Timothy Zahn - Cobra 03 - Cobra Bargain

by Cobra Bargain(lit)

  And from seemingly out of nowhere Akim's arm darted out, grabbing Jin's just above the elbow and spinning both her and Daulo around the corner to sprawl to the ground.

  For a few seconds Jin couldn't speak... but then, for that same time neither of the others would have been able to hear her, anyway. The roar from the Troft ship was deafening-far louder than she would have expected it to be-and seemed to go on forever. Finally-finally-it began to ease, and within a few seconds had faded to a whine in the distance.

  Leaving behind it the crackling of fire.

  "God in heaven-they've set Mangus on fire!" Akim snarled suddenly, leaping up and disappearing around the corner in the direction of the wall opening.

  Jin scrambled to her feet and took a few steps back from the wall. Sure enough, the overhead canopy was flickering with reflected light from the flames beneath it. On the ground in front of her, Daulo said something under his breath.

  "What?" she asked, stepping closer.

  "I said they were fools." Gingerly, Daulo propped himself up on an elbow, took a deep breath. "If they'd wanted to destroy their half of Mangus properly, they should have had a self-destruct set up ahead of time. Now they're always going to wonder what they left behind we might be able to use."

  "Good," Jin said grimly. "Maybe that fear will keep them from coming back and trying this again. Odd that they'd panic like that, though; once they were rid of us, they really had all the time they needed to do their cleanup properly."

  Daulo chuckled. "No, they didn't." He squinted toward the sky. "Take a look."

  Frowning, Jin peered skyward... and felt her throat tighten.

  Above them, a dark shape ringed with red haze was dropping swiftly toward the ground. "The Dewdrop? But... I told them not to land here."

  "Of course you did. And I expect your father had a very sharp argument with the others about that after I threatened you and then destroyed your link with them."

  Jin looked back down at him, suddenly understanding. "Is that why you did it? To get the Dewdrop down here faster?"

  "Not faster, really. Just more directly."

  "More-?" Jin clamped her mouth shut. "Oh. Sure. Wherever they track the Dewdrop, that's where they'll send the helicopters. Perfectly obvious."

  His eyes were steady on her. "I had no choice, Jin. Even if you'd been willing to take us directly to Azras, we still might not have gotten the military here before Obolo Nardin covered his trail and cleared out."

  "Agreed," Jin nodded. "Very clever, as Miron Akim said. I wish I'd thought of it myself." The Dewdrop was showing a recognizable shape now. Lying down on her back, Jin raised her left leg and sent three antiarmor laser bursts in the ship's direction. "That should let them know I'm all right," she explained.

  Daulo slid over to sit next to her. "I'd rather... hoped we'd have a little more time together once this was over," he said, almost shyly. "Before you had to leave."

  Jin reached over to touch his hand with her fingertips. "I did, too," she said, and was mildly surprised to find how much she really meant it. "But I don't think we can afford to stay. Miron Akim told me there were two of those SkyJo helicopters based near my shuttle; if they get the tracking data fast enough, they won't be more than a few minutes behind us."

  Daulo nodded, and for a moment they watched the Dewdrop dropping through the sky toward them. Then, with a grunt that was half sigh and half groan, Daulo climbed to his feet. "Speaking of Miron Akim, I'd better go and track him down. Make sure he hasn't found some weapon and is lying in wait for your ship with it."

  Jin got up too, conscience nagging uncomfortably. "Daulo... look, I... well, I want you to know that I really did plan to fulfill my half of our bargain."

  He frowned at her. "What are you talking about? You don't think that my finding the way to capture Obolo Nardin and Mangus isn't going to raise my family's status?"

  "But that was all your doing, not-"

  "Could I have done it without you?"

  "Well... no, not really. But-"

  "Jin." He stepped close to her, put his hands on her shoulders. "The bargain is satisfied. Really."

  Over the plain behind him, the Dewdrop was sweeping down toward Mangus. "Okay,"

  Jin sighed. "Well, then... I guess there's nothing to say but goodbye. Thank you for everything, Daulo."

  Leaning forward, Daulo kissed her gently. "Goodbye, Jin," he said, smiling at her. "I hope this will let your uncle keep his power among your people."

  Jin had almost forgotten about that. "He will," she nodded. "There's no way even his enemies can twist what's happened into failure."

  "Good." He smiled again, this time with a touch of mischievousness. "Then perhaps he can talk them into letting you visit Qasama again."

  She smiled back. "If I can, I will-that's a promise. If I can't... you'll be getting back into space again someday. You can come visit me."

  The background whine that had been growing steadily louder over the past few minutes suddenly shifted pitch. Looking over Daulo's shoulder, Jin saw the

  Dewdrop had landed. "I've got to go," she said, disengaging herself and stepping away from him. "Goodbye, and thank your father for me."

  There were five men crouching in a loose arc around the Dewdrop's entryway before she was halfway there- Cobras, all of them, by their stances-but she didn't pay any real attention to them. Silhouetted against the hazy glow from the gravity lifts, another man was running toward her. Moving with the slightly arthritic gait she knew so well. "Dad!" she shouted to him. "It's all right-no one shoot!"

  A moment later she was in his arms. A minute after that, they were aboard the

  Dewdrop, heading for space.

  Chapter 47

  "...it is therefore the opinion of the undersigned members of the Directorate that the Mangus mission in general, and the actions of Cobra Jasmine Moreau in particular, be considered a success."

  Corwin sat down, letting the end of the joint opinion-and its four signatures-linger on the syndics' displays for another moment before blanking it and pulling the magcard from his reader. At the center of the speakers' table,

  Governor-General Chandler stood up. "Thank you, Governor Moreau," he said, eyes flicking once to Corwin before turning away. "One might expect that, with virtually none of the facts or testimony from the Mangus mission in dispute, it would be a straightforward matter for this body to come to a conclusion as to its success or failure. However, as will soon become apparent, it's often possible to interpret things in more than one way. You've heard Governor

  Moreau's interpretation, and that of his co-signers; I yield the floor now to

  Governor Priesly and a different point of view."

  Priesly stood up, his eyes fairly flashing with righteous fervor as he inserted a magcard in his reader... and Corwin braced himself.

  It was even worse than he expected.

  "...and so let me now summarize the main points:

  "Cobra Moreau failed to keep her identity as an Aventinian spy hidden from the

  Qasamans, in clear violation of her orders.

  "Cobra Moreau furthermore failed to keep her identity as a Cobra hidden from those same Qasamans, spoiling any future chance we might have of taking them by surprise with a similar ruse.

  "Cobra Moreau voluntarily spent a great deal of time in close proximity to a member of the official Qasaman government. She spoke at length with him, cooperated with him, and-even more damaging-repeatedly demonstrated her Cobra weaponry in his presence.

  "Cobra Moreau deliberately allowed the Troft meddlers to escape, thereby ruining any chance we might have of identifying them and making sure any threat of this alliance between them and Qasama is at an end.

  "And finally, as a direct result of her actions, Cobra Moreau permitted the other mission members' bodies to fall into Qasaman hands, allowing the Qasamans to examine them and denying us the opportunity to give them decent and proper burials.

  "It is therefore the opinion of the undersigned memb
ers of the Directorate that the Mangus mission in general, and the actions of Cobra Jasmine Moreau in particular, be considered a failure."

  Jin was sitting by the window of her room, curled up into her old loveseat and staring outside at the waning light of sunset, when the tap came on the door.

  "Jin, it's Dad and Uncle Corwin," her father's voice said quietly. "May we come in?"

  "Sure," she said, not turning around. "I've already heard, if that's what you want. It hit the net a couple of hours ago."

  "I'm sorry," Corwin said, pulling up a chair to just inside her peripheral vision and sinking tiredly into it.

  "May I?" her father asked, stepping to her side and waving at the loveseat. Jin nodded, shifting her legs off the seat to make room for him and wincing as her knee protested the action. The injury was probably going to lead to early arthritis in the joint, the doctors had told her; earlier even than the usual

  Cobra average. Just one more little sacrifice for the Mangus mission.

  One more sacrifice for nothing.

  Justin sat carefully down beside her. "How do you feel?" he asked.

  "How should I feel?" she countered.

  He sighed. "Probably about the same way we do."

  She nodded. "Probably."

  For a few moments the room was silent. "Look, Jin," Corwin said at last, "you really shouldn't be taking any of this personally. I was Priesly's target, not you. You just happened to be the most convenient conduit for the attack he had in mind."

  "Oh, I was convenient, all right," she said bitterly. "Everything I did-everything I said-he just twisted all of it into knots like a snake pretzel.

  And everyone just rolled over and believed him."

  Corwin and Justin exchanged looks. "Well, now, that may be open to debate,"

  Corwin said. "I take it you stopped reading after the opinion reports and final vote came on?"

  "I'd already seen how Priesly mangled what really happened," she said, blinking back tears of frustration. "I didn't need to see what the public would do with it."

  "Oh, then, you missed a real treat," Justin said. Jin frowned over at him, to find a smile quirking at his lips. "It seems that about fifteen minutes after the vote came out an anonymous transcription hit the net: purportedly, that of discussions in the upper ranks of the Ject camp over the past couple of days. It shows several men, including Priesly himself, deciding how best to distort what happened on Qasama to their own political benefit."

  Jin stared at him. "But who would... you two?"

  "Who, us?" Corwin asked, radiating wide-eyed innocence. "As a matter of fact, no, we had nothing to do with it. Apparently it was some unidentified Ject of

  Justin's acquaintance who decided that perhaps Priesly was going a bit too far on this one."

  Jin took a deep breath. For one brief moment it had felt better... "But it really doesn't help any. Does it?"

  Corwin shrugged. "Depends on whether you're talking short-term or long-term results. Yes, I've resigned my governorship, so as far as that goes Priesly's won; and yes, your supposed failure will probably make it difficult, if not impossible, for other women to be accepted into the Cobras."

  Jin snorted. "So what are all the big long-term gains? The fact that Qasama is temporarily safe from Troft meddling?"

  "Don't sell that one short," Justin chided her gently. "Mangus was indeed as great a threat as we'd thought all along, just not quite as immediate a one.

  That part of your mission was a complete and resounding success-and everyone on the Council knows it, whether they admit it publicly or not."

  "And we've made at least two other long-term gains, as well," Corwin told her.

  "First of all, Priesly may not yet realize it, but in kicking me out of the

  Directorate he's shot himself in the foot."

  "How?" Jin asked. "Because it makes him look like a bully?"

  "More or less. Never underestimate the power of a sympathy backlash, Jin, especially when it involves a name as historically revered as ours." Corwin smiled wryly. "In fact, I've been preparing a campaign for the past few days to try and guide the expected public reaction straight down Priesly's throat. Now, with all this other stuff coming out, I don't think I'll have to bother."

  Jin closed her eyes. "So the Jects lose power, and all it costs is your career," she sighed. "Standard definition of a Pyrrhic victory."

  "Oh, I don't know," Corwin shrugged. "Depends on whether I was tired of politics anyway, doesn't it?" Gently, he reached over to take one of her bandaged hands.

  "Times change, Jin, and we have to change with them. Our family's had more than its fair share of political power over the past few decades; perhaps it's time for us to move on."

  "Move on to what?" she asked.

  "Move on from politics to statesmanship," Corwin said. "Because we've now got the one thing neither Priesly nor anyone else in the Cobra Worlds can take away from us." He lifted a finger and leveled it at her. "We've got you."

  Jin blinked. "Me?"

  "Uh-huh. You, and the first ever genuinely positive contact with the people of

  Qasama."

  "Oh, sure." Jin snorted. "Some contact. The twenty-year-old niece of an ousted political leader and the nineteen-year-old heir to a minor village mining industry."

  Her father made an odd sort of sound, and Jin turned her head to look at him.

  "What's so funny?" she demanded.

  "Oh, nothing," Justin said, making a clearly halfhearted effort to erase his amused smile. "It's just that... well, you never can tell where something like that will lead."

  He took a deep breath; and suddenly the amusement in his smile vanished, to be replaced by a smile of pride and love. "No, you never know, Jasmine Moreau, my most excellent daughter. Tell me, have you ever heard the story-the full story, that is-of your grandfather's path from Cobra guardian of a minor frontier village to governor and statesman of Aventine?"

  She had; but it was worth hearing again. Together, the three of them talked long into the night.

  The End