Dragon and Liberator

Jack crossed to the inner bulkhead as ordered. At Frost's direction, two of the mercenaries wrapped short lengths of cable around the wrists of Jack's suit and locked them in place. They then held the other ends of the cables against the bay's inner bulkhead while a third man quick-welded them to the metal. Jack's ankles were next, followed by a larger loop around his waist.

"There," Frost said, running a critical eye over the work. "That should hold you awhile."

"You promised I could see Alison," Jack reminded him.

"And so you will," Frost said. Right on cue, down the bulkhead came the hiss of the airlock door opening.

Jack craned his neck to look as five vac-suited figures strode into the bay. Three of them carried heavy rifles, which they lowered to point at Jack as soon as they had a clear line of fire. The other two were unarmed.

But even with the partial concealment of their helmets Jack had no trouble identifying them.

One was Neverlin. The other was Alison.

"Hello, Jack," Neverlin's voice came through the speaker in Jack's helmet. He sounded almost cheerful, or at least as cheerful as the man probably ever got.

"And good-bye, Jack," Frost added. He gestured to his own group of mercenaries, who holstered their weapons and followed Frost into the airlock.

The door hissed closed behind them. A moment later, as he pressed his back against the bulkhead, Jack felt the rhythm of the pumps as they started pulling the air out of the bay.

"So nice of you to join us," Neverlin said. He gestured to Alison. "As you can see, she's safe and sound."

"You okay, Alison?" Jack asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," Alison assured him, her voice subdued and quavering.

It was, Jack thought, the very image of a scared, helpless little girl. Quite the little actress, isn't she? he commented sourly. I just hope it is an act.

Remember Taneem, Draycos reminded him.

Right. "Nice little box, this," Jack commented, looking back at Neverlin. "I was just wondering a few days ago how you would go about keeping a K'da poet-warrior neutralized."

"Now you know," Neverlin said. "Actually, to be fair, it was Ms. Kayna's idea."

Play dumb, Draycos warned.

Relax—I'm on it. "What was her idea?" Jack asked, frowning.

"Putting you in here," Neverlin said. "Now that we've evacuated the air, the K'da can't use his claws or teeth without opening your suit to vacuum, thereby killing you both. Very clever."

"You're too kind," Alison said. She straightened up.

And suddenly the helpless little girl was gone. "But then, I have spent the last couple of months thinking about it."

"What are you talking about?" Jack asked, letting his puzzlement move toward disbelief on its way to outrage.

"Sorry, Jack," Alison said. "I'm sure your uncle Virgil warned you against trusting people. Now you know why."

"Allow me to present Ms. Alison Davi," Neverlin said, gesturing to her. "Daughter of the Malison Ring's supreme commander."

Jack looked at Alison, tightening the muscles in his throat and cheeks. Most of the dramatic acting was wasted, he knew, with his helmet's faceplate obscuring a lot of Neverlin's view. But some of it would be visible, and he had to play this exactly right. "Of course," he said. "I knew something was wrong with her. I should have guessed it was because she's a killer's daughter."

Alison started to take a step toward him, broke off the movement. "That's rich, coming from the son of thieves," she bit out.

"Uncle Virgil is a thief," Jack said stiffly. "My real parents were Judge-Paladins."

"Right. Like I said." Deliberately, Alison turned to face Neverlin. "So what's the plan, now that you're down to one Death weapon?" she asked. "Take the Advocatus Diaboli in with the Foxwolf and do what you can with the one you have aboard?"

"Certainly we'll be going in together," Neverlin said, a nasty sort of slyness creeping into his voice. "But whoever said we were down to one weapon?"

Alison glanced at Jack, a frown creasing her forehead. "I thought the K'da shredded all the others."

"He shredded all those aboard the Foxwolf, yes," Neverlin confirmed. "Unfortunately for him, I'd already taken two of them out and loaded them aboard a pair of our Djinn-90s prior to Sergeant Chapman's raid on the Malison Ring depot at Driftline."

"Sounds a little risky," Alison said.

"Sounds very much necessary," Neverlin corrected. "Your doing, as it happens."

"Mine?" Alison asked, frowning a bit harder.

"Thanks to that trouble you stirred up with your father's people last month on Brum-a-dum," Neverlin explained. "With the entire Malison Ring now presumably on alert, I thought Chapman might have trouble picking up the Rhino-10s we wanted. I thought giving him two of the Death weapons might be useful in case they needed to shoot their way out."

"I see," Alison said, her voice just a little too casual. "And did they?"