He encountered two more barriers along the way, one a laser alarm, the other a pressure plate hidden beneath the rug. Both were easily avoided.
"Okay," he muttered under his breath as he examined the lock. It looked straightforward, but this was no time to get sloppy. "Draycos?"
"I am ready."
Turning around. Jack pressed his back against the door, feeling the subtle shift across his skin as Draycos curved his two-dimensional form to look "over"—the dragon's preferred term—the wall. Jack held his breath as the other moved around a little, wondering if he would lose his grip and fall off again.
But a few seconds later the dragon returned safely to his original position. "There are no extra locks or traps I can find," he reported.
"Good," Jack said, pulling out his lock pick. "This'll just take a second."
Two minutes later, Jack settled himself into a very expensive desk chair facing an equally expensive computer system. "Bingo," he said, switching on the machine. "Human designed, and with a modern operating system. This will do nicely."
The computer finished its start-up procedure. Leaning forward, Jack punched in the "sewer-rat" program Uncle Virgil had created for breaking into other people's computers.
It would be nice, he reflected, if Neverlin had been considerate enough to load the rendezvous information into the general Malison Ring computer network where anyone could get at it. But even if the conspirators hadn't been that careless, there were other tricks he could try.
One approach would be to download a list of worlds where the Malison Ring had troops and equipment, particularly the Djinn-90 starfighters they'd used against Draycos's advance team. With that information, he and Draycos could travel to the most likely jump-off points for the attack and search the local squads' computers for the rendezvous data. Or Jack could try loading a dump-tap into the system that would pull any messages to or from Neverlin and send copies to another computer where Uncle Virge could access it.
However he found the rendezvous point, he and Draycos would then have two choices. They could either try to beat the Malison Ring there and warn the refugee fleet or else turn everything over to StarForce and let them handle it.
And with thoughts and plans sifting themselves through Jack's mind, he was caught completely by surprise when the door across the room was abruptly slammed open.
He leaped to his feet. But it was far too late. Men in Malison Ring uniforms were pouring into the office, guns drawn and ready. "Don't shoot!" Jack called, holding his hands wide open, his heart pounding in his chest. Once before, he'd seen Draycos take out a room full of opponents. If he'd done it once, surely he could do it again.
But that time his opponents had been stupid enough to bunch up where the dragon's speed and agility gave him the advantage. This group, unfortunately, wasn't playing it that way. Instead of heading straight toward him, they spread out in both directions along the walls, staying well back.
"Jack?" Draycos whispered, his voice too soft for anyone but Jack to hear.
"No," Jack whispered back, keeping his lips motionless. "Uncle Virge, lock down."
The flood of mercenaries finally ended, leaving nine of them facing him. For a moment they stood motionless, staring at Jack in silence as if he were some kind of museum exhibit. Then, still without a word, the middle three men handed their weapons to those beside them and strode forward.
Quickly, efficiently, silently, they patted Jack down, relieving him of his comm clip, his key, his burglar equipment, his multitool, his belt, and his boots. One of the men, a sergeant, produced a handheld scanner from a belt pouch and ran it systematically over Jack's body. The second man had a set of handcuffs, and he and the third fastened Jack's hands securely behind his back.
The sergeant returned the scanner to its pouch and jerked his head over his shoulder. "Let's go."
The other two grabbed Jack's arms and marched him toward the door. The guards along the walls began to file out, adjusting their exit so that three of them ended up walking in front of Jack and his keepers while the other three walked behind them. Even with their prisoner in handcuffs, they kept their guns handy.
There was a tall man standing alone in the middle of the large room when Jack emerged from the office. His Malison Ring uniform was a lot flashier than those of the rest of the soldiers, with two rows of colored bars across his upper chest. "He's clean?" he asked as Jack and his three keepers approached.
"Yes, Commandant," the sergeant said. "Looks like he was trying to break into your computer."
The commandant turned cold fish eyes on Jack. "So desertion wasn't enough for you, eh?" he demanded.
Jack blinked. Desertion? "I'm not a deserter," he protested.
"No, of course not," the other said darkly. "Colonel Frost put out a blanket alert on a perfect stranger just for the fun of it. Sergeant, put him in the tombs while I call the colonel and see what he wants me to do with him."
"Yes, sir." The sergeant gestured, the two soldiers holding Jack's arms gave him a shove, and the whole group continued on across the room to an unmarked double door.
The double door led to a long corridor with another set of double doors at the far end. The sergeant unlocked one of them and led the way through, and Jack found himself in a smaller version of the big room they'd just left. Most of the doors here were the normal wooden variety, but the one all the way across the room from the double doors was made instead of thin, crisscrossed metal bars. The sergeant walked the group over to the latter door and swung it open. "In here," he said.
Jack obeyed. The sergeant stopped him at the door, removed his handcuffs, and gave him a final shove into the cell. With a solid-sounding thunk the door slammed shut behind him. "Smit, Gargan—you're on watch," the sergeant said, gesturing the rest of the group back to the double doors. They filed back out, leaving two of the mercenaries standing guard on opposite sides of the exit where they could watch Jack's every move.
Taking a deep breath, feeling thoroughly disgusted with himself. Jack walked to the cot at the back of the cell and sat down.
Secret plots being what they were, he'd been pretty sure that Neverlin and his fellow conspirators wouldn't have shared the details of their scheme with the entire Malison Ring. But he really should have expected them to come up with a cover story that would get everyone in the group hunting for him.
Jack Morgan, Malison Ring deserter. So obvious.
"Jack?" Draycos murmured from his shoulder.
"Just a second," Jack murmured back, giving the cell a quick check. No obvious cameras or microphones, and the guards were too far away to eavesdrop. "Clear enough," he said. "Sorry, Draycos. After what happened on Brum-a-dum, I should have expected Neverlin to turn the whole hornets' nest loose on us."
"No apology needed," Draycos assured him. "Do you want me to eliminate the guards?"
Jack measured the distance across the room with his eyes. "I don't know," he said doubtfully. "There's an awful lot of ground to cover. We need a diversion of some sort."
"What do you suggest?"
Jack chewed the inside of his cheek. It would be dangerous, he knew. But then, what wasn't dangerous these days? "The room next door seems to be just a normal office," he said. "If you were able to slide off my back through the wall, you could maybe make some noise and see if they would come close enough for you to jump them."