Cobra Traitor, page 26
part #3 of Cobra Rebellion Series
“Yeah, sure,” Lorne said, starting toward her. Eagle Three was one of the five spotter nests Chintawa and the Cobras had set up to keep an eye on what was happening with Reivaro and the rest of the Dominion HQ forces. Lorne didn’t know where any of them were, but he’d been assured they were as secure as any place in Capitalia.
“We’ll come with you,” Werle said.
“There’s no need,” Nissa said shortly. “You have work to do here.”
“I think we’re about to have a lot more work to do there,” de Portola said. “Which way to Eagle Three?”
Nissa sighed. “Follow me.”
* * *
Eagle Three was in a fifth-story apartment in a complex about two blocks away from the Dome and the rest of Aventine’s main government center. Reivaro had set up his HQ in a warehouse two blocks away, and most of the Dominion’s space-to-ground traffic landed in the Dome’s landing area. With a view of all three of those points, Eagle Three had been an obvious place to set up an observation post.
Lorne could only hope it wasn’t equally obvious to Reivaro and Lij Tulu.
The young woman who answered the apartment door didn’t say anything, but merely stepped aside to allow the four of them in. Clearly, she was used to having her privacy invaded. She led them to a small bedroom where another woman was sitting beside an old tabletop comm that had been set up on a dresser against the wall. “Ducha,” Nissa greeted her gravely. “Any word?”
“He’s waiting for you now,” Ducha said, running a measuring eye over Lorne and then tapping a switch on the comm. She looked vaguely familiar, but Lorne couldn’t place her. One of the civilians he’d seen on the street prior to last night’s attack, perhaps? “We’re here,” she announced.
“How secure is the signal?” Lorne murmured.
“Very,” Nissa murmured back. “Hard-wired—special cable run through the city’s wiring matrix. No chance of anyone tracing it without tipping us off.”
“Cobra Broom?” Chintawa’s voice came softly through the speaker.
“Here,” Lorne said, stepping forward. Ducha stood up, gestured him to her chair. He nodded his thanks and sat down. “I’m told my great-uncle’s been brought back from the Algonquin?”
“Yes, he has,” Chintawa said. “And no, I wasn’t informed about this until he arrived.”
“Why is he here?”
“According to him, Lij Tulu sent him back to keep an eye on Reivaro’s activities.”
“Really,” Lorne said, throwing a frown at Werle and de Portola. “Does that mean Reivaro’s planning to ramp things up?”
“Possibly,” Chintawa said. “I should add that Governor Moreau’s watchdog role is solely the opinion of Governor Moreau. Reivaro himself was noticeably silent on the reason for his return.” There was a soft snort from the speaker. “Knowing your great-uncle, I’d guess he spun Lij Tulu some vague warning about possible excesses and the need for the captain to make sure his own rear was covered.”
“Sounds like Uncle Corwin,” Lorne said. “I can’t see Lij Tulu agreeing unless he had his own agenda, though.”
“Clearly,” Chintawa said. “I see his likely goals as twofold. First, to locate you or your resistance cell by tracking this current communication.”
The hairs on the back of Lorne’s neck prickled. “Which isn’t possible. Right?”
“So I’ve been assured,” Chintawa said. “Hopefully, our experts are right. His second goal, I believe, is to lure you and your friends into a rescue attempt, which he expects will end with you as his prisoner.”
“Trading a pawn for a knight,” de Portola murmured.
Lorne nodded grimly. That definitely sounded like Reivaro. “Did Uncle Corwin seem to have been mistreated? Any injuries or indications of psychological torture?”
“Nothing I could see,” Chintawa said. “Oh, and he said your mother looked fine, too.”
Lorne felt his mouth drop open. “Lij Tulu let him see Mom?”
“So he says,” Chintawa said. “Not only that, but Lij Tulu apparently let him bring you a message from her, as well.”
“Which was?”
“He was to tell you that she was alive, well, and not being mistreated in any way,” Chintawa said. “He was also to remind you to exercise restraint and professionalism, and to remember that you’re trying for freedom, not mass slaughter. And he was to warn you to stand tall and watch your own back, because no one else would do it for you.”
Lorne frowned. “That’s the message?”
“His exact words,” Chintawa said, a hint of dark humor in his voice. “I’ve had enough dealings with your family to know that phrasing and word choice can be important. What does it mean? Aside from the obvious warning aspects, of course?”
“I don’t know,” Lorne said. “Anything else?”
“Just one item,” Chintawa said, the humor vanishing. “Not from your uncle, but an ultimatum from Reivaro. He says the rest of Capitalia’s Cobras have three days to come in and be fitted with loyalty collars. If they don’t, he’ll start putting collars on Aventine’s political and industrial leaders.”
Lorne hissed between his teeth. “Starting with you?”
“He didn’t say, but I assume so,” Chintawa said. “He also said—and Governor Moreau confirmed this—that they’re making a new version of the collars with enough extra explosive to break the ceramic inserts you’ve been making down there.”
“Or at least what we were making before the raids,” Nissa murmured.
“Raids?” de Portola asked.
“The kiln groups were hit a few hours ago,” Nissa told him. “All four were put out of operation.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Werle demanded.
“To what end?” she countered. “There was nothing you could do about it. The point is that we already didn’t have enough inserts for all the Cobras. And if they’re adding extra punch to the mix…” She shook her head.
“No, the point is that we’re not giving up,” Lorne said. “We still have our stockpiles, right?”
“Yes, and we were collecting the new ones every hour, so we didn’t lose all that many,” Nissa said. “But without the kilns this is all we’re ever going to have.”
“Unless we can track down more kilns somewhere,” Chintawa said. “I’ll send out enquiries. In the meantime…I don’t know. Probably you should all lay low for a while.”
“We’ll do what we have to,” Lorne said. “Thanks for the information.”
“No problem,” Chintawa said. “Good luck.”
Lorne looked up at Ducha and raised his eyebrows. Silently, she reached past him and turned off the comm.
“Hell in a handbucket,” de Portola said. “I guess Reivaro is ramping things up.”
“You mean collaring Chintawa and the rest of the politicians?” Werle said. “Kind of surprised they hadn’t already done that.”
“We’re still the main threat,” de Portola said. “Losing the kilns is going to be a problem, though.”
“If we let them collar all of us,” Lorne said. “We still should be able to hide out awhile longer.”
“Which will mean more collars for the politicians,” Nissa said.
“That’s their problem,” de Portola said. “I’m more interested in what your mother said.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Lorne saw Nissa bristle at de Portola’s casual dismissal of the threat to Aventine’s leaders. But she didn’t say anything, and Lorne decided to do the same. “Anything in particular?” he asked de Portola.
“The part about watching your back because no one else would do it for you,” the other said. “Even if she wasn’t a Cobra herself she’d know that’s not true.”
“Which means it was code,” Werle agreed. “The question is, code for what?”
“I wish I knew,” Lorne admitted. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“It has to,” Werle insisted. “She wouldn’t waste her one shot at sending you a message.”
“What about the part about not slaughtering the Marines?” Nissa asked.
“That one’s obvious,” Werle said. “Probably cover for the last one.”
“Unless it’s the other way around,” Nissa pressed.
“Not guarding each other’s backs is the line that’s clearly false,” Werle said patiently. “Ergo, that’s the one that has to be the hidden message.”
“Could it be a quote, or a line from a book?” de Portola asked. “Something she would read you at night, or something you two discussed or argued about?”
“Nothing comes to mind,” Lorne said, trying to think. “But why send anything through Uncle Corwin in the first place?”
“Because Lij Tulu wouldn’t let her use the comm?” De Portola suggested tartly.
“I mean why didn’t she talk to someone before she was captured?” Lorne said. “Or leave a note or something.”
“Ah,” Werle said in a voice of sudden understanding. “Because it’s something she learned after she was captured.”
“Right.” Lorne turned to Nissa. “Did anyone talk to the civilians the Marines snatched up that my mother freed?”
“I’m sure someone did,” Nissa said, frowning in thought. “I know the Cobras are looking for every scrap of intel they can get on the Marines, their bases, and their equipment. But I don’t know who’s in charge of that.”
“We can ask Emile when he gets back,” Werle said.
“But now we should leave,” Nissa warned. “The Governor-General doesn’t want extra people crowding in here anymore than necessary.”
“Understood.” Lorne nodded to Ducha, standing quietly off to the side. “Thank you. For everything.”
“You’re welcome, Cobra Broom,” she said gravely. “Make them pay.”
Lorne frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Make the bastards pay,” she said. “All of them.”
“This is Ducha Jankos, Lorne,” de Portola said softly. “I’m not sure you’ve ever met.”
Lorne felt his stomach knot up. Ducha Jankos, mother of Taras Jankos. One of the three Cobras killed by the Dominion Marines in Archway in Reivaro’s manufactured riot.
“No, we haven’t,” Lorne said, nodding to her. “But I saw your picture once, Ma’am. Taras thought the world of you.”
“And I of him,” she said simply. “Be safe, Cobra Broom. And bring him justice.”
Lorne swallowed. Justice, or revenge? Or was it even his place to make that judgment?
Remember you’re trying for freedom, his own mother had admonished him. Not mass slaughter. Not everyone on Aventine, he suspected, held that attitude.
“I’ll do my best,” he promised. “We all will.”
The walk back to the examination room was very quiet.
* * *
It had taken a lot of work, and quite a few of the Squire’s supply of weapon power packs, but Jody had finally gotten pretty good at marksmanship. Now came the hard part: hitting the target quickly, and without the luxury of careful aiming and a two-handed stance.
It was so much easier with her own built-in weapons. A flick of the eye, a quick target-lock, a thumb on the fingernail, and her nanocomputer and servos did the rest.
Unfortunately, the only grip she’d come up with to let her bring that system into play required two hands, with her left forefinger resting on her right forefinger’s nail. That made for a somewhat awkward grip and took a potentially dangerous half-second or more to set up, along with still delivering a telltale double laser shot. Her reluctant conclusion was that she needed to look exactly like a normal Dominion-trained human right up to the point where she became a Cobra.
It was solid tactics, and had both Kemp’s and Smitty’s approval. Unfortunately, it meant a lot of extra work.
But this was a matter of life and death, not only for her and the rest of her friends, but possibly for Merrick as well. She’d come this far, and would do whatever else it took to find him and bring him home. Including hours of target practice.
Bracing herself, she snatched the laser from her holster, leveled it at the target, and fired twice.
“Not bad,” Plaine’s voice came from behind her.
Jody gave a little jerk, as if she’d been startled. In fact, her audios had picked up his footsteps ten seconds ago. “Anyone ever tell you it’s bad manners to sneak up on people?” she asked reproachfully, turning to him and keying her infrareds. If he knew she was a Cobra, he would probably guess that she was lying about being surprised. If she was lucky, that knowledge would show up in his facial blood flow.
She was ninety-nine percent sure that he didn’t know. But that stray one percent still nagged at her.
Still, she could see nothing in his face to indicate any emotion. At least not right now. “Sorry,” he apologized, walking up to her. “On second thought, no, I’m not sorry. You need to work on being alert at all times.”
“Even when I’m in a safe and secure place?” she asked, shutting off her infrareds.
“Never assume any place is safe and secure,” he said flatly. “We’ve learned that in the Dominion of Man. Usually the hard way.”
“Mm,” Jody said, wondering if she should follow up on a line like that. Probably not. “So you here to offer advice?”
“If that’s what you want,” Plaine said. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“Okay.” Jody holstered her laser again, braced herself—
“Stop,” Plaine ordered. “Don’t expect you’ll have time to prep, because you probably won’t. Draw, spin to your left to face your target, and shoot. Now.”
Jody yanked the laser out of her holster, spun around, and squeezed off a shot.
She keyed her telescopics. Ring four on the target. A terrible shot.
“Not bad,” Plaine said, craning his neck. “Not good, either, but not bad. Ten more shots, then we’ll switch to spinning around to your right. Trust me—there’s a big difference.”
“Okay.” Jody holstered the gun and turned to face him again. “What are you here for, anyway? You come down to watch me practice?”
“I was mostly just wandering around,” he said. “We’ve only got a few days before we reach this planet of yours.”
“And your conscience was bothering you?” Jody asked jokingly.
He stiffened, just noticeably. “What do you mean?”
“I asked if your conscience was bothering you,” Jody repeated, frowning as she again keyed her infrareds. There it was: the increased facial blood-flow that indicated an emotional surge.
Only what emotions was the extra heat mirroring? “It’s okay,” she said quickly, throwing a verbal net that had more than once ensnared her brothers when they were growing up. The trick of looking like you knew more than you really did…“No one else is here. We can talk freely.”
For a moment he stared at her, his enhanced infrared slowly fading. “You’re blowing smoke,” he said. “But sure, why the hell not? We’re all in this together, right?”
“Right,” Jody said. The conscience line had been nothing more than a weak, throwaway joke. But it had clearly touched a nerve. “And we need to be on the same page.”
“Don’t know if it’s a page, exactly,” Plaine said. “But…hell, maybe it is. Fine. The reason I’m here—and the reason you didn’t get blown out of the sky when you left Qasama—is that Captain Moreau and your friend Omnathi made a deal.”
Jody stared at him. She’d wondered at the time about the Dorian’s restraint, but since then other matters had pushed it to the back of her mind. “What kind of deal?”
“You don’t know where we’re going,” Plaine said. “I know, I know—we’re looking for your brother. But all we know for sure is that someone involved in the attack on Aventine was hauling animals from Qasama to this unidentified system. That means they’re either enemy Trofts, or involved somehow with enemy Trofts.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Trust me,” Plaine said sourly. “You’d need a five-dimensional matrix to sort out how all the demesnes work and play together. Or don’t. The point is that our task force was sent to Aventine to make trouble and, hopefully, draw off some of the forces standing against the Dominion. Popping up unexpectedly in a system the Trofts don’t think we even know about could help that along.”
“Even if we get ourselves slaughtered in the process?” Jody asked. “Is that why you wanted us to learn how to use the gunbays?”
“Well, it can’t hurt,” Plaine said, a ghost of a smile tweaking his lips. “But it may not come to that.” He considered. “Or it could be even worse,” he amended. “The thing is, Captain Moreau’s plan was to bring the Dorian in behind us.”
Something tingled on the back of Jody’s neck. “You mean they’re out there right now?”
“That’s the question,” Plaine said. “It’s also the problem. See, the Dorian’s engineering officer is still recovering on Qasama, and Moreau could get in a pit of trouble if he took off without him. But if he waits too long, the Megalith could arrive and Commodore Santores might order him to stay put.”
“Either way, he’s a bunch of days behind us,” Jody muttered.
“Not necessarily,” Plaine said. “The Dorian can travel faster than a courier ship. They could make up a lot of time. Maybe even all of it.”
“So in other words, they either show up in time to rescue us, or else they hit the Trofts with a sucker punch after we’ve got them all conveniently bunched up.”
“We’ll hope for the former,” Plaine said. “But hey, don’t be so optimistic. It could be that Captain Moreau will succeed in losing us and the Dorian.”
“That would be the even worse part, I take it,” Jody said, wrinkling her nose. “You think the system we’re going to will be that well-defended?”
“We have no idea how well-defended they’ll be,” Plaine said patiently. “Unknown system, remember?”
“Yeah,” Jody said. “I guess maybe we shouldn’t have rushed out so quickly. Might have given Commander Kusari enough time to heal.”
“Would you have waited if the captain had asked you to?” Plaine asked pointedly. “You’d already dithered about it for five days.”
