Cobra Guardian

  "Door to door," Kemp confirmed. "But let's see first if we can figure out which ones have actual Trofts cowering behind them. I'll take left; you take right."

  Jin nodded and stepped to the nearest door on the right. Pressing her ear against it, she keyed in her audio enhancers.

  The faint background noises of the ship leaped suddenly into sharp focus. Consciously, she pushed aside the various generator, pump, and relay noises and tried to sort out the sounds of breathing, conversation, or flapping radiator membranes.

  Nothing. Keying down her audios, she headed down the corridor toward the next door in line.

  She had made it halfway when a sudden new sound cut through the background noise: a sharp, multiple snapping noise, coming from at least two directions. "Kemp?" she whispered.

  "I hear them," Kemp said grimly. "Damn."

  "What is it?" Zoshak demanded.

  "High-energy capacitors discharging," Kemp told him. "Sounds like they've got the big lasers going again. The fluffers must have finished off the roseberries and cleared out."

  And with the big weapons' targeting systems clear, the Cobras in both the town and the forest were now in deadly danger. "We have to shut them down," she said.

  "No argument." Kemp waved a hand down the corridor. "Any guesses as to where they're firing them from?"

  "No, but you and Carsh Zoshak are going to find out," Jin said, peering down the corridor. Midway to the other end was another corridor that bisected theirs. At the aft end of that corridor, if she was visualizing things correctly, would be the ready room attached to the topside hatch. "I'll go on top and see what I can do about them from outside."

  "What?" Kemp demanded. "Wait a minute--"

  "If you get control of the weapons, fire a burst high over the forest or town," Jin called over her shoulder as she ran toward the corridor. "Good luck, and watch yourselves."

  The cross-corridor, thankfully, was also deserted. Jin headed aft, keeping her audios high enough to hear incautious footsteps. The corridor ended in yet another unmarked door; bracing herself, Jin tried the handle.

  It was unlocked. Readying her sonic, she pushed it open a crack and looked inside.

  The room was small and as deserted as the corridors. On its walls were more of the weapons racks she'd seen in the guardroom downstairs, except that these racks were all empty. Along with removing the room ID plaques, the techs up here had also taken the time to raid the local armory before locking themselves in their rooms.

  In the center of the ceiling, at the top of a narrow stairway, was the hatch.

  Seconds later she was up on top of the hull crest, the wind whipping across her face and tugging at her green-flecked operation suit, her eyes and ears filling once again with the light and noise of the battle still raging on far below.

  And as she stood there, getting her bearings, one of the wing lasers flared, flashing brilliance across the landscape as it blazed death and destruction somewhere inside the forest.

  She took a deep breath. Kemp and Zoshak might find the weapons' control room in time. Having located it, they might figure out how to break in and fight their way through the Trofts inside without getting themselves killed.

  But the odds were that they wouldn't. Not until a lot more Cobras out there had died.

  Which meant it was up to her. Somehow, she had to come up with a way to disable the weapons from up here.

  And she'd better come up with it fast.

  * * *

  Jody's experience with battles up to now had consisted of detailed descriptions in books, many of them accompanied by neat lines and arrows. Compared to that, the real-life battle raging across the town and clear zone around her was utter chaos.

  Nevertheless, as near as she could tell, it had looked like the Cobras were going to pull it off. Certainly once her mother's group made it inside the warship, she had dared to hope that it was almost over.

  But that was before the big wing-mounted lasers had unexpectedly sprung to life. Now, watching helplessly as the weapons blazed death and destruction across the human forces, slicing through trees and houses, her hopes were suddenly hanging by a thread.

  "They'll make it," Freylan said, his hands gripping the binoculars tightly as he pressed them to his face. He'd taken over binocular duty a few minutes ago, when the violence and death had unexpectedly hit Jody's gag reflex and she couldn't bear to watch it close-up anymore. "They're probably just having to fight their way through a few leftover soldiers. They'll make it, and they'll get those lasers shut down."

  "I know," Jody murmured. But she knew no such thing, and neither did he. The Trofts wouldn't have just a few leftover soldiers in there--the ones inside the ship would undoubtedly be their best. That was certainly how Jody would have arranged things, anyway. There was no guarantee that the Cobras would be able to fight through those soldiers and find their way to the weapons control room. Certainly not without taking serious casualties.

  And Jody's mother was a fifty-two-year-old Cobra with arthritis and a bad knee. If any of the attack team was going to die, it would probably be her.

  "Whoa!" Freylan said suddenly, leaning toward the window. "What the . . . ? Jody, your mother's up on top of the ship!"

  "What?" Jody snatched the binoculars from him and pressed them to her eyes. To her utter amazement, she found that he was right.

  Her first reaction was a sigh of relief that Jin hadn't been killed fighting her way inside. But midway through the sigh, the realization of what her mother was doing up there suddenly flooded in on her. "Oh, no," she breathed. Shoving the binoculars back into Freylan's hands, she dashed toward the living room doorway, banging her knee against the couch in her haste. "Get away from the window," she snapped.

  "What are you doing?" Freylan asked as he hastily climbed out of his chair and pressed himself against the wall.

  "I have to let Dad know," she said, finding the light switch. "She's going to try to knock out the lasers from up there."

  "By herself?"

  "You see anyone else up there?" Jody shot back, her brain working furiously to compose a message she could send quickly. "Close your eyes or lose your night vision."

  Squeezing her own eyes tightly shut, she began flipping the switch, on-off, on-off in Dida code. Mom on top of ship--trying for lasers. Assist?

  "Tell him to contact Lorne," Freylan said suddenly. "If he hasn't used up all those drones yet, maybe he can throw some of them into the weapons clusters."

  Jody nodded. "Right."

  It was only as she was starting her third repeat of the message that it occurred to her that there might no longer be anyone out there capable of reading it.

  * * *

  "Broom? Broom!"

  With a start, Paul snapped back to consciousness. A foggy, dreamy sort of consciousness, but consciousness just the same. "What is it?" he asked, his voice sounding oddly slurred.

  "We got a message," the Cobra said as he grabbed Paul's chest under his arms and pulled him up into a sitting position. "There--the governor's residence."

  "I see it," Paul said, blinking a couple of times to clear his vision and his brain. Dit dah dah dah dit dah dit dit . . .

  "Well?"

  "She says Jin's on top of the warship," Paul said, struggling to push himself higher. "I need to tell Lorne to fly his drones into the clusters." He took a deep breath.

  And broke into a sudden fit of coughing.

  "S'okay," the other Cobra said, lowering him to the ground again. "I got it."

  He got Paul settled, then stood upright behind one of the trees and filled his lungs. "Lorne Broom," he bellowed. "Cobra skipper nest! Drones hoverbird feeding! Move it!"

  * * *

  "What was that?" one of the Cobras, a rough-looking man named Olwen, said suddenly.

  "What was what?" Lorne asked, staring at his displays with a sinking heart as he waited for the ready light to come on. There were still two of those armored trucks out there, not counting whatever was still opera
tional inside Stronghold, and he'd figured on taking them out with his last two drones.

  Only now the game had suddenly changed. From the intensity of the laser fire outside, it was clear that the Trofts had the ship's main weapons clusters operational again.

  "I heard someone call your name," Olwen said, ducking though the hole in the barrier and hurrying toward the open drone hatch. "Yes," he added, raising his voice as he crooked his ear toward the open drone hatch. "He's saying ‘Lorne Broom . . . Cobra skipper nest . . . drones hoverbird feeding . . . move it.' "

  Lorne stared at him. "What?"

  "Skipper nests are at the very tops of trees," one of the other Cobras said. "Sounds like Kemp or one of the others made it up on top of the ship."

  "And hoverbirds come up underneath hanging flowers to feed," the other Cobra added.

  "I'm guessing that means they want you to ram the drones into the weapons clusters," Olwen concluded.

  "Right," Lorne said, grimacing. Great plan.

  Only there were four weapons clusters, and he only had two drones.

  But he could at least take down two of them. "Let's give it a try," he said. "Olwen, stand clear."

  Olwen nodded and took a couple of steps to the side. The forward starboard cluster first, Lorne decided as he popped the second-to-last drone from its rack and sent it drifting toward the hatchway. Not only was that the closest group, it was also the one with the widest field of fire into the area where most of Harli's Cobras were positioned. Resettling his grip on the control stick, he flew the drone past Olwen and out through the opening.

  He'd gotten it maybe four meters outside the ship when the starboard lasers flared, and the indicators went crazy as the drone was shattered to scrap. The monitor blanked, the indicators went solid red, and even from the far side of the barrier Lorne had no difficulty hearing its remains crash to the ground.

  "Well, damn it," one of the other Cobras muttered.

  "Yeah," Lorne said. There were still four weapons clusters, and he only had one drone left. "Any ideas?"

  There was a moment of silence. Then, through the barrier he heard Olwen snort. "Matter of fact, yeah, maybe I do," the Cobra said. "How good are you with that control stick?"

  Lorne shrugged. "I nailed six out of six trucks, and three of them were trying to run. That good enough?"

  "Should be, yeah," Olwen said. "Hang on."

  He turned to the opening, and Lorne saw him fill his lungs. "Twist and whist!" he shouted. "Twist and whist, on the half-gigger!"

  Frowning, Lorne looked at the other Cobras. They looked every bit as puzzled as he felt.

  And then, their expressions cleared and understanding appeared. Still frowning, Lorne notched up his hearing a little, wondering what kind of response Olwen would get from below.

  Apparently, they had understood the reference down there, too. "Twist and whist on the half-gigger," Harli's voice came drifting up to them. "Twist and whist on mark."

  "We're on," Olwen announced, hurrying back through the barrier. "How fast can you get that last drone in the air?"

  "It's running startup now," Lorne said. "Another ninety seconds."

  "Good," Olwen said. "Here's what you're going to do . . ."

  * * *

  For a minute Jin crouched on the warship's crest, listening to the battle below as she tried to come up with a plan.

  The list of options wasn't very long. Her fingertip lasers would be useless against the weapons clusters--they were far too heavily armored. Her antiarmor laser might make some headway at close range, but only if she could sit there and continue to pour fire into the things.

  Only she couldn't do that. Back on Qasama, the Trofts had shown they could adjust the aiming of each cluster to fire above the other wing on its side. Once she climbed out onto any one of the wings, she would have minutes at the most before the Trofts at the controls were able to remove the safeties that prevented accidental misfires of that sort, target her, and fry her right where she sat.

  She frowned suddenly, her ears pricking up. Had someone down there just called Lorne's name? She notched up her audios, her heart pounding suddenly in her throat, wondering if they were calling for a medic for him.

  But it was just a group of strange words, probably some kind of code message being sent to him inside the drone control room. Keying her audios back down, she turned back to the immediate problem at hand.

  Or tried to turn back to it. Her brain felt sluggish, the way it had at critical times back on Qasama. More evidence, if she'd needed it, that her brain tumor was starting to reassert itself.

  But the tumor would kill her in weeks or months. The Trofts would kill her tonight, and everyone else with her, if she didn't get back on top of this. Shaking her head to try to clear it, she focused again on the options.

  Her lasers were out. Her sonics were obviously out. Using her servos to physically rip the weapons out of the cluster was even more obviously out.

  Which left her arcthrower.

  Grimacing, she squatted down on the crest beside the aft-portside wing, keying her telescopics and peering forward at the bow-portside wing. There was at least one missile tube in there among the lasers, she knew, and while the missiles waiting inside were well protected from laser fire from below, she doubted its designers had anticipated that it would have to withstand a high-voltage current hitting it at this range.

  The problem was that in order to do that she would have to climb out onto the wing, lean over the edge, and fire her arcthrower straight down the missile tube at point-blank range.

  She swallowed hard. There was no way it could work, she knew in the cold depths of her mind. The Trofts monitoring the weapons would spot her as she moved onto the wing, and either her target cluster's own lasers would get her while she was leaning over, or else the forward ones would shoot back and nail her before she got even that far.

  But she had to try. Even if all she accomplished was to demonstrate the technique to the Cobras who would come after her, and to warn them of the risks, she still had to try. Taking a deep breath, still maintaining a low stance, she eased toward the aft wing.

  And then, over the crest of the hull, she saw the diffuse reflected light of a sudden barrage of laser fire. She had just enough time to wonder what they were shooting at when the ones on her side of the ship also erupted in a massive firestorm. Not into the forest or town, but straight across the landscape.

  She was staring at the blazing fury of the attack, wondering what in the Worlds was going on, when an object shot into view across the warship's bow, twisting and turning and jinking across her line of sight, staying about a quarter second ahead of the laser fire.

  It was one of the drones, the kind that Lorne had dropped on several of the trucks earlier to clear the path for her team. Jin watched, waiting for it to do the same sort of nosedive, wondering which truck was in for it this time.

  Or maybe he had something else in mind, she thought with a surge of hope. Maybe he was trying to get the drone clear so that he could drive it into one of the weapons clusters. If he could do that, maybe she wouldn't have to give up her life after all.

  But the drone seemed to be making no attempt to attack the clusters. For that matter, it didn't seem to be doing anything at all. It just flew back and forth, staying ahead of the lasers, as if Lorne was daring the Troft gunners to take it down.

  And then, through her foggy mind, Jin suddenly got it. This particular drone wasn't an attack, the way the Troft gunners obviously assumed.

  This one was a diversion.

  And even as Jin belatedly came to that realization, another group of laser bolts abruptly lit up the night sky.

  But this fire wasn't coming from any of the ship's weapons. It was coming from the swivel guns of four of the trucks Lorne had earlier disabled and the Trofts had subsequently abandoned.

  And all four of the lasers were firing at the forward weapons cluster on Jin's side.

  The drone was instantly forgotten as the
Troft gunners shifted their aim to the unexpected attack from below. But the trucks had been built to withstand such intense attacks, and even as all four trucks became enveloped by clouds of vaporized armor plating, their guns continued to fire. Jin held her breath . . .

  And with a thunderous explosion, the weapons cluster erupted in a blaze of fire as its missile pack ignited. The blast sent debris shooting past Jin as the shock wave slammed into her, threatening to throw her off of her perch. She ducked lower, steadying herself, as the fireball faded away. Daring to hope, she peered through the spreading cloud of smoke.

  To find that the attack had succeeded. The cluster was completely gone.

  So was the wing the cluster had been attached to.

  The mate to the wing that Jin was about to climb out onto.

  There was nothing to be gained by thinking about it. Turning her eyes away from the jagged stump where the forward wing had once been, Jin jumped onto the aft wing beside her and dropped flat onto her belly. The warship's assault on the trucks had faltered, she noticed, the Trofts in fire control no doubt reeling from the unexpected loss of a full quarter of their weaponry. Jin had to do this now, before they got their mental balance back and spotted her up here.

  If she died, she died. At least it would be quick.

  Pulling herself forward, she leaned over the leading edge of the wing and aimed her little finger straight into one of the missile tubes. Taking a deep breath, she fired her arcthrower.

  She never even heard the explosion that shattered the cluster and hurled her upward across the sky.

  * * *

  The four lasers lanced up from the ground beyond the wall, converging on the weapons beneath the warship's forward wing. The ship responded with an intense barrage of its own, and for a half-dozen agonizing seconds the duel raged on. Jody watched, holding her breath.

  And then, with a brilliant flash, the forward cluster exploded, sending flaming debris flying in all directions and hurling the crumpled wing itself high into the air. It arced up and back down, and as the echoes of the explosion faded she distinctly heard the muffled thud as it landed somewhere inside Stronghold. "One down," she said with grim satisfaction. "Three more to go."