without the aid of the lifters. 'What are you doing?'
'Landing skids closed!' the dragon shouted back over the noise. There was another muffled grinding of metal on metal—'Now!' Draycos snapped. 'Full speed to the wall!' The shuttle bucked like it had hit a sudden crosswind—
And then, suddenly, Jack understood. When he'd flipped the shuttle onto its back, Draycos had put the Djinn-90 crowding above them squarely between the shuttle's big landing skids. By then closing the skids, he had caught the smaller fighter like a bug inside the spines of a Venus fly-trap. They were flying as a single big ship now: the shuttle, the fighter...
And the fighter's handy wall-defense transponder.
'Got it,' Jack said, feeding as much power to the drive as he dared. The shuttle was bucking harder as the fighter pilot belatedly woke up to the scheme and fought to free his trapped ship.
But he was too late. Seconds later, the combined ship shot smoothly over the double breaking wave of the white wall.
They'd made it.
'Let him go,' Jack snapped.
'Releasing now,' Draycos called back. The bucking ceased as the dragon opened the landing skids again and the trapped fighter darted free. 'Turn us over again and I will go back to the weapons board.'
'Forget the weapons,' Jack said, rolling the shuttle and dropping thankfully back into his seat as the vehicle righted itself. He got his bearings and made a
hard turn to the left. 'We won't be in the air long enough to bother with that.'
'But there is yet a long way to go before we are free,' Draycos objected.
'Not really,' Jack said, tapping his comm clip as he fought the shuttle's controls. 'Uncle Virge?'
'Here, lad,' Uncle Virge said. 'Shall I come get you?'
'No,' Jack said. 'Head off-planet—Station C. I'll catch up with you there.'
'Right. Good luck.'
Jack clicked off. There was his target, straight ahead. 'Draycos, can you find the ship's intercom?'
'There.' A K'da foreleg rose from Jack's arm again, pointing.
'Thanks.' Jack hit the switch. 'Brace yourselves, everyone,' he called to the passenger section. 'As soon as we're down, unstrap and make for the hatchway.
We aren't going to have a lot of time.'
He keyed the intercom off and twisted the nose high. An instant later, the shuttle hit the ground, sliding along on its skids with a tortured squeal of stressed metal. It made maybe another fifty yards before finally grinding to a
halt.
'Everyone out,' Jack shouted back toward the door as he untangled himself from his straps. 'Nice landing, huh?' he added to Draycos.
'Very similar to the Havenseeker's final flight,' Draycos said, a little too dryly. 'What now?'
Jack smiled as he made for the door. 'We take them to the one place in this part of Brum-a-dum where escaped slaves will be safe.'
The Djinn-90s were circling overhead as Jack sprinted along the street.
'Where are we going?' Fleck asked as he caught up with him, the borrowed laser rifle held ready.
'There,' Jack said, pointing ahead past the glowing sign on its decorative post.
'Get ready to blast the door open if we have to.'
The weapon wasn't necessary. Not only was the door not locked, but it even opened as Jack ran up the steps. 'Yes?' asked the thin woman standing in the doorway, goggling at the crumpled shuttle behind him.
'My name's Jack McCoy,' Jack panted, braking to a halt. 'I have some escaped slaves with me. We claim sanctuary with the Daughters of Harriet Tubman and the Internos government.'
The woman lifted her eyebrows, her gaze flicking along the line of ragged slaves coming uncertainly up her walkway. 'Well,' she said calmly. 'You'd all better come inside.'
'Thanks.' Brushing past her, Jack headed down a darkened hallway.
He was halfway along it when someone caught his arm. 'Hold on,' Fleck's voice murmured in his ear.
'Fleck, I have to go,' Jack protested, tugging uselessly against the big man's grip. 'Right away, before the cops and Gazen's people get here.'
'Yeah, I know,' Fleck said. 'I just wanted to say thanks to you and your friend.
For all of us.'
Jack looked down the hallway, a sudden lump in his throat. 'You're welcome,' he managed. 'Take care of them, will you?'
'Absolutely,' Fleck promised, letting go of Jack's arm. 'Get going. I'll say good-bye to the others for you.'
Jack nodded, not trusting himself to say anything else.
His vision seemed a little blurry as he made his way down the hallway.
CHAPTER 37
The Essenay was waiting at their prearranged Station C rendezvous when he and Draycos arrived. Not on some distant world, as the Brummgas monitoring their transmissions would hopefully assume, but in the last spot anyone would ever think to look: nestled snugly beneath the overhang of the Chookoock family wall, barely half a mile from the gate.
How Uncle Virge had managed to sneak the ship in Jack couldn't guess. All he knew was that that it was lying quietly now, its power output near zero, its chameleon hull-wrap blending perfectly with its surroundings.
'Welcome aboard, Jack lad,' Uncle Virge greeted him cheerily as he slipped in through the hatchway. 'Good to have you back.'
'It's good to be back,' Jack said, feeling suddenly tired all over as he sealed the hatch. Tired, but immensely satisfied. 'How badly were we hit?'
'Oh, they never laid a finger on me,' Uncle Virge scoffed, his voice following Jack's progress from the various ship's speakers as the boy headed to the galley. 'One or two very tiny things we can fix once we're out of here. I imagine you're hungry.'
'Starving,' Jack said, going straight to the food synthesizer. 'And Draycos is even worse.'
'I am all right,' the dragon said, leaping out from Jack's collar. He landed on the deck and stretched in all directions. 'You did well, Uncle Virge.'
'Thank you kindly,' the computerized voice said with only a hint of sarcasm.
'The compliments of a lunatic K'da are so very gratifying.'
'That's not fair,' Jack objected, keying the food synthesizer.
'I'm merely quoting the comments and opinions of the Chookoock family,' Uncle Virge soothed. 'You should have heard the radio traffic as you charged the wall that last time.'
'Oh?' Jack said as the synthesizer popped out two servings of Draycos's hamburger/tuna fish/chocolate/motor oil specials. 'A bit perturbed, were they?'
'It was more like group heart failure,' Uncle Virge said dryly. 'They'd already seen my little kom treeta maneuver—'
'My little kom treeta maneuver,' Draycos murmured as Jack set his meal down on one end of the galley table.
'Whatever,' Uncle Virge said. 'That was bad enough; but when you then pinned that Djinn-90 like a wrestler with a leg-lock, they about fell apart.'
'I'm sorry we missed it,' Jack said, returning to the synthesizer and punching up a double cheeseburger for himself.
'Don't worry, I made a recording,' Uncle Virge said. 'First they were screaming at the pilot to get himself loose, then screaming at him not to get himself loose because you were too close to the wall and Gazen and Neverlin would get fried. Then they were screaming at the other Djinn-90 to get there now even if he had to fry his
