Dragon and Liberator

Draycos listened hard, and a moment later heard the sound of the door opening and closing. "He's clear," he murmured into his comm clip.

"Bottoms up," Jack murmured back.

Draycos peered through the grille at the monitors. The tiny figure that was Jack moved closer to the cameras, filling one of two displays as he leaned over it.

And suddenly both displays went black.

"He has destroyed the port-side cameras as well," Mrishpaw said urgently into the intercom. "Instructions?"

"Hold position," the Valahguan voice said, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction there.

Because he'd figured it out. Leaning over the camera with his flight suit collar open, Jack had clearly demonstrated that Draycos wasn't riding his skin.

And if Jack was approaching the port-side weapons bay, where the second Death weapon had been located until a few hours ago, Draycos must therefore be preparing to attack the starboard weapon. A straightforward, coordinated two-prong attack, of the sort the Valahgua had seen a thousand times before.

Or else possibly Draycos was being subtle, with Jack merely a diversion to get their attention while Draycos launched a single-prong attack.

Fortunately, it didn't matter which of those conclusions the Valahgua jumped to. Jack's destruction of the starboard cameras as he passed was all the confirmation he needed that Draycos was lurking in the tween gap waiting for the moment to attack the bait.

And with the trap already set and primed, the Valahgua could afford the minor effort required to also eliminate the lesser of his two enemies. "Prepare to fire," the Valahgua ordered Mrishpaw. "As soon as the K'da has reached the weapon."

The voice went silent; and then, from the hidden comm clip, the voice came again. "Readjust your aim to the boy's last position," he ordered Langston's crew. "Fire on my command."

"I obey," the response came. On the monitor below him, Draycos saw two of the Brummgas grab the front end of the other Death weapon and begin to swing it ponderously toward the port-side weapons bay.

And as its aim moved away from the room below him, Draycos pounced.

He shoved open the grille with his front paws and pushed the duct's back wall with his hind paws, hurling himself out of the opening like a black-scaled missile. The Brummgas had just enough time to start to turn, their mouths dropping open.

And then Draycos was among them, slashing with his paws to stagger back the nearest alien, then slapping away the one behind him, clearing himself a path to the obscene killing machine mounted in the center of the room. From the intercom speaker he heard a Valahguan scream of fury, and through his comm clip he heard the Lordover howling at the Brummgas in the other room to stop what they were doing and turn the Death back toward the threat that had suddenly appeared behind them.

But it was already too late. Even as the Brummgas threw their weight against the weapon's muzzle, Draycos reached the center of his room. He ducked beneath the rear of the Death and came back up behind it.

And twisting back around to face the control panel, he keyed the firing button.

From its muzzle came a sickly yellow flash, and the all-too-familiar cone of violet light lanced out like the limb of some alien creature stretching out toward its prey. The violet light hit the bulkhead, and in his mind's eye Draycos could see it passing through the next room, and the next, and the next.

And on the monitor, the Brummgas still trying to wrestle the other Death weapon back into place collapsed to the deck.

The rest of the Brummgas in Draycos's room had recovered from their shock and were starting forward. But Draycos didn't have time to deal with them now. Giving the Death a quick but crippling double slash, he ducked under the charging Brummgas and made for the door. A flick of one paw at the control, a blind back-forth whipping of his tail to brush back pursuit, and as the door opened he slipped out.

He set off down the corridor at a dead run. All around him, the various room and corridor intercoms were alive with Valahguan and human voices shouting orders as they tried to get their troops to the scene.

But all the troops had been carefully moved out of the trap's line of fire, and it was an eternity too late to bring them back. Draycos took the corridor's turns at full speed, his paws climbing halfway up the walls as he did so.

Seconds later, he stood beside the fourth and final Death weapon.

Draycos had seen countless dead bodies during his people's war against the Valahgua. But there was something about bodies killed by the Death that especially sickened him. Keeping his eyes away from them, he slashed at the weapon itself, expending his fury and tension as he turned it into scrap metal.

"Draycos?" Jack's voice came in his ear.

Draycos took a careful breath. "I'm all right," he assured the other. "Get back to base. I'll meet you there."

"Make it quick," Jack warned. "I'm guessing they're not too happy with us just now."