Cobra Traitor, page 35
part #3 of Cobra Rebellion Series
“Well, let’s try spending our time on practical questions, shall we?” Lorne suggested. “Starting with whether we have confirmation that Reivaro is in there.”
“Still working on that,” Emile said. “We still don’t know who all was in that transport they sent out two hours ago.”
Lorne glowered at the rope. And if Reivaro had sneaked out and was monitoring the Dewdrop shakedown flight from somewhere else, this whole thing would be for nothing. “Well, keep working on it,” he said.
“Yes, thank you, we are,” Emile growled. “Wait a second…huh.”
Lorne took a careful breath. “Emile—”
“No, no, this is weird,” Emile said, frowning as he flipped his card back and forth. “Gendreves just said…when we see laser fire from Reivaro’s HQ, we’ll know he’s in there.”
“She said what?”
“Yeah, I know,” Emile said. “Requesting confirmation…yeah, that’s what she said. What do you suppose she’s planning?”
“No idea,” Lorne said. “Has she left yet? Can we still stop her?”
“Sure, we can stop her.” Emile raised his eyebrows. “Should we stop her?”
Lorne stared out the window at the city. He was the one in charge of this operation. Anything that affected it—especially anything involving Reivaro’s HQ—was under his authority. If he gave the order to grab Nissa, the Cobras at the other end of the communication line would obey.
But Emile had a point. Nissa hated Lorne’s family, but so far she’d proved herself trustworthy on matters concerning the Dominion’s campaign against her people. Furthermore, she knew enough of tonight’s plan to know what would interfere with it and what wouldn’t.
My goal has always been the same, she’d told him once. To do everything I can to defend and protect the Cobra Worlds.
“No,” he told Emile. “Let her go. But have someone watch her.”
“Yeah,” Emile said, manipulating his card again. “Count on it.”
* * *
“We’ve finished the initial climb,” the pilot’s voice came from the speaker at the monitor station in the center of the high-ceilinged, single-room warehouse that Reivaro had converted into his headquarters. “Controls are sluggish, maybe a little more than expected. We’re having to boost drive power to compensate, but we’re still well within safety margins.”
“Very good,” Reivaro said. “Any trouble with the crew or observers?”
“None, sir.”
“Good. Feed me the readings.”
For a moment the warehouse was silent as Reivaro did the data stream thing. Seated off to one side at Reivaro’s desk, a pair of watchful Marines towering over him, Corwin took advantage of the moment to look around the room.
It was about as crowded a setup as he’d ever seen for something not aboard a spacecraft. The monitor and communications stations were at the center, encircled by Reivaro’s desk and cot and the cots of the three techs. The sergeants’ cots and free-standing lockers were in the next circle, with the rest of the thirty Marines’ living quarters crushed together further outward. On one side of the room were three doors: two human-sized ones flanking one that could accommodate large vehicles. The other three walls were fully lined with equipment and food-storage lockers, food prep facilities, and washroom/shower cubicles.
Personally, Corwin would have cut back on the number of Marines bivouacked here and given everyone a little more breathing space, especially since he’d never seen more than fifteen people in here at any given time. Reivaro might want the ability to quarter thirty-plus Marines, but so far he seemed to be keeping at least half his personal force out on the streets at any given time. Maybe he was hoping to bring more men in from the outer districts once he’d pacified them.
Corwin smiled to himself. If that was Reivaro’s plan, he should seriously rethink it. Capitalia citizens and Cobras might be willing to back down in front of an invader. The rural folk weren’t nearly so compliant.
“All right,” Reivaro spoke up. Apparently, the data download had finished. “Continue.”
He stepped away from the station, eyeing Corwin closely as he walked over to the desk. “So,” he said. “If they’re going for the satellites, they’re being rather coy about it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Corwin said, wishing once again he had some idea what Lorne was up to. He was perfectly capable of skewing conversations and slanting other people’s expectations, but he needed to know which way to slant them. “They’d want a solid idea of their capabilities and liabilities before they tried anything. That’s the whole purpose of a shake-down cruise, isn’t it?”
“True,” Reivaro said. “We’ll see.” Abruptly, his eyes went data-stream unfocused again. “Interesting. Yes, send her in.”
“We have company?” Corwin asked.
“You do,” Reivaro said, taking a step back and turning toward the door. “Your good friend Nissa Gendreves is asking to see you. Any idea what she wants?”
“None at all.”
“Let’s find out together.” Reivaro raised his voice. “Ah, Ms. Gendreves,” he called. “Please, approach.”
Corwin swiveled his chair around. Nissa was walking in from one of the smaller doors, a pair of Marines walking close beside her. She glanced once at Reivaro, her eyes seeming to measure him, then shifted her attention to Corwin as the group wove their way through the obstacle course of cots and lockers. “Governor,” she said gravely, nodding to Corwin as they finally reached the central section. “I see Colonel Reivaro has been taking good care of you.”
“As jailers go, he’s been a decent enough host,” Corwin said. “Did Governor-General Chintawa send you to check up on me?”
“No, this is all me,” she said, walking the last few meters between them. “I wanted to speak with you.” She looked at Reivaro again. “In private, if I may.”
“Certainly,” Reivaro said. He gestured to Nissa’s Marines, and to Corwin’s. “Give them some air.”
Obediently, the Marines all moved back a few paces. Not far enough, of course, if their helmets contained any sort of enhanced audio capabilities, which Corwin assumed they did. Reivaro would hardly let his prisoner have an actual unmonitored conversation, after all. Presumably Nissa also knew that.
Still, everyone seemed willing to play the game. Nissa waited until the Marines had finished their retreat, then looked pointedly at Reivaro until he did likewise. Only then did she turn back to Corwin. “I trust they’re genuinely treating you well?” she murmured.
“They genuinely are,” Corwin assured her.
“Good.” She hesitated, a series of odd expressions flicking across her face. “We’ve had our differences, Governor, you and your family and I. I wanted—”
“Differences?” Corwin interrupted. “You call bringing them up on charges of treason differences?”
“I wanted to tell you,” Nissa continued doggedly, “that none of it has been personal. Everything I’ve done—everything I’ve ever done—has been what I thought was best for the Cobra Worlds. I just wanted you to know that.”
“All right,” Corwin said, a shiver running up his back. Something dark and eerie was forming in her voice and expression, something that felt poised on the brink of no return. “I appreciate you clarifying that.”
“I just wanted you to know.” Nissa took a deep, shuddering breath.
And abruptly, she flung herself back as if he’d shoved her away from him, coming within an ace of tripping over one of the cots in the process. “Look out!” she shouted, jabbing a finger at Corwin. “He has a bomb!”
For a fraction of a second, Corwin froze, his mind skidding in disbelief. What was she talking about? He looked down at his shirt, knowing she hadn’t gotten close enough to plant anything on him but still wondering if she somehow had.
That small head movement was apparently all it took to snap everyone else from their own stunned paralysis. An instant later the nearest Marines were on the move, all four of them converging on him, their arms stretched to grab, their laser epaulets poised to deliver fiery death. Corwin froze again, wanting to raise his hands but afraid that would be misinterpreted, settling instead for just opening his hands where they’d been gripping the arms of his chair and splaying his fingers.
The Marines reached him. There was a sudden, vicious scream—
And Nissa, all but forgotten in the reflexive rush toward Corwin, spun around and threw herself toward Reivaro.
“Stop!” Reivaro snapped, taking a rapid step back, ducking sideways around the corner of the communications station, his hand dropping to his belted laser. “I said stop!”
Nissa ignored the order. She was at full sprint now, weaving between the obstacles as she closed the gap. As Reivaro yanked his weapon clear of its holster, she raised her hand over her head, and Corwin saw a flicker of light from something shiny gripped in her fist.
“No!” he shouted, trying to push himself up out of his chair.
But he was too late. Even as Nissa leaped over a downed chair the room lit up with a lightning storm of laser fire as every Marine in the room fired at the crazed woman attacking their commander.
Nissa nearly made it to Reivaro anyway. Even as her legs collapsed beneath her, her momentum slammed her torso into the comm station, folding her across the dull metal cabinet. Reivaro held his ground, his laser leveled but apparently still unfired, as she slid off the cabinet and collapsed to the floor, her blackened clothing smoking from the multiple burns crisscrossing her torso.
A second later, a pair of hands caught Corwin’s shoulders and shoved him hard back into his chair. He didn’t remember having stood up.
For a long moment Reivaro just gazed down at the dead woman. Then, slowly holstering his laser, he walked over to the knife that had fallen from her hand. He stooped over, picked it up, then held it out toward Corwin.
It wasn’t a knife. It was a meal-pack lid with the inner aluminum foil seal turned outward.
Corwin looked at the lid, then up at Reivaro. The colonel was staring back at him, a look of bewilderment on his face. “Why?” he asked quietly.
Corwin shook his head, feeling numb. What in the Worlds had Nissa thought she was doing? He opened his mouth to tell Reivaro that he didn’t have a clue—
“Colonel Reivaro, this is the Dewdrop,” a voice came from the monitor speaker. “Sir, we’re experiencing trouble with our starboard main thruster and grav lift. We’re going—it looks like we may be going down.”
* * *
“Laser fire!” Emile snapped. “Repeat, we’ve got laser fire inside Marine HQ.”
Lorne blinked at him. How in the Worlds could Nissa have pulled that one off?
But for the moment that wasn’t important. What mattered was that they had confirmation that Reivaro was there.
It was time.
“Signal the Dewdrop,” he ordered, scooping up the rope and heading for the stairs. “Tell them it’s a go.”
He was on the roof, the ropes coiled over his shoulder, when the Dewdrop appeared, scrabbling its way across the sky toward him. All according to plan, though for the first twenty seconds Lorne wasn’t sure whether the pilot was faking engine trouble or actually experiencing it. The ship moved ever closer to him, until with a final sideways crabbing maneuver it slipped directly overhead.
Lorne was ready. Crouching down, he leaped upward, his servo-powered jump taking him to the Dewdrop’s portside landing skid. He caught the skid and pulled himself up, lying flat across the top to reduce his visibility from the ground. The ship continued its erratic flight; two minutes later, Werle and de Portola had joined Lorne, the two newcomers balancing on the starboard skid. A quick round of thumbs-ups, and the three Cobras got to work, tying their ropes to widely spaced sections of their skids.
The Dewdrop continued to move erratically over the city, the crew presumably firing off reports on the failing thrusters and grav lifts. But through its crabbings and random twitches it moved ever closer to the building where Reivaro was overseeing the operation.
And then, suddenly, they were there.
The Dewdrop did one final pitch upward, raising its nose and coming to a sudden stop a hundred meters above the Marine HQ. It rolled sixty degrees to starboard, coming perilously close to the grav lifts’ stall angle; and as Werle and de Portola threw their ropes outward, the ship’s hatches popped open and six of the Cobras leaped out. They caught the ropes in midfall with gloved hands and began sliding down toward the rooftop below. As the ropes tightened the Dewdrop righted itself, then rolled the other direction, again flirting with stall angle. Lorne threw out his ropes, and three more Cobras appeared from the ship. They caught this second set of ropes and started down.
And as they rappelled down, Lorne, Werle, and de Portola each grabbed a rope and headed down after them.
They were committed now. Time to see just what Reivaro was prepared to do to stop them.
* * *
“Incoming!” one of the techs at the monitor station snapped. “Incursion from above.”
“Interesting,” Reivaro said calmly, stepping over to him, Nissa’s death apparently already forgotten. “All from the Dewdrop?”
“It appears so, sir, yes,” the tech said. “There were twelve Cobras in the ship, and twelve are on their way.”
“But they’re coming down on ropes from the skids,” one of the Marines added. “Those ropes weren’t there when the Dewdrop left, and it would be damn tricky to put them there in-flight.”
“So they picked up a couple of hitchhikers along the way,” Reivaro concluded. “Certainly Cobras; almost certainly uncollared Cobras. Well, this was always one of the other possibilities. Activate the perimeter, Sergeant.” He half turned and raised his eyebrows at Corwin. “At a guess, Governor, I’d say they’re coming for you. Let’s see how they like having their rescue turned into a trap.”
* * *
Lorne was halfway down the rope when, on the streets below, Marines suddenly began appearing.
He smiled tightly. Emile had warned that Reivaro’s HQ couldn’t possibly be as open and undefended as it looked, and in fact he and the other Capitalia Cobras had identified a couple of hidden guard boxes in the blocks around the warehouse.
But it was quickly clear that they’d missed most of the stations. At least fifteen Marines were already moving into the streets, with more streaming out after them, the whole crowd emerging from at least ten different doorways.
It was, in Lorne’s opinion, a lot of overkill fuss to go through just to capture a handful of uncollared Cobras.
Below him, the ground lit up as the nine Cobras from the Dewdrop began firing their antiarmor lasers at the warehouse roof, each group of three focusing their efforts on a single section of tiling as they carved out three two-meter-diameter holes. The Marines converging on the HQ countered with multiple volleys of laser fire toward the descending Cobras, though they had to lean back awkwardly in order to angle their epaulets high enough.
But the distance was still too great for them to deliver fully effective fire. Worse, from their point of view, the Cobras were rapidly reaching the point where the edge of the roof would block any further counterattacks from the street.
Clearly, someone in charge had also figured that out. In perfect unison the whole Marine contingent started running toward the warehouse, their laser barrage intensifying.
And in less than perfect unison they all stumbled to jerking halts as a triple arc of laser fire from above cut across their paths.
Lorne looked up. The three remaining Cobras from the Dewdrop had emerged from the ship and were now balanced on the skids, each one swinging his left leg back and forth, blasting out a third of a defensive circle into the pavement below with his antiarmor laser.
The Marines were just barely able to target the rappelling Cobras. There was no way they could fire at a steep enough angle to reach the Cobras at the Dewdrop’s altitude.
But they had clearly planned for such a contingency. Even as half of them continued moving toward the building, more cautiously now as they were forced to dodge the sweeping laser fire from above, the other half stopped and dropped onto their backs on the pavement. With their lasers now able to bear on the Dewdrop, they fired a salvo at the Cobras.
One salvo was all they got. An instant later, they jerked as if they’d been stung as a coordinated volley of Cobra arcthrower blasts slammed into the tops of their helmets, frying circuits and knocking them unconscious.
The Marines still standing spun around to this new threat. But before they could open fire on the Cobras themselves, their autotarget systems exploded into action as a flurry of mudballs converged on them.
And with that, battle was joined.
* * *
“There,” the Marine sergeant said, jabbing a finger at the ceiling. “And there, and there.”
“I see them,” Reivaro said. “You see them, Governor?”
For a moment Corwin thought about pretending he couldn’t see the spots where the Cobras were burning through the ceiling. But the heat-stress circles were obvious, clustered close together above the center of the room, and there were limits to how convincingly he could play dumb. “Of course,” he said. “Twelve Cobras on their way and…” He glanced around the warehouse. “Ten Marines in here. That could be a problem.”
“Not for us,” Reivaro said calmly. “But it will be for them. I’ve been trying to keep these confrontations nonlethal—you know that. But an attack on my HQ isn’t something I can ignore. We’ll do our best to take them alive. But if we can’t…” He let the threat hang unfinished in the air.
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that,” Corwin said, his mind racing. What was Lorne up to here? Did he not realize how obvious the roof-cutting would be? “Just as I’m sure they’ll exercise similar restraint. You really think they’re going through all this just for me?”
Reivaro frowned at him. “What are you suggesting? That this is about revenge?”
