Cobra Gamble (40 page)

"And you think we're just going to run off and leave you?" Jin asked.

"You of the Cobra Worlds have done your share. Jasmine Moreau," Pareka said firmly. "In truth, you've done far more than your share. The rest of the fighting—and the dying—will be ours."

"Or we could do it without any dying at all," Beach suggested, extending a finger to point at the nearest truck. "You see those trucks, Cobra Pareka? You see those swivel guns on their roofs?"

"Of course," Pareka said impatiently. "How else do you think we plan to breach the stairwell doors?"

"And do you see
that?"
Beach continued, turning his finger to point at the machine shop at the far end of the bay. "Behind that bulkhead—behind, above and below—is the ship's engineering section. Where all the generators are. Including the ones that power the grav lifts and the weapons clusters."

For a second Pareka just stared at him. Then, his lips twisted in a tight smile. "And you think the swivel guns can penetrate the bulkheads?"

"All I know is that even warships have to save weight somewhere," Beach said, setting off at a fast stride toward the rear of the bay. "I see eight trucks and eight swivel guns," he added over his shoulder. "I've got dibs on the one at the rear. Get your people inside the others, and let's give it a try. Sooner or later, if we keep at it, we're bound to hit something vital."

Three and a half minutes later, they did.

* * *

 [Captain Dinga, he urgently requests assistance,] Officer Cebed reported tightly. [Emergency battery power, his ship relies now upon it. His weapons, they are no longer functional.]

[Captain Dinga, do his soldiers do battle with the enemy?] Inxeba demanded.

[The enemy, they are barricaded inside the vehicle bay,] Cebed said. [The enemy, they have contented themselves with crippling his ship.] His membranes twitched abruptly as he leaned closer to his board. [The drones, the enemy has remote-accessed them,] he said, sounding bewildered. [The drones, the enemy has flown all twelve from Captain Dinga's ship.]

[Captain Zimise, he reports the Azras SkyJos have risen from their lairs,] one of the other officers spoke up. [Six SkyJos, they are flying toward Purma.]

[Captain Dinga, he confirms the report,] Cebed said, still sounding confused by the drones' mass exodus. [Two drones, they are now being flown in point before each of the SkyJos.]

Inxeba gave a rasping snort. [Foolishness, the enemy has it,] he said contemptuously. [Their plan, I see it. The ally-identification system, they believe the drones to be connected with it. The drones, the enemy expects them to prevent the warships from firing upon the SkyJos.]

[Captain Geceg, he reports his warships are in visual range of Azras and the approaching SkyJos,] the third officer spoke up. [The SkyJos, do you wish them destroyed?]

[Their destruction, it will not be yet,] Inxeba said. [The SkyJos, they will be allowed to fly closer. The enemy's hopes, I will allow them to remain a few minutes longer. The enemy's confidence, I will then shatter it in a single thrust.]

He turned to Ukuthi, seated quietly on his couch. [And the honor of the Drim'hco'plai, it
will
be restored.] 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"There they go," Popescu announced, craning his neck and looking up at the display hanging in midair over them in the sideways control room. "Rather, here they come. I guess they're done talking to Eubujak."

"They stayed in the air the whole time?" Kemp asked.

"Yeah," Popescu said. "Too bad, too. I was hoping they'd put down in the middle of our Wonderland buffet and try to walk over to the cage. Or better yet, land right on top of the curtain and let Wonderland in."

"You couldn't have seen anything anyway," Harli pointed out, resting his hand on the edge of the command room's power-control console and trying not to let the weirdness of the sideways room get to him. He hadn't spent much time inside the downed ship, and he'd never gotten used to walking on bulkheads while decks and ceilings pretended to be walls. Or looking up at consoles and control panels jutting out from those walls, or maneuvering through doors that were now wide slits halfway up the walls. "The wing would have blocked your view."

"I know," Popescu said. "But it would have been nice to think about."

"Dream on," Kemp said, stepping around a circuit-test setup that someone had left behind and crossing over to Harli. "Everyone ready?" he asked quietly.

"As ready as we can be," Harli said. Which, he admitted silently, wasn't very much. "There's really only one door they can come at us through, assuming they don't want to launch their assault from hovering aircars or long ladders. I've got a layered defense down there, and Whistler's doing what he can to put a few barriers in place. I've also got some small booby-traps on the other two doors, just in case they decide they like aircar assaults."

"Sounds good," Kemp said. "Though of course you realize that with their numerical advantage we could take out the first four waves and still end up on the short end."

"Yes, I used to get medals in simple math," Harli said dryly. "Not to mention that even if by some miracle we were able to clean out this one there's another whole ship over at the Octagon Caves. Unless Smitty pulls off his own class-A miracle, we'll eventually have that bunch to deal with, too."

"Maybe," Kemp said. "But don't sell Smitty short. Between him, Jody, Rashida, and the caves, he could pull it off."

"Here they come," Popescu reported. "Making a long circle back over Stronghold. Maybe they bought your bluff about being able to shoot them down."

"We'll find out soon enough," Harli said, mentally running through the traps and blocks he'd put around the dorsal hatch. That was the only way in that didn't involve coming in under the downed warship's weapons.

Of course, that entrance was also seven meters above the ground, with all the tricky aircar or ladder logistics.

Unless the newcomer put his ship right up against the downed ship's upper side and rigged some kind of ramp from somewhere to the dorsal hatch. Harli hadn't thought about that possibility.

But that would require the ship to land inside Stronghold, and there wasn't a lot of room to spare inside the wall. They would probably have to level a few buildings first, which would give the Cobras plenty of time to shift more of their defenses to that end of their refuge.

"Whoa—there they are," Popescu said suddenly. "Coming across straight overhead."

And without warning the ship suddenly bucked like a stung horse, sending equipment flying as a muffled double explosion rocked the room.

Harli grabbed for the console beside him, shaking his head sharply against the ringing sensation echoing through his ears. He swallowed once, swallowed again—

"—completely gone," Popescu's distant voice faded in through the aftershock. "Say again: both wings are blown to hell."

A hand grabbed at Harli's arm, and he looked down to see Kemp struggling to his feet, a trickle of blood running down the side of his head. Beside him, a circuit multitester with a freshly cracked display and torn wire connecters had a spot of the same bright red on one corner. "You okay?" Harli called as he helped Kemp back to his feet.

"Sure—fine," Kemp called back, wincing as he wiped away the blood. "I guess you
can
fire on another Troft ship."

"Yeah, but you probably need a special passkey to do it," Harli said. There was another, smaller thud, a vibration mostly felt through the bulkhead they were standing on. "Sounds like he's down," he said. "Any idea where he landed?"

"Nope—the cameras went when he blew up the wings," Popescu said. "You want me to call down to Whistler and have him send someone outside to look?"

"No, don't bother," Harli told him. "It doesn't really matter—"

He broke off, a sudden surge of adrenaline flooding into him.

He was wrong. It
did
matter where the invaders had put down. It mattered a hell of a lot. "Kemp, take command," he said, heading for the horizontal door. "Make sure Whistler's ready to receive company."

"Where are you going?" Kemp called after him as Harli grabbed the door jamb and pulled himself through.

"Out," Harli called back through the door. "Back in five."

The traps he'd set up at the dorsal hatch were simple ones, and it took him only a minute to deactivate them. For a moment he held his ear against the hatch itself, his audios at full power as he listened for any sound of activity.

Nothing. Unfastening the hatch, he pushed it open, and eased his head through the opening.

The broken and battle-scarred city lay stretched out before him in the afternoon sun. Fortunately, the scene wasn't further blighted by the presence of armed Trofts, either on the ground or patrolling the sky. Getting a grip on the upper edge of the hatchway, he ducked through the opening, standing precariously on the lower edge. Above him, the starboard side of the hull crest rose another seven meters into the sky, tall enough to block his view of the newly arrived ship.

He focused on the hull. It was fairly smooth, certainly comfortable enough to walk on in the ship's usual upright position, but hardly designed for climbing. But at the very top of his view was a monstrous tangle of broken and twisted metal where the aft weapons wing had been before the incoming Trofts blew it to shrapnel. If he could jump up there and get a handhold on one of those pieces, he should be able to see exactly where the other ship had put down.

Assuming, of course, that he didn't slice his fingers off on the torn metal. But it was the only way. Putting a targeting lock on the sturdiest-looking ribbon to give his nanocomputer the range, he carefully bent his knees—

"So when you said
out,"
Kemp's voice came from the direction of his shins, "you really meant it."

Harli jerked, nearly losing his grip, and peered into the hatchway. Kemp was standing there, looking out at him. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded. "I gave you an order."

"I wrote myself a medical excuse," Kemp said, pointing at the blood still trickling down his head. "Popescu and I thought someone should see what you were up to and find out if you needed a hand."

"I had an idea, that's all," Harli said, gesturing up the side of the hull crest. "It suddenly occurred to me that Eubujak probably told the other Troft captain that we'd been setting up booby-traps."

"Which we hadn't gotten around to yet."

"Which Eubujak doesn't know," Harli reminded him. "More importantly, he doesn't know whether these supposed traps are in the ship, in Stronghold, or out in Wonderland. Given all that uncertainty, where's the absolute safest spot for a clever and cautious captain to land his ship?"

Kemp shook his head. "No idea."

"Come on, it's obvious," Harli said, hoping desperately that it really
was
obvious, that his mind wasn't playing some macabre trick on him. "The one place where he can actually see the ground, and not a waving field of hookgrass that could be hiding a collection of pressure mines—"

"Is right where the other ship was before Rashida flew off with it," Kemp interrupted, his eyes going wide. "You're right. Hell in a handbasket. You got confirmation?"

"I'm about to," Harli told him, stepping out of the opening and up onto the edge of the hatch. "As long as you're here anyway, make yourself useful. Lean out here and catch me if I don't stick the landing on my way back."

He looked up at the broken metal, took a deep breath, and jumped.

Survival on Caelian, his Cobra instructors had often told him, was less a matter of courage or brute strength than it was a matter of timing and precision. Over the years Harli had taken that advice to heart, and he reached the top of his leap with his outstretched hands precisely at the torn metal ribbon he'd been aiming for. He hooked his fingers gingerly around it and held on as he let his residual momentum and swaying dampen out. Then, slowly and carefully, he pulled himself up until he could see the top of the alien ship.

And for the first time in days, he smiled.

Kemp was holding the hatch steady as Harli slid back down the hull crest and landed on its edge. "Well?" he asked, holding his other hand where Harli could grab it for balance if necessary.

"He is indeed clever and cautious," Harli confirmed. "I think we're in."

"Terrific," Kemp said. "Assuming it's still set up."

"It is." Harli turned and looked at the work station a hundred meters away beside the broken wall, a sobering thought suddenly occurring to him. "Of course, we
will
be visible to the other ship's wing cameras over there."

"You're right," Kemp muttered. "Ouch. Any thoughts?"

Harli looked down at the hatch cover he was balancing on. Too small to be a useful shield, even if they could get it off quickly enough. There were other, heftier slabs of metal inside the ship, but it would take equal amounts of time to get them free and most wouldn't pass through the hatch opening anyway.

He shifted his focus to the ground below them. The matted hookgrass was a good sixty centimeters tall and completely filled the space between them and the work station. It could theoretically be crawled through if they didn't mind running into a few unpleasant animals and insect nests along the way.

Unfortunately, sixty centimeters wasn't nearly tall enough to hide them, especially from cameras that would be looking more or less straight down.

On the other hand, it wasn't
just
hookgrass down there. "You've been tramping back and forth through that stuff more than I have," he said, keying in his telescopies for a closer look at the tangled plants. "How much blue lettros did you spot mixed in?"

"Enough," Kemp said thoughtfully "It'll be risky, though. The stuff burns like hell once you get it going, and the razor fern is even worse. It's also growing right through where the wall used to be, which means there's a fair chance we could burn down the whole town."

"Noted," Harli said. "But it's still our best shot. You'd better get back and warn Popescu and the others."