Cobra Traitor, page 43
part #3 of Cobra Rebellion Series
There was a heartbeat of brittle silence. “I didn’t do anything to the data stream, sir,” Plaine said. “I’m not working with Broom and Kemp.”
“But you were,” Meekan said. “You admitted that.”
“You also admitted you got into the stream and tweaked your orders,” Oponn added.
“He did that?” Meekan asked, his eyes narrowing.
“It was while he was still drugged,” Jody said firmly. “He’s cured now.”
“Is he?” Meekan countered. “We only have your word for that.” His eyes flicked to Rashida. “Rather, we only have her word. She’s Qasaman. Who knows what special instructions Omnathi might have given her before you left?”
“What about it, Ms. Vil?” the captain asked. “Any secrets you want to disclose?”
Jody held her breath. But Rashida merely shook her head. “No. But I assure you he is cured.”
Meekan opened his mouth—“I don’t understand the problem,” Jody jumped in. “Can’t you just lock out his access or something?”
“I don’t have the authority to log orders like that anymore,” Captain Moreau said. “Neither does anyone else here.”
“Then call Filho or Castenello,” Jody suggested. “Have one of them do it.”
“Risky,” Plaine said before the captain could answer. “If their escort has them running stealth, a comm signal could give away their position.” He looked at Captain Moreau. “If you want me to go away, sir, I will.”
“Did you do anything else while you were drugged?” the captain asked.
“Nothing I remember.”
“But you said it was all like a dream,” Rashida reminded him. “Has anything else come back?”
“No, just…images. One of the Trofts cackling about how this was the perfect…something…double the money for sure. And your brother’s Troft friend was cackling right along with him.”
“What was perfect?” Captain Moreau asked.
“I don’t remember, sir,” Plaine said through clenched teeth. “Damn them all.” He took a deep breath. “Fine. You don’t trust me. I don’t trust me, either. So let’s do this.”
He took a step away from Meekan and took off his tunic. “There,” he said, handing it to Rashida. “You can all keep an eye on the stream. If something goes funny, and you think I’m doing it, you can shoot me.” He waved a hand. “Now can we get this on the road before the Trofts get tired of pinpricks and start unloading the heavy stuff?”
“Lieutenant?” Captain Moreau invited.
Meekan still didn’t look happy, but he nodded. “Probably as good as we’re going to get, sir.”
“So where’s this back door?” Plaine asked.
Moreau pursed his lips. “From the flying bridge.”
“The what?” Plaine asked. He frowned into space, his eyes twitching back and forth. “I’ll be damned. And it’s got its own elevator?”
“Which only runs between there and CoNCH,” Meekan said, frowning. “And there’s the Three-Twenty-Six water tank behind it. How would anyone get access?”
“Through the water tank,” Moreau said. “The containment bulkheads are thick, but not especially armored. All a Cobra would have to do is cut through and let the water drain out. One more bulkhead to cut into the flying bridge, and they’d have full access.”
“With no more than a couple of Marines inside CoNCH ready to stop them,” Meekan said. “Sergeant, upload an alert to Colonel Mwando.”
“Yes, sir.” Oponn stared into space…“Uploaded and red-marked. But if he’s focused on escort duty he might not notice it fast enough.”
“That’s why we’re going there ourselves,” the captain said. “If the route’s been compromised, we can come in right behind them. If it hasn’t, it’s our way into CoNCH. Lieutenant, can you plot us a good route?”
“Got it now, sir,” Meekan said.
“Plaine, you’ll take point,” the captain ordered. “Ms. Broom, you’re with him.” He eyed her closely. “If we run into your brother or Cobra Kemp…?”
“I’ll do whatever’s necessary to stop them,” Jody said firmly.
“I’ll count on that,” he said. “Lieutenant Meekan, behind them to give directions. Ms. Vil and I are behind you; Sergeant Oponn, you’re on rearguard. Questions? Let’s go.”
A minute later they were moving down the corridor. Jody keyed up her audios, trying to block out the sounds of their own footsteps and breathing. If Kemp or Merrick was moving around out there, she might have a chance of hearing them before they came into view.
“Thanks for standing up for me,” Plaine’s whisper came to her. “Meekan was ready to bounce me, and we need all the people we can get.”
“No problem,” she murmured back, trying to adjust her volume so that Plaine could hear and Meekan couldn’t. “Just don’t prove me wrong.”
“I won’t,” he whispered back. “Just you be ready to take down your brother when the time comes.”
Jody felt her throat tighten. “It might not come to that,” she said.
“It will,” Plaine said, and even in his whisper she could hear the dark certainty. “Trust me. It will.”
* * *
It had been a long, complicated journey, and Merrick’s servos had been pushed to the limit as he ran, jumped, crawled, or swung through passageways, service corridors, and ventilation shafts. But finally, he’d arrived.
As anticipated, the Dominion Marines had already reached the engineering strong point. There was a double wall of them, in fact: half of them armored, the other half crouching behind portable laser shields with only their heads and repeater-gun laser epaulets showing. They were facing down the corridor that led to the armored door behind them, no doubt feeling secure in the knowledge that they would have all the time they needed to gun down any intruder who came around that corner.
Unfortunately for them, Merrick had no intention of running that whole gauntlet. He was already halfway toward them, in fact, hanging just inside the cargo elevator in the passageway’s side wall.
All the elevators near the Dorian’s strong points had been frozen the minute he and Kemp had launched their attack in the conference room, of course, and anyone who wanted to ride one needed a special clearance code. But an open shaft with a few handholds along the side were all a Cobra needed.
Merrick peered through the small gap he’d made by prying the elevator door open a couple of centimeters, feeling a twist of guilt deep in his soul. He and Kemp should have done better in the conference room. They’d eliminated all the Marines just fine, which had of course been the first step. But they should have been able to kill at least one of the senior officers afterward. That was their job, and it should have been easy.
Only it hadn’t been. Captain Moreau had been yanked out barely half a meter into the room by his Marine guard, while Merrick’s own sister had hustled the others to safety.
He scowled to himself. The masters who’d set this up hadn’t known about Jody. How could they have? But that was no excuse. He’d known who and what she was. He should have compensated. He’d failed the masters, and the masters would be angry.
Worse, they would be disappointed.
But he could fix it. He would fix it. Starting right now.
He peered through the gap again. About five meters in front of the Marines and their door were a pair of wide air-flow gratings, one in the ceiling and one in the deck. From his angle he couldn’t see through either, but he’d passed many similar grates along the way and knew they simply led up and down to the next deck in line, instead of into ducts or shafts. Exactly what he needed.
The warmth in his blood was starting to fade. Easing the door closed again, he slapped the next patch down along his right arm. There were only four left, but that should be enough.
The elevator shaft was dark, with only bits of illumination seeping in from above and below him. Keying in his light-amps, he gave the door a quick examination. The panel itself was thick and heavy-duty, with a grillwork of support bars crisscrossing the center. The door ran between a pair of horizontal upper/lower tracks, with the driving mechanism a simple wheel-and-bar system. A short burst from his antiarmor laser to sever the bar, another to soften and deform the lower track, and he should be good to go.
The heat was flowing back into his muscles. Not that a Cobra really needed any extra strength, but the sense of unity that came with the warmth was both comforting and invigorating. He waited until the warmth reached its peak and plateaued out…
Resettling his grip on the door’s support frame, he targeted the bar and the track and triggered his antiarmor laser.
His nanocomputer reacted instantly, swinging his leg up and bending him at the waist as the servos brought the laser into firing position. Merrick squeezed his eyes shut—no sense going into battle with a purple afterimage glob in front of him—as the laser blasted through the bar. He triggered the laser again, felt his leg drop and then swing sideways as the servos lined up the weapon with the section of track he’d targeted. Swinging his torso around his handhold, he slammed his shoulder into the door, knocking it off its damaged tracks into the corridor and sending him flying out right behind it. Even as the door wobbled and started to fall, he caught the grillwork, lifted it upright again in front of him, and charged.
From the sudden shouts and flickers of reflected light bouncing around the walls and ceiling, it was clear the Marines had opened fire. But the door was heavy and thick, and the Dominion weapons were clearly mostly designed for use against light body armor. He could feel heat starting to come through the metal, but they surely knew he would be on top of them long before their lasers cut all the way through.
If, that is, he had ever intended to go that far.
He angled the top of the door slightly forward, bringing the ceiling grate into view. Four quick target locks on the corner fasteners…
And then he was in position. Giving the door a massive shove toward the Marines, he fired his fingertip lasers up at the grating and jumped. There were four flashes of light—four sizzlings of vaporized metal—he hit the grating with the palms of his hands—
The now-freed grating sailed off its supports and out of his way. He shot through the opening, completed a short arc that landed him on the deck almost directly above the Marines.
And now, with everyone on the deck below pinned down, and anyone else in his general vicinity presumably rushing down to assist in the strong point’s defense, he could get to the real reason he was here.
It took three tries to get the right kind of twitch to access the Dorian’s data stream. He still didn’t know how the masters had worked this trick, or what they’d had to implant into his eyes or skin, but it had been an incredibly valuable tool. The proper power cable…there it was, tucked in with a dozen other thick conduits. A quick but careful blast from his fingertip lasers to burn off the insulation, followed by a pair of blasts from his arcthrower, and the job was done.
Seconds later he was racing down a side corridor, getting as far away as he could from the Marines and the strong point. The job was done, and by the time they untangled themselves from the elevator door he’d thrown at them, he’d be long gone.
Best of all, they would be shaken by what had just happened. And for possibly the first time in their lives they would be afraid. A single Cobra had outmaneuvered them and delivered a crippling blow to their ship.
And he might be back. They had no way of knowing his plan, or of tracking his movements, and that uncertainty alone would keep them close to engineering. Perhaps thinning the numbers by the door as they considered the strong point’s other possible vulnerabilities, perhaps drawing off the roving patrols to bolster their defenses.
Merrick smiled tightly to himself. They would stay, or they would shuffle themselves, and he would go. And by the time they learned the truth it would be too late to do anything.
The masters would be pleased.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
And in a single heartbeat, it all went from critical to catastrophic.
“What the hell?” Meekan bit out. “Captain?”
“I see it,” Barrington said, skimming the sudden flow of data stream reports.
“What is it?” Jody asked.
“The hyperdrive’s been scrambled,” Barrington told her grimly. “A burst of high-voltage current through one of the control lines. Not the end of the world,” he hastened to add as her eyes widened. “The breakers caught the surge before it damaged anything.”
“But it set the whole recalibration procedure back to zero,” Meekan said. “Which means your brother just bought the Trofts another twelve minutes to tear the Dorian apart.”
“Or it was Kemp,” Barrington added at the sudden pain in Jody’s face.
“Thanks, but that doesn’t really help,” Jody said. She looked uncertainly up at the ceiling. “When do you think they’ll start the main attack?”
“Seems to me like they’re already giving it a good shot,” Meekan said bitterly.
“I mean the Trofts,” Jody said. “When are they going to start really hitting us?”
Barrington frowned. Come to think of it, that was a damn good question.
Three of the four Troft ships were still hanging back out of combat range. The fourth continued to ease toward the Dorian and blast away from extreme range. But it was being strangely tentative, as if it was afraid that moving closer would open it up to sudden and violent destruction.
Maybe the light probe was a calculated effort to learn the Dorian’s capabilities. The Drim’hco’plai demesne was a long way from any of the battle fronts, and they might not trust whatever they’d been told by allies or potential allies.
Or maybe this was simply the overture to a more sophisticated attack. Any damage they could inflict on the starboard sensors would weaken the Dorian’s defenses on that side, opening the ship up to a concentrated assault. Even if the sensor destruction cost them one of their ships it might be worth it to—
Barrington’s brain froze in mid-thought. The starboard side?
Quickly, he skimmed back through the data stream. There it was: the particular half of the ship that the Cobras had knocked out of the internal security sensor system.
The starboard side.
“Sir?” Meekan said urgently.
“Just a minute,” Barrington said, distantly aware that he had stopped in the middle of the passageway with the rest of the group now gathered around him. “Lieutenant, remember the net that took the Hermes?”
“On our way to Qasama?” Meekan said. “Of course.”
“Do you remember how relatively little damage the Hermes took?” Barrington asked. “In fact, at the time I argued that point with Commander Castenello. The Trofts didn’t want to destroy the Hermes then, and they don’t seem to want to destroy us now.”
“They want the ship,” Meekan said with a touch of impatience. “Yes, sir, I already figured that out—”
“Not the ship, Lieutenant,” Barrington cut him off. “They want us. The officers and crew.” He leveled a finger at Plaine. “They want to turn us into him, and send us home.”
Meekan’s eyes widened. “You mean as—?” he shot a look at Plaine. “But we’re months away from the Dominion. Would the drugs and hypnotic programming even last that long?”
“I don’t know,” Barrington said grimly. “Maybe they don’t, either. Maybe we’re their field test.”
Meekan swore under his breath. “Well, they can’t take us from the outside,” he said. “Not without a huge amount of damage. So they have to get in somehow.”
“On the side of the ship where we’re now half blind, inside and out,” Barrington said. “If you were trying to invade the Dorian, where would you come in?”
Meekan’s eyes defocused. “The mid-aft cargo bay,” he said. “Anywhere else you could only bring in small boats and small boarding parties. I’d want a beachhead of at least a hundred or more, and mid-aft is the only bay where you could bring in that many at once.”
“We should alert the Marines, sir,” Plaine said. “Get every available man converging on the cargo bay.”
Barrington gazed at the data stream. “We can’t risk it,” he said reluctantly. “Not yet. All we’ve got is speculation, while Mwando has actual attacks. He can’t and shouldn’t pull men from their positions for that.”
“So let’s get him some proof,” Jody said. “Let Plaine and Rashida and me go to the cargo bay and see if we’ve got incoming Trofts.”
“Or see if Broom and Kemp are waiting for them,” Plaine said grimly.
“Oh,” Jody said more soberly. “Well…it’s still a good idea.”
“Agreed,” Barrington said. “But we’re all going, not just you three.”
Meekan drew himself up. “Sir—”
“No arguments, Lieutenant,” Barrington said. “We don’t have time; and besides, I’ll be safer with two Marines and a Cobra than I will with Sergeant Oponn alone.”
Meekan opened his mouth, apparently got a closer look at Barrington’s expression—“Yes, sir. Same marching order?”
“Yes,” Barrington said, pointing toward the cross-corridor that would take them toward the mid-starboard area. “And double-time it. The Cobras bought the Trofts twelve minutes. That’s our window, too.”
“You have a plan, sir?” Meekan asked as they headed off.
“I have,” Barrington said. “Let’s see how fast we can put it together.”
* * *
Merrick had expected Kemp to be waiting at the rendezvous point when he arrived. But the Caelian Cobra was nowhere to be seen. Merrick checked the Dorian’s data stream, but could find no report of sudden trouble at CoNCH or weapons. Maybe Kemp had found another way to generate confusion and distraction.
Or maybe he’d just gotten lost. On a ship this size that was always a possibility, especially since Kemp didn’t have access to the data stream and deck plans like Merrick did.
This part of the ship was very quiet. He keyed his audios, just to see if there was anything at all going on. The alarms had long since shut off, and there was nothing but the hum of circulating fans and the occasional clank or rumble or grunt of distant machinery.
