Page 3

"So?" The general’s tone was even colder than before. "Dragon’s just used his initiative. He’s meant to take out any target of opportunity, and he did."

"Not if it’s one of our own crawlers, General." Johnson looked up at the mass of armour, trying to decide from its outlines to which side it might have belonged, but it was already too dark. "Besides," he said into the radio, "Dragon shouldn’t be able to get out of its territory at all."

"I haven’t had any reports of a crawler missing," the general said. As they both knew, this meant nothing, because crawlers could stay out for up to a week, maintaining radio silence. "But if you..."

Without warning, a terrific blast of static drowned out what the general was about to say, a burst so loud and long Johnson knew it was jamming. There could only be one thing which would be jamming him, here and now.

He reacted instinctively, self-preservation taking over. Dropping the radio into its pouch, he threw himself to the ground and scrambled on hands and knees for the nearest shelter, the pool of inky shadow under the burned hull of the crawler. It was a tight squeeze, and the dirt was fouled with oil and other liquids, but he did not hesitate a moment. He could not afford to hesitate.

As he lay between two of the shattered vehicle’s wheels, he caught a glimpse of the sky. As he watched, a star was blotted out momentarily, as if something had passed before it, and then another, and another. He knew what it had to be, up there in the sky.

The Dragon was here.

"It was a great idea," the general had conceded at the briefing earlier. "I’ll give you that, freely and without rancour. It was maybe even a revolutionary idea. But you see how it’s landed us with this problem now."

"Why me?" Johnson had wanted to reply. "With all the people who could do this job, why pick on me?"

But he didn’t ask that, because he knew the reason as well as the general did. It was because he, Johnson, was the creator and top scientist of the Dragon programme.

"Yes," the general had gone on. "It was an idea which might be as important to the history of combat as..." he’d described a circle in the air with his finger, "...the machine gun, for instance. And I do admit that it’s the logical evolution of the drone programme, the self-aware, long-duration mission drone meant to operate autonomously and clear and hold enemy territory. And of course you are the one man who managed to make the whole thing come true, put all the pieces together. Nobody is taking any of that away from you."

Johnson had known all of this, and had not been comforted by the praise. "What are you not telling me, General?" he’d asked.

The staff officer’s ferocious white brows had knitted in a frown. "What do you mean?"

"I’m not so naive as to imagine that you’re telling me all this just to boost my ego. So, what are you not telling me?" He’d paused. "Let me guess. Since you could simply order the Dragon by radio to end its mission and return to base, but you want me to go and get it back, there’s only one logical conclusion. You’ve lost contact with the Dragon."

The general had nodded, reluctantly. "It’s not been contactable for nearly two weeks now."

"Maybe it’s been destroyed," Johnson had said. "Perhaps it crashed, or the enemy shot it down."

"It’s not been destroyed," the general had replied shortly. "We know."

Now, lying in a stinking mess of burned oil, it occurred to Johnson to wonder just how the general had known. Rolling over partially, moving with difficulty in the narrow space, he fumbled the radio out of the knee pouch and turned it on.

"St George," he said quickly, hoping the jamming wouldn’t come too soon. "General?"

"Johnson!" the older man’s voice cracked in his ear. "Where the hell are you?"

"Hiding under the crawler," Johnson said. "Dragon’s here. I saw it fly past overhead. It may jam me at any moment. General, how long has it been since its Identify Friend and Foe system failed?"

[ Continue to page 4 ]