Cobra Gamble (19 page)

Jody felt a shiver run through her. She'd had no idea Qasaman drugs could do anything like
that.
"I see," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "So you're saying you never actually
looked
at the controls when you were flying the freighter?"

Rashida shrugged slightly. "I saw them," she said. "I could read their labels, and understand a little of what they said. But the control boards here are an entirely different layout. I can't translate my sequences and control movements to them."

"Got it," Jody said, wincing. Harli was
not
going to be happy about this. "Okay. We'd better go down and find Harli."

"No," Rashida gasped, grabbing Jody's arm. "You can't. If he learns that we lied to him, all will be lost."

"It was a mischaracterization, not a lie," Jody reminded her. "Regardless, he has to know, and he has to know now. His whole strategy's going to need revision, and he's only got eight days to revise it."

"I beg of you," Rashida said, her voice desperate, her fingers digging into Jody's skin. "You must not tell him. I cannot fail him, and you, and my own people. The dishonor would be too much to bear."

"Well, then, you'd better figure out how to fly this thing," Jody said bluntly. "Because those are your only two options."

Rashida stared into Jody's eyes... and then, to Jody's surprise, the tension seemed to melt out of her face. "No," she said quietly as she let go and let her hand fall to her side. "There is one other choice."

Jody frowned. "What do you—?"

And then, suddenly, she understood. "Whoa!" she said, taking a quick step forward and grabbing Rashida's wrist. "Don't do anything stupid. We need you."

"No, you don't," Rashida said, twisting her arm and freeing it from Jody's grip. "You understand the invaders' language better than I do. You can do whatever translation is necessary. That ability and my presence as a symbol of Qasaman honor are my only value."

"That's not true," Jody insisted, wondering if she should try again to grab the other woman's arm. But their footing was precarious enough up here, and if they ended up in a struggle there was a good chance both of them would fall to their deaths. "Neither of them is true. You speak cattertalk way better than I do."

"My speaking did not prevent the invaders' courier ship from obtaining information of our situation and escaping with it." Rashida gestured again at the ship stretching out beneath them. "No, their writing is what's important now. And you read far better than I do."

"We need you," Jody repeated desperately. "Look, at least you've
flown
a Troft ship. That's more than any of the rest of us have done. Let's put our heads together and figure out—"

She broke off as the hint of an idea suddenly came to her. "Wait a second. You say you flew the freighter on pure touch and kinesthetic positioning, right? What if we go to the freighter,
you
show me what you did,
I
translate the control labels, and we work out together how to adapt everything to the warships' control boards?"

Rashida stared at her, a cautious flicker of hope in her eyes. "But the warship controls are far more complex."

"Sure, because this thing can do a lot more than a freighter can," Jody said. "For starters, the helm probably has a weapons section so that the pilot or copilot can fire the lasers and missiles if the regular gunners are incapacitated. That's how Dominion of Man warships work. Or at least, that's how they worked the last time we saw one a century ago."

"What if you're wrong?" Rashida persisted. "What if we can't learn to fly the warship that way?"

"Then we won't be any worse off than we are already," Jody pointed out. "Are you at least willing to give it a try?"

Rashida's gaze dipped once to the ground far below and she took a deep breath. Then, she looked back up at Jody and nodded. "Yes," she said firmly. "How do we proceed?"

Jody took a deep breath of her own. The thought of having to watch while Rashida satisfied her Qasaman view of honor had terrified her more than she'd realized. "We go to Harli," she said. "We tell him—"

"No!" Rashida interrupted. "We can't tell him about this. My honor—"

"No, no, no," Jody said hastily. "What we're going to tell him is that we want to go back to the freighter. To, I don't know, check its control systems or something. Maybe say we have to double-check how the navigation system and history readout work—that's something we could only do back there. Once he gives the okay, we can check out an aircar and be at the wreck by mid-afternoon."

"I don't think Cobra Uy will let us use an aircar," Rashida said. "I overheard the other Cobras talking. Most are out on search or transport duty, and he's keeping the rest in reserve."

"Then we'll borrow a spooker," Jody said.

"You can drive one of those vehicles?" Rashida asked, sounding doubtful.

"Sure," Jody said. "I mean, how hard can it be?"

* * *

"I'll
tell
you how hard it can be," Harli growled. "Picture a typical grav-lift cycle and multiply it by about ten. Add in unfamiliar terrain, multiply
that
by ten. Then add in nasty, hungry predators and multiply
that
by fifty."

"You don't have to be so dramatic," Jody said stiffly. "I
do
know something about the forest, you know. I spent a full day tromping through it."

"And damn near got yourself killed in the process," Harli retorted. "What am I wasting time arguing about this for? No. The answer is no."

Jody braced herself. "Harli—"

"If you think you need to study the wreck, fine," Harli continued, "I'll have Kemp and Smitty drive you out there."

"Oh," Jody said, feeling the argumentative wind snapped straight out of her sails. She should have realized that was where Harli was going.

Only now, instead of pulling just herself and Rashida out of the already critically short labor pool, they were going to rob Harli of the use of a pair of Cobras, too. That hadn't been part of her original calculation. "Or we could make it simpler and just take an aircar," she suggested.

"The aircars stay put," he said tartly. "They're the only things we've got that can pull any altitude, and you never know when you might need that." He gestured to an older man, one of the non-Cobras, busily digging vegetables from one of the gardens by the broken wall. "Yamara, Kemp should be somewhere around the circle over there. Go get him, will you?"

"Sure," Yamara said. Laying down his shovel, he hurried away.

"He should be here in a minute," Harli said, taking Jody's arm and casually walking her a few steps farther away from Rashida. "You sure this trip is necessary?" he asked quietly. "It's not exactly safe out there."

"I'm sure," Jody told him. "I hadn't thought about taking two of your Cobras away, though. Maybe they could just drop us off, make sure we get inside the freighter, and then come back here. We could set a time for them to come get us tomorrow or the next day."

Harli shook his head. "That ship went through the wringer, and from what Kemp said the hull has a whole bunch of cracks and broken seams. Any number of nasties could already be inside, and if they aren't now they will be once they smell fresh meat." He cocked his head. "But come to think of it, there's no reason why
you
have to go. Kemp and Smitty could take Rashida, and you could stay here and help with this fancy curtain you and Geoff sold me on this morning."

"Thanks, but I'd better go with her," Jody said. "As far as I know, I'm the only other person left on Qasama who reads cattertalk script. She might need me."

Harli grunted. "Fine," he said. "But you've got
one day
to find whatever you think you need. After that, you're back here, even if Kemp has to nail you to the back of his spooker for the ride. Got it?"

"Yes," Jody said. After all, it shouldn't take long for Rashida to run through her flight simulations and for Jody to record it all. After that, whatever analysis they needed to do could be handled here in Stronghold.

"Okay," Harli said. "And the two of you should probably wear the combat suits, too, assuming your friends are through testing them by then. In fact, once they're done you might as well just hang on to them. They'll give you an edge if you need to get near the prisoners, and they fit you better than anyone else around anyway."

"All right," Jody said. The suits were a little uncomfortable, but the built-in strength enhancements would certainly be nice to have. Not having to scrape spores and other organics off them every morning would be a nice bonus, too. "I'll check with Geoff and Freylan and find out when they'll be finished."

"There's no hurry—it's too late for you to head out today anyway," Harli said. "We'll set it up for first light tomorrow morning. You think that'll give Rashida enough time?"

Jody grimaced. "I hope so. Yes, I'll make sure it is."

"Good," Harli said. "And watch her. That whatever-it-is is still bothering her—I can see it in her face." He looked over Jody's shoulder at Rashida. "And don't forget that whatever crazy relationship your family has with the Qasamans, it may not be nearly as solid and secure as you think. Be sure you watch your back."

"Don't worry," Jody said, a shiver running through her. "I will."

 CHAPTER TEN

"All right," Lorne called, looking over the twenty men standing at quiet attention in front of him, the sleek gray wraparound computers snugged around their necks making an odd contrast to their simple villager clothing. "This is where it begins. This is where we decide whether you have what it takes to be called Cobras."

The word seemed to echo through the forest. Or maybe it was just echoing through Lorne's own mind.

Because there was certainly good reason for him to pause and consider both the word and the men. This was the most unprecedented group of human beings Lorne had never in his wildest dreams expected to see. Men who only a week ago had been standing restlessly in line waiting for their psychological interviews were now Cobra trainees.

They weren't just any men, either. They were
Qasaman
men.

He looked across the group again, a shiver running through him. Their backs were straight and firm, with no hint of pain or even discomfort despite having had forty hours of surgery over the past five days. Their eyes were shiny with the effects of the learning-enhancement drugs they'd been dosed with this morning, drugs that Fadil Sammon had assured Lorne would cut the usual training period from weeks down to mere days.

And behind the studied calmness of their expressions, Lorne could see the burning fire of men with a mission. Men who'd had their home invaded, and were ready and eager to shove the war back down the invaders' throats.

Back in Stronghold, in the heat and excitement of their victory over the Caelian invaders, Lorne had brushed aside Nissa Gendreves's objections to bringing Isis to Qasama. He'd seen her concerns as merely more of the same unimaginative and inflexible bureaucratic thinking that he and the other Cobras on Aventine had been putting up with for too many years.

Now, as he gazed into the Qasamans' faces, he wondered uneasily if maybe she'd had a legitimate point.

"Cobra Broom?"

Lorne shook away his thoughts. There was work to be done, and it was way too late to indulge in second-guessing. "Yes, Trainee Yithtra?"

"I once again question these," Yithtra said, reaching up to tap the computer around his neck. "It may be both necessary and prudent for those of your worlds to learn their new abilities in slow and controlled stages. But we're Qasamans. We're faster than that."

"That's good to hear," Lorne said. "Because you're absolutely not going to get the slow, controlled course. You're going to get the full-bore, hammer-head, bone-bending version. We're in a war, remember?"

"Exactly my point," Yithtra said. "We were told we would only be given our full capabilities once the training was over. I respectfully request that you give them to us now, so that we may learn all the more quickly how to use them."

Lorne suppressed a grimace. Fadil had warned them during the screening process that the Yithtra family had far more arrogance and self-confidence than was probably good for them, and that first-son Gama was definitely a product of that attitude.

But the Yithtras were also one of the strongest families in the village, and moreover had a long history of rivalry with the Sammon family as the two of them jockeyed for power and influence. Fadil had warned that cutting them out of the Cobra project would probably lead to dangerous accusations and turmoil that no one on Qasama could afford right now, least of all a small village like Milika.

In Lorne's opinion, that wasn't much of a reason to accept someone into a program that was already charged with psychological and physical land mines. But Jin had insisted that Fadil have final say on which of his fellow villagers were fit to become Cobras, and Fadil had recommended Yithtra, and so here he was.

But Fadil only had final say on entry to the program. It would be up to Lorne and his fellow Cobras as to which of the candidates ultimately passed the course.

Which was, after all, the true reason why wraparound computer collars were used to control their equipment during training. The Qasamans' nanocomputers were already in place beneath their brains, but for now they were dormant, awaiting the final induction-field signal that would activate them. Whether that activation gave the trainees full access to their implanted weapons and strength-enhancing servos, or whether they got the only the stripped-down version of the programming that would turn them into merely extra-strong civilians, was a decision that still lay down the road.

A road that started right now. "The collars stay," Lorne told him shortly. "Let me introduce you to your trainers." He gestured to his left. "This is Cobra Everette Beach; beside him is Cobra Wendell McCollom. Both have experience in training Cobras, and both have survived many years on the intensely dangerous world of Caelian. If anyone can teach you to handle the pressures of war, they're the ones who can do it."