Dragon and Judge (Timothy Zahn)

Dragon and Judge
(The Dragonback Adventures, Book 5)
Timothy Zahn
Starscape
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Young interstellar thief Jack Morgan and Draycos, his symbiotic K'da poet-warrior companion, are hot on the trail of the enemies intent on destroying the refugee K'da fleet, due to arrive in less than two months. They've also picked up a pair of allies: Alison Kayna, a young girl with a past just as checkered as Morgan's own, and Taneem, a female K'da who was merely a subsentient "Phooka" on a forgotten backwater world until she bonded with the human Alison. Jack barely knows the first thing about Alison, let alone what her motives might be, but she's come through for him in a few scrapes, and he and Draycos are in no position to turn down assistance.
While en-route to an outpost of the Malison Ring mercenaries, trying to track down more information on the whereabouts of Arthur Neverlin and his dark allies, Jack makes a detour to the small spaceport at Semaline... where a group of rustic local aliens, the Golvins, promptly mistake him for a circuit judge. They take him to their isolated canyon home, in the middle of a vast desert, to deal with an eleven-year backlog of petty issues. Simple as they seem, the Golvins aren't to be trifled with, and the boy finds himself as much a captive as any prisoner. When Jack learns that his late parents were the last judges, his desire to learn the truth about their deaths overwhelms his desire to escape, and even Draycos cannot sway the boy.
Alison, meanwhile, has problems of her own. An excursion to find Jack turns into an abduction for her, as well - only her captors are Malison Ring employees seeking skilled thieves and safecrackers for a very special job. She finds herself thrust into the very heart of the conspirators plotting to destroy the K'da people. If she plays her cards right, she might find the clues Jack and Draycos have been searching for... or she might buy herself (and Taneem) a one-way ticket to an unmarked grave.

REVIEW: The second-to-last Dragonback book ratchets up the tension at a nice pace. Jack's sentimental sidetrack to Semaline, so pivotal to the plot, has the faintest whiff of plot convenience, but he manages to have some interesting adventures as he learns what happened to his parents. Alison gets a good half of the book to herself, as she simultaneously must use her wits to stay alive in the proverbial lion's den and continue the education of Taneem, who still has a lot to learn about being a K'da and a companion. The story reads fast, and the ending is reasonably satisfying. That's pretty much what I wanted when I picked it up, so it gets a solid Good rating. Hopefully, I can track down the final volume sometime to see how Jack and Draycos's adventures end.