Cobra Guardian

  * * *

  "We have no choice," Siraj said, his voice tight. "Do you hear me, Jasmine Moreau? We must leave. Now."

  "Ghofl Khatir?" Jin asked, her eyes flicking back and forth between the approaching warship's image and the rapidly decreasing distance indicator on the nav display.

  "He may be right," Khatir said. "There's no way for us to know the range of its weapons."

  "We will when they start firing," Siraj bit out. "You saw their power on Qasama, Jasmine Moreau. You know what they can do."

  Jin grimaced. She knew, all right. And here they were, sitting in a transport designed for hauling people and cargo, with no extra armor anywhere on it.

  Siraj was right. Staying here until they were blown out of the sky wouldn't gain either them or the Tlossies anything. All they could do was try to balance the line, to draw the warship as far from the freighter as they could before they ran, and hope the Tlossies would take the hint also and run for it.

  "Wait a minute," Rashida said suddenly. "Ghofl Khatir? Am I reading this correctly?"

  "You are," Khatir confirmed, sounding as puzzled as she did. "They're veering off. Hard. Heading . . . yes--heading back to the surface." He frowned at Jin. "Could they have been frightened off by something?"

  "Are there any other spacecraft in the region?" Siraj asked.

  "Nothing I can see," Khatir said.

  "Unbelievable," Siraj murmured. "Why would they just leave that way?"

  "They must have been called back," Jin said. "There must be some trouble in Stronghold that they need the warship there to deal with."

  "God help those people," Zoshak murmured. "But if we still want to land, this is our chance."

  Jin looked at Siraj. He hesitated, then nodded. "Take us in," he ordered. "Try to catch up with the freighter on the way. I'd very much like to know what he wants here, and I'd prefer to know it before we land."

  "Acknowledged," Khatir said, and Jin felt herself being pressed back into her seat as he ran full power to the drive.

  Jin took a deep breath. A brief respite at best, but maybe it would be enough. If they could get to the surface and into some kind of cover before the warship finished its other business and came back to look for them--

  Her thoughts froze, a sudden chill running through her. Before it finishes its business . . . and whatever that business was, it almost certainly involved the killing or wounding of some of Stronghold's citizens. Human beings just like her.

  And yet, until that moment not a single thought of their welfare had even crossed her mind.

  A queasy feeling settled into her stomach. Was this what it was like to be a soldier? To become so focused on your own private corner of a battle or war that you had no attention left to spare for anyone else?

  "We're gaining on them," Khatir announced. "Either that or they're deliberately holding back to let us catch--"

  And then, without warning, the command room flared with a sudden blaze of light and the entire transport was jerked violently sideways.

  Jin gasped as the scream of the depressurization alarm split the air, her mind flashing back to that horrible moment when the shuttle carrying her on her first trip to Qasama had also blazed with light and fury and tangled metal, and everyone except Jin herself had died a sudden, violent death. Her vision clouded over . . .

  "Jasmine Moreau! Jasmine Moreau!"

  Jin snapped her eyes open. Zoshak and Siraj were hunched over her, the latter anxiously and gingerly slapping at her cheek. "What happened?" she croaked.

  "The warship apparently had second thoughts about us," Siraj said grimly. "Possibly they were bothered by our sudden change in velocity toward the freighter."

  "They're coming back?" Jin asked, her heart seizing up as she checked her nanocomputer's clock.

  But as best she could tell, she'd been unconscious for over ten minutes. If the warship had decided to come after them, it should surely have been here by now.

  "No, they're still returning to the surface," Siraj said. "But they decided to take a parting shot at us."

  Jin focused on the wall behind him. That whole side of the command room had turned the mottled, lumpy gray of emergency hull sealant. "Is it holding?" she asked.

  "So far," Siraj said, glancing over his shoulder at the sealant. "But Ghofl Khatir says we've also taken some damage to the drive and grav lifts."

  "How bad?"

  "We'll make it to ground all right," Khatir said grimly from the helm. "But I don't know how close we'll make it to any of the towns."

  Jin winced. On the ground, in the Caelian wilderness. This just got better and better. "Have you talked to the Tlossies?" she asked. "Is there anything they can do?"

  "Yes, and yes," Zoshak said. "They're going to accompany us down, and then land with us whenever we have to."

  "I told you they were our friends," Jin said, frowning at the two men still standing over her. All four Qasamans, she noticed belatedly, seemed to have come through the attack just fine. "What happened to me?" she asked.

  Zoshak and Siraj exchanged looks. "We're not sure," Zoshak said. "You may have hyperventilated, or possibly something struck you. We didn't see anything, but we were all preoccupied with other matters at the time."

  Jin felt a tightening in her chest. "Or else it's my brain tumor starting to cause trouble again. Is that what you're thinking?"

  A shadow crossed Zoshak's face. "That was our other thought," he conceded. "I don't know what specific treatment the doctors gave you before we left, but I do know that all such techniques are only temporary. It may be that the weakness and blackouts you experienced on Qasama are beginning to come back."

  "Is there anything we can get you?" Siraj asked.

  Jin closed her eyes. Back on Qasama, Siraj's father Miron Akim had told her that she still had three months before the tumor in her brain killed her. Plenty of time, he'd assured her, for her and the others to gather whatever Cobras were willing to come to Qasama and return for her surgery.

  Maybe he'd been wrong.

  With an effort, she swallowed back the sudden fear. If he'd been wrong, then she was going to die, and there was nothing she or anyone else out here could do about it. At least she'd be able to see Paul and Jody one last time.

  Provided, of course, that they made it to the surface alive. "Yes, there is," she told Siraj. "You can tell Ghofl Khatir and Rashida Vil to get us down in one piece. After everything we've been through, dying in a crash-landing would be just plain embarrassing."

  Almost unwillingly, she thought, Siraj smiled. "That it would," he agreed. "Sit back and rest, Jasmine Moreau. We'll take it from here."

  Chapter Seventeen

  With a horrible, incredible, utterly awesome crash, the Troft ship north of Stronghold toppled over onto the wall. It paused there for a second or two, then crunched through the stainless steel, smashing two homes and an aircar that happened to be directly beneath it, and slammed into the ground, one of the weapons wings on that side digging itself halfway into the plowed dirt of one of the town's vegetable gardens.

  "Holy cats," Freylan muttered into the sudden silence.

  "And you were afraid we were going to miss the show," Jody said, staring in disbelief at the downed warship. She'd read about how heavy steelwood was, but she would never have believed that three trees' worth of it could do that. Through the partially open window, she heard a distant shout.

  And suddenly the forest beyond the ruined wall exploded with movement and the flashes of laser fire.

  Harli's Cobras were attacking.

  Instantly, Governor Uy was on his feet, charging to the window and throwing it wide open. "Cobras! Attack!" he shouted to the town below. "All Cobras--"

  There was a flash of light, and with a choked-off gasp he fell backward and collapsed to the floor.

  "Rom!" his wife Elssa gasped, jumping up from her chair and hurrying to her husband's side.

  Jody got there first, knocking the older woman to the floor before she could reach t
he window. "No--keep down," Jody snapped as she helped Elssa back up onto her hands and knees. The window frame was flashing now with reflected laser fire, the town below them roaring with shouts and screams and the sound of breaking glass and heat-shattered building material. "Where's your medical kit?" Jody shouted over the din.

  "Kitchen--cabinet beside the cooker," Elssa said as she crawled the rest of the way to Uy's side.

  "Freylan?" Jody called.

  "I'm on it," Freylan said, already running stooped-over toward the kitchen.

  Jody looked down at Uy. His breathing was rapid and shallow, his face twisted with pain. Over his left lung, there was a small, char-edged hole in his jacket.

  "What's happening out there?" Elssa asked, tears running down her face as she carefully lifted her husband's head off the floor. "Jody? What's happening?"

  Jody's first thought was that the woman should be focusing her priorities on her husband, not her town. But a second later she understood: Elssa's son Harli was in the middle of the hell out there. "I'll check," she said, and crawled to the window. Bracing herself, she eased up beside it and looked out.

  It was like a scene from a war movie, the whole thing strangely unreal while at the same time feeling closely, dangerously real. Below her, laser fire filled the streets, blasting chunks from buildings and shattering glass. The screaming she'd heard a moment ago was mostly gone now, replaced by shouts and grunts and the sounds of destruction. Across the city, the downed Troft ship's upper wings were spitting out rapid laser fire of their own, and Jody's throat tightened at the thought of her father and Harli and the other Cobras out there. The chaos seemed to rise over her like the edge of a wilderness dust storm, numbing her eyes and brain. A sudden impulse swept through her, an overwhelming urge to duck away from the fire and destruction and throw herself flat on the floor where she would be safe, or at least have the illusion of safety.

  "What's happening?" Elssa asked again, her voice pleading.

  Jody clenched her teeth hard enough to hurt, hard enough even to stop their fear-driven chattering, and with a supreme effort stayed by the window. I'm a Moreau, and a Broom, she reminded herself, and I will damn it all not act like a terrified child. Not in front of Uy and his wife; absolutely not in front of Freylan. I'm also a scientist, she added, trained in observation. So get your mind in gear, kiddo, and observe. Unclenching her jaw, transferring her internal tension instead into a death grip on the window sill, she once again peered outside.

  The battle was still going strong, possibly even more devastating now in its noise and fury. But this time, as she forced herself to methodically scan the areas she could see, she noticed something she'd missed the first time.

  All across the town, small groups of Trofts were heading north toward the damaged ship. The groups she could see had formed themselves into tight knots, their weapons turned outward from the centers as they fired continuously in all directions.

  And with that, the seeming chaos blew away, exactly like the dust storm she'd just been comparing it to.

  Because there was no chaos out there. Nor was there some horrible mass slaughter. The rapid-fire laser bolts were nothing more than cover fire, laid down by the Troft soldiers as they tried to retreat to their damaged warship.

  She lifted her eyes to the ship itself. Its own heavy fire was the same thing, she saw: a desperate attempt to blanket the area around it with death to keep the Cobras from getting close enough to do any further damage.

  "Jody?" Elssa asked.

  "The Trofts are retreating toward the ship," Jody told her, daring to raise her head a little higher. A movement between two of the buildings caught her eye, and she saw one of the armored trucks similarly heading north. "Soldiers and vehicles both. Lot of firing going on, but I don't think they're actually hitting much."

  She turned, her throat tightening as she realized what she'd just said. Uy, at least, had most definitely been hit. "How's he doing?" she asked, dropping back to her hands and knees and crawling over to them.

  "I don't know," Elssa said tightly. She had moved around behind her husband and now had his head cradled on her lap. "His breathing is terrible, but he doesn't seem to be losing much blood."

  Jody nodded. One of the few advantages of taking laser fire instead of a projectile shot was that laser wounds tended to cauterize, usually preventing the victim from bleeding out.

  Unless, of course, all of the bleeding was going on inside. In that case, Uy was in just as much trouble as if he was bleeding into his shirt. Probably even more.

  There was a movement at the corner of her eye, and Freylan skidded to a halt on his knees beside her, the emergency kit clutched in his hand. "Got it," he panted. "What do we do first?"

  "Anti-shock," Elssa said, taking the kit from him and pulling it open. "Here--inject it into his thigh," she said, handing him a hypo.

  Freylan grimaced, but took the hypo and pulled off the cap. "Internal wound sealant," Elssa continued, pulling out another hypo. "Jody, can you tear away his jacket?"

  They had given Uy both hypos plus one containing a sedative and painkiller, and Elssa had the ventilator strapped over her husband's nose and mouth when a sudden peal of thunder roared across the city, rattling the windows. "Jody?" Elssa gasped.

  "I'll check," Jody said, handing Freylan the hand pump half of the ventilator and scrambling back up onto her hands and knees. She moved over to the window and cautiously looked outside.

  The second Troft warship had returned.

  It was impossible, she knew, for a chunk of metal to look angry. Even so, for those first couple of heartbeats she could swear that the warship looked furious. It was hovering on its grav lifts directly above the downed ship like an avenging phoenix hawk standing over its fallen mate. Its own lasers had joined the massive firestorm, all four clusters spitting out a wide swath of destruction around the ship and the ground troops now clustered around it. This time, the circle of death not only carved through the forest but also across the northern end of the town itself. "The other ship's back," she told the others. "They're firing. A lot."

  "Get away from the window," Freylan said, his voice tight. "And get back here. We need you."

  The laser firestorm had slowed to mostly sporadic shots by the time they'd done everything they could for Uy. "It sounds like it might be safe enough out there to go get a doctor," Jody said, peering into Uy's sleeping face. His breathing was still labored, but it seemed reasonably stable. "Where's the nearest one?"

  "Dr. MacClave's office is two blocks east," Elssa said hesitantly. "But I don't know if you should. Even if the Troft soldiers aren't back yet, the ship will still be able to see you between the buildings. I don't like sending you out into that."

  "It'll be all right," Jody assured her, taking a deep breath and handing the ventilator pump to Freylan. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

  "No you won't," Freylan said, and to Jody's surprise he handed the pump back to her. "Mrs. Uy needs to stay here with her husband. You're the only one who can talk to the Cobras out there. That leaves me. I'll go."

  But the Trofts might think you're a Cobra! "But--" Jody began.

  She stopped. Jody, as a woman, the Trofts might question. Freylan, as a man, they might shoot down on sight. He knew all of that, of course.

  But he was right. There was no one who could go but him. "Be careful," she said instead.

  "Trust me," Freylan said, giving her a forced smile as he got to his feet. "Two blocks east, you said?"

  Elssa nodded. "Thank you," she said quietly.

  "No problem," he said. "We'll be back as quick as we can." Nodding at Jody, he hurried from the room.

  "He's very brave," Elssa murmured, cradling her husband's head.

  "Yes, he is," Jody said, staring at the spot from where Freylan had disappeared. Freylan Sonderby, the quiet, awkward, earnest one. Who would have thought he had that kind of strength under the surface?

  "So are you," Elssa added.

  Jody grimaced. R
ight, she thought sourly. Like a big, fearsome fluffy rabbit I am. "He'll be all right," she said. "So will Harli."

  Elssa didn't answer. But then, Jody didn't believe it, either.

  Sighing quietly, she fixed her eyes on Governor Uy's face and settled into a steady rhythm with the ventilator pump.

  * * *

  The transport had made it past the Whitebank River and was heading toward Stronghold when its damaged grav lifts finally gave up. Once again, as the ship slammed its violent, noisy way through the treetops, Jin had a terrifying flashback to that first crash landing on Qasama.

  But once again, the present didn't repeat the past. Between them, Khatir and Rashida managed to bring the transport down with a minimum of buffeting and a maximum of intact hull.

  "Any idea where we are?" Jin asked as they unstrapped from their seats.

  "About seventy kilometers past the river and the village you said was there," Khatir said. "If your numbers are correct, that should put us about fifty kilometers from Stronghold."

  Jin grimaced. Fifty kilometers, on foot, through the Caelian wilderness. That was not a pleasant thing to contemplate.

  Unless perhaps they could hitch a ride with the Tlossies? But letting the freighter get too close to the invaders would also not be a good idea. Briefly, Jin wondered how good the enemy's sensors might be, and realized she didn't have the faintest idea.

  But the Tlossies might. "Any idea where the freighter put down?" she asked.

  "Sure--it's right behind us," Khatir said dryly. "We cut a pretty deep swathe through the trees on our way down."

  "Shall I call them?" Rashida offered, turning to the comm board.

  "No, we'd better just go back there and talk to them," Jin said. "We may be close enough to Stronghold for the invaders to pick up radio transmissions." She gestured to Siraj. "The three of you will want full gear, gloves and helmets both. Knowing Caelian, chances are there'll be something nasty waiting just outside the hatch."

  Five minutes later, they were ready. "Okay," Jin said, taking a deep breath. "I'll go first. Rashida Vil, you might as well stay inside until we've talked to the Tlossies."