Cobra Traitor, page 16
part #3 of Cobra Rebellion Series
Standing beside that table, hurriedly climbing into their armored suits, were two more Marines.
They were gaping up at their unexpected visitor, and Lorne himself had barely registered their presence when a barrage of laser fire spat upward at him from their suits’ epaulets.
But once again, the reflexive attack was thwarted by the weapons’ design flaw. Lorne wasn’t directly above them, but he was close enough to vertical that the epaulet lasers couldn’t quite target him.
Another half second of descent, though, and that temporary bubble of safety would be gone. Lorne’s antiarmor laser was out of position to fire back, and he knew instinctively that he would never get his fingertip lasers up and in position in time.
But the Marines’ helmets were still sitting on the table beside them. As the rapid fire from below started nipping at his boots, Lorne fired his sonics.
An instant later a flash of vertigo washed over him as he caught the weapon’s bounceback. The Marines, caught by the full force of the blast, collapsed without a snarl or curse.
Fortunately, their laser fire went silent when they did.
Lorne hit the ground, staggering a bit as the aftereffects of the sonic threw off his balance. He spun around, snapping up his hands into firing position as it belatedly occurred to him that there might be a similar pair of Marines gearing up by the other door.
Luckily, there wasn’t. He and the two unconscious men were alone in the building.
He frowned, looking around. The big, plain-walled, plain-floored, empty building. A huge structure that had apparently been built and dropped into the middle of a Capitalia street for the purpose of housing a few Marines and nothing else.
Paper tiger, the old phrase echoed through Lorne’s mind. Was that really all this was? A big, obvious demonstration of the Dominion’s power? Did Lij Tulu really have nothing better to threaten the Cobra Worlds with?
For that matter, why would the Algonquin even be carrying something like this? Surely they hadn’t gone to the effort to build these things from scratch.
Unless they had some other purpose and had merely been pressed into this duty.
Unless they weren’t buildings at all.
He crouched down and touched the floor. The material was soft and yielding, far more yielding than a building floor ought to be. A quick slash with his fingertip laser, and he’d cut himself a small sample. It was about ten centimeters thick, and flexible enough that he could fold it in half without even using his servos.
It made no sense. But he didn’t have time to figure it out now. His mother and the others should have disappeared down the various rabbit holes prepared for them by now, and the Marines would be heading back. He had to be gone before they got here.
The original plan had been for him to leave the same way he’d entered. But that had assumed that there would be some interior structure to the building that wouldn’t require him to make an eight-meter leap straight up to the roof. Such a jump was theoretically possible, but it would be tricky, especially if any of the Dominion aircars were still roaming around.
But now that he knew what this building was made of, there might be a quicker, safer way.
The schematics he’d studied before the mission had shown one of the sewer system access points under the northern edge of the garrison. Lorne found it on his second try. Fortunately, this one hadn’t been sealed from below, and he was able to get the cover off with a little effort from his arm servos.
With the structure’s floor cut open, of course, the returning Marines would know instantly how he’d made his escape. But since Reivaro already knew they were using the sewer system that wouldn’t tell him anything new.
It was hardly the intel-rich report Lorne had hoped to bring back. But at least he should make it back in one piece. Stepping into the shaft, he found the ladder with his feet.
And paused, looking back at the unconscious Marines. Halfway into their armored combat suits, with their regular fatigue tunics draped across two of the chairs.
Both uniforms complete with combat epaulets.
Grinning tightly, Lorne stepped back out of the shaft. Nissa Gendreves and the still-unnamed people she answered to were going to love this.
* * *
Or possibly not.
“Are you insane?” Nissa demanded, staring wide-eyed at the Marine tunic propped up in the center of the underground room behind a double layer of copper mesh. “You brought Marine weapons here? What if they trace it?”
“That’s why it’s here,” Jin said. She hadn’t been any happier about this than Nissa, at least at the beginning. But she was slowly coming around. “If they can detect it through five meters of steel, concrete, and dirt and two Faraday cages, then there’s probably nothing we’ll ever be able to do to stop them.”
“Which is also why it’s this far away from all the rest of our operational areas,” Lorne added. “But frankly, I don’t think they’ve got a hope of finding it. You wouldn’t put any kind of remote control tracking or control system into a weapon like this—too much risk that an enemy could intercept or hijack the signal.”
“Unless it’s by laser,” Nissa growled. Still, she seemed to be calming down a little. “I know, I know—five meters of ground and concrete. You do realize, I hope, that reverse-engineering is probably out of the question. They’ll have tech in there we can’t even understand, let alone duplicate.”
“Don’t worry, we’re aren’t looking to create our own Dominion Marines,” Jin said. “But there’s a lot we can learn without going that far. How the targeting system works, for example, or what the lasers’ limits are, or whether they can be overloaded or overheated. That sort of thing.”
“We’re looking for anything that can give us a new edge or fresh approach,” Lorne said. “But never mind that for now. We’ve got bigger questions. Those garrison buildings that no one saw the Dominion putting up? I know how they did it.”
“Do you, now,” Nissa said, frowning. “Let me guess: a huge, silent crane?”
“No,” Lorne said. “A huge, silent air compressor.”
Nissa blinked. “What?”
“You heard me,” Lorne said. “Those so-called buildings are nothing but giant balloons.” He dug the sample out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Here’s a piece I cut out of the floor.”
Nissa peered at the material, running her fingers over it and testing its flexibility. “But if it’s a balloon and you cut a hole in it…?”
“Obviously, they did something to it after blowing it up to make the structure rigid,” Lorne said. “I’m guessing some kind of spray coating, which might be why the floor wasn’t affected.”
“Or possibly exposure to sunlight,” Jin said. “The point is that the garrisons aren’t what they seem. The next question, then, is what are they for?”
“Intimidation, I assume,” Nissa said. “They’re there to look big and scary and keep the citizens in line.”
“No,” Lorne said. “If that was their purpose they should look more like military bunkers. But they don’t.”
“They look like factories,” Jin said quietly. “Or sections of factories.”
Nissa looked back and forth between them, her forehead wrinkled. “You’ve lost me.”
“Let’s start with what we know,” Jin said. “The Dominion is fighting some alliance of Trofts at the other end of the Assemblage. That alliance, or some of their friends, were worried enough about the Cobra Worlds to try to take us out of the equation.”
Nissa snorted. “We were never in the equation.”
“Maybe we didn’t think so, but the Trofts and Dominion sure did,” Jin said. “Now add in the fact that the Dominion took three long-range warships out of their fleet—which they could surely have used somewhere else in the battle front—and sent them here.”
“Loaded with inflatable dummy factories,” Lorne murmured. He and his mother had worked through this logic on the way back from the raid, but thinking about it still sent a shiver up his back.
“But that doesn’t—” Nissa broke off. “Are you saying—? No. They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. We’re them.”
“Are we?” Jin countered. “We haven’t been part of the Dominion for three generations. Their laws, their culture—we hardly recognize them anymore, and vice versa.”
“Even if that wasn’t true, I doubt it would matter,” Lorne said. “If they’re desperate enough to come all this way, they’re desperate enough to sacrifice us to save themselves. Greatest good for the greatest number, and all that.”
Nissa inhaled sharply. “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “Qasama. That’s why they were so focused on finding Qasama.”
Lorne looked at his mother, another shiver running up his back. He’d hoped that particular conclusion was wrong. But if Nissa had reached it on her own…“Yes,” he said. “Because if they can use the Qasamans as bait instead of us, so much the better.”
“Bait,” Nissa repeated, as if trying the word on for size. “So you think they’re hoping to lure the Trofts here and into a trap?”
“Yeah, that’s the other thing,” Lorne said. “If that’s their plan, they’re not going to pull it off with just three ships. They must have another group on its way, maybe timed to arrive the same time they’re hoping the Troft force gets here.”
“Dogs fighting over a bone,” Nissa said, her gaze drifting back to the Marine tunics inside the Faraday cages. “Whichever dog wins, it’s pretty hard on the bone. So what do we do?”
“That part we haven’t yet figured out,” Jin said. “In theory, there’s plenty of open space even on Aventine to put up a bunch of fake factories, and the other worlds are even emptier. In practice, though, I’m guessing that factories in the middle of nowhere with no populace nearby to supply workers will look highly suspicious.”
“It’s also probably why Reivaro went to such effort to commandeer Eion Yates’s factory and start turning out armor plate for the Dewdrop and our other ships,” Jin said. “Santores wants to make it look like we’re turning out armored fighters.”
Nissa huffed out a sigh. “We need to let Chintawa know about this right away. And the rest of Aventine, too.”
“Chintawa, yes,” Jin said. “Rest of the world, no. The last thing we need is panic and riots.”
“The people need to know,” Nissa insisted.
“They will,” Jin said. “But when the time is right.”
For a moment the two women locked gazes. Nissa looked away first. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “We’ll keep it quiet. For now.”
“For now,” Jin agreed. “You have a private way to contact Chintawa?”
“Yes.” Nissa gave Lorne a strained smile. “You asked earlier who the we was that I listen to and get orders from. I assume you’ve figured it out?”
Lorne nodded. “Governor-General Chintawa.”
“And a couple of others,” Nissa said. “All of whom are walking the razor edge between cooperation and open revolt.”
“As opposed to the razor edge between resistance and getting killed?”
“We all have our parts to play,” Jin said, shooting a warning look at her son. “Yours is to guard our new toys; mine is to go hunt up some techs to start taking them apart.”
“And hope we can find something useful,” Nissa added.
“Oh, we will,” Lorne said, smiling at her. “Because I know exactly what to look for.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For the first half hour of their walk back toward Svipall Anya remained silent.
That was fine with Merrick. He was slowly getting a feel for the circadian rhythms of Muninn’s animal life, but he was a long way yet from knowing which predators were most dangerous at which times of day. That meant he still had to watch everywhere and listen to everything, especially as the sun moved toward the horizon and they approached the transition period between diurnal and nocturnal hunters.
For the first ten minutes or so he’d continued to try to come up with a way to double back to the hideaway and at least get an idea of which way Hanna went when she left. The main stumbling block to that was finding a place where Anya would be safe while Merrick went off alone, and during the first part of their journey he kept an eye out for a cave or perhaps an abandoned thorn hut like the one Anya and their travel companions had built their first night on Muninn.
But there was nothing. There weren’t even any of the thorny bamboo plants themselves, let alone a shelter made of them.
Eventually, reluctantly, he gave up on the idea. Hanna was well and truly on her own now.
“Is my father dead?”
Merrick felt his lip twitch. Anya’s first words since leaving the hideaway, and that was what she’d decided to lead off with? “I don’t know,” he said. “But I think there’s a good chance he’s still alive.”
“Why?” she countered. “After all this time, he is surely not still free. He would have come to the stronghold if he was.”
“Not free doesn’t necessarily mean dead,” Merrick pointed out, wrinkling his nose as they stepped out of the woods into a small clearing. Clearings had the advantage of being places where nothing would leap at them from the treetops. They had the disadvantage of being places where roving Troft aircars could more easily spot them. “If he’s been captured, the masters may still want him alive,” he added as he shifted his attention from the ground to the sky. Nothing up there that he could see, and his earpiece was being quiet.
“Why?” she repeated. “If my parents are indeed all that remains of their rebellion, there’s nothing useful the masters can learn by questioning him.”
Merrick felt his throat tighten. What could he say?
Back when he thought the whole family might have been caught, he and Kjoic had speculated that the three captives would be conditioned and sent out to hunt for the two fugitives. If the only one the Trofts had was Ludolf, they had even more reason to pump him full of their war drug. Not only would they want him to lead them to Merrick, but also to Hanna and any remnant of their rebellion that still existed.
Anya didn’t know about the Troft drug, and the thought of her father undergoing such a treatment wasn’t going to do much for her already somber mood. But she needed to know where they stood. “Actually, there is,” he said. They made it through the clearing and he shifted his attention again from the sky to the ground and lower tree branches. “When I was in Svipall—”
“Merrick—look!” she gasped.
Merrick spun around, hands snapping up into firing position, eyes darting around in search of whatever predator she’d spotted. But there was nothing.
“Up there!” she said, pointing a rigid finger up at the sky over the treetops on the other side of the clearing.
Rising mostly vertically in the gentle breeze was a pillar of black smoke.
Merrick felt his breath catch in his lungs. Unless the forest itself had caught fire, the only thing he knew that was in that direction was—
“It’s the safehold,” Anya breathed. “It has to be. Oh, Merrick.”
“Did your mother get out?” Merrick demanded, trying to bring his frozen mind back on line. “Anya, was your mother ready to go? Did she leave the same time we did?”
“I don’t know,” Anya said, her voice as rigid as her face. “We must find out.” She tore her gaze away from the sky, jerking her head around to face him. “You must find out. Please.”
Merrick hissed through his teeth. He could certainly travel there faster by himself than he could with Anya in tow.
But that would mean leaving her here, alone and defenseless. Did he dare take that risk?
“Please,” Anya repeated. “I’ll be all right here. Please.” She looked around, pointed at a patch of the thorny bamboo by the edge of the clearing. “There—I can make a thorn mace and a barrier to protect myself. Please, hurry. Before it’s too late.”
Merrick winced. If it wasn’t too late already. From the looks of the smoke pillar the hideaway had been burning for a while. If Hanna was still inside, it was unlikely he could do anything for her.
But he had to try. “All right,” he said. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”
“I know.” Anya squeezed his arm. “Be safe.”
Traveling quickly through unfamiliar forest, as Merrick had discovered on his trip from Svipall, was a risky proposition, with predators and unfamiliar terrain demanding his full attention. The predators were still a problem; but now, having just walked this path, the terrain was fresh in his mind, allowing him to travel much faster.
And he did. He sprinted through the woods, relying on memory and instinct to guide his feet away from pits and root tangles, trusting in luck and his admittedly distracted vigilance to avoid predators and potential Troft observers.
Soon—far too soon—he began to smell the acrid scent of burned wood and plastic.
There were a few tendrils of smoke seeping out from under the stone when he arrived at the clearing. But the main cloud was rising from somewhere in the forest beyond, presumably from the other entrance.
Clenching his teeth a little harder, he charged across the clearing and into the woods on the other side. He’d helped with a couple of rescues during the war on Qasama, but dealing with an underground fire was far beyond his experience. This whole thing would have to be done on the fly.
He was nearly to the site, and in fact had gotten his first glimpse of the base of the smoke column through the trees, when there was a brilliant flash of light and a violent explosion from somewhere in front of him.
Computerized reflexes took over, twisting him around to put his back to the blast and throwing him face-down on the ground. A second flash lit up the forest, and a second thunderclap rolled through the trees, as he hunched up on elbows and knees and waddled as quickly as he could toward cover. He hit the ground again behind the bole of a large tree just as a third shot hammered at the ground.
