Dragon and Liberator

With an effort, Taneem lifted her silver eyes from all those guns and focused on Alison's calm face. An odd thought ran through Taneem's mind: a girl of Alison's mere fourteen years had no business being so calm in the middle of this much danger. "Yes, I'm fine," she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

"The waiting's always the hardest part," Alison told her. "But try to relax. If this goes down like it's supposed to, neither of us will have to do any fighting."

And if it doesn't go down like it's supposed to? Taneem wondered. But there was no point in bringing that up.

The doors below finished opening, and three vans pulled inside. They rolled past the milling Brummgas and pulled up behind the two shuttles waiting by the much larger doors at the south end of the hangar. There had been ten such shuttles when Taneem and Alison had first arrived, which had left the hangar in pairs as each group of new passengers arrived and was loaded aboard.

At first Taneem had hoped the shuttles might provide the answer to their problem. Alison had brought along the transmitting device that Colonel Frost had used to track the Essenay to Rho Scorvi, and Taneem had hoped she and Alison could plant it aboard one of the shuttles and find the refugee rendezvous point that way.

But Alison had explained that the shuttles would simply be taking the Brummgas to another ship or group of ships waiting out in deep space. Those ships would then continue on, while the shuttles returned to Brum-a-dum.

Across the hangar, the doors closed again with another thunk. On the floor below, the van doors opened and the Brummgan soldiers began filing out. "Okay," Alison said, getting a grip on her remote trigger. "Here we go." Flipping up the protective cover, she pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

"Alison?" Taneem asked anxiously, looking down at the Brummgas still filing out of their vans.

"It's okay," Alison assured her. "This is a Type Four sopor. Takes longer to start working, but also keeps them asleep longer after the mist dissipates."

Taneem flicked her tail. Certainly Alison ought to know how her own weapons worked.

And then, all across the hangar, the Brummgas went limp and collapsed onto the floor.

"See?" Alison said as she pulled on her full-helmet gas mask and tossed a coil of rope over the edge of the track. "Here we go. Stay here until I call you." Getting a grip on the rope, she rolled off the support and started sliding down.

Taneem watched her go, scratching her claws nervously against the metal of the track support. If the Brummgas down there were faking . . .

But no one moved or opened fire, and a few seconds later Alison was safely down. Drawing her small Corvine pistol from its holster, the girl dropped the backpack off her shoulder and pulled it open. "Clear," her muffled voice came from the comm clip fastened to Taneem's ear. "I'll get the MixStar started."

Alison headed toward the middle van. Taneem watched her go, thinking about her MixStar safecracking computer. She'd seen the device in action, and it still amazed her that such a powerful device could be concealed inside a belt and a pair of shoes. Alison reached the van, peered into the open door, and disappeared inside.

"Taneem?" Draycos's voice came softly. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Taneem assured him. "The sopor mist seems to have worked properly."

"Keep an eye on the Brummgas anyway," Draycos said. "Watch for twitching or movements like someone might make in their sleep. If you see anything like that, let us know immediately."

"They'll be fine," Alison said before Taneem could answer. "Okay, the MixStar's running. I'll go find a spot for the tracer." She reappeared from the van and jogged over to the rear of the nearest shuttle, ducking beneath its engine section.

This was the part that Taneem still didn't quite understand. The tracer would do them no good attached to the shuttle. Jack, Alison, and Draycos all knew that. So, presumably, would Colonel Frost.

Yet Alison seemed to think Frost might not think Jack and Alison knew that. She had tried to explain that Frost might therefore believe that was the reason why she and Taneem had invaded the hangar this way.

It would be simpler if they never knew Alison and Taneem had been here at all. But Taneem had to admit that was probably impossible. Not with the Brummgas having been put to sleep this way.

There was so much she still had to learn.

"Alison!" Jack's voice snapped with sudden urgency in Taneem's ear. "More traffic heading your way."

"I thought Uncle Virge said there were only twenty-five vans on the Chookoock grounds," Alison said.

"These aren't vans, they're cars," Jack gritted out. "Four of them, loaded to the gills with humans."

"And," Draycos put in tautly, "Frost and Neverlin are among them."

CHAPTER 2