Dragon and Liberator

"Oh yeah, right," Sarge said with a snort. "Like the colonel and Mr. Neverlin want to smell it. Get yourself over to the Foxwolf. I'll have Reinking set you up a docking port there."

"Copy," Jack said, and tapped his transmission key, cutting off the radio. He took another deep breath; and as he did so, the resentful expression smoothed away. "I think we're in," he said. His voice, too, was back to normal.

It took Draycos another second to find his own voice. "Impressive," he said. "I had no idea you could do something like that."

"You like it?" Jack asked, getting a grip on the control yoke and turning them a few degrees to the left. "A little trick Uncle Virgil taught me."

"More than just a single trick," Draycos said. "It was as if you'd actually become the man."

"That's the best way to imitate someone," Jack said. "Body, mind, attitude, voice. Everything." He shrugged. "If you can do it. Most people can't. At least, not very well."

"Obviously, you're one of the few who can," Draycos said. "And all that after having heard only a few sentences from the man."

"Yet another useless talent for a reformed con man and thief." Jack shook his head sharply. Okay, I think my brain's ready to go with the telepathy thing again, the thought whispered across Draycos's mind. Next job is to actually make it aboard the ship.

Draycos turned his head to look out the canopy through Jack's collar. While they'd been talking, Jack had shifted their course toward the Gatekeeper. Isn't the next trick to figure out which ship is the Foxwolf? Draycos asked. Going to the wrong one would be a dead giveaway that you aren't Chiggers.

Not a problem, Jack said. If you scratch the Advocatus Diaboli, the only ships big enough to dock this thing are your Gatekeeper, the fueler, and the troop carrier. Troop carriers and fuelers, if you'll recall from all that reading we had to do when I was in the Whinyard's Edge, are usually numbered, not named.

Neverlin might have made an exception.

He didn't, Jack assured him. Now that we know Frost's plan, Foxwolf is a perfect name for the Gatekeeper. It'll start out looking like it's running for its life, like the fox in a foxhunt. Once it's past the main defenses, it'll suddenly turn into a wolf and start ravaging its way through the fleet.

Draycos felt his tail twitch. With his mind occupied with Jack's performance, he hadn't yet spotted the most important implication of the Gatekeeper's presence here. Which also means that's where the Valahgua will have mounted their Death weapons.

Or at least most of them, Jack agreed. I'm guessing Neverlin has at least one aboard the Advocatus Diaboli, just to make sure his own skin is safe.

And if they could get aboard the Gatekeeper and disable those weapons . . . Tell me about this calozyne you mentioned, Draycos said. What exactly is it? And there isn't any actual leak, is there?

Believe me, buddy, if there was you'd know it, Jack said dryly. It's a heat-exchange fluid for the laser chargers, and it stinks to high heaven.

Odd, Draycos said. Our heat-exchange fluids are odorless.

Actually, calozyne smells the way it does on purpose, Jack said. It's a safety feature, so that you know right away if you've got a leak. Firing lasers without being able to dump the heat is generally considered a very bad idea.

Agreed, Draycos said. But won't those aboard the Gatekeeper then know immediately that we have no leak?