Because he'd figured it out. Leaning over the camera with his flight suit collar open, Jack had clearly demonstrated that Draycos wasn't riding his skin.
And if Jack was approaching the port-side weapons bay, where the second Death weapon had been located until a few hours ago, Draycos must therefore be preparing to attack the starboard weapon. A straightforward, coordinated two-prong attack, of the sort the Valahgua had seen a thousand times before.
Or else possibly Draycos was being subtle, with Jack merely a diversion to get their attention while Draycos launched a single-prong attack.
Fortunately, it didn't matter which of those conclusions the Valahgua jumped to. Jack's destruction of the starboard cameras as he passed was all the confirmation he needed that Draycos was lurking in the tween gap waiting for the moment to attack the bait.
And with the trap already set and primed, the Valahgua could afford the minor effort required to also eliminate the lesser of his two enemies. "Prepare to fire," the Valahgua ordered Mrishpaw. "As soon as the K'da has reached the weapon."
The voice went silent; and then, from the hidden comm clip, the voice came again. "Readjust your aim to the boy's last position," he ordered Langston's crew. "Fire on my command."
"I obey," the response came. On the monitor below him, Draycos saw two of the Brummgas grab the front end of the other Death weapon and begin to swing it ponderously toward the port-side weapons bay.
And as its aim moved away from the room below him, Draycos pounced.
He shoved open the grille with his front paws and pushed the duct's back wall with his hind paws, hurling himself out of the opening like a black-scaled missile. The Brummgas had just enough time to start to turn, their mouths dropping open.
And then Draycos was among them, slashing with his paws to stagger back the nearest alien, then slapping away the one behind him, clearing himself a path to the obscene killing machine mounted in the center of the room. From the intercom speaker he heard a Valahguan scream of fury, and through his comm clip he heard the Lordover howling at the Brummgas in the other room to stop what they were doing and turn the Death back toward the threat that had suddenly appeared behind them.
But it was already too late. Even as the Brummgas threw their weight against the weapon's muzzle, Draycos reached the center of his room. He ducked beneath the rear of the Death and came back up behind it.
And twisting back around to face the control panel, he keyed the firing button.
From its muzzle came a sickly yellow flash, and the all-too-familiar cone of violet light lanced out like the limb of some alien creature stretching out toward its prey. The violet light hit the bulkhead, and in his mind's eye Draycos could see it passing through the next room, and the next, and the next.
And on the monitor, the Brummgas still trying to wrestle the other Death weapon back into place collapsed to the deck.
The rest of the Brummgas in Draycos's room had recovered from their shock and were starting forward. But Draycos didn't have time to deal with them now. Giving the Death a quick but crippling double slash, he ducked under the charging Brummgas and made for the door. A flick of one paw at the control, a blind back-forth whipping of his tail to brush back pursuit, and as the door opened he slipped out.
He set off down the corridor at a dead run. All around him, the various room and corridor intercoms were alive with Valahguan and human voices shouting orders as they tried to get their troops to the scene.
But all the troops had been carefully moved out of the trap's line of fire, and it was an eternity too late to bring them back. Draycos took the corridor's turns at full speed, his paws climbing halfway up the walls as he did so.
Seconds later, he stood beside the fourth and final Death weapon.
Draycos had seen countless dead bodies during his people's war against the Valahgua. But there was something about bodies killed by the Death that especially sickened him. Keeping his eyes away from them, he slashed at the weapon itself, expending his fury and tension as he turned it into scrap metal.
"Draycos?" Jack's voice came in his ear.
Draycos took a careful breath. "I'm all right," he assured the other. "Get back to base. I'll meet you there."
"Make it quick," Jack warned. "I'm guessing they're not too happy with us just now."
Draycos looked down at the remains of the Death, scattered over the remains of the Brummgas the Death had killed.
The Brummgas he had killed with the Death.
Whatever is necessary . . .
"No," he agreed quietly. "I don't think they're happy with us at all."
CHAPTER 20
After only two months of being fully awake, as Alison sometimes referred to it, Taneem didn't consider herself very good at reading human expressions. But after these last few days aboard the Advocatus Diaboli, she was getting reasonably good at identifying anger.
And Neverlin was angry. Probably as angry as she'd ever seen a human being get.
"Unacceptable, Lieutenant," he ground out. He was standing behind his desk, glaring across the polished surface at the young man standing stiffly in front of him. "Completely unacceptable."
"I agree, sir," the other said, his voice as stiff as his body. "The conduct and performance of the Brummgas and Valahgua left a great deal to be desired."
"That's not what I meant." Neverlin glared at Frost, who was standing silently at the other side of Neverlin's desk, then shifted the glare to Harper, standing a little ways to Frost's right. "But as long as we're on the subject. Harper?"
"What do you want me to say?" Harper countered. Of all of those in the office, he seemed the calmest. "I already told you the Patri Chookoock had his doubts about some of his people. Obviously, he was right."
"I don't want you to say anything," Neverlin told him "I want you to point the traitors out to me so that Colonel Frost can throw them out the airlock."
Neverlin looked back at the lieutenant. "And while he's thinking up names, I want to hear about our former StarForce Wing Sergeant Langston."
The lieutenant's eyes nicked to Frost. "There's not much to tell, sir," he said. His voice, if anything, had gone a little stiffer.
"Really?" Neverlin asked, looking at Frost again. "I understand he was off his post in the starboard weapons bay when Morgan and the K'da killed everyone else in there. Coincidence?"
"He'd left his post to try to contact the control complex," the lieutenant said. "He thought the one in the weapons bay had failed. He was on the intercom in fire control when the attack took place."
"Lucky for him," Neverlin said. "I also understand he walked right past Morgan when he first sneaked aboard without recognizing him. Was he looking for a working intercom then, too?"
"I've read that report," Frost spoke up before the lieutenant could answer. "It looks like he was simply preoccupied with other matters and never actually focused on Morgan."
"He didn't focus on him?"
"Morgan's KK-29 had already been cleared," Frost said. "There was no reason—"
"Cleared by your men."
"No reason for him to expect an enemy to pop out of the thing," Frost finished stubbornly. "And bear in mind a couple of dozen Brummgas passed him, too, and didn't think anything of it."
"Brummgas are incompetents," Neverlin growled. "I expect something more from Malison Ring mercenaries."
"We have Langston under confinement while we investigate his performance," Frost said. "If it turns out he's acted improperly, we'll deal with him."
"And if it turns out he's acting with Morgan?"
Frost's face darkened. "Then we'll definitely deal with him."