Cobra Guardian: Cobra War: Book Two (19 page)

"Not at all," Jody said. "As I said before, the fleeceback is just the bait. Once it's busy licking tardrop husk off the door, we send a gigger in after it."

"And you're expecting the Trofts to panic when they see a
gigger
charging at their ship?" Harli said again, his patience starting to show signs of coming apart.

"Not the gigger itself, no," Jody said. "But when they see what we've attached to the gigger's mouth tusks, maybe." Reaching to her belt, she unhooked the stun stick. "This."

Harli stared at the weapon, his forehead furrowed in thought. Then, slowly, his forehead cleared, and to Jody's astonishment he actually smiled. It was a thin smile, cold and not particularly friendly. But it was a smile. "Nice," he said. "We rig the stun stick to go off when the gigger hits the hull with it."

"Making for a nice high-voltage light show," Matigo added. Unlike Harli, he wasn't smiling. But at least his tone wasn't as hostile as it usually was. "And there's no place on a fleeceback to tie the thing, which is why you're talking a three-stage operation. Cute."

"Might even work," Harli said. He gestured to Matigo. "Take a couple of men and go hunt us down a fleeceback. I saw a couple of tardrop bushes back a ways--pick up some of the fruit while you're at it. Tracker, you're in charge of finding us a gigger."

"That won't be necessary," Jody said. "We have a caged one back at our camp."

"You have a caged
gigger
?" Harli asked, sounding stunned.

"She's right," Kemp confirmed. "I saw it."

Harli held up his hands. "I'm not even going to ask. Fine. Kemp, take Tracker and go get it. The rest of us will head around the rim and look for a good staging area."

He gestured. "We're burning darkness, gentlemen. Let's get to it."

Chapter Ten

The plumbing supply store Emile half led, half dragged Lorne into wasn't as crowded as the street, but there were still plenty of people milling around inside, busily cleaning the place out of supplies. Some of Capitalia's residents, apparently, were taking the long view of the Troft occupation. Still holding onto Lorne's arm, Emile maneuvered them through the shoppers and into an unoccupied office in the back.

"All right," the bulky man said when he'd closed the door behind them. "You obviously didn't get the memo, so let me lay it out for you. We are not, repeat,
not
to attack, antagonize, or otherwise disturb the Trofts. Got that?"

Lorne stared at him. "You're joking."

"Do I
look
like I'm joking?" Emile countered, pointing both index fingers at his scowling face. "That's straight from Governor-General Chintawa and the Directorate. Everyone in government service is to stand down and wait for further instructions."

"Including the Cobras?"

"
Especially
the Cobras," Emile growled. "Whatever the hell you thought you were doing up there, I hope you had fun, because that was your last hurrah."

"Until when?" Lorne asked.

"Like I said, until further instructions," Emile said.

Lorne stared at him, a hazy numbness settling across his mind. So they were giving up? The whole planet was just giving up?

Or was this some sort of Troft trick? "You have any proof of this order?" he asked.

Emile snorted. "What, you want an official government document with time-stamp fibers?"

"That would be nice," Lorne said. "Let's start with where you got your information. Better yet, let's start with some proof of who you are."

Scowling, Emile lifted his left hand and fired a low-power laser blast from his little finger into the floor. "Emile Chun-Wei, Dome Security, Cobra contingent," he said formally. "And you're Lorne Broom, current assignment DeVegas Province." He gave Lorne a tight smile. "Don't look so surprised.
No one
gets into the Dome without being properly logged in. Not even an off-the-record visitor to the governor-general." The smile turned sour. "Not even when he's the son of the infamous Jin Moreau."

"Her name is
Jasmine
Moreau Broom," Lorne said stiffly. "Only family and friends get to call her Jin."

"Whatever," Emile growled. "The point is that while you were stomping around the sewers this morning, the rest of us Cobras were setting up talking posts all across the city." He smiled again, or maybe it was more of a smirk. "And yes, we know all about you and Governor Treakness making for Crystal Lake."

Lorne grimaced. "The white-haired man back in Wei Kei's," he said, nodding. "Yes, I assumed at the time he wasn't close enough to overhear us. But of course, I also assumed a Cobra would have come over and offered to help."

"Those assumptions will get you every time," Emile said. "Interesting thing about it is that Chintawa hasn't said anything about Treakness being on any special missions."

Lorne felt his throat tighten. Treakness had told him Chintawa had authorized this mission. But he'd never heard it from Chintawa himself. Was it possible Treakness had made the whole thing up? "Maybe Chintawa was worried that word of the mission would leak out," he said, keeping his voice casual. "You mentioned talking posts. What are they?"

Emile rolled his eyes. "They're a set of top-floor windows where we sit with lights and tap out Dida code to each other," he said with exaggerated patience. "Surely your brother or father told you about Dida code."

"They may have mentioned it," Lorne conceded, feeling like an idiot. Of course he'd heard of Dida code. It was a semi-secret system of dots and dashes that Cobras on Aventinian big-city duty were taught at the beginning of their tenure, a fallback method for maintaining short- and medium-distance communication if the comm system ever failed.

Lorne's father presumably knew Dida, as did Lorne's brother Merrick, who'd been assigned to Capitalia two years ago. In fact, now that Lorne thought about it, he realized that Dida was probably what Merrick had been talking about way back then when he grumbled about the complexities of city duty. Lorne himself, with his own life and career still wrapped up in the expansion regions, had actually forgotten the system even existed. "Well, then, there's your answer," he told Emile. "Chintawa was afraid the Trofts would tap into your light show, so he didn't say anything."

"The Trofts don't know Dida code," Emile scoffed. But his tone nevertheless sounded a little less truculent.

"Doesn't mean they can't record what you send and decipher the messages later," Lorne pointed out.

"I suppose," Emile said. "Kinda moot now, though. Where's Treakness?"

"Why?" Lorne asked cautiously.

"Why do you think?" Emile growled. "So we can take him back to the Dome and get the Trofts off our backs about our missing governor."

Lorne stared at him. "You mean you're just going to hand him over to them?"

"Of course," Emile said. "Face it, Broom, there's nothing he can do flailing around out here on his own. The Trofts want him, and they're going to keep giving the whole city grief until they get him."

"Since when do we cave in to grief?" Lorne demanded. "What happened to the oaths we took as Cobras?"

"You mean our oath to defend the people of Aventine?" Emile countered. "The people who are going to be dumped on just because some cowardly politician feels like running instead of sticking around to face the music like everyone else?
Those
people?"

"Treakness isn't running," Lorne insisted. "He's on a mission."

"Again, who says?" Emile asked.

"Chintawa sent one of his aides to get me before the Trofts landed," Lorne said stubbornly. "Why would he do that if Treakness just made up this whole thing?"

"How should
I
know?" Emile asked impatiently. "He could have had a hundred reasons for wanting you in the Dome when the balloon went up. You seriously think Treakness isn't smart enough to spot an opportunity when it falls into his lap and grab it with both hands? Come on, kid, use your head. He's using you, pure and simple. Now, where is he?"

Lorne took a deep breath. "You're right, I don't know for sure what's going on," he said. "But I don't believe that Governor Treakness is lying to me. I also promised I'd do everything in my power to get him out of the city where he needs to go."

Emile shook his head. "You still don't get it, do you? You can't
get
him out. That's the point." He waved his hand. "You see this safe zone? It's an island. A completely enclosed chunk of civilization in the middle of a spiny-infested city. The rest of the safe zones are exactly the same: a few fenced-in streets centered around one or two of their sentry ships, completely isolated from all the others. Even if you had a car, you couldn't drive from one to another."

"What about the cars outside the safe zones?" Lorne suggested. "I could get Treakness out there and grab one of those."

"And you don't think the Trofts will notice you driving around?" Emile scoffed. "You think that just because they've seeded the area with a few spinies that they're ignoring those areas? Hardly. They have armored troop carriers driving around the spiny zones,
plus
a line of fresh transports coming in from orbit all the time that have orders to survey the territory on their way down,
plus
a bunch of observation drones flying around the city and countryside watching for unauthorized movement."

"Then I guess we'll just have to walk," Lorne said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, right--that'll work," Emile said sarcastically. "Just be sure the spinies leave enough of Treakness for the Trofts to identify afterward. Come on, we're wasting time."

"You're right, we are," Lorne agreed, bracing himself. "I'm leaving. You can help me or stay out of my way."

Emile barked a short laugh. "You really think--?"

And dropped to the floor like a heavy sack as the high-voltage current from Lorne's stunner arced through him.

For a long moment Lorne gazed down at the unconscious Cobra, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. If Emile was right--if Treakness had lied to Lorne about his mission and his instructions coming from Governor-General Chintawa . . .

But it was too late to worry about that now. Way too late. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he slipped out of the room.

He'd told Treakness he would rendezvous with the group six blocks west of the Hendrezon's building. Given the faster time Lorne had been making as he ran along the rooftops, he expected to be the first one to arrive. To his mild surprise, he reached the corner to find Poole and the elder Koshevski already waiting, the latter looking darkly around, the former with his arms crossed over his chest, his fingers tapping nervously against his rib cage.

"There you are," Poole said, sagging with relief as Lorne slipped through the crowd and came up to them. "I was afraid you'd been--I mean, after you left us, and then we got here--"

"Yeah, all of two minutes ago," Koshevski interrupted, eyeing Lorne. "Got to say, though, that was a damn good show."

"Glad you liked it," Lorne said, looking around. "Where are the others?"

"They stopped at one of the health stores down the block," Poole said, jerking his head back in the direction they'd come from. "Nissa thought some--" he lowered his voice conspiratorially "--some disguise materials were probably called for."

"Good idea," Lorne agreed, turning to Koshevski. "What's happening with your brother and his family?"

"They've got some friends down the street," Koshevski said. "They should be able to stay with them, at least for a while."

"What about you?" Lorne asked.

Koshevski shrugged. "I'll probably stick around. There's nothing back at my place I can't get here. Been wanting to spend more time with my nieces and nephew anyway." His lip twitched. "But first we've got to get you to Ridgeline."

Lorne frowned. After the man in the crowd who'd tried to sell him to the Trofts, and Emile's flat-out refusal to lift a finger to help them, he'd sort of expected Koshevski to bail on them, too. "You're still up for that?"

"A deal's a deal," Koshevski said with another shrug. "There's an access point behind an arbor bench a block over that we should be able to use without being spotted. Soon as the others get here, we'll head over and you can take a look."

"Sounds good." Lorne nodded toward an exotic foods shop across the street. "Let's go look around in there while we wait. We're a bit conspicuous just standing around."

Most of the more popular foodstuffs had already been cleared off the shelves, with only a few of the more acquired-taste items remaining. Lorne kept an eye on the rendezvous corner as they browsed, and when he spotted Nissa and Treakness approaching he bought a package of cured Esquiline trihorn meat and ushered the others back outside.

The two groups reached the corner at the same time. "I see you're still alive," Treakness greeted Lorne shortly. "Good."

"Thanks for your concern," Lorne said stiffly. "You're looking interesting yourself."

Treakness snorted. "I look like a fool," he said bluntly, patting gingerly at the streaks of color Nissa had run through his hair. "Hair coloring, cheekbone highlighting, and whatever this stuff is she's got all over my face."

"It's tan-effect," Nissa said. "It darkens your skin."

"And it itches like crazy," Treakness growled. "We have a plan?"

"Access point's half block that way," Koshevski said, nodding in that direction. "We're ready when you are."

"Excellent," Treakness said. Apparently, the thought that Koshevski might quit now that he'd gotten what he wanted had never occurred to him. "Lead on."

The access point was as Koshevski had described, tucked away behind the bench and spread of miniature trees that formed the small pedestrian arbor area, and just inside the Trofts' fence. "This should do nicely," Treakness said, looking around as the group gathered together around the cover. "Whenever you're ready, Broom."

"In a second," Lorne said, keying in his enhancers and giving the sky above them a quick but careful scan. "I'm told the Trofts have observation drones flying over the city."

"Where'd you hear that?" Koshevski asked.

"From someone who should know," Lorne said. If the Trofts had any drones up there at the moment, though, they were too high for him to spot. "Get ready," he said, getting a grip on the access cover. "Koshevski, you're first."