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

"Doesn't it strike you as odd that we
haven't even gotten to look at real weapons until now?"
    Jack shrugged, lining up on another target. "It's only been five
days," he pointed out.
    "Out of a total of ten," she countered. "Ten days of basic
training, then off we go. With most armies, this would run six weeks or
more."
    "Yeah, but most of them would be going off to real wars," Jack
reminded her. "We'll just be doing garrison support duty."
    "That's what Grisko says ," she said ominously. There were
two more hisses from her position. "You run into a boy named Rogan
Mbusu yet?"
    "Sure," Jack said. "Short kid, big ears. Claims to be fourteen."
    Alison snorted. "Yeah, I've talked to him," she said scornfully.
"He's lucky if he's even seen twelve. Legally, you know, you're only
supposed to indenture kids fourteen and older."
    "So the Edge bends the rules a little," Jack said. "What's your
point?"
    "My point is I don't want to do even garrison duty with some kid
who's too young to know which end of his rifle goes where," she said
darkly. "Garrison workers can get just as dead as regular troops, you
know."
    Jack grimaced. "You sound like my uncle. How come you know so
much?"
    "Like I said, research," she said.
    "Like my Aunt Fanny," Jack retorted. "Come on, you didn't get this
from any book."
    Her lips compressed into a thin line. "If you must know, this is
my second try at this," she said. "I washed out of the first merc group
I was indentured to."
    "And you came back for more?"
    She shot him an icy glare. "My parents need the money. Yours
don't?" Without waiting for a reply, she turned back to her shooting.
    Which was just as well, since Jack didn't have a ready answer for
that one.
    For a few minutes they shot side by side in silence. Jack
alternated between several targets, wondering how he was doing.
Probably pretty lousy. Grisko would have a way of matching up the hits
to each of the trainees' guns after they were all done, but that didn't
do Jack any good right now.
    "Why 'Dragonback'?" Alison asked suddenly.
    Jack frowned. "What?"
    "Grisko called you Dragonback earlier. When you walked off talking
to your gun."
    Jack's ears reddened again. Probably the whole group had heard
that. Terrific. "I have a tattoo of a dragon across my back," he said.
"A big one."
    "Something to do with the old Dragonback warriors?"
    "Nope," Jack assured her. "In fact, I never even heard of them
until a month ago."
    She grunted and resumed her firing. Five minutes later, her clip
of cartridges was empty. "I'm off," she announced, slinging the Gompers
over her back again and starting backwards in a reverse
elbows-and-knees crawl. "Make sure you fire your whole clip before
going back if you don't want Grisko to scorch your ears off. Hitting
the targets once in awhile would be nice, too."
    "Thanks," Jack said dryly. "I'll see what I can do."
    "And keep your head down," she warned.
    A minute later, she was gone, vanished into the cover of the
trees. "Well, that was fun," he muttered.
    "She has great courage," Draycos said. "I can hear it in her
voice."
    "Or else she's just plain stupid," Jack said, picking a target and
firing off a round at it. "Her and her family both. How do people let
themselves get so desperate for money?"
    "Many times it is not their fault."
    "Most of the time it is," Jack said stubbornly.
    "That sounds like your Uncle Virgil's philosophy."
    "Leave Uncle Virgil out of this," Jack said, firing two more
shots. Missing both, probably. "Anyway, he knew how the real world
worked."
    There was a short silence, just long enough for Jack to realize
that Draycos could easily have reminded him what Uncle Virgil had done
for a living. "Have you no compassion for the weak?" the dragon asked
instead.
    "Compassion wasn't a big priority where I grew up," Jack said.
"And I never saw it do anyone any good."
    "No one?"
    Jack glanced a glare down at him. "How come we only have these big
moral discussions when Uncle Virge isn't around to help me