Cobra Traitor, page 20
part #3 of Cobra Rebellion Series
“Agreed,” Kemp said. “And we definitely want to keep it that way. So, back to the question about using your laser targeting system. I see two problems, Rashida. One, the trigger requires her to press on the nail with her thumb.”
“Which doesn’t really work with a trigger stud,” Jody said.
“Right,” Kemp said. “And two, having two laser shots come out of one gun would kind of tip off the Trofts that something odd is going on.” He cocked an eyebrow at Jody. “Unless the laser was at full power and your fingertip on low,” he offered. “In that case, they might not even notice the softer shot.”
“At least until they took a good look at the target,” Jody pointed out. But he had a point. “Though if they’re wearing battle armor…?”
“In that case the fingertip shot might only leave a minor distortion anyway,” Kemp said, nodding thoughtfully. “Let’s give it a try.”
“Okay,” Jody said, frowning in thought. She rested the laser across her left palm and eased her right hand tentatively across the grip. If she stretched her little finger straight out like Rashida had suggested…
“Let me help you,” Kemp offered. “At least we can see how it looks.”
“Okay,” Jody said, getting a proper grip on the laser with her right hand and putting the tip of her forefinger a bit awkwardly on the firing stud. “If you press the fingernail firmly enough, it should fire the laser and gun together.”
“Right.” Kemp stepped close to her side and wrapped his left hand around her right hand.
“Okay,” Jody said, an odd feeling running through her. This wasn’t the first time their hands had touched, but somehow this one felt different. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
Peering down the corridor, Jody twitched a lock onto the center of the target. “Now.” Kemp squeezed her finger—
The corridor lit up with a double flash, and the target gave a corresponding double spark. “Fingertip dead center, gun about ten centimeters higher.”
“And both flashes very noticeable,” Jody pointed out, wrinkling her nose. “So much for that approach.”
“Not necessarily,” Kemp said. “Remember, the gun’s on practice setting—much lower than full power. The bigger flash might hide it better. And the Trofts will probably also be scrambling for cover at the time.”
“Even if they see the second shot, it may not matter,” Rashida added. “They will be dead. And as Kemp has already said, a following examination may only see an unexpected distortion.”
“I wonder what it looks like when the gun’s at full power,” Kemp mused. “It’s bound to look different—question is, how much different? Shall we give it a try?”
“Let’s make sure it won’t be a problem first,” Jody said, holstering her weapon. “You said Plaine’s in CoNCH?”
“Yeah,” Kemp said. “Want me to go with you?”
“That’s okay,” Jody said, heading down the corridor. “Rashida can probably use someone to spot for her. I’ll be right back.”
Plaine was indeed in CoNCH when she arrived, sitting in one of the monitor seats and gazing at a screen that seemed to be made up of false-color images. “Where’s Smitty?” she asked.
“Went to get some water,” Plaine said, his voice oddly preoccupied. “Said he didn’t want to take any of the emergency bottles in here. Come here a second, will you?”
“What is it?” Jody asked, crossing the compartment to his side. “Is that something outside?”
“You don’t get images from outside when you’re in hyper,” Plaine said. “This is a view of the Troft ship that accompanied Captain Moreau and the Dorian to Qasama.”
“Okay,” Jody said. To her, it didn’t look so much like a Troft ship as it did some three-year-old’s efforts at finger-painting. “Something wrong with it?”
“I don’t know,” Plaine said, scratching his cheek. “This is one of the images the Squire’s sensors took of it while we were leaving Qasama.” He touched a spot on the image. “According to the manual, these are the active sensors up here.”
“Okay. So?”
“So we’re leaving Qasama, and the Dorian isn’t trying to stop us,” Plaine said. “Shouldn’t the Trofts be wondering what’s going on?”
“Why should they care?” Jody asked. “We weren’t heading toward them, so it clearly wasn’t an attack.”
“Soldiers—real soldiers—care about everything,” Plaine said, as if that should be obvious even to an Aventinian. “As for us not attacking, how do they know we aren’t planning to circle around and get them in a cross-fire?”
“Okay,” Jody said, eyeing the picture. “So how do they know that?”
“That’s my point,” Plaine said with exaggerated patience. “However you slice it, they should be watching us as closely as they can.” He tapped the sensor spot on the image. “Only they aren’t.”
Jody chewed at her lip. “What about his weapons? Can you tell anything about them?”
“The lasers’ active targeting systems are as quiet as the rest of his sensors,” Plaine said, pointing to another spot on the image. “The lasers themselves seem to be on standby. Missile launch systems are also showing cold.”
“So they really aren’t expecting trouble,” Jody concluded. “Sounds like they must have come to an agreement with Captain Moreau.”
“Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Plaine set his finger on the image one final time. “Only there’s this. These are the engines…and that’s not the IR profile for systems on standby.”
Jody frowned. “What are you saying? That the Trofts are getting ready to leave Qasama?”
“That’s how it looks,” Plaine said. “And I still think they should be more interested in where we’re going.”
“Unless they already know,” Smitty commented quietly from behind them.
Plaine looked over his shoulder. “You thinking that, too?”
“Thinking what?” Jody asked.
“That we’ve been set up,” Plaine said flatly. “Or you have, anyway.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Plaine,” Smitty said. “If we’ve been set up, I’d say we’ve all been set up. We may have forgotten you were still aboard, but I doubt Omnathi or Captain Moreau did.”
“Good point,” Plaine said, glowering at the aft bulkhead. “The Qasamans would have had a job getting me out of the gunbay, but Moreau could have done it with a single order. Point conceded. The question is, why have we been set up? And for what?”
“For whatever and whoever’s at the far end of this trip,” Smitty said. “Which is making me feel a lot like bait.”
“Or like a canary,” Plaine said.
“Canary?” Jody asked.
“Old pre-space practice of taking a small bird into a mine to warn when the air’s getting bad,” Plaine explained. “If the bird conks out, the miners know to get out.”
“So if we get blasted into atoms ten minutes after we arrive, Moreau and the Trofts will know to stay away?” Smitty asked.
“Something like that.”
“Lovely,” Jody murmured.
Plaine shrugged. “Don’t blame the messenger. I’m just pointing out the facts. This trip was your idea.”
“Our idea,” Smitty corrected. “No one got dragged into this. Not even you.”
“Whatever,” Plaine said. “My point is that we’ve got seven days before we reach our end point. We need to be as ready as possible.” He raised his eyebrows at Jody. “Which is a polite way of telling you to get the hell back to your marksman practice.”
“On my way,” Jody said stiffly. “The reason I came up here was to ask if there would be a problem if we fired the lasers a couple of times at full power. There’s something we want to check out.”
Plaine’s eyebrows went up again. But he didn’t ask. “Shouldn’t be a problem as long as you keep the target range where I set it up. If you want to move it, check with me first so we can make sure there’s nothing sensitive behind it.”
“It’s fine where it is,” Jody assured him. “Thanks.” She looked at Smitty. “You want to come watch?”
“I’ll be down in a bit.” Smitty nodded toward the false-color display. “I think I’ll see first if Plaine can give me a quick course in reading this kind of sensor image.”
“Sure,” Plaine said. “Grab a chair, and I’ll pull up the manual.”
Jody needed only four shots, albeit with lots of accompanying discussion and analysis, to prove to everyone’s satisfaction that the higher laser setting did indeed partially mask the lower-power shot from a Cobra fingertip laser.
But only partially. Someone who knew what to look for would have no trouble spotting the smaller blast.
“But like I said earlier, we can assume that the Trofts wouldn’t know to look for a second blast,” Kemp said. “And you can see the lower shot hardly even scarred the metal.”
“Though I doubt the enemy will be wearing Dominion bulkheads,” Rashida pointed out.
“Yeah,” Kemp agreed reluctantly. “I guess until we try this on some actual Trofts we’re not really going to know one way or the other.”
“Yeah,” Jody said, thinking back to Plaine’s disturbing data and even more disturbing conclusions. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure we’re going to get that chance.”
* * *
Reivaro put up with the masks, the makeup, and the randomly running civilians for two days. Then, without warning, he struck back.
“It started at their Mabry garrison about three hours ago,” Werle said grimly, as he skimmed through the video of the incident. “They moved in a bunch more Marines overnight, and the minute the first group of morning joggers got started they came charging out like crazed spinies. They grabbed everyone who was running, told them they were under arrest, and hauled them back to the garrison.”
“Scooping up a few more along the way,” Jin said, feeling her lip twist as she watched a pair of Marines detach themselves from the prisoner escort group and chase down a man and woman who’d been walking along minding their own business. “What are they charging them with? Or is Reivaro not even bothering with appearances?”
“Don’t know,” Werle said. “De Portola’s been hanging around the neighborhood—”
“Discreetly, I hope.”
“Believe it or not, Dill can be discreet when he wants to be,” Werle said. “So far no movement or comment from that quarter. Nothing from Lij Tulu or Chintawa, either. Best guess is that the prisoners are being detained without charge while their identities are being confirmed, or some such nonsense. We’ll probably see people dribbling back out over the next few hours.”
“Harassment for harassment’s sake.”
“So we assume,” Werle said. “Though I suppose that if we’re going to be completely honest, we did start this one.”
“No, they started it when they invaded us and declared martial law,” Jin said. This wasn’t a game, and she had no intention of letting Werle take even a single step in that direction. “I trust we’re not going to let this go without a response?”
“I’m told there are discussions underway,” Werle assured her. “No decisions yet.”
“After three hours?”
Werle shrugged. “Chintawa’s a civilian. He’s not used to making quick decisions. And I assume Commandant Dreysler is waiting for him to figure out his response before he does anything.”
“Really,” Jin said, watching the display as the last of the Marines and civilians disappeared into the garrison building. “Too bad we’re out of communication with them.”
She raised her eyebrows at Werle. He looked back, frowning. His eyes flicked to the display—
His face cleared. “Damn shame, yeah,” he agreed. “So it’s up to us to do something?”
“Looks like it,” Jin said. “How many Cobras do we have available?”
“You, me, Lorne, and a couple of others,” Werle said. “And we can pick up de Portola along the way unless he’ll need more than a quick briefing.”
“A quick briefing should do him all right,” Jin assured him. “Get everyone you can grab in the next ten minutes and bring them to the makeup room.”
* * *
It took another two hours to get the plan ready and everyone in position. By then, as Werle had predicted, the citizens who’d been hauled into the Mabry garrison were starting to emerge.
According to the observers de Portola had left on the scene, some of them looked angry. Others looked frightened. Nearly all seemed shaken to one degree or another.
But the majority also seemed determined to carry on. A few of them, mostly women, were already reapplying the makeup that had disguised their features and gotten them arrested in the first place.
Still, Reivaro had made his point. While there had been no reports of mass arrests elsewhere in the city, there were only a handful of other impromptu jogging incidents after the Mabry incident, most of them perpetrated by teenagers. The general populace had been poked, and some percentage were undoubtedly rethinking their whole commitment to civil defiance. Especially since the Cobras seemed to have sat out the whole thing.
Jin meant to change that perception.
“Everyone in position?” she asked Werle as they walked together toward the Dome garrison. No one knew exactly where Reivaro was right now, but if he was in one of the garrisons her guess was that he was in this one.
“Looks like it,” he murmured back, glancing casually around. “There’s Dill and Lorne and—whoa.”
“What?” Jin asked, feeling her heart pick up its pace.
“Emile’s here,” Werle said. “Emile Chun-Wei, one of the Capitalia Cobras.”
“I know who he is,” Jin said, peering in the direction Werle had been looking when he spotted the other Cobra. Even with her telescopics she couldn’t see anyone who looked familiar. Whoever the Polestar Productions make-up artist had been on Emile’s current transformation, he or she had done a superb job. “What’s he doing here?”
“Hopefully, looking to join in,” Werle said. “We told Chintawa about the plan, of course. I guess he or Dreysler decided to send backup.”
“Or a few roadblocks,” Jin said, her thoughts flashing back to the Dome’s dithering non-opposition stance during the Troft invasion. “Can you tell how many of Emile’s friends have come along?”
“Nope,” Werle said, giving the area another casual sweep. “I don’t know any of them well enough to pick them out under their makeup. I only know Emile because of that quirky little walk of his.”
“Mm,” Jin said. “Luckily, that works both ways. If we can’t tag them, they shouldn’t be able to tag us, either.”
“Probably not,” Werle agreed. “Though it’ll be a little more obvious once we swing into action.” He threw her a sideways look. “Though I doubt they’ll ever recognize you.”
“Thanks,” Jin said dryly. As a woman, she should theoretically be completely off the Marines’ radar as far as Cobra hunts were concerned.
Unfortunately, her very uniqueness as the only female Cobra turned that theory the other direction. Reivaro had seen her on many occasions, and had undoubtedly issued orders for his men to take a close look at every middle-aged woman who crossed their path. The obvious solution was to change her face to something much younger, which had been her plan when she walked into their base’s makeup room.
To her mild annoyance, Kathia Rezondo had had other ideas. She’d patiently explained that making someone look significantly younger was very difficult to pull off in an uncontrolled environment like a city street, especially when people were undoubtedly watching for that kind of transformation. It was far easier and more convincing to go the other direction.
And so, with Werle holding her arm like an attentive grandson, she walked along the street as a slightly unsteady, slightly muddled ninety-year-old.
A ninety-year-old man.
Rezondo had had to argue long and hard on this one. But in the end, Jin had reluctantly agreed that it made sense. Lij Tulu and Reivaro had seen the records, both those back in the Dominion and the ones here, and they knew full well that the anemia and arthritis created by the bone laminae and servos drastically shortened Cobras’ lives. There were no ninety-year-old Cobras on Aventine, period.
Of course, it was entirely possible that Lij Tulu had already thought of the possibility that Cobras might try to use old age as a cover. But Rezondo had assured Jin that the presence of wrinkles and gray hair wasn’t all there was to old age. Jin was already starting to show the slight hesitation and carefulness of advancing years in her normal walk, and her growing Cobra arthritis merely enhanced that. If the Marines were smart enough to watch for such things, Jin should be able to successfully pull off the masquerade.
Lorne hadn’t been convinced. But Jin had—eventually—and had talked him into it.
Now, though, as they approached the garrison building half a block away, second thoughts were starting to seep through her determination. Even knowing the huge structure was all illusion didn’t mean it wasn’t intimidating.
Besides which, she didn’t actually know that the whole thing was still just the hollow shell it had been when Lorne checked it out two days ago. Reivaro had sneaked extra Marines into the Mabry garrison; what was to say he hadn’t done something similar here? More Marines, more weapons, maybe even a ground tank or aircar or two—any or all of those would make a huge difference to the plan. Worse, by the time she knew for sure what Reivaro had up his sleeve, it would be too late to change course.
“There he is,” Werle murmured. “At your nine—Ben Saller. See him?”
“Yes,” Jin said. The young civilian—a city pipe inspector, she vaguely remembered, a friend and co-worker of Aaron Koshevski’s—was coming toward her from the left, on a vector that would cross her path a couple of meters in front of her and about sixty meters from the two Marines standing stiff guard duty at the garrison entrance.
“Okay, this is it,” Werle said. “Last chance to abort.”
Jin took a deep breath. She’d had some of these same doubts during her part in the defense of Qasama, and there’d certainly been times when she or another combat squad had found themselves in way over their heads. But the Qasamans had always persevered, and even when they were surprised in battle they kept going. And more often than not they’d achieved their objective.
