Read Dragonback 06 Dragon and Liberator for Free Online Page A

and wonder about it.
    But they would just have to risk that. The longer she and Taneem
sat here in Neverlin's office, the greater the chance someone would
accidentally stumble over them.
    It was the work of only a minute to key in the Essenay 's
own InterWorld frequency and pattern information. Mentally crossing her
fingers, she tapped the microphone switch. "Jack?" she called softly.
"Come on, kiddo; look alive."
    "Alison?" Uncle Virge's voice came back. "This is a relief, lass.
Where are you?"
    "Aboard the Advocatus Diaboli ," Alison said. "And we don't
really have time for chitchat."
    "Understood," Uncle Virge said. "First things first. Did you get
the rendezvous location?"
    "I have the data diamonds," Alison said. "Unfortunately, the K'da
reader Jack brought back from the Havenseeker is still on your
side of the universe."
    "Neverlin must have one of his own."
    "Which isn't anywhere in his office," Alison said. "Either it's in
one of the other shipboard safes or else he's carrying it with him.
I'll try to get my hands on it, but I'm not too hopeful."
    Uncle Virge muttered something under his breath. "In other words,
we've got to find a way to get you out of there."
    "You don't have to sound so unhappy about it," Alison said archly.
"But that's not why I called. Tell Jack to haul his carcass out of
bed—I need to talk to him."
    "Jack's not here," Uncle Virge said grimly. "He wrecked his car
getting back to my part of the spaceport."
    Taneem gave a little gasp, her breath briefly warming the back of
Alison's neck. "Are they all right?" Alison asked.
    "They're fine," Uncle Virge said. "But before they could get away
from the scene, Jack was arrested for car theft."
    Alison wrinkled her nose in disgust. She'd begged Jack to simply
buy the stupid vehicle in the first place and be done with it. But he'd
said that would be too expensive, and that the paperwork would take too
long anyway.
    She should have argued harder. Too late now. "Can you get him out?"
    "I can't exactly show up at the jail with bail money," Uncle Virge
said huffily. "And he hasn't tried to contact me."
    "Probably doesn't have enough privacy to get to his spare comm
clip," Alison said. "I guess he and Draycos will have to figure it out
on their own. In the meantime, take a message for him."
    She relayed the information about Neverlin's private collection of
patrol ships. "I don't know when he's planning to send crews to pick
them up," she finished. "But if Jack can get to the depot on Bentre
before that, maybe he can do something."
    "Such as?"
    "Such as making sure Neverlin doesn't get them," Alison said
patiently. "Now that the Malison Ring has been alerted to the fact that
something fishy is going on with Frost, he shouldn't be able to just
waltz into one of their bases and commandeer a large number of their
ships. If we can also deep-six these KK-29s, Neverlin should find
himself in a bind."
    "He'll still have the Valahgua and their weapons."
    "Sure, but the fewer ships he has to throw at the refugee fleet,
the better the chances the K'da and Shontine will be able to paste all
of them before they get close enough to use the Death."
    "I don't know," Uncle Virge said doubtfully. "I'm thinking about
the three hundred Brummgas Neverlin's already shipped off Brum-a-dum.
Even fully crewed, a dozen KK-29s won't carry more than seventy-two of
them. Either he's very confident that Frost can grab more ships
or else he has those extra ships already stashed away somewhere."
    "We do know he's got several Djinn-90s," Alison pointed
out.
    "Which are single-seat fighters," Uncle Virge countered.
"Three-seaters if you throw in the optional gunner and observer. He can't have enough of those to need three hundred Brummgas."
    Alison scratched her cheek. Unfortunately, he had a point. "I'll
see what I can find out about that," she said. "In the meantime, you
and Jack see what you can do about those KK-29s, all right?"
    "I'll give him the message," Uncle Virge said heavily.