Cobra Strike

Chapter 16

For a long moment Pyre lay quietly in his hammock bag, wondering what had awakened him. The level of sunlight filtering through the trees indicated sundown was approaching. He'd slept the whole day away, he realized, guilt twinging at him. Probably woke up simply because his body had had all the rest it needed; he must have been a lot more tired than he'd thought.

He was just starting to pull his arms out of the bag when he heard the muffled cough.

He froze, notching his auditory enhancers to full power. The normal rustlings of the forest roared in his ears... the normal rustlings, and the fainter sound of quiet human voices. Ten or more of them, at the least.

Hunting party? was his first, hopeful thought. But he heard no footsteps accompanying the voices, just the occasional sounds of someone easing from one position to another. Even stalking hunters moved around more... which implied that his unexpected guests were less akin to hunters than to fishermen.

And there were only two fish out here worth such a concerted effort, at least as far as he knew: the Dewdrop and himself.

Damn.

Slowly, moving with infinite care and silence, he began disentangling himself from the hammock bag and the defense cage. If they were looking for him the activity could well be a mistake; but whether it brought them down on him or not, he had no intention of getting caught wrapped up like yesterday's leftovers. The cage creaked like a tacnuke explosion as he opened it, but no one seemed to notice, and a minute later he was standing above the hammock bag with his back pressed against the tree trunk.

And the prey was now ready to become the hunter. The voices had come from the strip of forest between him and the Dewdrop; moving to the far side of the trunk he started down, pausing at each branch to look and listen.

He reached the ground without seeing any of the hidden Qasamans, but further noises had given him a better idea of their arrangement and he wasn't surprised to have avoided drawing fire. They seemed to be paralleling the edge of the forest nearest the Dewdrop, their attention and weaponry almost certainly focused on the ship. And to have been set up now, an entire week after the landing, implied something had gone wrong. Whether the contact team had gumfricked up or the exaggerated Qasaman paranoia had finally asserted itself hardly mattered at this point. What mattered-

What mattered was that Joshua Moreau was out there in the middle of it. And if he'd been killed while Pyre overslept-

The Cobra bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. Stop it! he snarled. Settle down and think instead of panicking. The fact that the Qasamans had not yet openly attacked the Dewdrop implied they were still in the planning stages here... and if so, then chances were Joshua and the others were still okay.

Moving against the contact team would tip off the Dewdrop, and the Qasamans were surely smart enough to avoid doing that.

And with the ship and Cerenkov both unaware that anything was wrong, it was all up to Pyre now.

He didn't have a lot of options. His emergency earphone was a one-way device, with no provision for talking to the ship. His comm laser was well hidden and probably undiscovered, but if the Qasaman cordon line wasn't sitting on top of it they weren't for off. Take out the whole bunch of them? Risky, possibly suicidal, and almost certain to run the timer to zero right there and then.

But if the members of the cordon weren't in actual visual contact with each other, it might be possible to quietly take out the one or two closest to his laser without alerting all the others. Grab the laser, back off to somewhere safe-the top of a tree, if necessary-and call the ship. Together they might be able to figure out a way to snatch the contact team from under Moff's nose.

Mindful of the crunchy forest mat underfoot, Pyre set off cautiously toward the laser's hiding place, trying to watch all directions at once. He was, he estimated, only five meters from his goal when a sudden roar erupted from beside him.

He was halfway through his sideways leap before his brain caught up with his reflexes and identified the sound: his emergency earphone was screaming with static. He twisted it out and thumbed it off in a single motion, and as the echo of it bounced for another second around his head he realized with a sinking feeling that he was too late. Static at that intensity could mean only that the

Qasamans were attempting to jam all radio communications in the area. They were making their move-

"Gif!" a voice hissed.

Pyre froze, his eyes shifting between the two Qasamans crouched facing him from half-concealed positions. The pistols pointed his way seemed larger than those he'd seen others wearing; the mojos with their wings poised for flight were certainly more alert. One of the men muttered something to his companion and stepped toward Pyre, gun steady on the Cobra's chest.

There was no time to consider the full implications of his actions, no consideration beyond getting out of this without bringing the rest of the troops down on him. Clearly, his captors still hoped to keep their presence secret from the Dewdrop; just as clearly, they'd lose that preference once he made his own move. His first attack would have to be fast and clean.

Pyre had never killed a human being before. His closest brush with such a thing had been on that awful day long ago when Jonny Moreau and a man apparently returned from the dead shot down Challinor's fledgling Cobra warlords in two or three seconds of the most terrifying display of laser fire he'd ever seen, then or since. For a teenaged boy on a struggling colony world such a slaughter had been the stuff of nightmares-particularly as the knowledge of his own early support of Challinor carried with it a small but leaden piece of the responsibility for the deaths. The last thing he wanted to do was to add more deaths to that weight between his shoulders.

But he had no choice. None at all. His sonic weapons could stun men at this range, but not for long enough... and the necessary frequencies were unlikely to be effective on the two mojos. All of them had to be silenced before any of them-human or mojo-could screech out a warning.

The leading man was barely two meters away now, properly staying out of his partner's line of fire. Four instants of eye contact to give his nanocomputer its targets; the gentle pressure of tongue against the roof of his mouth to key automatic fire control... and as the Qasaman opened his mouth to speak Pyre fired.

His little fingers spat laser bursts, arms and wrists shifting in response to the computer-directed servos within them. Like all his Cobra reflexes, this one was incredibly fast, and it was all over almost before he had a chance to wince.

That wasn't so hard, he thought, dropping to a crouch as he waited to see if the quiet crash of falling bodies would draw attention. Not too hard at all. And his eyes strayed to the corpse which had landed almost beside him and the head where the laser burn would be, though the undergrowth was hiding it, and the mojo who had died so quickly its talons still gripped its epaulet perch, and he began to tremble violently and tried hard not to throw up.

He waited for nearly half a minute, until the worst of the muscle spasms had subsided and the taste of bile had left his mouth, before resuming his cautious move forward. With no buzzing earphone to startle him this time, he made it the rest of the way to his laser without attracting attention. Once, as he was pulling the device from concealment, he saw another Qasaman; but the other was looking another way and Pyre was able to complete his task without being spotted.

Moving deeper into the forest, he headed south, hoping the Qasamans hadn't lined the whole damned forest with soldiers. If they had, he might have to climb a tree to contact the ship, after all. But their exaggerated caution hadn't carried them to quite that length. A hundred meters from his laser's hiding place the silent cordon line ended; Pyre went another fifty and then pushed his way cautiously to the edge. A convenient bush allowed him to get a clear shot at the Dewdrop's nose without exposing himself to direct view of the airfield control tower. Flat on his stomach, he set up the laser as quickly as he could and aimed it toward where he thought the bow sensor cluster was located.

Crossing his fingers, he flipped it on. "Pyre here," he murmured into the mike.

"Come in; anyone." There was no response. He waited a few seconds, then shifted his aim fractionally and tried again. Still nothing. My God-have they somehow taken everyone out already? He searched the hull for signs of damage. Gas, perhaps, or sonics that could have penetrated without harming the ship itself?

The taste of fear starting to well up into his throat, he again adjusted his aim-

"-in, Almo; are you there? Almo?"

Pyre's body sagged with relief. "I'm here, Governor. Phew. I thought something had happened to all of you."

"Yeah, well, it's about to," Telek said grimly. "Somehow they've tumbled to the fact that we're a spy mission, and it's probably a tossup as to whether they try and board us or take the safer way out and just blow us up."

"Any word from the contact team?" Pyre asked, forcing his voice to remain steady.

"Moff still has them on the bus, and so far they seem okay. They're being taken somewhere besides Sollas, though, probably the next city down. We were hoping you'd have a chance of intercepting them before they got too far away, assuming we could contact you in time."

"And?"

Telek hesitated. "Well... we estimate the bus will be passing the main road heading south from Sollas in ten or fifteen minutes. But that's twenty-plus kilometers from us-"

"How many Qasamans aboard?" he cut her off harshly.

"The usual six-man escort," she told him. "Plus their mojos. But even if you could get there in time I don't know how you'd get them out safely."

"I'll find a way. Just don't lift until I get back here with them... or until it's clear I'm not going to make it back at all."

He broke the connection without waiting to hear her reply and began crawling backwards from his concealing bush toward the protection of the forest, leaving the comm laser deployed for possible future use. Twenty kilometers in ten minutes. Hopeless even if he'd had clean ground to run on instead of a forest... but maybe the Qasamans would outsmart themselves on this one. Six guards in an ordinary bus was a fairly loose setup, even with the mojos and against four unarmed prisoners. In their place Pyre would transfer the Aventinians to a safer vehicle at the first opportunity... and to his way of thinking the crossroads to the south would be the ideal spot for such a switch.

And if his guess proved correct the whole party would be there for a few extra minutes. Long enough, perhaps, for Pyre to get there too.

At which point he'd have to face not only the busload of Qasamans but also whatever troops they'd assembled for the transfer. But there was nothing he could do about that. It was time for Almo Pyre, Cobra, to become what his implanted equipment had always intended him to be. Not a hunter, spy, nor even a killer of Aventinian spine leopards.

But a warrior.

Setting off at the fastest run the forest permitted, he headed south. It was all up to him now.

It was all up to him now.

York took a quiet breath, using his Marine biofeedback techniques to relax his muscles and nerves and to prepare him for action. To the right and slightly ahead he could see the buildings of Sollas silhouetted against the darkening sky, and if he remembered the aerial maps correctly they were now about as close to the city as this road got. It was time to make his attempt... and to find out just how deadly these mojos were.

His pen and ring were already resting casually in his left hand. Easing his calculator-watch off his left wrist, he fit the pen through its band, making sure the contacts were wedged solidly together. The ring slid onto the pen's clip to its own slot, and the palm-mate was ready. The arming sequence was three keystrokes on the calculator.

Wrapping the watchband into position around his right palm, he raised his hand over the back of the seat in front of him. Moff had given up his guard duty to one of the others a few kilometers back, but the Qasaman's attention was on

Rynstadt and Joshua at the moment. I get one free shot, York reminded himself distantly; and bringing the pen to bear on the guard, he squeezed the trigger.

The Qasaman jerked as the tiny dart buried itself deep in his cheek, his gun swinging wildly in reflexive search for a target. Reflexive but useless; already his eyes were beginning to glaze as the potent mix of neurotoxins took effect.

York shifted his aim to the mojo on the dying man's shoulder and a second dart found its target... but as he brought the palm-mate to bear on Moff's mojo all hell broke loose.

They were smart all right, those birds. The dead Qasaman hadn't even fallen to the floor before the remaining five mojos were in the air, sweeping toward him like silver-blue Furies. He got off two more shots, but neither connected-and then they were on him, talons digging into his face and gun arm and slamming him hard into the seat. Through the haze of agony he could dimly hear screams from

Rynstadt and the incomprehensible shouts of the Qasamans. Mojo wings slapped at his eyes, blinding him, but he didn't need his sight to know that his right forearm was being flayed, his right hand torn by beaks and talons as the mojos fought single-mindedly to get the palm-mate away from him. But it was wrapped firmly around his open hand, caught there though the will to hold it had long since vanished. His arm was on fire-wave after wave of agony screaming into his brain-and then suddenly the birds were gone, fluttering away to squawk at him from seat backs and Qasaman shoulders, and he saw what they'd done to his arm-

And the emotional shock combined with the physical shock... and Decker York, who had seen men injured and killed on five other worlds, dropped like a stone into the temporary sanctuary of unconsciousness.

His last thought before the blackness took him was that he would never wake up.

"Oh, my God," Christopher whispered. "My God."

Telek bit hard into the knuckles of her right hand, curled into an impotent fist at her mouth. York's arm.... She willed her eyes to turn away, but they were as tightly frozen to the scene as Joshua's own eyes were. Like a violent, haphazard dissection of York's arm-except that York was still alive. For now.

Beside her, Nnamdi gagged and fled the room. She hardly noticed.

It seemed like forever, but it was probably only a few seconds before Rynstadt was at York's side, a small can of seal-spray from his landing kit clutched in his shaking hand. He sprayed it on York's arm, sloppily and with an amateur's lack of uniformity; but by the time the can hissed itself dry Cerenkov had broken his own paralysis and moved in with a fresh can. Together they managed to seal off the worst of the blood flow.

Through it all Joshua never budged. Terrified out of his mind, Telek thought.

What a thing for a kid to see!

"Governor?" F'ahl's voice from the intercom made her jump. "Will he live?"

She hesitated. With the blood loss stopped and the seal-spray's anti-shock factors supporting York's system... but she knew better than to give even herself false hope. "Not a chance," she told F'ahl quietly. "He needs the

Dewdrop's medical facilities within an hour or less."

"Almo-"

"Might be able to get him here in time. But he won't. If he tries he'll just get himself killed, too." The words burned in her mouth, but she knew they were true. With the Qasamans and their birds jarred out of any overconfidence they might have had. Pyre wouldn't get within ten meters of the bus. But he would try anyway....

And now there was no other choice. "Captain, prepare the Dewdrop for lift," she said, her eyes straying at last from the display, only to stop on Justin lying in his couch. His fists, too, were clenched, but if he recognized she had just condemned his brother to death he didn't show it. "We'll try to take out as much of the tower and forest weaponry before we go and hope the ship can absorb whatever we don't destroy."

"Understood, Governor."

Telek turned to the lounge doorway, where Winward and Link were standing, their faces pale and grim. "We won't be able to get it all from here," she told them quietly.

"Already figured that out," Winward grunted. "When do you want us to head out?"

The pre-launch sequence would take at least ten minutes. "About fifteen minutes," she said.

Winward nodded. "We'll get geared up." Together the two Cobras turned and left.

"Full survival packs," Telek called after them.

"Sure," the reply drifted back along the corridor.

But she wasn't fooling anyone, and they all knew it. Even if the two Cobras lived through the coming battle, there was virtually no chance the Dewdrop would be able to come back and pick them up. Assuming the Dewdrop survived its own gauntlet.

Well, they'd find out about that in half an hour or less. Until then-Until then, there'd be enough time to watch Pyre die in his rescue attempt.

Because it was her duty to do so, Telek turned her attention back to the displays. But the taste of defeat was bitter in her throat, and she felt very, very old.