Dragon and Judge

"Alison—"

"Okay, here we go," Alison interrupted him smoothly as the main display lit up with a set of slightly fuzzy spaceship images. "Four Malison Ring attack ships, four K'da/Shontine advance team defenders. Note how the Malison Ring ships open up with that whatch-ya-call-it—"

"It's called the Death," Draycos said, his tail lashing the air as the memory of that horrible day came rushing back. "The weapon that kills right through bulkheads and walls and even the heaviest metal or ceramic shielding."

"And I still don't understand how that can work," Alison said. "But I'll take your word that it does. Anyway, note how the Malison Ring ships all open up with the Death in perfect unison?"

"Yes, we see," Draycos said.

"And we've been through it a hundred times," Jack added.

"Maybe you should have gone through it a hundred and one times," Alison countered. "Remember your theory that Neverlin and the Valahgua must be really good allies because the Valahgua gave him their precious Death weapon to play with?"

Jack's back visibly stiffened. "Look—"

"We're listening," Draycos cut him off, his eyes on the display. Arthur Neverlin was the brains behind this plot. He'd been the second most powerful man in the megacorporation Braxton Universis until he'd tried to kill Cornelius Braxton and take over the company. Jack and Draycos had foiled that attempt, driving Neverlin underground in the process.

But even on the run, the man had plenty of resources to draw on. One of his allies was the Chookoock family of Brum-a-dum, with their collection of slaves and big Brummgan soldiers. Another ally was Colonel Maximus Frost and his team of Malison Ring mercenaries.

All of them with just one goal: to assist the Valahgua in their attempt to utterly destroy the K'da and Shontine.

"Okay," Alison said. "Let me fast-forward a bit . . . there. See how all four Death weapons also cut off in perfect unison?"

"Because all the K'da and Shontine were dead," Jack said with exaggerated patience.

"No, they weren't," Alison said. "That's the point. The Havenseeker's little twitch maneuver had slipped it out of the beam for a few seconds, which is why Draycos and the rest of the bridge crew were still alive at this point. So why did the mercenaries quit firing?"

"We were already on the path to a crash landing," Draycos said grimly. "They had no need to continue."

"No, what they didn't have was the capability," Alison corrected.

Jack frowned over his shoulder at Draycos. "Is she making any sense to you?"

"Yes," Draycos said, the pain of memory fading into cautious excitement as he suddenly saw where Alison was going with this. "The Malison Ring ships didn't shut off the Death weapons. The weapons shut off by themselves."

"Bingo," Alison said. "Probably with their innards burned to slag. The Valahgua didn't trust their new allies not to double-cross them and fly away with their wonderful little Death weapons. So they put a timed self-destruct into each of them, giving the mercenaries exactly three minutes forty-seven seconds' worth of juice they could use to take out your advance force ships."

"Which is two birs of Valahguan time measurement," Draycos said.

"Even a nice round number." Alison looked at Jack. "You see now what I meant about them not being ready to take on the whole Orion Arm? They don't even have enough people here to secure and operate the weapons aboard four ships."

"Which also makes sense," Draycos said. "In order to have arrived before our advance team, they would have had to travel faster, with more fuel and fewer passengers."

"It also means they don't trust their new allies any farther than they can spit them," Alison said.

"Not really surprising, I guess," Jack said. "Not with what we know about Neverlin and Frost. Though that doesn't mean they don't have a few more Death weapons stashed away to use against the main refugee fleet."

"Oh, I'm sure they do," Alison agreed. "But at least this means we'll mostly be tangling with Neverlin and his buddies. At least those are known quantities."

"Known quantities who want to kill us," Jack muttered.

"Well, they want to kill Draycos, anyway," Alison said coolly. "Possibly me, too. You they just want to capture."

"That's so encouraging," Jack said, stroking his cheek thoughtfully. "I wonder what their plan is."

"That's easy enough," Alison said. "Neverlin wanted to kill Cornelius Braxton so that he could take over his company."

"For the money," Jack said.

"Sure, that was part of it," Alison said. "More importantly, though, controlling Braxton Universis would give him access to the corporation's security force. Including a lot of armed ships."

"Would the Braxton security men really have cooperated in this kind of venture?" Draycos asked.