Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier Read Online Free Page A

sure that was the effect he wanted here. It
might get him off this particular hook, but it might also get him
booted straight out the door behind him. That wasn't exactly what he
and Draycos had had in mind.
    "So," Basht said at last. "You looked in."
    Jack nodded. "Yes, sir."
    " Just looked in?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Really," Basht said, his voice suddenly the temperature of a
walk-in freezer. "Then how do you explain that your papers are halfway into the office?"
    Jack blinked. "Excuse me?"
    Basht pointed past Jack's side. "Those are your papers,
aren't they?"
    Jack turned around. Lying on the floor partway into the office,
half visible from where he stood, was a neatly folded set of papers
with a blue backing. The same blue backing, he realized, that had been
on Jommy Randolph's indenture agreement.
    Only then did he finally catch on. An office, a secretary's work
station, neat stacks of blank Whinyard's Edge forms conveniently lying
around . . .
    And a clever and resourceful K'da poet-warrior.
    Score one for the dragon.
    "I don't know," he said, fumbling at his inside jacket pockets as
if looking for something that should have been there. "I guess . . . I
guess so."
    Basht's eyes flicked to the side. "You," he said to one of the
teens. "Go get it."
    The teen hurried to the office and returned with the blue-backed
paper. "Jack Montana," Basht read aloud. He frowned as he looked down
the sheet. "Who filled this out, your baby sister?"
    "My parents didn't have much school-learning," Jack improvised.
Draycos's reading skills were improving rapidly, but his penmanship
still needed a lot of work.
    "Let's hope yours was better," Basht said. "Are you satisfied yet
that we aren't going to shoot you in the back?"
    Jack swallowed again. "Yes, sir. I'm . . . I guess I was just . .
."
    "Don't make excuses, Montana," Basht said coldly. "Edgemen do
their jobs right and take the credit, or they do them wrong and take
the consequences. There's no middle ground. Is that clear?"
    Jack straightened up. "Yes, sir."
    Basht watched him a few seconds longer, as if determined to make
him wiggle as much as possible. Then he jerked his head fractionally
toward the door behind him. "Go get your gear," he ordered.
    For the first time in several minutes, Jack took a clear breath.
"Yes, sir."

    Behind the door a short corridor branched off in two directions,
the doors marked by the interstellar symbols for male and female. Jack
took the door to the right, and found himself in a large chamber filled
with locker-room—style changing benches. Along one wall was a long
supply counter with a dozen men working behind it. At the far end was a
stack of footlockers. Fifty or so of Jack's fellow recruits were
already gathered around the changing benches, in various stages of
changing from their street clothes into light gray Whinyard's Edge
uniforms.
    "Welcome to paradise," Jack murmured to himself, and joined the
line at the counter.
    The supply men were very efficient. In a few dizzying minutes Jack
had had a quick blood sample drawn and a full-body scan taken, been
issued a dress uniform, boots, and four sets of fatigues, collected a
field kit and operations manual, and had been pointed toward the stack
of footlockers. Finding an open space at a bench along the back wall,
he started to change.
    He had stripped to his underwear, and was shaking out the uniform
shirt, when he suddenly realized all conversation in the room had
stopped.
    He turned around. The whole room was standing frozen in place,
from the new teenage recruits to the supply men behind their counter.
All of them staring at him.
    No. Not at him. At the K'da warrior wrapped around his body.
    Jack felt suddenly sick. He'd gotten so used to having Draycos
riding his skin that he'd completely forgotten about him. With his mind
still focused on his near-miss out in the reception room, he hadn't
even stopped to think about what he was doing.
    Now, with a single act of unthinking carelessness, he'd