Cobra Slave-eARC (23 page)

And then, suddenly, she saw it. The second word of each line, read down the paper instead of across:

Cobra circuit break southwest corner by office wreck all secondaries first

Mentally, she threw Yates a salute. It was, in retrospect, the simplest and most elegant way to bring a modern factory to a sudden halt. No need to damage the machines themselves if you could cut off the power running to them.

Especially since these circuit breakers probably weren’t the kind you could pick up at a home-supply store.

The main breaker panel was easy to find: a large roll-up panel door with the words Main Breaker Panel printed on it in bright white letters. Behind the door were ten fuse-type circuit breakers twice the size of Jin’s upper arm fastened vertically to the panel’s back wall and linked at both ends to shielded cable conduits as big around as her wrist. The secondaries mentioned in Yates’s note weren’t nearly so obvious, and it took her a couple of tense minutes to locate them in one of the drawers of a large storage cabinet a few meters away.

Her next move was even more problematic. She turned one of the spares over in her hands a few times, trying to figure out the best way to disable it. Unlike her home’s breakers, which could be reset after they were popped, these were single-use devices: through the heavy plastic window in the center she could see a wide strip of metal that was apparently designed to melt if it got too hot, or if the current through it ran too high.

Fortunately, heat and current were two items Cobras had literally at their fingertips. A little experimentation showed that a couple of seconds’ worth of fingertip laser fire into one of the breaker’s connections conducted enough heat into the strip to snap it across its center. Jin gave the connector a couple more seconds of fire, watching as the half still connected to that end melted into a small reservoir cup at the breaker’s bottom.

Three minutes later, all the rest of the backup breakers had similarly been turned into scrap and were back in their drawer.

The breakers in the panel weren’t going to be quite so straightforward. The cables they were wired to were big and heavy, with thick grounding sheaths that would wick away most of the heat from her laser. Either she was going to have to remove the breakers, one by one, from their positions, or leave them where they were and use her arcthrower instead.

She eyed the conduits, an unpleasant chill running up her back. Normally, the arcthrower was easy enough to use, and as safe as any weapon that involved thousands of volts of current could possibly be. Unfortunately, in this case there was a hidden but potentially lethal threat lurking beneath the surface. The arcthrower worked in conjunction with a low-power precursor blast from her fingertip laser that partially ionized the air and created a path for the current.

She’d never tried the weapon on a line that already had high-voltage current running through it. If the voltage was high enough to run backwards along the ionized path, her first shot might end up electrocuting her.

Still, chances were good that with the whole plant on standby the voltages running through the breakers was pretty small. She could also hedge somewhat against the danger by being off the ground when she fired. But whatever the risks, she had to try it. Putting targeting locks on the first two breakers in line, she jumped straight up and fired her arcthrower.

She’d expected a repeat of the quiet demise of the spare breakers. No such luck. Alloys that would melt with a relatively gradual increase in heat weren’t in any way prepared to suddenly have thousands of extra volts slammed into them. The strips vaporized instantly, the force of the explosions shattering their plastic enclosures and cracking the rest of the ceramic casing.

And suddenly, Jin was on borrowed time. Every Dominion tech and Marine within a hundred meters would have heard that double crack. She had to wreck the rest of the breakers before someone decided to come see what all the noise was about. Hitting the floor, she targeted the next four, jumped, and again fired the arcthrower.

Only to find that her capacitors only had enough juice for three shots fired that closely together. Cursing under her breath, she again landed, targeted the next three in line, leaped and fired, then landed and target-locked the final two. She gave herself a three-second pause to make sure she had enough current, then leaped one final time.

Only this one wasn’t one of the short hops, but a full-servo jump that should get her all the way back up to the line of hoppers and girders above her head. She fired her arcthrower on the way up, and had the satisfaction of hearing two final pops. As she reached the top of her leap, she caught the edge of one of the wider girders and pulled herself up and over on top of it.

The nearest cover was another four meters away, but some instinct warned her that she didn’t have time to get there. Dropping flat onto her stomach on the girder, she pulled her arms tightly into her sides and lay still.

Just in time. She’d barely settled herself against the cold metal when there was the clatter of multiple footsteps from below and at least four people rushed into the room.

“What the—?” someone snarled, his voice so twisted with fury and disbelief that she was barely able to recognize it as Yates’s. “What in the name of hell did you do this time?”

“That wasn’t us,” Synchs protested, sounding even more horrified by the sight of the ruined breaker board than Yates did. Small wonder—he and his fellow workers would probably bear the brunt of Reivaro’s anger when he found out about this. “We haven’t even fired up any of the—”

“Can it butterboy,” a new voice cut him off, this one hard and suspicious. “Don’t you know sabotage when you see it? You’ve got five seconds to tell us where he is.”

“Where who is?” Yates countered angrily, fresh footsteps and a shift in his voice’s location showing that he was hurrying the rest of the way to the breaker box. “You’re the ones who supposedly cleared the whole place out this morning.”

“You told the colonel we had everyone,” the voice said. “Hey—get away from there.”

“Sure—like there’s anything more I could do,” Yates bit out sarcastically. There was the creak of metal hinges— “At least the main wiring’s still okay. We should be able to replace the breakers and get it back online. Might need to hammer out the connectors and casings a little.”

“The alarm’s out, Lieutenant,” another new voice said. “Perimeter’s ninety percent contained. If he’s still in here, we’ll get him.”

“I tell you, none of my people did this,” Yates insisted, the last word nearly lost in the metallic thud as he slammed the access door closed again. “You probably misprogrammed something when you were retasking one of the meldors—”

“Shut up,” the lieutenant said. His voice was quiet, but there was something in his tone that made Yates abruptly stop talking. “Call in the outer ring and organize a search of the building. While you do that, Mr. Yates and I are going to have a chat with the colonel.”

“What about us?” Synchs asked nervously.

“You get back to work,” the lieutenant told him. “Yates is right—we’ll have this mess fixed soon. When it is, you won’t want to be the ones holding up the colonel’s parade. Get moving.”

Once again, the room echoed with the sounds of footsteps heading swiftly across the room. But even as they faded away Jin had the impression that not all of the men had left. She waited another moment, then keyed in her audios.

Sure enough, there was the sound of breathing coming from directly below her, and a set of quieter footsteps as someone moved toward the ruined breaker box. “Record damage profile,” the lieutenant’s voice came softly. “Key for analysis.” There were a few more seconds of breathing, followed by a loud creak which startled Jin until she realized it was the sound of the service door Yates had opened earlier. Another pause as the Marine apparently looked inside, then another creak and thunk as he closed it again. “Search leader, acknowledged,” he murmured, and now his footsteps were crossing the room in the direction the rest of the group had taken. “Cross-confirm all emergency exits are still set to alarm when opened. If he was able to slip outside after his attack, we’ll need an immediate mag of the search area.”

Jin grimaced. It sounded like they already had the outside of the plant buttoned up, with another team on its way inside to hunt her down. It was lucky for her that she had a backup plan.

Or rather, that Yates had had a backup plan.

Because there was no reason she could think of why he’d made such a point of checking the wiring behind the breaker panel. Even the lieutenant had apparently found it odd enough to go look in there himself. The best explanation was that Yates had known she was still here and had wanted her to know about that specific access panel.

She waited until the lieutenant’s footsteps faded completely away, raised her head for a quick look, then rolled off the girder and dropped as silently as possible to the floor. Crossing to the access door, she eased it open.

Yates had a plan, all right. Not only did the door give access to the heavy wiring behind the box, but it also led upward into a narrow ventilation conduit. Jin had no idea where the conduit led, but right now it didn’t matter. What she needed was a place to ride out the initial search, and this was probably the best she was going to get.

Getting a grip on the cables, she pulled herself up and in, closing the door behind her. Now if Paul and the mob gathered outside could slip away while Reivaro was distracted by the job of finding her and fixing the damage, they might actually pull this one off.

Of course, Yates himself was probably going to be in hot water for awhile. Hopefully, he had enough pull with the Dome to keep Reivaro off his back.

Three meters up from the breaker box, she found a place where she could wedge herself in place without risk of falling. Getting as comfortable as she could, she closed her eyes, concentrated on her hearing, and settled in to wait.

#

The crowd was slowly settling down, and Paul was starting to hope that the worst of the riot threat had passed, when a sudden wave of fresh uneasiness ran through the assembly.

“What we have to do is make sure we don’t overreact,” he continued his current point, watching the group closely. Their eyes were on the building entrance, he saw, a focus that was steadily changing. Someone, apparently, had left the plant and was coming up behind him. “We have to think things through, and to explore all options—”

“Such as sabotage?” Reivaro’s voice came from behind him.

Paul turned. Reivaro and three Marines stood between him and the line of Cobras, the colonel’s expression unreadable, the Marines’ faces hard-edged. Back by the door of the plant, he could see Yates glowering in the grip of two more Marines. “I’m sure your men have been listening closely,” Paul said. “I never once suggested sabotage or violence of any sort.”

“No, you didn’t,” Reivaro agreed. “But what you said or didn’t say hardly matters now. The plant has been sabotaged. And with that action, you people have left me no choice.”

He lifted a hand. “In the name of the Dominion of Man,” he called, his voice suddenly booming across the open space, “I declare the city of Archway and the region of DeVegas province to be under full martial law.”

And as the last echo of his voice faded from the air, three large air vehicles rose from concealment from behind rows of trees a kilometer away and shot across the landscape to a sudden and simultaneous halt at the edges of the crowd. There they sat, hovering on their grav lifts like monstrous metal birds of prey.

“Impressive,” Paul said, striving for calm. The aircraft bristled with weapons, all of them trained on the crowd now frozen like terrified rabbits beneath them. “The synchronization was especially nice. Good for impressing the simple natives.”

“If the evidence of force is sufficient, sometimes force itself doesn’t have to be used,” Reivaro said calmly. “Let’s hope you Cobras learn that lesson as fast as the other simple natives.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning this.” Reivaro turned to face the line of Cobras, their expressions ranging from confused to wary to fuming to calculating. “As part of that martial law,” he called, again raising his voice loudly enough for the entire assembly to hear, “all Cobras are to be immediately brought into the Dominion military, under my command locally and through the hierarchy to the ultimate authority of Commodore Rubo Santores.”

“Like hell we are,” one of the Cobras spat. “We’re under the authority of—”

“As token of your new rank and position,” Reivaro continued, gesturing to two of the Marines, “you’ll be fitted with red insignia neckbands.”

The Marines stepped to opposite ends of the line and pulled bright red neckbands from hip pouches. They reached up to fasten the bands around the two nearest Cobras—

And staggered as both were thrown a meter backward by simultaneous stiff-arm shoves. “We don’t take orders from anyone but Commandant Ishikuma,” one of the Cobras said.

“And we aren’t wearing your damn collars,” the other added scornfully. “Collars are for dogs.”

“And Dominion Marines,” the first Cobra added.

“Like I said,” the second replied.

“Commandant Ishikuma has been relieved of duty,” Reivaro said. “As to chain of command, you’ll be receiving confirmation from the Dome within the hour as to the declaration of martial law and your new status.”

“That’s fine,” Paul spoke up, trying to ease some of the tension. The anger out there was getting dangerously close to the flash point. “When we do, we’ll resume this conversation.”

“I think not,” Reivaro said, an odd edge of anticipation on his face. “By then, you’ll have scattered across the province where you’ll be difficult to track down. No, we’ll do this now.”

“Over our dead bodies,” the first Cobra.

“If necessary, yes,” Reivaro said coldly. “And I urge you not to take that as hyperbole. Dominion martial law permits summary judgment and summary execution.”

An fresh ripple of uneasiness ran through the crowd at Paul’s back. “You can’t be serious,” he said.