkness. "Do not be afraid," Draycos assured him quickly. "It was merely a small animal obtaining a meal."

Jack lowered the flash rifle, letting his breath out silently. "Okay," he said.

Draycos pushed off the tree trunk and dropped back down to Jack's side. "I do not understand your fear," he said, looking up at Jack's face. "I would have thought that in your previous profession you must have faced danger many times."

"Not like this," Jack said, shaking his head. "I was always a kid before. Even when we were breaking into bank vaults, I knew the police weren't going to shoot unless I pointed a gun at them or tried to get away."

He plucked at a fold of his uniform jacket. "Here, it's all different. Here, I'm a target. Not because I'm breaking any laws, but because I'm wearing this uniform. Just because I'm wearing this uniform."