Dragon and Herdsman

"Sure, now I know," Jack said. "At the time, I didn't. What have I done wrong this time?"

"You deliberately sent a civilian into danger," Draycos bit out. He lifted his head from Jack's shoulder to glare into the boy's eyes. "Or do you deny that was your intent when you ordered Taneem to find the herd?"

"No, that was exactly what I had in mind," Jack said, struggling to hold on to his own temper. Draycos was being completely unreasonable. "I don't know if you were aware of it, buddy, but you'd been spotted. I figured you could use a diversion."

"I did not need a civilian to be that diversion," Draycos snapped.

"Hey, I didn't ask her to wander into a war zone," Jack shot back. "She got there all by herself. What was I supposed to do? Walk away and leave her?"

There was a long silence from inside his shirt. Then, to Jack's surprise, Draycos gave a long, tired sigh. "I cannot protect you anymore, Jack," the dragon said quietly. "Not now that they know I survived the Iota Klestis attack. There are simply too many of them."

Jack grimaced. He should have known there was something like that behind the dragon's anger. "Okay, so things have changed," he said. "But things always change. The trick is to figure out how they're changing and adapt."

"I understand that," Draycos said. "The difficulty is that I can no longer think of how to do that."

"Then we'll just have to figure it out together," Jack said firmly. "And before you get too depressed, let me point out that you've now repulsed two separate attacks and decoyed a third, all in one day. That's a pretty good record."

"I could not have done so without your help."

"Which is how it's supposed to be," Jack reminded him. "We're partners, remember?"

"I suppose—" Abruptly, the dragon broke off. "Listen."

Jack stopped in midstep, holding his breath as he strained his ears. In the distance, he could hear a low rumble. "Sounds like the transport firing up its main drive," he said. "Geez. I hope Frost hasn't decided to carpet bomb the forest after all."

But the sound didn't seem to be approaching. It rose once in volume as the pilot fed power to the drive, then faded steadily away until it was lost in the background forest noises.

"Now, that's interesting," Jack said, frowning into the darkness. "You don't suppose they've given up, do you?"

"More likely Colonel Frost has decided to speak to Neverlin," Draycos said.

"Probably," Jack said, nodding. "Do a little ranting and ask for further instructions."

"Or for more troops," Draycos said darkly.

"No, I don't think so," Jack said, scratching his cheek as he gazed into the darkness. "Seems to me they have to be running a shoestring operation here. Reinforcements may not be available."

"Explain."

"Basically, I figure there are only so many Malison Ring soldiers Frost and Neverlin can trust with the whole story," Jack said. "Pulling in new troops from outside their little conspiracy would mean more chances for something to leak out."

"And they cannot afford for StarForce or the Internos government to hear of this," Draycos said. "I see."

"Especially with only two and a half months to go before the refugees arrive," Jack agreed. "So what you see is pretty much what you get."

"You may be right," Draycos said. "Certainly the presence of the soldier Dumbarton at both the Iota Klestis ambush and the Chookoock family slave auction supports that theory."

"Not to mention right here on Rho Scorvi," Jack said.

Draycos's head lifted from his shoulder again. "He is here?"

"He was the guy in charge of the group I clobbered with that concussion grenade," Jack said, frowning at the sky as a sudden thought struck him. "Now that I think about it, between you, me, and Alison, a lot of Frost's men got clobbered back there."

"Far too many for him to have collected and taken back aboard his transport so quickly," Draycos agreed thoughtfully. "Especially as there were no likely spots nearby for a vehicle that size to land."

"So did he just abandon them?" Jack asked. "That doesn't seem likely."

"I agree," Draycos said. "More likely he brought the transport to the area on lifters and dropped or rappelled more of his troops in to care for the casualties."

Jack grimaced. "So Frost may be gone, but we still have his hyenas to deal with?"

"Most likely," Draycos said. "Perhaps they will have orders to take no action until he returns."

"Maybe," Jack said doubtfully. "Still, at the very least, they'll probably want to avoid further combat until tonight's attack force has recovered."

"Indeed," Draycos agreed. "We should have at least a day or two of breathing space."

"I'll take it," Jack said. "Let's go back and run all this past Alison."

Alison listened thoughtfully as Jack explained the line of reasoning he and Draycos had come up with. "Sounds good to me," she said when he had finished. "I wonder how close the nearest InterWorld transmitter is."