The tip of the dragon's tail twitched. 'That is not precisely how I would have phrased it,' he said. 'But it is basically accurate.'
Jack sighed. 'I thought so.'
Chapter 25
With Dahtill City five more minutes away, Jack took the Lynx down to treetop height. 'I take it we're not jumping out this time?' he asked Draycos.
'Correct,' Draycos called from the back, where he was rummaging through the various storage lockers. 'We may require this vehicle to move the prisoners. Is its ventral armor as strong as that of the Flying Turtle we used earlier?'
'They're similar models, so probably,' Jack said. Not that any amount of armor would do them any good if the Shamshir knocked out the lifters. 'Any luck back there?'
'Very little,' Draycos reported. 'The soldiers must have taken most of the weapons with them on their search for you. I have found only two small MP-50 machine guns, with two spare clips each.'
Killing weapons, the kind Jack had spent his life avoiding. 'Nothing else?' he asked. 'No sopor gas or slapsticks or anything like that?'
'The only other weapons are nine Class II explosive grenades,' Draycos said. 'There are no nonlethal weapons of the sort you prefer. I am sorry.'
Jack grimaced. 'Me, too. Well, I guess we'll have to do what we can. Maybe we can just pin the Shamshir down while Uncle Virge swoops in and—'
'What was that?' Draycos cut him off.
Jack threw a quick look toward the horizon, then checked his sensor displays. There was nothing unusual that he could see. 'What was what?'
'A small flash of light directly ahead,' Draycos said, covering the length of the transport in two bounds to land at Jack's side. 'There—it came again.'
'I didn't see anything,' Jack said, learning forward and staring out into the night. 'What did it look like?'
'Like the discharge of a Gompers flash rifle,' Draycos said. 'As if far in the distance—'
And then, faintly, it came again. A flicker of light, like a small flash of lightning coming from below the horizon. 'You mean like that?' Jack asked.
'Exactly,' Draycos said. 'There—another.'
'Someone's doing some shooting,' Jack muttered, watching the flashes. 'A lot of shooting.'
'The Shamshir would not execute their prisoners, would they?' Draycos asked, his voice dark and ominous.
'I hope not,' Jack said, studying the flickers of light. There didn't seem to be any pattern to them, no nice neat one-two-three sequence. 'Anyway, that doesn't look like a firing squad.'
'Then there is a battle,' Draycos concluded. 'I will fly. You will shoot.'
'Wait a second,' Jack objected. 'I will shoot what?'
'We will know when we arrive,' Draycos said, nudging Jack impatiently with the side of his head. 'Go. You must prepare.'
'But the Essenay's not here yet.'
'We have no choice,' Draycos said firmly. 'We must see what is happening. Go.'
Reluctantly, Jack climbed out of the pilot's seat. 'I don't like this,' he said. 'Why don't we land someplace near the city and take a quiet look instead of charging blindly in?'
'There is no time,' Draycos said, sliding into Jack's seat and gripping the controls with his paws. 'Whether the Agri are fighting the Shamshir, or whether the Whinyard's Edge has launched their own strike, we cannot afford a delay.'
'What makes you think that?'
'Call it warrior's instinct.' Draycos turned his green eyes on Jack, 'Go. Prepare.'
'Terrific,' Jack muttered, heading aft to where Draycos had laid out the MP-50s. Why the Agri should suddenly have risen up against the Shamshir he couldn't imagine. And the idea that the Edge would have gotten involved was completely ridiculous.
Unless they'd gone to Dahtill City looking for him. Maybe Colonel Elkor was madder at getting stuck up that tree than he'd thought.
He reached the back and picked up one of the MP-50s. For such a relatively small gun, it was awfully heavy. Fortunately, Draycos had already loaded the ammo clip into it, since Jack couldn't remember exactly how to do that. 'Any particular side you want me on?' he called.
'Use the right-hand side,' Draycos said.
'Okay.' Grabbing two spare clips and stuffing them into his jacket pockets, he crossed to the right-hand hatchway.
Unlike the Flying Turtle they'd escaped in earlier, the Lynx had a pair of safety harnesses attached to the bulkhead beside each of the side hatches. Designed for soldiers to use while shooting outside, he decided as he slipped one of them on and tightened it into place. 'How am I supposed to know what to shoot at?' he called to Draycos.
'I will direct your fire,' the dragon said. 'We have cleared the last trees now and are approaching the city from the southwest. Prepare.'
Taking a deep breath, Jack got a firm grip on his gun and hit the hatchway release. The panel slid up into the ceiling, and for the second time that night he found himself standing at the edge of a hurricane.
He took another deep breath, his mind flashing back to some of the stupider jobs he and Uncle Virgil had pulled when he was little. Back then, he'd often felt himself standing just like this, balanced at the edge of disaster, waiting for Uncle Virgil to give the signal. Wondering the whole time whether either of them would be alive to see another sunrise.
Here, the sun wouldn't be up for at least a couple more hours. He wondered if he would be alive to see it.
And then, from the cockpit, he heard a startled bark. 'What?' he demanded, his heartbeat suddenly thudding extra hard in his throat.
'They are free,' Draycos called back. 'Observe.' He twisted the transport around, sending Jack swinging on his harness halfway out the hatchway.
And as he hung balanced there, he was treated to a bird's-eye view of an amazing scene.
Directly ahead was the landing area at the edge of the city, the one he and Draycos had escaped from. The two Flying Turtles he'd left behind were still there, facing the two Shamshir buildings. From the windows of those buildings a hail of machine gun bullets was blasting out at one of the transports,
