Cobra Strike

by Timothy Zahn

  "Don't bother," Rynstadt advised quietly. "That's just a recorder, not a translator. We'll have to wait until we get back to Sollas to clear this up."

  Cerenkov opened his mouth, apparently thought better of it, and dropped back into his seat. Moff's gun hadn't so much as twitched, York noted uncomfortably.

  A steady man, with nerves not easily rattled-which severely limited the range of ploys that could be used against him. And his mojo...

  His mojo hadn't so much as squawked at the sight of his owner with a gun drawn on another human being. None of the birds had. For whatever reason-appearance, odor, speech-the Aventinians apparently had been exempted from the automatic protection the mojos gave their Qasaman masters. York had almost dared to hope that any Qasaman action against the team would be at least hindered a bit by the mojos' presence. But that was obviously not going to happen.

  Across the aisle, Joshua shifted in his seat. "They must have one gantua of a computer capability to get even that much of a translation this fast," he muttered.

  "They presumably have been recording both our words and their translation, though," Rynstadt pointed out. He seemed relaxed, almost unconcerned, and for a moment York stared at him in utter incomprehension. Didn't the idiot realize just how much trouble they were in? This isn't some game, the snarl welled up in his throat. These people are serious, and they're scared.

  He choked the words down unsaid. Of course Rynstadt wasn't worried-weren't there four Cobras aboard the Dewdrop ready to burst out and rescue them in a blaze of laser fire?

  Except it wasn't going to be that easy; and if none of the others realized that

  York certainly did. Shifting his gaze to the window, he studied the darkening sky and the even darker forest flanking the road. Moff's timed this well, he thought, a touch of professional respect adding counterpoint to the pounding of his heart. Far from the Dewdrop, in dangerous and unfamiliar territory with night coming on, only a lunatic would attempt an escape. The sun glinted through a gap in the trees, and he realized suddenly that sometime in the past few minutes they'd turned to the southwest, off of the direct east-west route between Huriseem and Sollas. South, to the next city in the chain? Probably.

  Keep the hostages away from the temptation of a rescue, while to the potential rescuers themselves you did... what? What did the Qasamans intend to do to the

  Dewdrop?

  He looked at Joshua, saw his own fears and uncertainties reflected in the younger man's taut face. Son of a Cobra, brother of a Cobra, he understood far better than Rynstadt the limits of the Dewdrop's defenses.

  A measure of fear prepares the body; panic paralyzes it, his old Marine instructor's favorite aphorism echoed through York's mind. Consciously slowing his breathing, he blocked the panic and let the fear remain. When the opportunity came, he would have to be ready.

  The announcement that briefly penetrated the roar of static in the Dewdrop's lounge was short and excruciatingly to the point: "You are suspected of spying on the people of Qasama. You will make no aggressive move or try to escape. If you disobey you will be destroyed."

  The static resumed at full intensity, and Christopher spat something blasphemous. "How the hell did they figure it out-?"

  "Shut up!" Telek snapped, her own heart a painful thudding in her ears. It had happened-her worst nightmare-and she'd failed to get the team out before the hammer fell. She'd failed. Oh, God. What am I going to do-?

  A voice from the intercom cut into her thoughts. "Governor, I'm picking up motion and hot-spots on top of the airfield tower," Captain F'ahl said. "No clear view of any weapons or people yet; they may have something like mortars or lob-rockets that'll avoid line-of-sight exposure."

  With a wrench Telek shoved the rising panic out of her way. "I understand,

  Captain. Can our lasers take down the entire tower?"

  "Probably not-and I wouldn't even want to try until we'd gotten everyone we could back on board."

  "I wasn't suggesting we start now," she said icily. So F'ahl was already preparing himself to accept team casualties. Well, she was damned if she was going to give up that easily. "Anything on the computer screening? Joshua's split-frequency signal is supposed to be jam-proof by ordinary-"

  Without warning, the field of snow on the displays abruptly cleared, and they were back in the Qasaman bus.

  Telek leaned forward, hands tightening painfully... but the carnage she'd half expected wasn't there. The scene was almost exactly as it had been when the signal had been cut off a scant few minutes ago... except that Moff was sitting facing the Aventinians with his gun drawn.

  Telek groped for the mike. "Joshua, let me see the rest of the team," she called.

  The scene remained unchanged. "He can't hear you," Christopher murmured. "We can clean up the signal at this end, but there's no computer equipment out there to do the same."

  "Great," Telek gritted. "Which means we can't contact Almo, either. Damn it all." She stared at the display another moment, then turned to the two men standing quietly just inside the lounge door. "Well, gentlemen, it looks very much like your paid vacation is over. Suggestions?"

  Michael Winward gestured toward one of the displays showing the nearby forest.

  "The Qasamans presumably don't know Almo's out there, which is theoretically an advantage for our side. But if we can't tell him what's going on the advantage is pretty useless. Somehow, we've got to get his attention so that he'll set up the comm laser."

  "In other words, you think you should try and sneak out to him." Telek hesitated, shook her head. "No. Too risky. Even if we could come up with a diversion for you you'd probably be spotted before you could get to cover. Let's see if we can wait until the usual check-in time."

  The other Cobra, Dorjay Link, glanced at Winward and shook his head minutely.

  "The Qasamans may be moving people and weapons into the forest to cover the

  Dewdrop from that side," he told Telek. "Almo could come down from his nest right into the middle of them."

  "He'd hear or see them, though, wouldn't he?" Nnamdi spoke up.

  "Cobras are human, too," Winward said tartly. "And if he doesn't even wake up until they're in position they won't be making much noise."

  Telek stared at the forest display. I'm out of my depth, she admitted to herself. We've gone to a military situation without a scrap of warning-

  No. They had had their warning; and that was what really hurt. The purpose of

  Moff's mysterious disappearance a few hours ago was now clear: he'd been setting up this operation, coordinating things via the still unknown, triple-damned long-range communication system of theirs. In which case-"The soldiers and guns are probably already in place out there," she said out loud. "The only way to wake Almo up and simultaneously let him know there's trouble..." She stopped and looked back at the two Cobras.

  Winward nodded-understanding or agreement, she didn't know which. "A quick sortie. Gunfire and all that. Let me get into my camouflage suit-be back in a minute. Dorjay, start looking for my best approach, will you?"

  "Sure," Link said as Winward vanished out the lounge door. "Any chance.

  Governor, that we can wait until full dark?"

  "No," Christopher spoke up before Telek could say anything. "Governor, we've got a new problem-the contact team's not being brought back to Sollas."

  "Damn." Telek stepped to his side, looked at the display that was now showing an aerial photo of the area between Sollas and Huriseem. "How do you know?"

  "Joshua's been looking around a little-I saw the sun out of the side window.

  Looks to me like they're taking this road-" he traced it with a finger-"down to the next city southwest of here."

  Telek checked the scale. "Damn. Closest approach doesn't get them under twenty kilometers from the Dewdrop. Where's the next connecting road?-oh, there it is.

  Three kilometers past that point. Any idea where on the road they are?"

  Christopher spread his hands helplessly.
"The range finder doesn't seem to work when the computer's mucking with the signal like this. About all I can do is estimate their speed and extrapolate from Huriseem. Looks like they're about here, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes from that crossroads."

  Telek looked over at Justin, immobile on his coach. If she'd just let him replace his brother as they'd planned... but, no, she'd wanted to have her damned window to the world. "We've got to intercept that car," she said to the room in general. "Either free the team outright or try to replace Joshua.

  Somehow."

  "With Moff on the alert I somehow doubt the latter option's open," Link said from in front of the display he'd appropriated from Nnamdi.

  "I know." Telek gritted her teeth, then turned toward the intercom. "Captain, I want a pulse-laser message to the Troft backup ships right away. Tell them to get in here as fast as they can."

  "Yes, Governor."

  And it'll do no good at all. She knew it, and everyone aboard knew it. The Troft ships were too far away even to make orbit before dawn. The Dewdrop was on her own.

  Which meant that Winward would have to make his suicide sortie in a few minutes... and Almo still had an even chance of getting caught before he knew what was happening... and it was all futility anyway, because there was no way a

  Cobra or even two could ambush that bus without killing or injuring everyone aboard in the ensuing firefight The inescapable conclusion was that it would be better to lift off now, hoping the Dewdrop would have the necessary speed to escape the Qasamans' shells or rockets.

  To cut their losses. And if that was to be the decision, it had to be made before Winward went outside to sacrifice his life. Which meant within the next ninety seconds.

  A no-win situation... and even as she wondered what she was going to do, there was a slight movement in the forest far to the south of them, and an invisible laser beam lanced out, catching the Dewdrop squarely in the nose.

  Chapter 16

  For a long moment Pyre lay quietly in his hammock bag, wondering what had awakened him. The level of sunlight filtering through the trees indicated sundown was approaching. He'd slept the whole day away, he realized, guilt twinging at him. Probably woke up simply because his body had had all the rest it needed; he must have been a lot more tired than he'd thought.

  He was just starting to pull his arms out of the bag when he heard the muffled cough.

  He froze, notching his auditory enhancers to full power. The normal rustlings of the forest roared in his ears... the normal rustlings, and the fainter sound of quiet human voices. Ten or more of them, at the least.

  Hunting party? was his first, hopeful thought. But he heard no footsteps accompanying the voices, just the occasional sounds of someone easing from one position to another. Even stalking hunters moved around more... which implied that his unexpected guests were less akin to hunters than to fishermen.

  And there were only two fish out here worth such a concerted effort, at least as far as he knew: the Dewdrop and himself.

  Damn.

  Slowly, moving with infinite care and silence, he began disentangling himself from the hammock bag and the defense cage. If they were looking for him the activity could well be a mistake; but whether it brought them down on him or not, he had no intention of getting caught wrapped up like yesterday's leftovers. The cage creaked like a tacnuke explosion as he opened it, but no one seemed to notice, and a minute later he was standing above the hammock bag with his back pressed against the tree trunk.

  And the prey was now ready to become the hunter. The voices had come from the strip of forest between him and the Dewdrop; moving to the far side of the trunk he started down, pausing at each branch to look and listen.

  He reached the ground without seeing any of the hidden Qasamans, but further noises had given him a better idea of their arrangement and he wasn't surprised to have avoided drawing fire. They seemed to be paralleling the edge of the forest nearest the Dewdrop, their attention and weaponry almost certainly focused on the ship. And to have been set up now, an entire week after the landing, implied something had gone wrong. Whether the contact team had gumfricked up or the exaggerated Qasaman paranoia had finally asserted itself hardly mattered at this point. What mattered-

  What mattered was that Joshua Moreau was out there in the middle of it. And if he'd been killed while Pyre overslept-

  The Cobra bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Stop it! he snarled. Settle down and think instead of panicking. The fact that the Qasamans had not yet openly attacked the Dewdrop implied they were still in the planning stages here... and if so, then chances were Joshua and the others were still okay.

  Moving against the contact team would tip off the Dewdrop, and the Qasamans were surely smart enough to avoid doing that.

  And with the ship and Cerenkov both unaware that anything was wrong, it was all up to Pyre now.

  He didn't have a lot of options. His emergency earphone was a one-way device, with no provision for talking to the ship. His comm laser was well hidden and probably undiscovered, but if the Qasaman cordon line wasn't sitting on top of it they weren't for off. Take out the whole bunch of them? Risky, possibly suicidal, and almost certain to run the timer to zero right there and then.

  But if the members of the cordon weren't in actual visual contact with each other, it might be possible to quietly take out the one or two closest to his laser without alerting all the others. Grab the laser, back off to somewhere safe-the top of a tree, if necessary-and call the ship. Together they might be able to figure out a way to snatch the contact team from under Moff's nose.

  Mindful of the crunchy forest mat underfoot, Pyre set off cautiously toward the laser's hiding place, trying to watch all directions at once. He was, he estimated, only five meters from his goal when a sudden roar erupted from beside him.

  He was halfway through his sideways leap before his brain caught up with his reflexes and identified the sound: his emergency earphone was screaming with static. He twisted it out and thumbed it off in a single motion, and as the echo of it bounced for another second around his head he realized with a sinking feeling that he was too late. Static at that intensity could mean only that the

  Qasamans were attempting to jam all radio communications in the area. They were making their move-

  "Gif!" a voice hissed.

  Pyre froze, his eyes shifting between the two Qasamans crouched facing him from half-concealed positions. The pistols pointed his way seemed larger than those he'd seen others wearing; the mojos with their wings poised for flight were certainly more alert. One of the men muttered something to his companion and stepped toward Pyre, gun steady on the Cobra's chest.

  There was no time to consider the full implications of his actions, no consideration beyond getting out of this without bringing the rest of the troops down on him. Clearly, his captors still hoped to keep their presence secret from the Dewdrop; just as clearly, they'd lose that preference once he made his own move. His first attack would have to be fast and clean.

  Pyre had never killed a human being before. His closest brush with such a thing had been on that awful day long ago when Jonny Moreau and a man apparently returned from the dead shot down Challinor's fledgling Cobra warlords in two or three seconds of the most terrifying display of laser fire he'd ever seen, then or since. For a teenaged boy on a struggling colony world such a slaughter had been the stuff of nightmares-particularly as the knowledge of his own early support of Challinor carried with it a small but leaden piece of the responsibility for the deaths. The last thing he wanted to do was to add more deaths to that weight between his shoulders.

  But he had no choice. None at all. His sonic weapons could stun men at this range, but not for long enough... and the necessary frequencies were unlikely to be effective on the two mojos. All of them had to be silenced before any of them-human or mojo-could screech out a warning.

  The leading man was barely two meters away now, properly staying out of his partner's line of fire. Four
instants of eye contact to give his nanocomputer its targets; the gentle pressure of tongue against the roof of his mouth to key automatic fire control... and as the Qasaman opened his mouth to speak Pyre fired.

  His little fingers spat laser bursts, arms and wrists shifting in response to the computer-directed servos within them. Like all his Cobra reflexes, this one was incredibly fast, and it was all over almost before he had a chance to wince.

  That wasn't so hard, he thought, dropping to a crouch as he waited to see if the quiet crash of falling bodies would draw attention. Not too hard at all. And his eyes strayed to the corpse which had landed almost beside him and the head where the laser burn would be, though the undergrowth was hiding it, and the mojo who had died so quickly its talons still gripped its epaulet perch, and he began to tremble violently and tried hard not to throw up.

  He waited for nearly half a minute, until the worst of the muscle spasms had subsided and the taste of bile had left his mouth, before resuming his cautious move forward. With no buzzing earphone to startle him this time, he made it the rest of the way to his laser without attracting attention. Once, as he was pulling the device from concealment, he saw another Qasaman; but the other was looking another way and Pyre was able to complete his task without being spotted.