Cobra Guardian

  "Only if you and Kemp are looking for extra trouble," Jody warned, a creepy feeling settling in on the back of her neck. She'd never seen such a dark mood in her father before. "Tell me what's happened. Maybe there's something I can do to help."

  "We appreciate the offer, Ms. Broom," the man her father had been talking to spoke up. "But this is war. No place for civilians."

  "This is Harli Uy, Jody," Paul said, gesturing to the other man. "Currently in command of the Cobra forces on Caelian."

  "Honored to meet you, Cobra Uy," Jody said, ducking her head politely. "May I respectfully point out that your father thought I could handle myself well enough to allow me to come to Caelian. Let me repeat: whatever's going on, I'd like to help."

  "And what exactly is this help you're offering?" Harli asked.

  "I don't know yet," Jody said evenly. "Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you what I can do." She hesitated, but this was no time for modesty. "For whatever it's worth, my family has a long history of being underestimated."

  Harli snorted. "That's the Moreau side of the family talking, no doubt."

  "Actually, she gets it from both sides," Paul said. "But she's right about one thing: you never know what someone can bring to the table until you ask. Besides, it's not like we have anything in particular to lose by postponing the test a few minutes. Why not give her the basics of the situation?"

  Harli snorted again. "Fine," he growled, beckoning to one of the other men. "Matigo? Make it the quick version."

  Reluctantly, Jody thought, the man he'd called stepped forward and dropped into a crouch. "Down here," he said brusquely, gesturing Jody to join him. "Can you see?"

  "Just a second," Jody said, getting down beside him and pulling out her flashlight. She turned it to its faintest setting and switched it on. "Ready. What am I looking at?"

  "Nothing, yet," Matigo growled as he brushed away the leaves and other ground cover with his hand, leaving a more or less clear patch of dirt in the center of Jody's faint glow. "Here's Stronghold," he said, drawing a quick circle with his finger. "Clear zone around here; landing field here." He added another narrow ring around the first circle, then a rectangle on the south side. "The two Troft ships are here"--he drew a short line in the dirt on the rectangle, paralleling the edge of the circle--"and here"--he added a second line on the opposite side of the circle, again lengthwise. "They're good-sized, probably thirty meters tall and sixty or seventy long, though only thirteen or fourteen meters wide."

  "Makes for a narrow frontal target," someone murmured.

  "If they were fighting in space, which they're not," Matigo retorted. "Weapons seem to be concentrated in pivoting clusters on two pairs of small wings near the top of each ship, fore and aft and starboard and port. Looks like heavy lasers and missiles both, though we haven't seen them in action yet." He paused. "At least, we haven't."

  Jody swallowed as she caught his meaning. "But the people inside Stronghold have?"

  "We think so," Paul said grimly. "Matigo spotted a lot of burns and fresh fire-grooves in the buildings and grounds inside the wall. There's also a fair amount of new scoring on the top of the wall itself."

  "I didn't think Trofts went in for mass killing," Jody said.

  "Maybe we were wrong about that," Matigo said.

  "Or possibly the Cobras in the city mounted some sort of counterattack shortly after the Trofts landed," Paul said. "If so, it doesn't look like they got very far before they were pushed back."

  "And at this point we have no way of learning any of those details, either," Harli added. "With the comm system down and our handful of short-range radio frequencies being blocked, we can't communicate with anyone inside the wall."

  Jody nodded. No wonder her father had sounded so grim. "So what's this test you mentioned?"

  "We need a look at their weapons' capabilities," Paul explained. "The lasers in particular. We need to see their general power output, recovery cycle time, targeting arrangements, and anything else we can dig out."

  "How are you going to get all that?" Jody asked.

  "How do you think?" Matigo growled. "We're going to shoot at them and try to get them to shoot back."

  Jody felt her stomach tighten. "You're not serious."

  "Yes, we're serious; and no, of course it's not what you're thinking," Harli said. "You think Caelian's got Cobras to waste on suicide work?"

  "They're going to send some men into a few of the trees," Paul explained. "They'll fire antiarmor shots at the weapons clusters from behind the boles."

  "What about return fire?" Jody asked.

  "We're talking steelwood trees here," Harli said. "Big, thick, heavy ones, too. There are ways of taking them down, but laser fire isn't one of them."

  Jody grimaced. Unless, of course, the Trofts' weapons were accurate enough to fire straight back at the attacking lasers, in which case, some of the Cobras were about to become instant amputees. But that probably wasn't something she should bring up. Especially since they'd all probably already thought of it on their own. "You think it's a good idea to let the Trofts know there are Cobras out here?" she asked instead.

  "What, you think maybe they haven't noticed?" Matigo asked sarcastically. His head snapped around, and he fired a double fingertip laser burst at something in one of the nearby tree branches. "Unless they're blind, they know we're here."

  "Yes, but--" Jody stopped at her father's touch on her arm.

  "All right, then," Harli said briskly. "Cobras, to your stations."

  The group broke up, all the men except her father heading off in Stronghold's general direction. Jody watched them go, her hands clenched painfully. "It'll be all right," Paul told her quietly. "I've seen them. You've seen them. They know what they're doing."

  "Against the Caelian forest, sure," Jody said. "But against Trofts?"

  Paul exhaled quietly. "Come on," he said, taking her arm. "I need to help with the observation."

  * * *

  The spot Harli had chosen for the test was at the northwest edge of Stronghold's fifty-meter-wide clear zone, about three hundred meters from the northernmost of the two enemy positions. By the time Jody and her father reached the stand of trees that Harli and four of the others had settled behind, Jody could hear the sound of rustling leaves as the Cobras who would be taking the brunt of the risk worked their respective ways up into their chosen firing positions.

  And as Jody peeked out between the trees she got her first clear look at the Troft warship.

  It was every bit as big and imposing as Kemp's description had suggested, looming silent and dark over the town, its hull gleaming faintly in the starlight, its stubby wings with their collections of weapons pods reminding her of fists stretched out over the townspeople in a twisted parody of a blessing.

  It was probably an image that the Trofts hoped would inspire fear and despair. But to Jody's surprise, the predominant emotion stirring inside her was anger. Anger that these aliens would invade her worlds. Anger that they would frighten and kill her people.

  And whether Harli or Matigo or any of the Cobras believed it or not, she was damn well going to help them throw the invaders out. Somehow.

  "Everyone set?" Harli asked quietly.

  There was no answer. But Harli nodded twice, and Jody realized that all the Cobras were simply responding in voices too soft for her to hear, with their audio enhancers turned up to hear them. "Acknowledged," Harli said. "On one. Three, two, one."

  And abruptly the landscape blazed with a barrage of painfully bright laser fire as a half dozen Cobras opened fire on the Troft ship, the bursts focused on the wings.

  Jody winced back, squinting at the sudden assault on night-accustomed eyes. The attack seemed to go on forever, though it was probably only a few seconds.

  The Cobras were still firing when the Trofts finally replied.

  The answering fire came in a single, massive salvo that flashed across the open air as abruptly as the Cobras' own fire had begun, and suddenly the forest
was filled with the stuttering crackle of blasted tree trunks and the secondary sizzle as hundreds of splinters and wood fragments rained down through the leaves around them. Both barrages ended, and for a pair of heartbeats the forest was dark and silent once again.

  And then, without warning, a single flash lit up the night sky.

  Only this one wasn't from the Cobras or the nearby Troft ship. This one came from the other Troft ship, the one a kilometer away to the south.

  And it wasn't splinters and burned wood that hit the ground this time. This time, it was a human body.

  * * *

  His name, Jody learned, had been Buckley.

  No one said much as two of the Cobras moved the badly burned body deeper into the forest, away from the Troft ship, and wrapped it in one of the silliweave shelters. Matigo muttered something over and over under his breath as they worked, but whether it was a prayer or a curse Jody couldn't tell. Nor did she feel any inclination to ask.

  Harli didn't say any more than any of the others. But the glimpses of his face that Jody caught in the reflected light of the group's sporadic but never-ending antipredator fire sent shivers up her back.

  Finally, with the body as protected from scavengers as they could make it, Harli called the group together. "All right," he said, his voice glacially calm. "Either the old legends were wrong about the Trofts not engaging in unnecessary killing, or else this bunch doesn't play by those rules. So be it. They've made their point, that with the geometry of their ship placement a simple frontal assault won't work. Our next attack will just have to be clever."

  Beside Jody, Paul cleared his throat. "You assume the killing wasn't necessary," he said. "What if the Trofts thought it was?"

  "You trying to excuse them?" Matigo demanded.

  "I'm trying to understand them," Paul corrected. "That's what this test was supposed to gain us, right? Information?"

  "If you think--" Matigo began.

  Harli stopped him with a gesture. "Explain," he said.

  "Suppose our barrage did more damage than we thought," Paul said. "Something that really worried them. In that case, they would have to do something to discourage us from trying it again. The northern ship couldn't get to the attackers through the tree boles, so they had to use the southern ship's weapons, which had clear shots of everyone. In fact, in that scenario, killing only one of us could actually be considered restrained."

  Someone swore. "Restrained. Right."

  "He's right, Broom," Kemp seconded. "We'd already finished firing."

  "But the Trofts didn't know that," Paul pointed out. "As far as they knew, we might just be taking a breather before launching another attack."

  "It's an interesting theory," Harli said. "So what exactly is this damage we supposedly did to their ship?"

  "I don't know," Paul admitted. "I didn't see anything that should have worried them very much. But just because I didn't see anything doesn't mean it wasn't there."

  "Spotters?" Harli invited, looking around the circle. "Anyone?"

  "We were burning something off the wing," one of the others spoke up. "I could see bits of smoke where the shots were hitting. But it didn't look like the hullmetal was even getting scratched."

  "Yeah, I didn't see anything, either," another man spoke up. "Though I suppose it's possible we warped the missile tubes a little."

  "They still looked pretty straight to me," a third man said doubtfully. "And I was specifically watching for that."

  "Anyone else?" Harli asked.

  No one spoke up. "So," Harli said. "The smoke was probably just us burning off some kind of anti-radar coating. Hardly important unless they're expecting a space battle sometime in the near future."

  "Sure as hell not worth killing for," Matigo growled. "So what's next? We got a plan?"

  "Maybe," Harli said slowly, scratching his chin. "They may have already made a big mistake. Anyone else notice how close that ship is parked to the edge of the clear zone?"

  There was a chorus of affirmative murmurs. "That could be our ticket in," Harli continued. "Wonderland's already starting to reclaim the land, and you might also have noticed there are a couple of access doors on the corners of the bow. If we can hang on out here and give the vegetation a few days to grow, we may be able to sneak up on them."

  "That assumes they can't fire that close to their ship," Paul pointed out.

  "Rotating weapons systems are always restrained so that they can't accidentally fire on their own ship or vehicle," someone said.

  "I agree that you'd want to avoid misfires," Paul said. "But a blanket statement like that makes me nervous. Especially when none of us has had a great deal of experience with such things."

  "When you get the Trofts to hand over the technical specs of their ships, let me know," Harli said. "Until then, we'll just have to give it a shot and see what happens."

  "Maybe not," Jody spoke up.

  "Look, kid--" Matigo growled.

  "What do you mean?" Paul asked.

  "Let's see what they can do," Jody said, her mind racing as she tried to work through the details of the plan that had only now come to her. "We send something poking around one of those doors and see what they do about it."

  "And how do we do that?" Harli asked. "You have some special rapport with Caelian's animals?"

  "Not really," Jody said. "But I do have some rapport with their dining preferences."

  In the faint starlight, she saw Harli's eyes narrow. "Continue," he said.

  "First of all, we'll need some bait," Jody said, sifting rapidly through the mental encyclopedia of Caelian's flora and fauna that she'd crammed into her brain on the trip over from Aventine. "A fleeceback, maybe--they're easy to catch and will go practically anywhere for midlia fruit."

  "Midlia fruit?" Matigo echoed, sounding puzzled.

  "She means tardrops," Harli told him.

  "Right--that's what I meant," Jody said, feeling her face warming. "We collect some tardrops, crack them open and throw them against the hull near one of the doors--I'm assuming you can throw things that far--then turn our captured fleeceback loose."

  Harli threw a frown at Matigo. "Are you expecting the Trofts to panic when they see a fleeceback charging their ship?" he asked.

  "Not at all," Jody said. "As I said before, the fleeceback is just the bait. Once it's busy licking tardrop husk off the door, we send a gigger in after it."

  "And you're expecting the Trofts to panic when they see a gigger charging at their ship?" Harli said again, his patience starting to show signs of coming apart.

  "Not the gigger itself, no," Jody said. "But when they see what we've attached to the gigger's mouth tusks, maybe." Reaching to her belt, she unhooked the stun stick. "This."

  Harli stared at the weapon, his forehead furrowed in thought. Then, slowly, his forehead cleared, and to Jody's astonishment he actually smiled. It was a thin smile, cold and not particularly friendly. But it was a smile. "Nice," he said. "We rig the stun stick to go off when the gigger hits the hull with it."

  "Making for a nice high-voltage light show," Matigo added. Unlike Harli, he wasn't smiling. But at least his tone wasn't as hostile as it usually was. "And there's no place on a fleeceback to tie the thing, which is why you're talking a three-stage operation. Cute."

  "Might even work," Harli said. He gestured to Matigo. "Take a couple of men and go hunt us down a fleeceback. I saw a couple of tardrop bushes back a ways--pick up some of the fruit while you're at it. Tracker, you're in charge of finding us a gigger."

  "That won't be necessary," Jody said. "We have a caged one back at our camp."

  "You have a caged gigger?" Harli asked, sounding stunned.

  "She's right," Kemp confirmed. "I saw it."

  Harli held up his hands. "I'm not even going to ask. Fine. Kemp, take Tracker and go get it. The rest of us will head around the rim and look for a good staging area."

  He gestured. "We're burning darkness, gentlemen. Let's get to it."

  Chapter T
en

  The plumbing supply store Emile half led, half dragged Lorne into wasn't as crowded as the street, but there were still plenty of people milling around inside, busily cleaning the place out of supplies. Some of Capitalia's residents, apparently, were taking the long view of the Troft occupation. Still holding onto Lorne's arm, Emile maneuvered them through the shoppers and into an unoccupied office in the back.

  "All right," the bulky man said when he'd closed the door behind them. "You obviously didn't get the memo, so let me lay it out for you. We are not, repeat, not to attack, antagonize, or otherwise disturb the Trofts. Got that?"

  Lorne stared at him. "You're joking."

  "Do I look like I'm joking?" Emile countered, pointing both index fingers at his scowling face. "That's straight from Governor-General Chintawa and the Directorate. Everyone in government service is to stand down and wait for further instructions."

  "Including the Cobras?"

  "Especially the Cobras," Emile growled. "Whatever the hell you thought you were doing up there, I hope you had fun, because that was your last hurrah."

  "Until when?" Lorne asked.

  "Like I said, until further instructions," Emile said.

  Lorne stared at him, a hazy numbness settling across his mind. So they were giving up? The whole planet was just giving up?

  Or was this some sort of Troft trick? "You have any proof of this order?" he asked.

  Emile snorted. "What, you want an official government document with time-stamp fibers?"

  "That would be nice," Lorne said. "Let's start with where you got your information. Better yet, let's start with some proof of who you are."

  Scowling, Emile lifted his left hand and fired a low-power laser blast from his little finger into the floor. "Emile Chun-Wei, Dome Security, Cobra contingent," he said formally. "And you're Lorne Broom, current assignment DeVegas Province." He gave Lorne a tight smile. "Don't look so surprised. No one gets into the Dome without being properly logged in. Not even an off-the-record visitor to the governor-general." The smile turned sour. "Not even when he's the son of the infamous Jin Moreau."