Dragon and Liberator

Draycos nodded grimly to himself. Nothing really new, except that Langston had figured out the designers' system of back doors.

Unfortunately, as soon as he hit this particular Death weapon, the Valahgua would know about it, too. That would leave him only the equipment crawl spaces, which covered limited areas of the ship, and didn't reach the weapons bays at all.

They also fixed the Death weapon that you and Jack sabotaged. Not the two you shredded—they were furious about that, by the way—but the first one you hit, in the port-side weapons bay.

Again, nothing new there. The heavy guard on the other Death weapon alone had pretty well proved it had been fixed.

On the other hand, just because the Valahgua thought they'd fixed it didn't necessarily mean that they had. If they'd missed Jack's secondary sabotage, the weapon could still blow up in their faces when they tried to fire it. He could hope, anyway.

Speaking of that port-side weapon, rumor is that the Valahgua moved it sometime during ship's night. I don't know where.

Draycos frowned. They'd moved it? But it was already in as secure and inaccessible a place as the Gatekeeper had to offer.

And then, suddenly, he understood.

Langston and a handful of Brummgas, alone in a critical part of the ship. Bait for a trap, Draycos had already suspected.

Now he knew what the trap was.

"Jack, we're in trouble," he said quietly into the comm clip. "The Valahgua have moved the other Death weapon to cover this one.

"The minute I come into the open, they're going to kill me."

CHAPTER 18

For a few seconds Jack lay motionless in the crawl space, staring at the low ceiling above his head as he silently berated his carelessness. He'd gotten so used to dealing with Brummgas and their slow and unimaginative brains that he'd forgotten there were also humans and Valahgua in the mix.

Apparently, one of them had come up with something clever.

"Jack?"

"Yes, I'm here," Jack said, kicking his brain into gear. "Start at the beginning."

He listened as Draycos read Langston's note and then gave his own observations and conclusions. "They're learning, anyway," Jack said when the K'da had finished. "Okay, let's think this through. First of all, I don't suppose you have any idea where they might have put the second Death, do you?"

"Jack, it could be literally anywhere aboard the ship," Draycos said heavily. "As I've told you, its beam can penetrate any number of decks and bulkheads."

"Right, but it'll also kill everyone in its path," Jack said. "I presume the Lordover won't want to sacrifice any more of his allies than he has to."

"Probably, but that's not much help," Draycos said. "He can easily move all the Brummgas and humans out of the line of fire."

"Except for those they can't move," Jack said. "What kinds of duty stations are there around the starboard weapons bay? Anything that absolutely has to be manned? Especially now, as We're about to come off ECHO?"

"There's nothing forward of the main control complex," Draycos said. "All the duty station functions in the bow can be handled from somewhere else. That leaves over a quarter of the ship as possibilities."

"Okay, then, how about power supplies?" Jack suggested. "You hinted earlier that the things had originally been set up in the weapons bays because they needed more power than your average crew mess or monitor station could deliver."

"True, and that does limit their choices somewhat," Draycos said, a cautious hope starting to filter into his voice. "But I'd need to either visit each room or else find a monitor station in order to find out which one they're using."

"Where's the nearest power monitor?" Jack asked, focusing on the ceiling over his head. "Better yet, can I tap into the one here in the control complex?"

"Theoretically, yes," Draycos said. "But you'd need a portable monitor, which we don't have. Other than that, the only centralized monitors would be in auxiliary control, just forward of the engine control complex."

Jack grimaced. The engine complex was way back in the aft section of the ship. "No good," he said. "It'd take you as long to get back there as it would to scope out all the possible rooms in the first place."

"Or at least nearly as long," Draycos conceded. "Perhaps we need to abandon the idea of attacking these weapons before we reach Point Three."

"No," Jack said firmly. "The minute we come off ECHO we're going to have Frost breathing down our necks. If he doesn't catch us, he's sure going to pin us down. If we're going to take out this thing, we need to do it now."