Cobra Guardian: Cobra War: Book Two (3 page)

"Not if he's willing to pull a Cobra in from frontier duty," Corwin agreed heavily. "Especially right after a major spine leopard attack in the same general region. Any chance he could be persuaded to accept the story that she and Merrick are off on a retreat somewhere?"

"No," Lorne said. "And in fact, he pointed out the logical flaw in it: that they wouldn't go off without leaving some way of contacting them."

"Yes, that was always the weak spot," Corwin said heavily. "I should have come up with something better."

"You didn't have much time," Thena pointed out. "Besides, there was no way to guess that anyone would take more than a passing interest in their absence."

"I suppose," Corwin conceded. "So now what?"

"Well, we can't pretend they're hiding here," Thena said slowly. "If Chintawa is determined enough to get a search warrant, a few patrollers could pop that balloon within half an hour."

"So again, they're somewhere else," Corwin said. "Someplace where Lorne presumably can try to call them."

"Right now?" Lorne asked, pulling out his comm.

"Yes, this would be good," Corwin confirmed, looking at his watch. "You've been here just long enough to have consulted with us, and for us to have decided together that this is worth breaking into her solitude. Go ahead--your mother first."

Lorne nodded and punched in his mother's number. "I presume this is purely for the benefit of anyone who might decide to pull my comm records later?"

"Correct." Corwin hesitated. "It'll also put all the rest of us in a slightly better legal position should the worst-case scenario happen."

Lorne felt his throat tighten. That scenario being if his mother and brother got caught sneaking back onto Aventine from Qasama and were brought up on charges of treason.

At which point, of course, all of Uncle Corwin's caution would go scattering to the four winds, because Lorne was absolutely not going to hunker down behind legal excuses while two of his family stood in the dock. He would be right up there with them, as would his father and sister. And probably Uncle Corwin and Aunt Thena, too.

At which point Chintawa and the Directorate would have to decide whether they really wanted to risk the kind of political fallout that could come of prosecuting the whole family.

Lorne almost hoped they did. He would use the occasion to make sure the true story of his mother's original mission to Qasama got brought up into the open from the shallow grave where Uncle Corwin's political enemies had buried it.

"Hello, this is Jasmine," his mother's voice came in his ear. "I'm not available right now, but if you'd care to leave a message . . ."

Lorne waited for the greeting to run its course, recorded a short message telling her to call as soon as it was convenient, and keyed off. "Now Merrick?" he asked.

Corwin nodded, and Lorne went through the same charade with his brother's voice stack. "That sound okay?" he asked when he was finished.

"Perfect," Corwin said. "Another half hour, I think, and it'll be time to try again." He squinted toward one of the windows that looked out onto the walkway leading between the front door and the gate at the edge of the grounds. "Meanwhile, let's put our heads together and see if we can come up with a plan."

"We can do that while we eat," Thena said firmly. "If we're all going to end up in jail tonight, we might as well have a good meal first."

* * *

Lunch was, Lorne assumed, up to Thena's usual culinary standards. He didn't know for sure because he didn't really taste any of it. His full attention then, and for the rest of the afternoon, was on their conversation and brainstorming.

He continued to call his mother and brother at half-hour intervals, leaving messages that under Uncle Corwin's coaching gradually increased in anxiety and frustration. It would take a preliminary indictment and court order to tap into those messages, he knew, but at this point he wouldn't put anything past Chintawa.

Late in the afternoon the governor-general himself called, looking for a progress report. In complete honesty, Lorne told him that, no, the missing family members weren't at Uncle Corwin's, and that he hadn't been able to get hold of either of them by comm. Chintawa ordered him to keep trying, and hung up.

The three of them were sitting down to dinner when Nissa called to ask Lorne if he would be needing her to drive him anywhere else. Lorne assured her that he would be staying the night, and that he'd be sure to call her if and when he needed to go somewhere. She reminded him that she was always available, should he change his mind, slipped in a subtle reminder that wandering off without her would get both of them in trouble with Chintawa, and wished him a pleasant good evening.

"You'd better watch that girl," Corwin warned after Lorne relayed the conversation. "She may come across as a wide-eyed ingenue standing high above the political mud, but she clearly knows how to find and push a person's buttons."

"What, because she told me she'd get in trouble if I ditched her?" Lorne scoffed.

"Exactly," Corwin said. "Take it from someone who once played on that same field. She's got your profile down cold, and I don't think she'd hesitate to bring the lasers to bear if she was ordered to do so."

They finished dinner, which Lorne again assumed was excellent, and continued talking well past sundown and into the night. A hundred plans were brought up, discussed, and ultimately discarded, and by the time Lorne said his good-nights and headed to the guest room they were no further toward a solution than they were when they'd started.

He slept fitfully, waking up for long stretches at a time. Probably the city noises, he told himself, which he was no longer accustomed to after all the time he'd spent fighting spine leopards at the edges of civilization.

It was still dark, and he'd finally fallen into a deep sleep, when he was jolted awake by the trilling of his comm.

He grabbed the device and keyed it on, his first half-fogged thought that Merrick and his mother were back on Aventine and were returning his calls. "Hello?" he croaked.

"It's Nissa," Nissa's voice came, quivering with tension. "Get dressed--I need to get you back to the Dome right away. I'll be there in five minutes--"

"Wait a second, hold on," Lorne interrupted, his brain snapping fully awake at the simmering panic in her voice. "What's going on?"

"There's no time," she said. "An astronomer at North Bank picked up a fleet of ships--Troft ships, they think--heading eastward towards Capitalia from orbit. And none of the ships register on radar."

Lorne felt his muscles tense as the full implications of that fact blew away the last wisps of sleepiness. "I'll meet you at the gate," he said, and keyed off. Dropping the comm on the bed, he grabbed for his clothes.

He'd been afraid the call was bad news about his mother and brother. It was far worse . . . because there was just one type of ship designed not to show up on traffic control's radar.

Warships.

A century ago, the Dominion of Man had set up the Aventine colony, ostensibly as a way to get rid of the Cobra war veterans, but also as a deterrent to the Trofts against launching future attacks on Dominion worlds. Barely twenty-five years later, the colonists' connection to the rest of humanity had been closed, but the deterrent effect of the Cobras' presence had remained.

Until now. It was unbelievable. It was insane. But apparently, it was also true. The Cobras' century-old bluff had been called.

Aventine was under attack.

Chapter Two

"The secret to a contented life," Paul Broom commented sagely as he scraped bits of green spore off his silliweave tunic, "is to find a comfortable morning routine and stick with it."

Jody Broom paused in the process of scraping her own tunic and gave her father one of the disbelieving stares she'd worked so hard to master during her teenage years. "You really want to be saying things like that when I have a razor in my hand?" she asked.

"But I thought this was the life you'd always dreamed about," he said, turning innocent eyes on her. "Out here in the wilds of humanity's frontier, degrees in animal physiology and management firmly in hand, cutting an impressive swath through--" He indicated the tunic in his hand. "Well, through tiny little creatures growing on silicon clothing."

"Oh, this is the life, all right," Jody said sourly, turning back to her work. "It's also been occurring to me more and more lately that I could just as easily have turned my impressive animal management degree into the field of hamster breeding."

"Hamsters? Pheh," her father scoffed. "Where's the fame and glory in that?"

"You ever see a hamster go rogue?" Jody countered. "Or worse, a whole herd of them?"

Paul gave a low whistle. "I had no idea how dangerous--" He broke off, shifting his scraper to his other hand and flashing a fingertip laser blast across the room. Jody turned in time to see a coin-sized buzzic drop to the floor. "How dangerous livestock that size could be," he continued, his eyes carefully sweeping the room. "I'm grateful now that you didn't choose to go into that line of work. Get down a bit, would you?"

Jody dropped into a low crouch, wincing as her father fired four more laser shots over her head into the wall and ceiling. There were four more thunks, louder ones this time, and she turned to see four freshly killed thumb-sized flycrawlers smoldering on the floor behind her. "I think they're getting bigger," Paul commented.

"Almost big enough to take on my hamster farm," Jody agreed, her throat tightening. "How in the Worlds are bugs that size getting in?"

"The boys must have missed a spot," Paul said, crossing the room and peering down at the insects. "Maybe in one of the upper corners or alongside a window where a vine's taken root and started pulling the plaster apart. You let them get a foothold and start a crack, and that's all they need."

Jody went to her father's side. Already tiny spots of green were starting to appear on the burned insect carcasses as microscopic airborne spores found something to eat and set to work with a vengeance. And once the flycrawlers settled in, she knew, the micewhiskers would be right behind them, and before long it would take a Cobra to clear them all out.

Luckily for Jody and her two teammates, they had one. "Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am you came along on this trip?" she asked her father.

"Once or twice," he assured her. "I was just trying to think of that poem. ‘Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em. And little fleas something something.' "

" ‘And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so
ad infinitum
,' " Jody quoted. "Except that on Caelian, the whole process seems to work backwards."

There was a double thunk as the airlock door one room over opened and closed, and Jody turned to see Geoff Boulton and Freylan Sonderby walk into the room. "Okay, the house is all scraped," Geoff announced briskly as he brushed at some dust on his tunic sleeve. "Ready to head out as soon as--" He stopped as he suddenly seemed to notice the odd way Jody and her father were standing. "What is it?" he asked.

Paul gestured silently to the floor. Geoff threw a look at Freylan, and the two young men crossed to Jody's side.

For a moment no one said anything, but simply stood in their semicircle staring at the dead insects as if it was some sort of funereal viewing ritual. Then, Freylan stirred. "It's the southeast corner," he said. "There's a flange up there that I've never thought looked quite right."

"And you didn't do anything about it?" Geoff asked, a dark edge to his voice.

"I thought it was all right," Freylan said with a sigh. "It looked solid enough, just a little oddly shaped."

"What did Governor Uy tell us when we first got here?" Geoff demanded. "Odd shapes, odd fittings, and odd colorations are the first signs of trouble. Blast it all, Freylan." He waved a hand in disgust. "Come on--show me where it is."

"You won't be able to reach it," Freylan said, a sort of kicked-dog look in his eyes as he headed back toward the door. "The step stool isn't tall enough. We'll have to find a ladder we can borrow."

"I can get up there," Paul volunteered. "Let me finish with my tunic and I'll go with you."

"Go ahead," Jody said. "I'll finish your tunic."

"What, go out in my underwear?" Paul asked, sounding vaguely scandalized as he gestured to his silliweave singlet.

"People in Stronghold go outside in their underwear all the time," Jody growled, warning him with her eyes. This wasn't the time for jokes.

Fortunately, he got the message. "We'll be back in a minute," he said. He gestured Freylan ahead of him, and the two men left the room.

"I'll do that," Geoff growled, holding out his hand as Jody picked up her father's tunic. "You've got your own to do."

"I've got it," Jody said firmly, half turning and bumping his arm aside with her shoulder as he tried to take the tunic from her. "You go make sure the packs are ready."

"Are you mad at me for telling Freylan he screwed up?" Geoff demanded. "Damn it all, Jody, this is
Caelian
. You screw up here and you get eaten alive."

"Yes, I remember the lecture," Jody said as she started scraping the bits of green off the tunic. "I also remember that none of us has exactly been the pride of the litter as far as screw-ups are concerned."

"We've been here eleven days," Geoff growled. "Screw-up incidence is supposed to be on a downward curve by now."

"It is," Jody said flatly. "And jumping down Freylan's throat isn't going to flatten the curve any faster."

Geoff hissed between his teeth. "You're sorry you came along on this fiasco, aren't you?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you're
thinking
it."

Jody didn't answer, but kept working at the tunic. There wasn't supposed to be anything organic in the material for the little green spores to eat, but as the wind blew the spores themselves through the Caelian air, it also blew along microscopic bits of their food.

And as her father had pointed out, letting even harmless spores get ahead of them was the first step on the road to disaster.