Cobra Gamble (3 page)

Four guards, plus the launcher. Five shots in all. With the task of aiming and firing controlled by Merrick's nanocomputer, he could probably get off that many blasts before the Trofts even had time to react. He targeted the nearest soldier, moved on to the second.

And paused. For no particular reason, a story about his great-grandfather Jonny Moreau floated up from his memory. How the legendary First Cobra and revered Cobra Worlds statesman, when faced by a ship full of Trofts, had chosen to merely neutralize instead of kill.

Of course, that situation had been entirely different. Jonny had been alone and hoping to make a deal with his captors. Merrick was in the midst of an invasion, facing attackers who were currently running a grinding machine across Qasama's capital city and probably killing untold numbers of citizens in the process.

Merrick had already killed in this war. He'd taken more lives than he'd ever dreamed would fall by his hand. But all of those enemies had been already shooting at him or other humans, or had been in the process of taking civilian hostages whom Merrick was committed to rescuing. These particular Trofts weren't doing any such thing.

But they
were
collecting predators to use against Merrick's own people. Wasn't that just as bad?

He grimaced, his sudden indecision both unexpected and disconcerting. Was he rethinking the whole concept of this war and his place in it?

Or was this simply a reaction to his own near-death on the battlefield? Was he shying away from killing in the hope that by doing so he might himself survive?

"Merrick Moreau?" Kinstra prompted.

Abruptly, Merrick came to a decision. Releasing the target locks on the Troft guards, he instead locked onto their weapons. The ultimate purpose of these counterattacks was to discourage the razorarm hunts and drive the Trofts from the forests. He could do that just as well by chasing them back to the cities, where they would be the Qasaman military's problem.

"Merrick Moreau?" Kinstra repeated, more urgently this time.

"Ready," Merrick said. "Keep your head down." Moving out of the relative safety of the tree, he rolled onto his right side, giving his left leg the freedom of movement the nanocomputer would need to handle the fire pattern Merrick had set for it. He took a deep breath, and triggered his laser.

The brilliant beam slashed through the darkness of the night, a multiple stuttering of light cutting through leaves and undergrowth and flash-vaporizing the metal, ceramic, and plastic of the launcher and the Trofts' lasers. The last of the five shots blazed out and Merrick pushed himself up off the ground for a quick assessment.

And dropped instantly back down as the launcher erupted in a blistering staccato fire of its own, its antipersonnel missiles screaming through the forest and blasting huge chunks of wood from the trees above Merrick's head.

Reflexively, he reached out a hand to grab Kinstra and pull him down. But the Qasaman was already there, pressed against the matted covering of dead leaves, his mouth moving as he shouted something. Merrick adjusted his auditory enhancers, trying to filter out the cracks of the explosives, "—posed to kill them!" he caught Kinstra's last words.

"We're supposed to
stop
them," Merrick called back. A new crunching sound penetrated his hearing, and he looked up to see the tree he'd been hiding behind starting to lean sideways as the Troft missiles tore apart its trunk half a meter above Merrick's eyes. "Come on," Merrick called, getting a grip on Kinstra's arm. The tree above them leaned farther and farther, then ponderously toppled over, crashing through the other trees and bushes beside it.

And as it slammed into the forest floor, its impact raising a blinding cloud of leaves and dust, Merrick pulled Kinstra up onto his elbows and knees and headed away as fast as they could crawl.

They'd made about twenty meters when the missile launcher finally fell silent. Even as both men turned carefully around, they spotted the glow of the repulsorlifts flickering through the trees as the freighter headed hastily into the night sky.

* * *

A thin layer of clouds had covered up the stars by the time the team once again passed through the gate into the village of Milika.

It was, for Merrick, an odd homecoming. When he'd first been brought back here eight days ago to complete his recovery, the village's lights had glowed cheerfully long into the night. But not anymore. Since the second wave of Trofts had arrived, Milika and the other forest villages had returned to the rhythms of humanity's past, to the time when activity was governed by the sun. Now, the town began to close down when the sun reached the treetops, the vendors bidding farewell to their final customers of the day and hurriedly closing up their shops. By the time the first stars appeared, the open areas of Milika were all but deserted, the people busy with their evening meals and quiet indoor activities as the village was slowly swallowed by the darkening forest.

It was a little silly, in Merrick's opinion, given that the Trofts' infrared detectors were perfectly capable of picking out the heat signatures of several hundred humans from the relative coolness of the forest around them. If they came looking for villages, they could certainly find them.

The Qasamans had to know that, too. Perhaps the darkness and silence were a matter of token defiance, something to help the villagers keep their focus, to keep their animosity toward the invaders fresh in their minds.

The team began to split up as they trudged through the village, each of the men and teens heading to their individual homes where anxious family members awaited them. Kinstra was the last to leave, murmuring a final farewell as he walked up the steps to his home.

And Merrick was alone.

He'd never had trouble with solitude before. Solitude was time to observe the world around him, and to think in the quietness.

But the world now wrapped around him was hardly conducive toward peaceful contemplation. And all of his thoughts were edged with fear and darkness.

What was happening in the cities? More importantly, what was happening to the people he'd left behind there? Daulo Sammon, badly injured, whose fate he still didn't know. The Djinni warrior Carsh Zoshak, who in a few short days of combat had grown from a suspicious and reluctant fellow soldier to a trusted comrade and true friend.

But worst of all were the haunting questions of what was happening to Merrick's family.

He looked up at the clouds drifting by overhead. Had his mother made it safely back to Aventine? Or had she been intercepted by the Trofts and captured or killed?

Merrick's younger brother Lorne was also on Aventine, most likely smack in the middle of whatever the Trofts were doing there. Merrick's father and sister were probably in even worse shape, stuck on the hell-world Caelian.

Were any of them looking up at their own stars right now? Were they thinking about Merrick, and wondering if he was dead?

"So you return."

Merrick lowered his eyes from the sky and his contemplation. Davi Krites, the doctor who Senior Advisor Moffren Omnathi had sent from Sollas to monitor Merrick's recovery, was standing at the entrance to the courtyard of the Sammon family home. His arms were folded across his chest, and Merrick didn't need his Cobra opticals to see the annoyance in the other's face and stance. "Did you think I wouldn't?" he asked as he walked up to the doctor.

"We could hear the sound of the missile attack from here, you know," Krites said grimly. "I fully expected the others to bring you back in pieces."

"It wasn't that bad," Merrick assured him. "Probably sounded worse than it was."

"I'm sure you know best," Krites said, running a critical eye over Merrick's body. "At least you're not bleeding. Not externally, at any rate."

"I really am fine," Merrick said. "If you're concerned, you can haul me in for an exam right now. I promise I won't argue."

"Tempting," Krites said. "But you'd just fall asleep on my table. Morning will be soon enough. Besides, Master Sammon wants to see you."

Merrick felt his stomach tighten. Fadil Sammon, Daulo's son, had been wide awake earlier this afternoon, and for longer than usual. Merrick had hoped the young Qasaman would be asleep by now. "I'll go at once," he said.

He started past Krites, stopped as the doctor caught his arm. "He'll want to know about his father," the other warned.

"I know," Merrick said. "I'll just have to tell him again that there's no news."

"I don't like to see him agitated," Krites said, still gripping Merrick's arm. "Can't you give him some hope?"

"You mean lie to him?"

"You're not Qasaman," Krites reminded him. "You grew up in a different culture. Your reactions and facial nuances are different from ours. You might be able to get away with it."

"I'll take it under advisement." Merrick gestured to Krites's hand on his arm. "May I?"

Reluctantly, Krites let go. Nodding a farewell, Merrick crossed the courtyard and went into the house.

Fadil's suite was at one end of the north wing, with the size and lavish decoration that befit the son of an important village leader. The furniture in the gathering area was made of carved wood and tanned krissjaw hide, dyed with subtle and shimmering stains. There were layered paintings on the walls and sculptured plant holders with flowing greenery scattered around the room. Embedded gemstones in the ceiling gave the illusion of the night sky, and night breezes flowed in through wide, open windows.

All of which made the stark metal medical bed resting in the center of the darkened room a disconcerting visual shock.

"Merrick Moreau?"

"Yes," Merrick confirmed, keying in his opticals as he started across the room. Fadil had turned his head to look toward his visitor, and even in Merrick's artificially enhanced view the young Qasamans eyes looked unpleasantly bright. "How may I serve you?"

It took Merrick eight steps to get to the bed. Fadil watched him the whole way in silence, then turned away. "No news," he said quietly.

"No," Merrick said. So much for lying to the other. The powerful mind-enhancing drugs that Fadil had taken back in Sollas still saturated his brain, giving him powers of observation and analysis well beyond those of normal human beings. The effect was usually temporary, Krites had told Merrick, but sometimes could be permanent.

There was no such uncertainty about the drugs' side effects. The paralysis that had engulfed Fadil's body below his neck barely an hour after the mind-enhancement procedure
was
permanent.

Fadil's contribution to the war effort had made him a quadriplegic. Forever.

"What's happening in Sollas?" Fadil asked.

Merrick wasn't even tempted to lie. "According to the last report, the Troft ships spent most of the day blowing up more of the western and northeastern parts of the city," he said. "They've probably stopped now—so far their pattern's been to break off the demolition work at nightfall."

"They want to see what it is they're destroying," Fadil murmured. "They don't want to risk missing something when they have only infrared and light-amplification to see by."

"Probably," Merrick said. "It still seems like they're taking an awfully long time to destroy a single city."

"Because they're not really interested in Sollas itself," Fadil told him. "Their goal is to destroy the subcity—all of its levels, all of its chambers. The part that's aboveground is merely in the way."

Merrick nodded. That last part was sadly obvious. What
wasn't
obvious was whether or not the Shahni and the Djinn would be able to mount any sort of defense or counterattack before Sollas, and all the rest of the cities had been turned to rubble and dead bodies.

"And you've heard nothing about my father?" Fadil asked into Merrick's thoughts.

"No," Merrick said. Fadil had already concluded that, of course, from his reading of Merrick's face and body language. But even so, he asked the question.

As he always did, every time he saw Merrick. Always at least twice. Sometimes three or four times.

For a moment Fadil was silent. "Perhaps tomorrow there'll be news," he said at last. "I'm told the invaders launched a missile attack on you tonight. Were there casualties?"

"None," Merrick said. "And it wasn't exactly an attack. I blew up the guidance section of one of their antipersonnel launchers, and the thing went berserk. Probably programmed to shift to a random, rapid-fire spread within a defined arc to try to drive away whoever's attacking them."

"Thus giving themselves time to regroup for counterattack or escape."

"In this case the latter," Merrick said. "They were in the air before the rest of the team even caught up with us."

"Did they leave with razorarms?"

"I don't know," Merrick said. "But if they did get any, I'm guessing they didn't get the number they were hoping for. I think we can claim at least half a victory on this one."

"Indeed," Fadil said. "Now tell me: why are you still alive?"

Merrick felt an unpleasant tingle run up his back. Gama Yithtra, after the rest of the team had belatedly arrived, had been furious that Merrick and Kinstra had taken on the Trofts all by themselves. Was Fadil suggesting that Yithtra might actually have ordered some kind of lethal action against them for that? "I don't understand," he said carefully.

"You said the launcher fired a random pattern," Fadil said. "How is it none of the missiles struck you?"

Merrick frowned, thinking back. "Because we were flat on the ground," he said slowly, "and all the shots were over our heads."

"Does that seem odd to you?"

"Yes, now that you mention it," Merrick agreed. "I didn't even notice at the time."

"Of course not." In the darkness, Merrick saw Fadil's bitter-edged smile. "You still have your arms and legs."

Merrick felt a fresh ache in his heart. "Fadil Sammon—"

"No, Merrick Moreau, don't speak," Fadil interrupted quietly. "That was unfair and cruel. My apologies. The decision that put me in this situation was mine and mine alone. And many others have suffered far worse." He gave a small nod toward the window. "And through it all, I did my part for the people of Qasama. My gamble and sacrifice were not for nothing."