Cobra Gamble

by Timothy Zahn

  One of the display images scrolled sideways as the drone shifted position, its sensors zeroing in on a spot of pavement twenty meters back from the subcity entrance that had somehow managed to stay clear of rubble. The camera zoomed in on the site, touching momentarily on yet another group of bedraggled, bloodstained bodies lying amid the chunks of concrete as it panned across the area.

  And Merrick felt his blood suddenly turn to ice. For a fraction of a second the camera had touched the casualties' faces...

  Anya must have sensed Merrick's reaction. "What is it?" she murmured, leaning closer to him. "Merrick?"

  Merrick took a deep breath, the air freezing in his lungs, his mind swirling with horror and helplessness, with unbearable pain and murderous rage. "One of the bodies," he murmured back, his voice shaking. "In the group there by all the rubble.

  "It was my mother."

  * * *

  The dark spot was clearly visible in the cliffs rising in front of them when Smitty returned. "We there yet?" he asked as he crossed to the sensor station.

  "I think so," Jody said, stepping away from his chair with a twinge of relief. Keeping tabs on his station and her own had been harder than she'd expected. More than ever she was glad he'd talked her and Rashida into letting him join their little piloting group. "As far as I can tell, it's the only cave around."

  "Yep, that's it," Smitty confirmed as he resumed his seat. "The Octagon Cave complex. Thirty kilometers of the most beautiful caverns on Caelian."

  "Never mind how they look," Jody said as she sat down and strapped in, giving the power displays a quick check. "My question is whether this thing will actually fit inside. That opening looks pretty small."

  "Don't worry, it's big enough," Smitty assured her. "If not, I'm sure we can make it big enough."

  "Oh, that's encouraging," Jody said. "I don't suppose you've actually measured it?"

  "Not officially," Smitty conceded. "But I've walked in there a hundred times." He waved at his board. "Besides, I'm pretty sure the sensor readings are on my side."

  "I guess we'll find out," Jody said. "Rashida, if you turn out having to shave off something, shave off the topside. The bottom—"

  Without warning the whole ship jerked hard, twisting and shuddering violently. Jody grabbed at her straps with one hand and the edge of her board with the other, clamping her mouth tightly to keep from accidentally biting down on her tongue. For a second the ship straightened out, only to start rocking again.

  And suddenly, it lurched forward and to the right and then came to a halt at a forty-five-degree angle.

  For a moment all three of them just sat there. Then, Jody exhaled a breath she'd somewhere along the line decided to hold. "I was about to say, the bottom is where most of the grav lifts are," she said into the sudden silence. "But never mind—I don't think we're flying this thing any farther today anyway."

  "It would seem not," Rashida agreed. For once, even her usually calm demeanor sounded a little shaken. "I don't believe the opening was quite as large as you thought, Smitty."

  "Well, it is now," Smitty said calmly. "Good flying, Rashida. You two sit tight while I get what's left of our cameras online and see what we've got to work with."

  "Do we have any idea what's happening with the incoming ships?" Jody asked as she unstrapped and eased herself gingerly out of her canted chair and onto the canted deck. Everything seemed more or less steady, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the whole ship was teetering on a precipice, that it might suddenly break loose from wherever it was pinned and topple into some dark chasm looming beneath them. "I didn't want to mess with your settings while you were on your scavenger hunt."

  "Yeah, I checked just before we hit the cave," Smitty said. "It looks like one of them landed at Stronghold, and the other one's heading our direction. I guess the chance to deal with some missilles and fifty Cobras was too tempting to pass up."

  Jody looked at Rashida. The Qasaman had her calm expression on again, but her face looked a little pale. "Sounds like fun," Jody murmured.

  "Don't worry, we can take them," Smitty assured her. "Remember, I know these caves and they don't. Okay, here's the deal. The whole lower part of the ship is jammed into the floor, so the bow exits are out. The good news is that I was planning to use the dorsal hatch anyway. The even better news is that we're not going to have to jump or find ourselves a thirty-meter rope, because there's a big snake trail no more than three meters from the forward wing that'll take us the direction we want to go."

  "What's a snake trail?" Rashida asked.

  "A partially-open rock tube that runs along a cave's wall or ceiling," Smitty explained, getting to his feet. "I've never traveled this particular one, but it looks sturdy enough to hold our weight, and it's even big enough to stand up in."

  "Where does it go?" Jody asked.

  "Don't know yet," Smitty said. "Rashida, give me that other radio."

  Rashida nodded and unclipped it from her belt. Smitty took it, turned it off, and fastened it beside his own radio. "Let's go."

  He led the way down the corridor to the stairway leading to the dorsal hatch. Lying at the foot of the stairway was a large silliweave bag. "I found an arc welder down in the vehicle bay that someone missed," Smitty said, picking up the bag. "You two might want to stay here while I go rig it up to the missiles on the wing."

  "We'll come with you," Rashida said firmly. "You may need a hand."

  Smitty eyed her for a second, then nodded. "Okay," he said, starting up the stairs. "Watch your footing."

  He reached the top, unfastened the hatch, and climbed out. Rashida was right behind him. Taking a deep breath, Jody followed.

  It wasn't as bad as she'd expected. The hull crest was as badly tilted as the rest of the ship, but with the cavern roof pressing down to within a meter or two of the ship it was more like being in a sloping tunnel than being thirty meters above an unyielding stone floor. She eased over to one of the lower ceiling sections, got a reassuringly firm grip on a section of pockmarked rock, and looked around.

  There wasn't a lot of sunlight seeping through the opening they'd just battered their way into. But there was enough for her to see that the chamber included a wide variety of different formations: curtains, stalactites, hourglass-shaped columns, and some hanging vine-shaped things she didn't have a name for. Most of the rock was dark, possibly some kind of basalt, but she could see a few layers of lighter stone, plus a generous sprinkling of glittering gem-like objects that added an eerie night-sky effect.

  "Ready," Smitty called, and Jody looked over to see him walking carefully back from the aft wing onto the hull crest, Rashida beside him clutching his arm, the now empty bag tucked into her belt. One of Smitty's two radios, Jody noted, was gone. "Snake trail's over here."

  The snake trail was just as Smitty had described it: a two-meter-diameter horizontal tube running along the ceiling near the ship's bow, with a section of its side wall open to the air. "You two feel comfortable enough with those suits' servos to jump on your own?" Smitty asked as they eased their way out onto the slanting forward wing. "If not, I can throw you over to it."

  "No, we can do it," Rashida assured him.

  "Okay," Smitty said. "I'll go first. Just watch me and do what I do."

  He bent his knees slightly and jumped, ducking his head and drawing his knees up toward his chest as he arced through the air toward the tube. He slipped through the gap with a good half meter to spare and straightened out his knees again just in time to land upright. "Your turn," he said, turning and holding out his hand. "Nice and easy."

  The jump was one of the most nerve-wracking things Jody had ever had to do. But she made it, and a minute later Smitty was leading them down the snake trail toward the rear of the chamber.

  They were nearly to the back wall, and Jody had just noticed that their conduit abruptly narrowed a few meters ahead, when she heard the faint sound of approaching grav lifts. "Smitty?" she murmured.

  "Yeah, I hear the
m," Smitty murmured back. "Okay, snake trail's ending. Looks like we're going to have to jump."

  Gingerly, Jody eased her head out through the gap in the wall and looked down. The cavern floor had gradually risen as they'd neared the back wall, but there was still a good five meters of empty space beneath them. "You mean down, right?"

  "Don't worry, your servos can handle the landing," Smitty assured her. "We drop, cross that ridge ahead, and the entrance to the chimney is just past that soda-straw formation to the left."

  Abruptly, the edges of the cavern lit up with reflected light. Jody twisted her head around and saw a hint of crackling flame in the distance behind the wrecked warship. "Looks like they're laser-burning the foliage around the edge of the entrance," Smitty said. "Making sure we don't launch an ambush from out there."

  He touched Jody's arm. "Come on. I'll go first."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The two Troft warships had raced up toward Azras with almost frightening speed, fast enough that Lorne thought for a very bad few seconds that he'd cut his margins too close and that he wouldn't have enough time to pull this off. But then, to his surprise and relief, they coasted to a halt, one settling into position twenty meters above the broken section of wall, the other a hundred meters higher and fifty meters back.

  And for the past minute and a half, they'd held those exact same positions.

  "They're not going for it," he murmured to Ghushtre, standing behind him in the drone control/monitor room. "They smell a trap."

  "Not necessarily," Ghushtre said, leaning over Lorne's seat and studying the displays. "Remember, they were coming to give battle to us in this warship. Now, they've suddenly been presented with a new goal. This may simply be the delay necessary for them to dress their soldiers in their armor."

  "I hope so," Lorne said. "If whoever's in charge has come up with something clever, we could be in trouble."

  "Whatever they hand us, we'll send it back down their throats," Ghushtre said with a deadliness in his voice that sent a tingle across the back of Lorne's neck. "What's the situation with the drones?"

  "They're on their way," Lorne assured him, turning to the drone displays. The incoming ships had taken command of the drones long enough to turn their cameras back on, just as the Qasaman analysis of the invaders' radio operations in Sollas had guessed they could do. But the minute the Trofts had spotted the open SkyJo lair they'd apparently lost all interest in the drones.

  Now, with the eight drones again under Lorne's control, the six that had been watching the deserted parts of Azras—the areas the invaders had presumably glanced at and dismissed—were drifting toward their new positions. Two of them were heading toward the warship still hovering low over the gate, moving as if to support the two drones currently feeding the invaders their view of the SkyJo lair. The other four drones were moving back and up, rising into the air above the second, higher warship.

  "Movement," Ghushtre said.

  Lorne turned back to the other bank of monitors. The lower of the two warships had stopped hovering and was sinking down into the clear spot the Qasamans had carefully prepared for it between the stacks of wall and building rubble. "Okay," he said, part of him relaxing a bit even as, paradoxically, another part of him felt the tension ratcheting up. The Trofts were back on track, which meant that the phase two strike team was that much closer to risking their lives in battle.

  But there was nothing Lorne could do except make sure he gave them the best possible chance of living through the next hour. He watched the warship settle to the ground, then turned back to the drone controls, making sure the drones were on schedule—

  "Game change!" an urgent voice came from the radio on the board in front of him. "The invaders are lowering the ramp. Repeat, the invaders are lowering the ramp."

  Lorne spun back around, his breath catching in his throat. Lowering the vehicle ramp meant the Trofts had decided to roll out their armored trucks instead of coming out on foot through the bow doors.

  Only that wasn't what the strike team was prepared for. And unless they came up with a new plan, and fast, they were going to be slaughtered right there in the Azras streets.

  And Lorne's mother was right in the middle of it.

  * * *

  "Game change!" a barely audible voice came from the radio lying half hidden beneath a thin piece of stone at Jin's head. "The invaders are lowering the ramp. Repeat, the invaders are lowering the ramp."

  "God in heaven," one of the Qasaman Cobras murmured from the pile of stone behind her. "Jin Moreau? What do we do?"

  Keeping her eyes closed, knowing that the cameras in the warships' weapons wings would be watching everything, Jin slowly turned her head just far enough for her opticals to see up along the ship's bow. Sure enough, the ramp had been unfastened and was starting to swing ponderously down toward the ground.

  Only that wasn't what she and the strike team had planned for. The Trofts were supposed to have seen all the rubble in the area around the SkyJo lair, correctly concluded that their armored trucks wouldn't make it five meters without getting hung up, and sent the soldiers out on foot instead through the bow doors three meters from her and the rest of the team. This was supposed to be a variation of the operation Lorne's strike team had already pulled off: a fast-break incursion and neutralization, only this one with the added advantages that Lorne and the others in the captured ship could provide.

  "We can't let them get those trucks out," a new voice murmured from the radio.

  Jin shifted her attention to the other side of the warship's bow. Beach was lying there with his half of the strike team, his face grim behind the fake blood staining his forehead. "Agreed," she said. "I'm reading five meters to the top of the ramp. How many do we want to take with us?"

  "I don't think anyone," Beach said. "Not until the portside wings are down. Too big a chance they'll get blasted on their way in."

  Jin grimaced. But it made sense. Just the two of them, her and Beach, leaping suddenly to the top of the ramp before the gunners inside the warship could react, might make it inside. A whole squad trying it would be mass suicide. "We move just before the ramp hits ground and try to knock out the first truck in line," she said. "That'll block in all the others."

  "Sounds good," Beach agreed. "Lorne, you said a few arcthrower shots up beneath the engine compartment would do it?"

  "I said that that trick worked once," Lorne's tight voice cut into the conversation. "There's no guarantee I didn't just get lucky."

  "It's still our best shot," Beach said.

  "There's another solution," the Qasaman behind Jin said. "You two stay here and Domo Pareka and I will go in."

  "No," Beach said. "I mean, you can take Jin's place if you want—that would be fine—but I have to go along. Arcthrowers are notoriously tricky, and none of you has had nearly enough practice with them."

  "Which is why it has to be Beach and me," Jin agreed reluctantly. "Okay. Here it comes..."

  "Wait a second," Lorne said suddenly. "How about if I put one of the drones in there instead? Neat and clean, and no one has to get shot at."

  For a second Jin was sorely tempted. Going up against a whole vehicle bay's worth of Trofts and armored vehicles, just her and Beach, wasn't a plan with a huge margin for error.

  But it wouldn't work, and she and Lorne both knew it. "No good," she said. "If you don't take out both portside wings the SkyJos won't be able to launch. If they can't disable the ship before it lifts and heads for the hills, we won't get the drones we need for phase three."

  "So we don't get the drones," Lorne said doggedly. "Maybe if we—"

  "No maybes," Jin said firmly. "There's no time for a whole new plan. We have to go, and we have to go now."

  "But feel free to blow the wings as soon as we're clear of the blast zone," Beach added. "Jin?"

  "Ready," Jin said. "On three?"

  "On three," Beach confirmed. "One, two, three!"

  Jin surged to her feet, trying not to think o
f the heavy lasers looming over her and sprinted the half dozen steps to the edge of the ramp. Bending her knees, she leaped straight up, caught the edge of the sloping metal right where it joined the hull and swung herself up onto her side. The first armored truck in line was waiting at the edge of the ramp, and a quick roll took her past the massive front wheel and underneath the vehicle.

  Beach was already there, running his fingers along the smooth metal overhead as he looked for a likely target. "Watch your eyes," he warned, and triggered his arcthrower.

  The brilliant lightning bolt lashed out from his little finger, lighting up the underside of the truck. Jin squeezed her eyes shut, again shifting her vision to her opticals. Picking a spot half a meter from where Beach was sending his fire, she added her arcthrower's high-voltage current to his.

  For a second nothing happened. The truck didn't move, its driver possibly frozen with astonishment at having seen two dead bodies suddenly appear five meters off the ground and disappear under his vehicle. But she could hear the low rumble that meant the engine was still functioning. Clenching her teeth, she shifted her aim to a different spot and again fired the arcthrower.

  "Keep at it!" Beach called over the roar. "I'm going to try something else." Before Jin could reply he swiveled around on his back, lined up his left leg on the inside of the front right wheel, and triggered his antiarmor laser. Trying to wreck or fuse the wheel mechanism? There was a flicker of movement to her left, and she turned her head to look.

  Just in time to see an armored Troft crouch down and poke the muzzle of his laser under the truck.

  Instantly, Jin flicked a target lock on the weapon and triggered her antiarmor laser. Her nanocomputer responded to the order by rolling her up onto her right hip and twisting her left leg around to line up the laser, then sending a flash of blue fire into the alien's weapon. It shattered in his hand, staggering him back. Jin fired again, this time into his torso, and he fell backward onto the deck and didn't move.

  She grimaced. One down. Dozens, maybe hundreds to go.