Cobra Gamble (12 page)

Jody frowned. What in the Worlds had he thrown? A rock?

And then, abruptly, the Trofts at the point of impact collapsed to the ground, their falling bodies jostling against those nearest to them. Before their off-balance neighbors could recover, they too staggered and disappeared beneath the sea of waving hands. For a few seconds the effect rippled outward, dropping the aliens as if a silent grenade had been tossed into their midst. Below Jody, Freylan was again in motion, throwing a second object into a different part of the group. Again, the Trofts at the impact point began to stagger and fall.

An instant later, all hell broke loose.

Ten of the Trofts on the edge of the group closest to Freylan abruptly turned and charged away from the latest rippling mass collapse, forming themselves into a close-packed sweeping wedge as they ran. They were maybe ten meters from the rest of the prisoners when the Troft in the lead gave a hand signal, and the whole wedge shifted direction.

Heading directly toward Freylan.

Jody gasped. "Freylan!" she shouted out the drone hatch. "Get inside! Quick!"

But it was too late. Freylan was midway through his third throw, his body twisted and off balance, his feet out of position for any sort of movement, let alone a mad dash anywhere. Jody saw him twitch violently as he spotted the wedge of Trofts charging toward him, and he tried desperately to get himself back into balance. There was some sort of guttural shout from down there, but she couldn't tell whether it came from Freylan or from the Trofts. Freylan's knees gave a sudden, hopeless twitch, which the powered Djinni suit transformed into a two-meter leap.

Only it was his final mistake... because instead of taking him sideways or back toward the warship or anywhere else useful, the reflexive leap had instead sent him soaring straight upward. He would hit the ground again, Jody estimated, just in time to land right in front of the charging Trofts.

At which point they would have the choice of simply knocking him over and continuing on toward the forest, or of pausing long enough to beat him to death.

Clenching her hands around the edge of the drone hatchway, Jody watched helplessly as Freylan hit the top of his arc and started back down.

And jerked in surprise as a multiple burst of laser fire flashed across the landscape beneath him.

She'd completely forgotten about Kemp, standing his quiet guard down at the warship's entrance. Apparently, so had the Trofts. The bolts slashed across the line of charging aliens, dropping them into sprawling, smoking heaps on the ground. The fire cut off as Freylan hit the ground, once again blocking Kemp's line of fire.

He was starting to straighten up when the last two surviving Trofts slammed full-tilt into him, hurling him three meters backward to slam onto the ground.

Jody gasped with sympathetic pain. But even before the aliens had recovered their balance two final laser blasts dropped them to the ground with the others.

Jody took a deep, painful breath... and only then did it occur to her to look back up into the sky.

The Troft ship was considerably closer, close enough now that she could see it was definitely the size of a freighter or courier. But it was no longer coming toward Stronghold. It had instead veered ninety degrees toward the south and was hauling its gravs for all they were worth. They'd gotten the look they'd come for, all right.

And Caelian was suddenly in very big trouble.

* * *

"They were forming letters," Jody told the small group that had gathered around Governor Romulo Uy's hospital bed. "Tracing them out, actually, like a child might trace out an up-down-across to make a capital A." She demonstrated. "Each Troft had one letter, repeating it over and over, the whole mass of them tracing out the complete message."

"Only the letters were being traced out horizontally instead of vertically," Harli added. "Visible and obvious from above, but not from ground level." He looked at Jody. "Semi-obvious from above, anyway," he amended. "That was a good call."

Governor Uy gave a sound that was half groan and half grunt. "Don't know as I necessarily agree," he said. "That little battle has now put us in serious jeopardy. The enemy knows beyond a doubt that their invasion failed."

"They would have known that anyway," Harli pointed out. "If Jody and Freylan hadn't garbled the message, it would have given them that and probably a lot more."

"Or they might not even have noticed it was a message," Uy countered. "Or even if they had, they might have thought it was a joke."

"That seems unlikely," Harli said, his tone respectful but giving no ground. "Captain Eubujak certainly thought it would get through."

"Could you tell what it was, Jody?" Kemp asked.

"I didn't get very much," Jody admitted. "The first word was definitely
danger,
and I think the next four were
defeated Cobra numbers diminished.
Two of the ones in the middle, near where Freylan threw the first of his gas canisters, looked like
drone hatch.
But that's all I got."

"He was probably warning them how we got into their ship during the battle," Kemp suggested. "Good thing that little tidbit got erased. We might need to use that back door on the next ship."

Uy grunted again. "It would have been nice if the Qasamans had told us they'd left sleep-gas canisters with their combat suits." His eyes locked on Jody. "Or was that supposed to be a surprise?"

"The canisters are part of the suits," Jody said. "It probably never even occurred to them to mention them."

"And
your
excuse?"

"No excuse, Governor," Jody said, fighting against a surge of annoyance at the injured man. Despite what he obviously thought, none of any of this was her fault. "That wasn't the thrust of our work on the suits, so it also never occurred to us to mention them."

"And we
did
know about them," Harli put in firmly. "I'm mildly surprised that Freylan remembered the things and was able to use them. But I'm glad he did."

For a moment he and his father locked eyes, and Jody had the uncomfortable sense of the silent argument going on between them.

Uy blinked first. "I suppose," he acknowledged, shifting his eyes to one of the other Cobras standing around the hospital room. "Gaber, I assume you've had a talk with Captain Eubujak about this little stunt?"

"For all the good it did," Gaber said ruefully. "All he'll say is that escape is the right and privilege of every prisoner of war, and more or less dared us to punish him for it."

"You ask him what the message was?" Kemp asked.

"I did, and he wouldn't tell me." A hint of a smile touched Gaber's lips. "I did get the impression that he's rather astonished we figured out there
was
a message, let alone figured it out fast enough to do something about it. He did admit that the frontal assault on Freylan was mainly to force us to show the courier that we still had Cobras at our disposal."

"They would have guessed that anyway," Harli said. "This way, at least it cost Eubujak another ten of his troops."

"For whatever that's worth," Uy said. "So to summarize: they know we defeated their initial attack, that we wrecked one of their ships in the process, that we took nearly half of the Troft forces prisoner and killed the rest, and that we still have Cobras. That about cover it?"

"I think so," Harli said. "The next question is what we do now."

"Starting with how long we're going to have to come up with a plan," Gaber said. "It's, what, about five days to Qasama from here?"

"Qasama?" Harli growled. "They can get all the ships they want from Aventine."

"Oh, hell," Gaber muttered. "I hadn't thought about that. They could have a new force here in two days."

"I don't think so," Jody said. "Lorne and Rashida both said that the demesne markings on the warships at Aventine were different from the ones here."

"So?" Gaber asked. "They're allies, aren't they?"

"They may be allies, but they're still Trofts," Jody said. "The ones I've worked with have been extremely competitive, to the point where they'll waste ridiculous amounts of time and money rather than let even a business partner know about a weakness that they can exploit. A Drim courier ship isn't about to tell even an ally that the invasion team muffed it. They're going to go to the nearest Drim force, and according to Rashida that force is on Qasama."

"Unless the Drim have ships on Palatine or Esquiline," Gaber pointed out grimly.

"It doesn't matter," Harli cut in. "If they get help from any of the Cobra Worlds we're dead, period—there's no way we can be ready for them in two or three days. So let's assume Jody is right, and they have to go to Qasama. In that case, what's our timing look like?"

Jody curled her hands into fists. She was hardly an expert on Trofts, especially not on Troft military matters. But with Jennifer McCollom gone to Qasama, and given the rest of the Caelians' self-absorbed isolation, she was probably the best they had. "Let's assume the courier takes five days to get to Qasama," she said slowly, thinking it through. "That's about top speed for our freighters, so it's probably a fair guess. Warships, with all their extra mass and cross-section, will almost certainly be slower—six or seven at least. It may also take a day or two for the Drim commander on the scene to digest the report and decide what he wants to do."

"Or maybe not," Uy said. "Let's go with your eleven-day estimate. In fact, let's err on the safe side and say ten."

"Terrific," Kemp murmured. "Ten days to prepare for another invasion."

"We'll find a way to do it," Uy said. "Because we really don't have a choice." He looked over at his clock. "I want everyone back here in two hours, along with the city council and anybody from Essbend or Aerie who are still here. At that time, you're each to have at least two ideas to bring to the table. Understood?"

An affirmative murmur swept the room. "Good." Uy looked at Jody. "That goes for you, too, Ms. Broom. You
and
your two friends. Two ideas each, and they'd better be good."

"Yes, sir," Jody murmured.

"So get to it," Uy said, looking around the room. "I want answers, gentlemen, and I want them today." 

CHAPTER SEVEN

The under-road culvert was exactly where Miron Akim had said it would be, five kilometers up the road to Windloom. It was also as roomy as he'd said, and as easily rigged to be defensible against nocturnal predators.

He hadn't, however, said anything about its comfort, or lack of same. It wasn't long after they'd settled in for the night that Daulo realized why that part had been left out of the discussion.

Even Akim was apparently not all that impressed with the accommodations. During one of Daulo's frequent awakenings, this particular one a little after midnight, he saw Akim slip through the makeshift barrier at one end of the culvert and head out into the night, in the opposite direction from the clump of trees that Omnathi had earlier designated as the group's latrine. For a few minutes Daulo kept his eyes pried open, wondering whether Akim was searching for better padding for his sleeping blanket or whether he was giving up entirely on the culvert and had decided to take his chances with the predators.

But idle curiosity was no match for fatigue. Even with his aching muscles and back, the rigors of the day's events soon forced Daulo's eyelids closed again. The next time he awoke, the culvert and its occupants were once again silent and still.

He was still exhausted when the diffuse sunlight of morning awakened him for the final time. The rest of the group was already up, he saw as he carefully levered himself into a seating position, wincing at each movement and muscle twinge. Akim was passing out ration bars and water bottles, the six Djinn were busily repacking the equipment for travel, and Shahni Haafiz was scowling as he bit pieces off his breakfast.

Daulo had made it to his feet and was working himself into his wheelchair when Akim came over. "Good morning, Daulo Sammon," he said as he offered Daulo a ration bar and water bottle. "Did you sleep well?"

"Not especially, Marid Akim," Daulo confessed. "I'm afraid Sollas's hospital beds have spoiled me. Culverts just don't seem all that comfortable anymore."

Akim chuckled. "Yes; the soft decadence of a convalescent's life. Don't worry—I'm sure you'll readapt to real life soon enough."

"We can make a contest of it, you and I," Daulo offered. "I noticed you also needed to get up once or twice during the night to stretch your muscles."

Akim's eyes narrowed slightly. "You saw me leave?" he asked, an odd tone to his voice. "When?"

"It was a little after midnight," Daulo said, wondering if he should have lied, or perhaps said that it might have been just a dream. Too late now. "You said something to the Djinni standing guard at the western opening, then slipped out."

"And the second time?"

Daulo frowned. "The second time?"

"You said I left once or twice," Akim reminded him. "When was the second time?"

Daulo frowned.
Had
he said Akim had left twice? He must have. So what exactly had he meant by that? "I think I woke up again a little before dawn and saw you come in," he said slowly, trying to sort through the images, dreams, and half-dreams from the long night. "I just assumed you were coming back from another walk, that you hadn't been gone that whole time. Should I have not said anything?"

For a moment Akim gazed into his eyes, perhaps trying to discern whether or not Daulo was leaving anything out. Then, his lip twitched. "No, that's all right," he said. "But keep this between us, and don't tell any of the others." He looked significantly over at the glowering Haafiz.
"Any
of the others."

"I won't," Daulo promised.

"Good." Akim gestured at the food and water in Daulo's hands. "Then eat up, and prepare yourself for travel. We still have a good fifteen kilometers to go before we reach safety."

The road to Windloom and the villages beyond had been reasonably well maintained. But it was hardly up to the standards of the Great Arc's major roads, and Daulo's wheelchair bounced and bucked on the uneven surface as the group made their way along it. Occasionally they hit a patch that was rougher than usual, or else pockmarked with pits and potholes, which the wheelchair simply couldn't navigate. At those spots Daulo was obliged to get up and hobble across with the assistance of one of the Djinn while a second carried the chair.