Dragon and Liberator

And then Draycos was there, a black shadow sprinting toward him through the other shadows of the building site between Jack and the hangar. Jack stretched out his arm toward the open window, and as the K'da dived through the opening he caught the boy's hand with his front paws and slithered up his sleeve. "Go," Draycos ordered tautly. "Not too fast."

Jack clenched his teeth. But Draycos was right. Even with the horrible urgency pressing in on them he couldn't simply peel away as if the entire Internos police force were on his tail.

And so, with an air of casual unconcern, he pulled the car away from the curb. An honest citizen driving away from an honest errand, not a guilty would-be thief running from the scene of the crime.

He played the role for three blocks, until he was out of sight and hearing of the men back at the hangar. Then, stomping hard on the accelerator, he kicked the car to high speed.

"Careful," Draycos warned, his head rising from Jack's shoulder to look out the boy's shirt. "Frost might have backup watchers even this far out."

"Doesn't matter," Jack gritted out, the red-tinged image of Alison and Taneem buried alive inside that safe hazing over his eyes like a vision of the ground floor of hell. "Even if he did, it's too late for them to stop us."

"What's your plan?"

"We go in full bore," Jack told him. "Uncle Virge, get prepped to fly, and activate all weapons systems."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Uncle Virge asked cautiously. "They'll surely have heavy weaponry in there with them."

"They'll never get a chance to use it," Jack said. "No warning—we're just going to blast away at the hangar with everything we've got."

"But Alison and Taneem—"

"Are inside three inches of hardened metal with their own air supply," Jack cut him off. "Draycos?"

"Yes, you're right," Draycos agreed, a cautious hope in his voice. "They should be well protected against any of the Essenay's weapons."

"That's the nice thing about some traps—you can get them to work in either direction," Jack said, a grim and not entirely pleasant thrill rippling through him. After months of running and ducking and hiding, he and Draycos were finally going to take the battle to the enemy.

He was still psyching himself up for combat when a delivery truck pulled out of a blind driveway directly in front of him.

He jammed on the brakes. But he was going way too fast, and it was already way too late. With a horrible crunching of metal and plastic, he slammed full tilt into the truck's front left side.

For a short eternity the car spun and twisted terrifyingly around him. Then, abruptly, it came to a halt. Breathing heavily, Jack peered between the milky white balloons of the car's emergency protection system as they slowly receded back into their compartments.

He'd ended up half turned around, facing back toward the truck. The front left side of the other vehicle was a shambles, though not nearly as bad as the mess Jack had made of his own car. "Draycos?" he panted.

"I'm unharmed," the K'da said from his shoulder. "You?"

"I'm okay," Jack assured him. With a grating creak, the truck door opened and the Brummgan driver climbed rather shakily to the ground. "Looks like the other guy is, too."

"We'd best get out of here," Draycos warned. "The accident will hardly have gone unnoticed."

Jack looked through his broken windows. All around them Brummgas had stopped their cars or had appeared in open doorways or were peering out of windows. "No kidding," he said, pulling the door release and leaning against the panel.

For a wonder, it wasn't jammed, and with an ear-piercing shriek he got it open. With his hands shaking with reaction, it took another half minute to get his seat belts off. He had just gotten them clear when a large hand reached in, grabbed his left upper arm, and hauled him bodily out of the car.

And he found himself staring up at the dark Brummgan eyes and gleaming golden collar ring of a police officer. "Your vehicle license?" the Brummga demanded.

Jack felt his heart sink. Oh no. "Sure," he managed, pointing back into the car. "It's in the storage compartment." If he could get into the car and out the other side . . . "I'll get it."

But he'd barely started his turn when the grip on his arm tightened and pulled him back again. "This vehicle plate shows it stolen," the Brummga growled. "You come now to jail."

Jack? Draycos's urgent thought came.

From overhead came a faint whine. Jack looked up to see a formation of three long-range shuttles appear, losing altitude as they flew toward the Chookoock family's private hangar.

Frost's shuttles had returned.

And if the mercenaries were monitoring the police comm system, the sudden frantic flurry of reports claiming a dragon had attacked a cop would bring them down on him and Draycos in double-quick time.

Jack?

Don't bother, Jack told him wearily, his earlier thrill of anticipation burned into ash.