Cobra Gamble (23 page)

By the time the sun had reached the tops of the tallest western trees, they were back in Stronghold.

Jody's plan had been to head immediately to her house and see how Freylan and Geoff were doing with the spore-repellant cloth. But Rashida insisted on first going to the Troft warship to look over the helm board again and run a quick comparison with the records Jody had made of the freighter's controls. Reluctantly, Jody agreed.

It was just as well that she had.

"The good news is that we should be able to translate everything you did in the freighter to here," she told Rashida after a quick but careful study of the boards. "The bad news is that you're not going to be able to do it alone."

"What?" Rashida asked, looking stunned. "But you said the pilot should be able to fly the ship alone."

"Under normal circumstances, he probably could," Jody said grimly. "But that didn't count on Captain Eubujak having five last minutes in here before the Cobras broke in."

Rashida's eyes widened some more. "Sabotage?"

"Yes, of a very clever sort," Jody said. "See here, how the power section and sensor monitor sections of the helm board are dark? Looks like he had just enough time to cut the cables that echoed those control systems from those particular boards over to here."

Rashida looked at the areas Jody had pointed out. "I don't understand," she said. "If he wished to completely disable the ship, why didn't he just destroy the entire board? I was told he and those with him were armed with lasers when they surrendered."

"Because he
didn't
want to completely disable the ship," Jody said. "A wrecked board would have meant no one would ever get the thing off the ground, at least not without a lot of work. What he did was make sure it took three people who knew what they were doing to fly the thing."

"His thought being that there wouldn't be that many humans on Caelian with such knowledge?"

"Exactly," Jody said. "Besides which, I don't think he'd given up hope of pulling a last-minute run for it. I'm guessing they had the grav lifts coming up to power when the Cobras came charging through that door."

Rashida let out a long, thoughtful breath. "All right," she said, still staring at the board. "You say three people can fly it. What about two?"

"Like who?" Jody countered. "Eubujak was right, you know. No one else on Caelian has even a clue how to run systems like this."

Rashida turned her gaze on Jody. "Except you."

"Including
me," Jody retorted. "I've never flown anything more complicated than an aircar in my life. I've never even
watched
anyone fly something this big."

"But you understand the language," Rashida reminded her, gesturing at the cattertalk script. "You watched while I ran through the procedures for flying the freighter, and you've already promised to help me adapt the procedures here. How much more complicated can it be for you to learn while you also teach me?"

"Rashida—" Jody held out her hands, palms upward. "I can't do this. I'm sorry. It's not that I
won't
do it. It's that I
can't."

"You're wrong," Rashida said quietly. "I've seen your family in action, Jody Moreau Broom. I've seen what your parents and brothers can do. You're part of a remarkable family, more remarkable even than the rest of your people. Whatever you choose to do, you
can
do it. I know you can."

Jody shook her head. "My family is Cobras, Rashida," she said. "The parents and brothers you so admire—they're all Cobras. That's the reason they're special, not some historical or mystical family name." She sighed. "But that being said, if we don't get this thing off the ground, it's going to sit here until the invaders' reinforcements arrive, at which point it probably gets turned back around against us."

"Yes, it does," Rashida said. "Which leaves us only two choices: fly it, or destroy it."

"And we can't destroy it this close to Stronghold without risking the city," Jody concluded reluctantly. "Which means that either way we have to learn how to fly the damn thing." She sighed again. "Sometimes I hate logic. Okay, fine. I'm in."

"Thank you," Rashida said. "You said the power and sensor functions have been detached?"

"Yes," Jody said. "And since power is probably more important than sensors, I'll have to handle that board."

"But won't we need the sensors, too?"

"Given that Eubujak made a point of disconnecting them, I'd say we probably will," Jody conceded. "We'll just have to hope we can find a way to preset them."

"Or," a voice said calmly from the doorway behind them, "you get a third person to run them."

Jody spun around, nearly wrenching her back in the process, a taste of bile welling suddenly into her throat. Kemp and Smitty stood just inside the doorway, their faces expressionless.

A brittle silence filled the room. "I don't suppose," Jody said, just to try to spark some reaction from those stone faces, "that we can convince you we were just goofing around."

"No," Kemp said with a simple, cold flatness that made her wince. "What the
hell
were you thinking. Broom?"

"She's not to blame," Rashida cut in before Jody could find an answer to that. "I insisted she not tell anyone."

"You can insist all you want," Kemp growled back, glowering openly at her now. "She's under no obligation to baby-sit your feelings or your honor or anything else." He shifted the glower to Jody. "She
is
under obligation to keep the people in charge up to date on everything that in any way impinges on our plans for the defense of Caelian."

"I'm sorry," Jody said between stiff lips, her stomach knotted painfully. It was one thing, she realized dimly, to talk with casual unconcern about her family's name when that name wasn't on the line. Only now, with it in danger of being dragged into public shame, did she realize how much it truly meant to her.

And yet, paradoxically, in that same instant she realized how little a name meant. Not when it was weighed against such things as life and freedom and victory. "I'rii sorry," she said again. "But assuming you've been listening the whole time, you know that we're right. We have to move this ship, and Rashida's the only one who can do that. You want to lock me away, or whatever you do to prisoners, fine. I'll take whatever punishment you or Harli want to throw at me."

Bracing herself, she sent as stern a look as she could manage upstream against Kemp's glare. "But Rashida has to stay free and able to work."

Kemp's eyebrows rose slightly on his forehead. "Are you bargaining with me, Broom?" he demanded. "You, of all people?"

Jody took a deep breath—

"Especially
you, who needs a third person to help you fly this bird?" he added in the same gruff tone.

Jody blinked, feeling the sudden discomfiting sensation of having been leaning against a wind that had suddenly stopped blowing. "Excuse me?" she asked cautiously. "Are you saying...?"

"That we're going to join the crazy offworlders who can't seem to understand basic simple orders?" Smitty suggested. "Yeah, I guess we are."

"Don't misunderstand," Kemp warned. "I'm still mad as hell that you didn't go to Harli the minute you realized there was a problem. But that's water long under the bridge. You're right, we have to move this damn chunk of alien hardware."

He looked at Rashida. "And
she's
right that you're going to need a third person. Smitty?"

"I'll do it," Smitty said without hesitation. "You've got enough on your own plate already. Besides, I can make myself scarce easier than you can. Just switch me to Babool's roving-patrol shift, and I'll have an excuse to be in here while Rashida and Jody are working."

"Safer to just assign you to guard and assist them," Kemp said, eyeing Jody thoughtfully. "A more critical question is whether they can spare Jody from work on that fancy curtain they're putting together."

"Easily," Jody assured him. "My degrees are in animal physiology and management—Geoff and Freylan only brought me in on this job to deal with the fauna we were going to capture and study. All the electrical and mechanical stuff was their department. Once they figure out how to build the curtain, all they'll need is extra hands for the grunt work. Anyone in Stronghold can do that as well as I can. Probably better."

"Well, we'll see," Kemp said. "And for the record, they've already started work on the curtain, along with about thirty of Stronghold's finest. If no one starts screaming in panic for your help, I guess we'll be okay with leaving you here."

He took a step closer to Jody. "But let me make one thing
very
clear. From now on everything you do gets reported. Every success, every failure, every strange thought or idea—
everything.
Understood?"

"Understood," Jody said. "Do we report to you, or to Harli?"

Kemp looked sideways at Smitty. "What do you think?"

"Harli's way too busy with everything else he has to do," Smitty said. "And since I'll already be here, you can just report to me."

"Yeah, let's keep the chain of command simple," Kemp agreed with a hint of sarcasm. "Wouldn't want you to get all confused again."

"We appreciate that," Jody said, finally starting to breathe again. "Thank you."

"Thank me after you get this bird off the ground," Kemp growled.
"And
you've put it down again where Harli's told you to."

He took a deep breath, let it out in a huff. "Okay. Logistics. Your house is going to be the center of a round-the-clock sewing and soldering marathon for a while, so you might as well move into the governor's spare room with Rashida. Smitty will pick you both up there at oh-five-thirty tomorrow, and the three of you will get to work. Any questions?"

"Just one," Rashida said, a bit timidly. "We had a late and very filling lunch, and I'm not yet tired."

"Neither am I," Jody agreed.

"I could stick around another hour or two myself," Smitty offered. "In case they find something for me to do."

Kemp hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod. "Fine," he said. "But no more than a couple of hours. The next guard shift starts about then, and I'd just as soon avoid any awkward questions as long as possible." He turned and headed across the room. "Just be careful," he called over his shoulder, "and try not to fire any thrusters or whatever else this thing's got."

He reached the door and turned back. "And no matter what you do tonight," he added, "tomorrow will
still
start at oh-five thirty." 

CHAPTER TWELVE

The first night with Anya in his cell was rough on Merrick. Every time she rolled over, it seemed, or made any kind of unexpected noise or strange movement he snapped awake, his brain and reflexes on hair trigger, his body in full fight-or-flight mode. By the time the guard delivered the breakfast tray through the slot at the bottom of the door, he felt almost as tired as when he'd gone to bed.

Fortunately, the day itself turned out to be uneventful. The Troft doctor came by once with another injection, but aside from that Merrick didn't see any of the aliens. Every half hour or so Anya asked if there was anything she could do for him, subsiding without comment or complaint when he told her there wasn't. He tried taking a nap after lunch, just to see if she or the Trofts would try to pull something when he was wasn't watching. Nothing had happened by the time he did accidentally fall asleep, nor did anything seem changed when he woke up.

At bedtime Anya again offered him a dose from her medicine vial. Again, he turned her down.

And life settled into an odd but not unpleasant routine.

Merrick had told himself firmly that he wasn't going to get emotionally involved with Anya, no matter what she did to encourage such a relationship. To his mild surprise, she did absolutely nothing in that direction. She never spoke to him unless she was asking if he had any orders, or was answering one of his infrequent questions. She was always first at the door when meals arrived, retrieving the tray and bringing it to Merrick, then retreating to her bed to sit silently and patiently until he turned over her half of the food to her. When it was time to sleep, she asked one final time what she could do for him, offered him some of her medicine, then retreated again to her bed. She never joined Merrick in his daily workout regimen, but he often noticed her doing quiet isometric exercises of her own. Once, when he woke up in the middle of the night, he spotted her doing some stretching and limbering and something that looked like a combination of tai chi chuan and ballet.

Once, out of a sudden sheer desperation for human companionship, he invited her to eat with him. As she had with his offer of the room's bed that first night, she reminded him that he was the master and she was the slave, and that she would eat only what he didn't want, and only after he'd decided what that portion was. The strangest part of the conversation was the sense Merrick had afterward that Anya had made the same decision he had about not becoming emotionally entangled with her unasked-for roommate. All of which, to Merrick's mind, made her a most unlikely Troft spy. So who was she? And why had they put her in his cell?

By the fourth day of their captivity together, he'd still come up with only one answer.

She really was, in fact, nothing more or less than a slave.

And it was frightening how easy it was to get used to having such a person around.

It was on the sixth day, an hour after Anya had sent the empty lunch tray out through the door slot, when the routine changed.

It began with the usual double click of the lock. But this time, instead of the Troft doctor, a pair of armored soldiers stepped through the doorway. [The Games, you are ordered to accompany us to them,] one of them announced.

"Am I, now," Merrick murmured, eyeing the aliens. Both carried small lasers, but the weapons were belted at their sides, with the security straps still attached. Apparently, they weren't expecting trouble from the prisoner.

What they
were
clearly expecting was an uneventful trip to wherever they were going. Each of the aliens was carrying a set of shackles, thick metal cuffs connected by thirty centimeters of heavy-looking chain. One set was probably for Merrick's wrists, those cuffs including fan-shaped palm pieces he assumed were designed to limit the use of his fingertip lasers. The other set was probably ankle cuffs, a bit larger than the wrist versions but just as sturdy-looking.