Dragon and Liberator

To his surprise, the invisibility part proved less important than he'd expected it to. At first there were plenty of Brummgas striding through corridors or lounging about the various rooms he passed. But as he approached the Number Four weapons bay, that number became less and less. The last three rooms he passed, in fact, were completely deserted.

Something was wrong.

He took the last stretch of duct at a careful crawl, his tongue flicking out as he went, trying to analyze the scents of Brummga and human and Valahgua drifting on the air around him.

And it was no doubt because he was taking such care that he spotted the small object sitting just inside the weapons bay's auxiliary control room grille.

He froze in place ten feet away, peering hard at the object. It looked like a tube or perhaps a section of thick cable, about six inches long and one inch in diameter. It was too wide to have gotten through the small holes in the grille, which meant someone must have opened the grille in order to put it there.

He flicked out his tongue again. This close to the grille, he should be able to pick out the specific scents coming from that room. There was one human in there, he decided, plus four or five Brummgas. No Valahgua.

He frowned, his tail arching with sudden suspicion. Only a handful of defenders for one of the precious remaining Death weapons?

Not a chance. Especially since his earlier checks had showed guard contingents three times that size. Could the rest of them be spread out in the corridor, where they would have a better field of fire?

Backing up, he slipped into the duct that paralleled the corridor outside the room. He flicked his tongue at the nearest grille, looking for the scent of nervous Brummgas.

But it wasn't there. The corridor was deserted, or nearly so.

Something was definitely wrong.

He returned to the room's duct again and took a cautious pair of steps toward the object lying inside the grille. From here he could see that it was vibrating slightly with the air flowing across it. Something light, then. Something light that had been rolled up into a cylindrical shape?

A piece of paper?

Carefully, he continued forward. It was a rolled-up piece of paper, all right, which had partially unrolled to its current diameter. Picking it up, he looked cautiously through the grille into the room beyond.

The room had changed since his quiet reconnaissance two nights ago. As he'd already surmised, the crowd of guards that had lined the bulkheads was gone. Instead, the walls were lined with a double bank of video monitors. It was hard to tell at his distance, but they seemed to be carrying the feeds from various security cameras. One group of monitors, he saw, showed images from the tween gap area.

As he'd also surmised, there were only five Brummgas in the room. Three of them were standing around the control end of the Death weapon, their backs to Draycos behind his grille. Two more were standing watchful guard by the door, with the grille at the edge of their peripheral vision.

Standing two paces behind the three at the controls, the stiffness of his back betraying his tension, was Wing Sergeant Langston.

Draycos eyed the group, his warrior's instincts tingling. Five Brummgas out of over three hundred, and a human whom they clearly didn't trust. Bait, if he'd ever seen it.

Which meant that this whole thing was a trap.

Taking one last look through the grille, Draycos picked up the rolled-up paper and retreated quietly along the duct.

He found a hidden spot away from any of the grilles, one where he had three different escape routes available to him. Crouching down, he unrolled the paper.

It was a note, as he'd expected, written in small but precise letters. Leaning close to give it all the light from his eyes that he could, he began to read.

Draycos:

I hope you get this message. I don't have much real information for you—they still don't completely trust me—but rumor is that the Valahgua are expecting you and Jack to try to hit the last two Death weapons before we reach Point Three.

They've now got cameras inside all the hull-gap access doors near both weapons bays to watch for your arrival. The ventilation system seems untouched so far—I don't think they realize you'll fit in there. I'm hoping that's the approach you'll use, since I can't get this note into any of the hull-gap doors without making a lot of noise.