The Dragonback Series Books 4–6 by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

A massive shock wave caught Jack across the face and chest like a full-body slap, hurling him backward down the tunnel.

But even as he dropped toward the rocky floor, he sensed Draycos leaping past him. A fraction of a second later, he slammed into the K’da as they both hit the floor. They rolled over a couple of times and came to a halt.

“You all right?” Jack asked, wiping dust and grit off his face as he scrambled to his feet. For a second his knees wobbled, and he had to grab the slurry pipe for support.

The K’da said something, but Jack’s ears were still ringing too hard from the explosion to hear it. “What?” he asked. “No—come here.” Brushing at his shirt with one hand, he held out the other toward Draycos.

Draycos put a paw on his hand and slithered up his sleeve onto his back. I am unhurt, the K’da’s reassurance came into Jack’s mind, bypassing his dazed hearing. You?

“I’m okay,” Jack said, blinking a few times. The tunnel was filled with dust that was only slowly starting to settle. “The guy’s consistent, anyway. He used a bomb on my parents, and now he tried to use one on me.”

Draycos’s snout rose from Jack’s shoulder and his tongue flicked out twice. I do not sense any airflow, Jack. We may be trapped in here.

Jack smiled tightly. “I’ll bet that’s what Bolo thinks, too. Let’s take a look.”

His flashlight was a few feet farther down the tunnel, glowing faintly through the pile of rock chips that had partially buried it. Jack retrieved it, then backtracked to the site of the explosion.

Bolo had done a good job. The tunnel near the intersection was completely blocked by a pile of shattered rock. “Probably a shaped charge set against the ceiling,” Draycos said as Jack played his light over the top of the pile.

“Had it all ready to go, too,” Jack agreed. “I wonder what he would have done if I’d refused to come to the mine with him.”

“Perhaps there would now be no Great Assembly Hall, either,” Draycos said.

Jack grimaced. “Yeah.” Taking a deep breath—and instantly regretting it as the floating dust set off a coughing fit—he turned around. “I guess we’d better get started.”

“Will you need help?” Draycos asked.

“No, I can handle it,” Jack assured him. “You stay here and keep an ear out for any other tricks Bolo might have up his sleeve.”

It took a few minutes for Jack to reach the end of the tunnel. It took another minute for him to cut away the protective plastic from one of the two diggers with his multitool. His one fear, that the diggers’ power cells would have drained over the past eleven years, proved unfounded. A minute of trial and error as he figured out the controls, and he and the machine were on their way back up the tunnel.

He arrived at the blockage to find Draycos digging carefully at one edge of the rock pile. Beside the K’da, the slurry pipe against the wall had been freshly sliced open.

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