Cobra Traitor, page 37
part #3 of Cobra Rebellion Series
The Marine threw a startled look at Jody. “Sir?”
“They’re women, Corporal,” Filho said stiffly, a sudden odd discomfort in his voice. “The only place for them is the Women’s Section.” His lip twitched. “I’ll inform the matron that they’re…special guests.”
“Yes, sir.” The corporal turned to face Jody and nodded toward the door. “This way Ms. Broom; Ms. Vil.”
“And don’t get too comfortable in there,” Castenello warned as the three of them headed toward the door. “The board will convene within the hour.”
A minute later they were walking down the corridor. Corporal Kai stayed about half a step ahead of the two women and a couple of steps to the side, where he could lead the way and still keep an eye on them.
Not that they were likely to lose themselves in any crowds. The corridor was nearly deserted, with only a few other men hurrying about on various errands.
“So we’re going to be special guests,” Jody commented as they walked. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Corporal Kai?” Plaine’s voice came from behind them.
Jody turned. The gunnery sergeant had appeared and was hurrying toward them. “Sir?” Kai said.
“You’re dismissed, Corporal,” Plaine said, trotting to a halt. “I’ll take them from here.”
Kai frowned, his eyes flicking to Jody. “Acting Captain Filho told me to take them, sir.”
“Yes, I know,” Plaine said grimly. “But Acting Captain Filho doesn’t appreciate just how dangerous those Cobras back there are. I do. You need to head back and bolster Sergeant Bleys’s force. I can drop them in the Women’s Section before I report to sickbay.”
Kai looked at Jody again. “Sir—”
“Dismissed, Corporal,” Plaine cut him off. “If the Cobras decide to make trouble, Bleys will need all the help he can get.” He raised his eyebrows. “And you do not want to have to explain to an Enquiry Board that you were in the Women’s Section when your fellow Marines were being slaughtered.”
Kai winced. “I suppose not. You’ve logged your order?”
“Yes,” Plaine said. “Log your receipt, then get back to Bleys.”
“Yes, sir.” Kai’s eyes briefly unfocused. Then, with a brisk nod, he headed back down the corridor.
“Come on,” Plaine murmured, taking Jody’s arm and continuing along the corridor.
“They’re not going to make trouble, you know,” Jody said.
“It’s not them I’m worried about.” Plaine glanced over his shoulder.
And suddenly changed direction, pulling Jody back the way they’d come. “Whoa,” Jody said, peering at his profile. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but nothing good,” Plaine said. “Anyway, you do not want to go to the Women’s Section.”
“Why not?”
Plaine threw her a sideways look. “You really don’t know?”
“No. Tell me.”
“The Women’s Section is for…look.” Plaine took a deep breath. “We revere women in the Dominion of Man. We really do. We revere them, honor them, and protect them. But we’re on a long voyage, and men have…needs.”
Jody stared at him, a horrified chill running through her. “Are you saying…?”
“They are called comfort women,” Rashida said quietly.
Jody spun her head to look at the other woman. “You knew about this?”
“I know the pattern,” Rashida said. Her face and voice were calm, but Jody could see a tightness in her throat. “Our history of the worlds we left spoke of such things. Usually during wartime. But not always.”
“The point is, special guests or not, you don’t want to be in there,” Plaine said. “More important, whatever’s going on here, I need my combat tunic.” He looked hard at Jody. “You did keep my tunic, right?”
“Kemp had her destroy it,” Rashida said. “Can you not obtain one from here?”
“Every ship has its own activation code, and I don’t have the Dorian’s,” Plaine said. His eyes were steady on Jody. “Broom?”
Jody sighed. “It’s locked away aboard the Squire,” she said reluctantly. She didn’t dare look at Rashida, but she could feel the Qasaman’s disbelief and disapproval.
“Good,” Plaine said. “Let’s go get it.”
* * *
The officers had left, leaving only the Marine guards, who had wasted no time shackling the Cobras’ hands behind them before settling in to wait.
Merrick sat in one of the chairs at the table, eyeing everyone—Smitty, Kemp, and the Marines—trying to get his brain around what was happening.
The Dominion of Man at Aventine. Cobra friends of his sister from Caelian. A Qasaman woman, flying a Dominion courier ship, all of them defying everyone to come all the way to Muninn to find him.
They would be sorry that they had. Very sorry.
But not yet. The Marines were dangerous enough, with their shoulder-mounted epaulet lasers and autotargeting sensors. But they were small fish, minor targets, hardly worth his efforts.
The officers were the big fish. Filho, Castenello, Moreau…
He frowned. Moreau. Jody had told him on their short flight up to the Dorian that Captain Barrington Moreau was the grandson of Jonny Moreau’s brother Jame. A relative, and a reasonably close one. Should that make a difference?
Merrick didn’t know if it should. All he knew was that it didn’t.
He checked the clock circuit on his nanocomputer. Within the next hour, Castenello had said. It had been eighteen minutes since he and Filho left.
Forty-two minutes or less, if the commander had been telling the truth.
Settling himself in his chair, listening with half an ear to the quiet conversation between Kemp and Smitty, he settled in to wait.
* * *
Jody had expected to find a guard posted by the Squire’s hatch. But there was no one there. “Where is it?” Plaine asked as they slipped aboard.
“There’s a pump room near CoNCH,” she told him, leading the way down the corridor. “I thought you might need it, so I just locked it away so you couldn’t get at it on your own.”
“How did you do that?” Plaine asked, frowning. “None of the pump rooms have locks.”
“I did a quick spot-weld on the—”
“Quiet,” he snapped, his head half turning around and up.
“What is it?” Jody asked.
“We’ve left orbit,” Rashida said. “The change of engine sound is distinct. Are you feeling all right, Sergeant Plaine?”
“Sure,” Plaine said, his voice oddly distracted. He let go of Jody’s arm, slapped the fingers of his left hand against his upper right arm above the biceps. “Sure. Come on, come on—quit stalling.”
“I’m not stalling,” Jody said, frowning at his arm. What had that been about? Some kind of strange itch?
“Because you don’t seem well,” Rashida pressed. “You seem confused and restless. Are you feverish?”
“You’re the one who’s confused,” Plaine shot back. “Let’s go. Let’s go.”
“Yeah, we’re going, we’re going,” Jody said, keying her infrareds. Rashida was right about the fever—Plaine’s face was blazing with heat. “You sure you’re okay?”
Without warning, Plaine grabbed both of Jody’s upper arms, spinning her halfway around and yanking her toward him. “Quit stalling!” he snarled, his face bare centimeters from hers, his fingers digging deeply into her skin. “Get me my damn tunic!”
Jody gasped with pain.
And abruptly realized where she’d seen that intensity of facial glow before.
It had been on the men she’d seen during Merrick’s rescue. The ones Merrick had said had been pumped full of a drug that conferred phenomenal strength and perfect loyalty.
Somehow, during the brief time Plaine had been out of her sight, he’d been given the drug.
He had the strength.
Who had his loyalty?
“It’s right here,” Jody said, trying to pull away.
But not trying too hard. Plaine was a trained soldier and super strong. The only ace she had was that he didn’t know she was a Cobra.
Which gave her a huge advantage. She could drop him where he stood with a stun blast. She could hit him with her sonic, which at this range would probably accomplish the same thing. For that matter, she could pick him up and bounce him off the CoNCH hatchway if she wanted.
But that wouldn’t get her any answers. And answers were what she needed most.
“It’s right here,” she said again, nodding toward the pump room where she’d hidden his tunic. “I’ll need a cutting torch to get it open.”
“Not you,” Plaine bit out. “You—Vil—go get a torch.”
“Go ahead, Rashida,” Jody said, trying to think against the pain his fingers were still pressing into her arms. Whoever had gotten the drug into him had to have done it when he and Kemp were getting Merrick’s Troft friend to his escape ship. They could have injected him, or gassed him, or gotten him to drink something—
Or gotten him to inject himself.
She focused on his right sleeve, keying her infrareds. The spot where he’d tapped himself was just faintly warmer than the surrounding skin. A recent trauma, like something injected under the epidermis, could inflame the tissue that way. She looked further down the sleeve.
And felt her stomach tighten. There wasn’t just one warm spot. There were twelve of them, evenly spaced down his arm. “What are those?” she asked, reaching up to touch his right sleeve.
She wasn’t prepared for the vehemence of his reaction. Digging his fingers even harder into her arms, he yanked her right up against his chest, putting his face barely ten centimeters from hers. “Don’t touch me,” he rumbled, his voice barely loud enough to hear even from that close. “Don’t ever touch me.”
Jody cringed back. And now she couldn’t even use her stunner or sonic without risking blowback. Great.
Well, she could fix that. “You mean like this?” she asked. Swinging around her left hand, she jabbed him hard in the ribs.
An instant later she found herself flying backwards across the corridor as he shoved her violently away from him.
With a normal person, that would have been that. Jody would have slammed back-first into the metal wall, getting the wind knocked out of her lungs and probably hitting the back of her head hard enough to knock her unconscious or give her a concussion.
But Plaine hadn’t reckoned on Cobra reflexes. He’d barely released his grip when Jody’s nanocomputer took over her servo network, twisting her torso around, catlike, to face the wall rushing toward her and snapping up her arms. An instant later she hit, palms flat against the metal, wrist and elbow servos absorbing the impact and decelerating her body, bringing her face and chest almost but not quite into contact with the wall. An instant later, with the skin of her palms tingling, her left arm servos reversed direction, shoving her off the wall and spinning her back around to face her attacker.
Plaine’s eyes had widened, and his mouth was starting to fall open in astonishment, when she fired a burst from her sonic.
The sonic wasn’t really designed as a stunning weapon. But the blast was enough to startle him and send him staggering back against the pump room door. Jody gave him a second burst, then charged.
Merrick had said the Drim war drug gave its user extra strength, and after Plaine’s grip and shove Jody had assumed she’d already seen its limit. She was wrong. Shrugging off the double sonic tap, Plaine caught her right arm as she grabbed for his shirt, twisting it up and away from him.
The unexpected force of the move threw Jody off balance. As she fought to get her feet back under her Plaine brought up his right hand, placed it against her chest, and again pushed her violently away down the corridor.
But not before she got a servo-locked grip on his sleeve. As she flew backwards down the corridor the force of his shove ripped the sleeve off the rest of his shirt.
Once again, Jody’s nanocomputer was up to the challenge. With the torn sleeve still gripped in her hand her servos twisted her half around, bent her at the waist, threw her into a shoulder roll on the floor, and used her remaining momentum to roll her back up onto her feet. She spun around—
To see Plaine sprinting toward her, a look of raw fury on his face.
But he was still two seconds away…and with his sleeve gone Jody finally had a good look at his arm.
There were twelve spots there, all right: red, warm, and slightly swollen, tracing a line from his upper bicep nearly to his wrist. Something had been inserted under his skin at those points, something that a strong tap with his fingertips would activate.
There was no time for further study. Another second and he would be on top of her. She had to subdue him before she could do anything else; and with his enhanced strength, that was going to be a challenge. She braced herself, holding her arms out to hopefully catch his wrists before he could grab her—
And then, from a cross corridor behind Plaine, Rashida stepped into Jody’s view. A fraction of a second’s assessment; and then, in a single smooth motion, she hurled the cutting torch fuel tank in her hand down the corridor straight at Plaine.
The Marine was reaching for Jody’s wrists when the tank slammed into his back, sending him lurching forward. Jody managed to sidestep him, caught his right wrist as he passed her and snapped the arm straight out. Up close, the welts looked even redder and angrier than they had at a distance.
She was staring at them, trying to figure out what they were, when Plaine twisted back around and grabbed her throat with his left hand.
She gasped, or rather tried to gasp, as pain and panic flooded through her. She got a grip on the hand wrapped around her neck and tried to pull it away. His response was to squeeze even harder.
Cobra gear included some protection around her trachea. But it wasn’t enough, not with the kind of strength coursing through Plaine’s muscles. Spots were starting to dance in front of her eyes, and through the haze she could see the pain in Plaine’s own eyes from Rashida’s fuel tank attack.
Pain.
Jody had no idea if it would work. But with Plaine about to collapse her windpipe it was all she had. Shifting her eyes from his face to his arm, she glanced target locks onto all twelve of the hot spots. With a supreme effort she let go of the hand choking her, got her thumb on her fingertip laser’s lowest setting, and fired.
Plaine gasped as the laser slashed into his skin. Jody kept firing, her nanocomputer running the laser blasts systematically down his arm. The grip on her throat wavered, loosened…
And then, suddenly, Rashida was there, crouching over them and prying Plaine’s hand away from Jody’s throat.
Jody took a shuddering breath, concentrating on finishing her demolition job. She had no idea whether burning the warm spots would do anything to whatever was in there, but at least it had distracted him enough to give Rashida time to join the party. “Hold him,” she croaked to the Qasaman. One last shot—
Without warning, Plaine gave a convulsive jerk, pulling his arms inward and slamming Jody and Rashida into each other. An instant later he reversed the movement, shoving the two women the opposite directions, clearly trying to shake them off.
Good luck with that. Jody was still a little shaky from the choking, but her Cobra gear was completely unaffected. Locking her finger servos around Plaine’s wrist, she prepared herself to ride out his latest ploy. Again he swung his arms inward and then outward, tossing the women around like dolls. Jody tightened her grip—
And flinched back as a sudden flash lit up the corridor. Even as she reflexively squeezed her eyes shut, she felt Plaine’s arm go limp in her hand.
“I’m sorry,” Rashida breathed into her ear. “I know you wished to speak with him, to learn what has happened. I hoped that your burning of the drug patches would work, but there is too much already in his blood.”
“Yeah,” Jody said, staring at her. That flash of light…“Anything you can do about clearing it out?”
Rashida nodded. “I have a drug designed to clear other drugs from the body.”
“How long will it take to work?”
“Not long,” Rashida assured her. “I’ll get it from my quarters.” She started to stand up.
Jody caught her wrist. “Rashida…?”
Rashida’s lip twitched. “I’m sorry, Jody Moreau Broom. Shahni Moffren Omnathi ordered me to keep my transformation a secret.”
“Yeah,” Jody said, feeling the universe tilting around her. The Qasamans, with all their prejudices and old-fashioned cultural feelings about women…and yet, Omnathi had made Rashida a Cobra. A secret weapon—his secret weapon—completely unsuspected by anyone. “Don’t worry,” she added, releasing Rashida’s arm. “No one will hear it from me.”
Rashida nodded, acknowledgment or thanks, and finished standing up. “I’ll be quick,” she said. “Yet I find it difficult to believe Gunnery Sergeant Plaine is alone in this plot. Should we alert the men of the Dorian?”
Jody felt her lip twitch. Acting Captain Filho, the man who’d ordered them sent to the Dorian’s on-board brothel. Commander Castenello, who’d snidely warned them not to get comfortable there. “Let’s wait until we know a little more about what’s going on.”
“Understood,” Rashida said. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
“Yeah.” Jody looked at the line of burn marks on Plaine’s arm. “Try to make it even quicker.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The abrupt summons came from Captain Lij Tulu, and once again Jin found herself being escorted down the Algonquin’s maze of corridors inside a phalanx of guards.
But this time was different. All the other times the Marines had been alert, but at the same time relaxed; watchful, but strangely cocky. Now, the calm and smugness were gone. In their place was a grim darkness, the sense of men no longer playing a game.
Whatever Lorne and the other Cobras had pulled off down there, it had apparently shaken the Dominion forces’ confidence.
