Dragonback 06 Dragon and Liberator (2 page)

Across the hangar, the doors closed again with another thunk. On
the floor below, the van doors opened and the Brummgan soldiers began
filing out. "Okay," Alison said, getting a grip on her remote trigger.
"Here we go." Flipping up the protective cover, she pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

"Alison?" Taneem asked anxiously, looking down at the Brummgas
still filing out of their vans.

"It's okay," Alison assured her. "This is a Type Four sopor. Takes
longer to start working, but also keeps them asleep longer after the
mist dissipates."

Taneem flicked her tail. Certainly Alison ought to know how her
own weapons worked.

And then, all across the hangar, the Brummgas went limp and
collapsed onto the floor.

"See?" Alison said as she pulled on her full-helmet gas mask and
tossed a coil of rope over the edge of the track. "Here we go. Stay
here until I call you." Getting a grip on the rope, she rolled off the
support and started sliding down.

Taneem watched her go, scratching her claws nervously against the
metal of the track support. If the Brummgas down there were faking . . .

But no one moved or opened fire, and a few seconds later Alison
was safely down. Drawing her small Corvine pistol from its holster, the
girl dropped the backpack off her shoulder and pulled it open. "Clear,"
her muffled voice came from the comm clip fastened to Taneem's ear.
"I'll get the MixStar started."

Alison headed toward the middle van. Taneem watched her go,
thinking about her MixStar safecracking computer. She'd seen the device
in action, and it still amazed her that such a powerful device could be
concealed inside a belt and a pair of shoes. Alison reached the van,
peered into the open door, and disappeared inside.

"Taneem?" Draycos's voice came softly. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Taneem assured him. "The sopor mist seems to have
worked properly."

"Keep an eye on the Brummgas anyway," Draycos said. "Watch for
twitching or movements like someone might make in their sleep. If you
see anything like that, let us know immediately."

"They'll be fine," Alison said before Taneem could answer. "Okay,
the MixStar's running. I'll go find a spot for the tracer." She
reappeared from the van and jogged over to the rear of the nearest
shuttle, ducking beneath its engine section.

This was the part that Taneem still didn't quite understand. The
tracer would do them no good attached to the shuttle. Jack, Alison, and
Draycos all knew that. So, presumably, would Colonel Frost.

Yet Alison seemed to think Frost might not think Jack and Alison
knew that. She had tried to explain that Frost might therefore believe
that was the reason why she and Taneem had invaded the hangar this way.

It would be simpler if they never knew Alison and Taneem had been
here at all. But Taneem had to admit that was probably impossible. Not
with the Brummgas having been put to sleep this way.

There was so much she still had to learn.

"Alison!" Jack's voice snapped with sudden urgency in Taneem's
ear. "More traffic heading your way."

"I thought Uncle Virge said there were only twenty-five vans on
the Chookoock grounds," Alison said.

"These aren't vans, they're cars," Jack gritted out. "Four of
them, loaded to the gills with humans."

"And," Draycos put in tautly, "Frost and Neverlin are among them."

Alison felt her stomach tighten. Frost and Neverlin were
here
?
She'd assumed both had slipped out during the Malison Ring raid on the
Chookoock estate twelve days ago and escaped off-planet.

If she'd only known. But it was too late to worry about that now.
"ETA?" she asked.

"Maybe two minutes before they pop the door and see your
handiwork," Jack said.

"Taneem, get down to the hangar floor," Draycos ordered. "And hold
your breath—the sopor mist may not yet have completely dissipated.
Alison, the west door won't be visible to them as they enter. Go out
that way and head south—we'll circle around and pick you up."

Alison looked back under the shuttle's drive nozzles toward the
three vans and the north door beyond them. Draycos was right—two
minutes would be enough for her and Taneem to make their escape out the
west door.

But if they left now, they'd never get another crack at that safe.

"Alison?" Jack asked. "You copy that?" Alison came to a sudden
decision. "We're trying the safe first," she said, getting out from
underneath the shuttle and sprinting for the van. The rope hanging from
the ceiling twitched violently as Taneem finished her slide onto the
hangar floor. "Come on, Taneem."

"
Alison
—"

"We've got a minute and a half," Alison cut him off as she reached
the van and climbed inside. "Maybe more if Frost sees the carnage and
decides to take it slow."

"Are you
crazy
?"

"Probably," Alison conceded, crouching in front of the safe as
Taneem crowded into the van beside her. "Now shut up and let me work."

The MixStar was nearly finished. "Let's check out the fail-safes,"
Alison said, holding out her hand.

Taneem touched the hand with her paw and went two-dimensional,
vanishing up Alison's sleeve. As she did so, the comm clip popped off
her ear. Alison caught it in midair, stuffing it into a pocket as she
turned around and pressed her back against the door of the safe. The
K'da had a special trick in their 2-D form for looking "over" walls
that would let her see into the safe.

She felt the subtle wriggling as Taneem adjusted herself. A moment
of stillness, then a second wriggle, and her head slid around over
Alison's right shoulder. "The third and fourth indentations," Taneem
whispered.

"Got it," Alison said, glancing at the display strip on the inside
of her mask. "Don't worry about breathing—the mist has dissipated."

The MixStar had finished its work. "Combination is
three-seven-twelve-nine-twenty," Alison said. "We're opening it now.
Taneem?"

Lifting a paw from Alison's forearm, the K'da stuck two of her
toes into the third and fourth indentations in the safe's sidewall.
"Hurry it up," Jack said. "They've reached the door and stopped.
Probably wondering why no one's opening it for them."

"Fifteen seconds," Alison promised. She keyed in the combination
and pulled the break bar.

To her relief and satisfaction, the door swung quietly open. "Got
it," she announced. Reaching in, she scooped up the handful of data
diamonds lying on the safe's floor and shoved them into her side pocket
along with Taneem's comm clip. "And we're out of here," she added,
getting a grip on the break bar and starting to close the heavy door.

And without warning, the hangar was rocked by a thunderous
explosion.

Alison gasped, grabbing the edge of the safe as the blast lifted
the van an inch off the floor and then slammed it back down again.
Someone was shouting into her ear, but for those first few seconds she
couldn't hear anything but a loud ringing.

But at least she was still conscious. If she hadn't been inside
the van when the concussion blast went off, she'd be flat on her back
right now.

Abruptly, the ringing cleared. "—blew the door and are coming in,"
Jack was saying urgently. "All of them, and they're spreading out to
cover the whole hangar."

"I'm coming in," Draycos added, his voice dark and grim. "Find
somewhere to hide until I get there."

"You'll never make it," Alison said quickly. She could hear the
widely separated sounds of squealing brakes as the cars came to a halt
in four different parts of the hangar. "They're too spread out, and
there's no cover. They'll kill you."

She heard a sudden whistling sound from the comm clip as Draycos
left the car and sprinted through the night air. "My life isn't
important," he said over the whistling. "The data diamonds you've
obtained are all that matter."

"No, they're not," Alison snapped, looking frantically around her
for inspiration. "How do we convince StarForce this is on the level
without a genuine K'da to show them?"

"You have Taneem."

"Who was born and raised on Rho Scorvi," Alison countered, knowing
that she was running out of time. The first thing Frost would check
once his men declared the area secure would be his precious safe.

The safe.

And with that, she knew what she had to do. "We're getting into
the safe," she said, grabbing the MixStar. Crouching down, she stepped
into the big metal box.

"You're
what
?" Jack demanded. "Alison—"

"My mask can give us air for six hours," Alison cut him off,
sitting down facing the safe door with her knees tucked to her chest.
It would be a tight fit, but not too bad. The door's inner plate, she
noted, had several small access holes to the lock mechanism that were
big enough for her to get a couple of fingers into. "We'll be safe
until then, so take your time and pick your moment. Don't try to rescue
me—either of you. Understand?"

"Yes," Draycos said reluctantly.

"Good," Alison said. Taneem, she noted uneasily, had gone rigid
against her skin. Was the K'da claustrophobic? She hoped not. "Also,
don't worry if you can't catch up with us before the six hours run out.
Taneem and I will just play it by ear. I can get to the lock from in
here, so we won't be stuck."

"Understood," Draycos said, his voice tight but steady. "Good
luck."

Alison could hear heavy footsteps now, and the echo of terse
commands. Bracing herself, she got a grip on the door and pulled it
closed. There was a soft click as the lock reengaged.

And she and Taneem were alone in utter darkness.

"Taneem?" she murmured softly toward her shoulder. "You all right?"

There was no answer. "Taneem?" Alison tried again. "Come on, girl;
we've been in worse scrapes than this one."

"Have we?" Taneem whispered back, her voice shaking. "Have we
really?"

Alison grimaced. Actually, they probably hadn't. "We're going to
be fine," she assured the K'da. A sudden thought occurred to her, and
she dug her mascara tube from her kit. "Let's see if we can hear what
they're talking about out there."

Unscrewing the end from the tube, she placed it into her ear. The
burglar's pickup was designed to let her listen into safes from the
outside. There was no reason it shouldn't let her listen the other
direction, too. Switching on the microphone half of the tube, she
pressed it against the safe wall beside her.

"—Morgan, I tell you," Colonel Frost's voice growled faintly in
her ear. "It's exactly the sort of crazy stunt he and that frunging
K'da of his would pull."

"Very likely," a second voice answered.

Alison felt a shiver run through her.
That
voice was
very
familiar: Arthur Neverlin, once the number-two man at Braxton
Universis. The man who, five months ago, had framed Jack for theft and
murder and then blackmailed him into helping with his plan to kill
Cornelius Braxton and take complete control of the huge corporation.

Only Jack and Draycos had turned the tables on him. They'd saved
Braxton's life and sent Neverlin scurrying for the shadows where he'd
been lurking ever since.

Which probably meant Neverlin hated Jack as much as Colonel Frost
hated Alison.

Alison's father had once told her it was good to have all your
enemies grouped together in the same place. At the time, she'd thought
it sounded like a reasonable idea. Now, she wasn't so sure.

"Which brings up the question of what he was trying to
accomplish," Neverlin continued. "Morgan wouldn't waste his time just
trying to tweak us."

"I think it's pretty obvious this is what he was after." There was
a sharp rap on the side of the safe. "Question is, did he get in or
not?"

"There's one way to find out," Neverlin said. "Unfortunately,
since we don't know how Kayna opened the other one, we'll probably
destroy it if we try."

A sudden cold chill ran down Alison's back. In her hurry to get
out of sight, she'd completely forgotten the fact that the K'da and
Shontine had booby-trapped these safes to protect the precious
information inside them.

Booby-trapped with a small but powerful bomb, in fact. A bomb that
was currently pressed up against the side of Alison's head.

"Yeah." Frost bit out a curse under his breath. "She did
something—she
must
have done something—that the other
safecrackers we hired didn't do. But I've been over that recording a
hundred times, and for the life of me I can't figure out what it was."

"Yes, she was a very clever little girl, our Alison," Neverlin
murmured, his voice even more snakelike than usual. "I do hope we run
into her again someday."

"In the meantime, we have to decide what to do about this safe,"
Frost said. "Do we open it and see if the data diamonds are still
there, or not?"

"Not, I think," Neverlin said. "I generally dislike destroying
something I might someday find a use for. Besides, even if Morgan has
the rendezvous location, there's nothing he can do to stop us.
Certainly not without warning."

"
If
the flaggers you bribed in StarForce stay bribed,"
Frost countered sourly. "If you ask me, people who are willing to take
money to watch your backtrail are just as willing to change sides for a
better offer."

Alison grimaced. So Jack's guess had been right. Neverlin had
people in high places watching and waiting for Jack and Draycos to
surface. If the two of them had gone to StarForce or the Internos
government when all this started, as Uncle Virge had urged, they would
probably be dead right now.

And Alison herself would be off somewhere about her own business
instead of sitting here locked in a coffin-sized alien safe. Sometimes,
she reflected, it didn't pay to play the what-if game too deeply.