Read Online Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier by Timothy Zahn - Free Book Online

window back down to its
original crack.
    The dragon's ears twitched toward the closed door. "I hear no
movement outside."
    "Good," Jack said, heading toward the door. A gray plastic bag
caught his eye as he passed, and he scooped it up. "Hold it a second,"
he added as Draycos reached for the door handle. "They may have cameras
out there."
    He slid his hands into the bag, stretching the heavy plastic taut.
"Here—you've got the claws in the family," he said. "Cut me a couple of
eye holes, will you?"
    Draycos's neck arched and he extended a claw. A couple of quick
slashes, and he had a neat slit visor carved into the plastic. "Will
that do?"
    "Let's see," Jack said, wincing a little as he slid the bag over
his head. He'd seen those claws slice grooves in solid metal, and
they'd come a little too close to his hands just now. The positioning
was perfect. The bag settled onto the top of his head with the slit
directly in front of his eyes. And unlike the eye holes he'd asked for,
the slit even allowed him some peripheral vision. "Perfect," he told
the dragon. "Get aboard and let's go."
    The hallway outside was dark and silent. Jack stayed close to the
wall, trying to ignore the rustling of the plastic bag in his ears. The
main offices would probably be on the first and second floors, but with
luck one of the rooms up here would have the computer link he needed.
    He struck gold with the second room he tried. Not only were there
three terminals in the center of the room, but two of the walls were
lined with file cabinets.
    "Bingo," Jack murmured as he closed the door behind him. "Looks
like we've found the main file room."
    Draycos's head rose from Jack's shoulder, his green eyes
glittering in the dim starlight filtering in through the window. "We
have found old records," he corrected. "The labels on the cabinets
indicate the information is over five years old."
    Jack felt his lip twist. So much for hunting down the right tube
and studying it later in the safety and convenience of the barracks.
"Well, we can't expect them to just hand it to us," he said
philosophically, closing the door and heading for the computers. "You
want to keep watch?"
    Draycos dropped to the floor from his sleeve. He opened the door a
crack and pressed his ear to the opening. "Do not take too long," he
warned.
    "Thanks," Jack said dryly, turning on the computer. "I wouldn't
have thought of that."
    "Will there not be code-locks?" the dragon asked, ignoring the
sarcasm.
    "Like cold on ice." "Pardon?"
    "They'll be all over the place," Jack translated. "But Uncle
Virgil taught me a few tricks."
    For a few minutes he worked in silence. The sewer-rat approach, as
Uncle Virgil had called this technique, was nearly always effective
with human-designed computers.
    Trouble was, it was also pretty slow. Jack could feel sweat
gathering on his forehead beneath his mask as he punched the keys.
Sooner or later, he knew, the patrols out there were going to get tired
of their search and come home. The computer chugged on, the sewer-rat
code words chewing away at the defenses.
    And then, abruptly, Draycos stiffened. "Footsteps," he hissed.
"Someone is coming."

CHAPTER 8

    For a second Jack hesitated. To give up now, when they were so
close . . . "Where?" he hissed back.
    "On the stairway at the near end of the corridor," Dray-cos said.
"Moving slowly upward."
    "Which floor?" Jack asked. "I mean, are they coming from first to
second or second to third?"
    Draycos's other ear twitched toward the cracked door. "First to
second," he said. "And there is only one person."
    Jack chewed at his lip. A single person implied a night watchman
making his rounds. If he went through the second floor before coming up
here to the third, there might still be time to find and pull the
records he needed.
    And then Draycos's tongue flicked out. "There is an odd odor," he
said. "It tastes . . . unpleasant."
    Frowning, Jack crossed to his side. "Let me smell," he whispered.
The dragon moved away,