Free Dragonback 02 Dragon and Soldier by Timothy Zahn

the
blaring trumpet calling the recruits to the morning parade-ground
maneuver.
    It wasn't until they'd finished the first two drills that the
routine was abruptly broken.
    He spotted the officer angling across the field toward Grisko as
the sergeant shouted out the commands that ended the second drill.
Grisko set the recruits to attention and for a moment he and the
officer talked quietly together. Then the officer turned to face the
trainees, and Jack saw that it was Lieutenant Basht from the recruiting
office.
    "All right, listen up," Grisko bellowed across the ranks. "The
following fall out and go with Lieutenant Basht: Brinkster, Kayna, Li,
Mbusu, Montana, Randolph."
    The sodden breakfast, which had already been lying heavily on
Jack's stomach, suddenly picked up about a ton of extra weight. Heart
pounding in his ears, he left his position and moved up through the
ranks.
    "Form up: two by three," Basht ordered as the six recruits reached
the front. They did so, Alison and Jommy taking the front two spots.
Jack stepped into place behind Jommy, with Rogan Mbusu falling in
behind him. Brinkster and Li, both girls, took their places behind
Alison.
    Basht glanced over their formation, and for a second Jack thought
he was going to make some snide comment. But he merely did a crisp
military turn and strode off the field.
    They followed, automatically falling into step with him. As they
walked, Jack tried to puzzle out what was going on.
    His analysis didn't get very far. Jommy and Alison were certainly
the best of the bunch, which might imply this group had been singled
out for special commendation. Problem was, he and Rogan were here, too,
and neither of them was exactly near the top of the list. As for
Brinkster and Li, Jack had noticed them along the way but neither had
struck him as being either particularly good or particularly bad. So
ordinary and unnoticeable were they, in fact, that he'd never even
heard their first names.
    Maybe it was a random sample, then. But with a hundred eighty boys
and only twenty girls in the group, it didn't seem likely that a spin
of the dart board would end up with three of each.
    He was still trying to come up with some explanation when he
suddenly realized that Lieutenant Basht was leading them straight
toward the headquarters building.
    Jack's heart had been starting to quiet down. Now, it picked up
its pace again. So that was it. They'd figured out somehow that he was
last night's casual visitor, and this whole thing was a smokescreen to
get him away from the main group.
    Beneath his shirt, he felt Draycos shifting around against his
skin. Apparently, the K'da had figured it out, too. "Easy," he muttered
a warning. The first rule Uncle Virgil had hammered into him when
facing the authorities was not to do their job for them. You're
innocent until they absolutely prove otherwise , he had told Jack
over and over. And for ten minutes after that, too , he'd
usually added.
    There didn't seem to be any extra security hanging around the
building as Basht opened the door and led the way inside. Jack rather
expected him to take them straight upstairs to the records room, or
maybe to split Jack off from the others and take him up there. To his
mild surprise, Basht led them instead to a first-floor room.
    To his even greater surprise, the room was filled with computer
stations. The stations were unoccupied, but a thin man wearing
colonel's insignia was standing near the front beside a double stack of
sealed cartons. From the way he eyed them as they filed in, Jack
guessed he'd been waiting specifically for them.
    "Parade rest," Basht ordered as they formed into their
two-by-three again. "Mbusu. Tell me about Sunright."
    Sunright ? Frantically, Jack searched his memory. Then he
remembered: it was one of the worlds that had been listed in the Current
Whinyard's Edge Missions section of their training manual.
    And that was about all he remembered. If Basht called on him, he
was going to be in serious