Cobra Gamble (36 page)

"Agreed," Lorne said, nodding. "I'm guessing that he expects reinforcements any time now, and figures there's no point getting himself killed for nothing. Probably why he wanted to get out of the ship—he wanted the reinforcements to be able to come aboard with lasers blazing and not have to worry about hitting friendlies."

"Yes," Ghushtre said. "But as yet no other warships have left their positions."

"Probably still warming up," Lorne said. "If we hurry, we should still have time. I'll get downstairs and deal with the drones. You'd better call Azras and tell them phase two is on."

"Already done," Ghushtre said. "The explosives will be ready when you are."

"Good," Lorne said. "And have someone get Jennifer McCollom up here. I want someone who reads cattertalk script to look over the weapon firing systems."

"I'll send for her," Ghushtre said, frowning. "You
do
remember that we can't use those weapons, don't you?"

"Of course," Lorne assured him. "But we may be able to at least get the lasers and missile tubes to swivel a little." He shrugged. "With a plan like this, it's all in the perception."

"Perhaps," Ghushtre said. "Just don't forget that once the warships leave Purma you'll have no more than ten or twelve minutes until their arrival."

"Don't worry," Lorne said grimly. "We'll be ready." 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It had taken a full day to get the new spore-repellent curtain set up at the south end of Strongholds landing area, and Jody Broom's friends Geoff and Freylan had insisted on giving it another two hours of testing to make sure that the transportation and setup hadn't knocked anything loose. Harli had had a chance to examine it as he oversaw the operation, and had quickly concluded that the curtain was the ugliest stretch of cloth he'd ever seen in his life.

It was even uglier on the inside, where the Trofts were now gathered. But it worked, and that was all that mattered.

Not that he was expecting Captain Eubujak to comment on either the aesthetics or the practicality. He was expecting Eubujak to be sputtering mad about the prisoners' new accommodations, and he was right.

"This is unacceptable," Eubujak said, the emotionless tone of his translator pin in sharp contrast to the violent fluttering of his radiator membranes. "It is barbaric. There is no space, there are no sanitary facilities, there is no proper bedding—"

"There are two square meters of space each," Harli interrupted the tirade. He really didn't have time for this. "Sanitary facilities are right outside the curtain if you want them. As for the rest of it, there should be Tlossie ships arriving any time now to take you to a proper prisoner-of-war camp."

Eubujak glared at him a moment, probably waiting for the running translation to finish. "There will be consequences," he warned, gesturing toward the crazy-quilt patchwork rising over the Caelian greenery behind him. "The Drim'hco'plai demesne will not accept such treatment of its citizens."

"The Drim'hco'plai demesne should have thought of that before they decided to invade other people's worlds," Harli said bluntly.

Eubujak continued to glare. But as his eyes shifted from Harli to the Stronghold wall, half a kilometer to the north, his radiator membranes settled lower against his upper arms.

Harli smiled cynically. The Troft had certainly noticed their warship ferrying the civilians out of the city over the past few hours. The final group, in fact, had left just as the prisoners were being marched across the overgrown field to their new open-air quarters. Apparently, Eubujak had just put the pieces together and realized that once the last few Cobras had also left he could simply march his troops back to the deserted city and settle into the far more comfortable homes of its residents.

It was almost a shame to have to burst his bubble. Almost.

"Oh, and there's one other thing," Harli said, keying on his field radio. "Popescu? You ready?"

"We're ready," Popescu's voice came, sounding every bit as pleased as Harli was feeling. "Got a really nice load, too."

"Great," Harli said. "Go ahead and drop 'em."

From one of the clearings east of the city, one of Caelian's two air-transport vans lifted into view. It flew across the forest to the field of knee-high hookgrass and razor fern that the Trofts had just slogged through to their new quarters. As it reached the area between the curtain and Stronghold, the rear doors opened and one of the Cobras started tossing out objects that sent ripples through the grasses as they thudded to the ground.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harli saw Eubujak's radiator membranes starting to stretch out again. "What is this?" the Troft asked. "What do they throw from the vehicle?"

"Carcasses," Harli told him. "Dead animals. Hooded clovens, orctangs, giggers, maybe a saberclaw or two. Basically, everything they were able to hunt down and kill over the past couple of hours."

Eubujak looked at the transport, then at the ground, then back at Harli. "Explain," he demanded.

"Give it a minute," Harli said, keying his audios. Over the hum of the transport's grav lifts, he could hear the quiet whispering of small creatures moving through the flora around them.

And then, one of the bodies twenty meters away suddenly began writhing violently.

Eubujak's membranes snapped all the way out. "You said they were dead!"

"They are," Harli said as two of the other carcasses also began twitching. "Those are some of Caelian's scavenger animals—ratteeth and scrimmers, mostly, with probably some picklenose and a
lot
of different insects thrown in. We've just laid out the best buffet they've ever seen in their short, violent, miserable little lives."

He pointed to the edge of the forest, where his infrareds now spotted the tell-tale profile of a screech tiger. "And speaking of buffets..."

Right on cue, the screech tiger bounded from cover, driving a rippling shock wave through the grasses as it raced toward one of the twitching carcasses. Prom the other side of the forest, a pair of smaller wakes marked the arrival of giggers or saberclaws.

"It's kind of like those museum dioramas I used to see pictures of when I was a kid," Harli said as a flock of split-tails appeared and made a diving run over one of the shaking carcasses. Two of them shot back out of the grass a second later with mouse-whiskers clutched in their talons. "Pretty much the whole Caelian ecosystem is about to settle in right here in front of you. It'll be great fun—and
very
educational—for you to watch. Though I strongly recommend you do so from
inside
the curtain."

He looked significantly at Eubujak. "Out here, it's not going to be very healthy." He tapped the greenish patina of spores already collecting on the Troft's leotard sleeve. "Especially since you're starting to look a lot like lunch."

Eubujak looked down at his sleeve, then at the increasingly active kill zone between him and the city wall. "There will be consequences," he warned again, and stepped back toward the curtain.

"Only if you try to come out," Harli said. "But don't take my word for it. Feel free to—"

"Harli!" Popescu's voice came urgently from the radio. "Harli, you there?"

Frowning, Harli keyed the transmitter. "I'm here," he said. "What's up?"

"Whistler just picked up visual on two bogies coming in from the east," Popescu said tautly. "Still too far away for a positive ID, but they sure as hell look like Drim warships."

Harli felt his throat tighten. "You sure?"

"Whistler is," Popescu said. "He said he tried hailing, but there was no answer."

Harli looked toward the east, cursing under his breath. The ships that the Tlossie demesne-heir Warrior had promised to send for the prisoners would be transports, not warships. And they definitely wouldn't ignore a hail.

The Drim reinforcements had arrived.

Only they'd arrived a whole damn day too early.

"Get inside," he ordered Eubujak, hooking a thumb toward the curtain. "Get
inside.
Now."

Eubujak flicked a look of his own toward the east. Then, without a word, he stepped back, pulled up the lower edge of the curtain and ducked down, and disappeared into the enclosure.

"What do you want us to do?" Popescu asked.

For a pair of heartbeats Harli gazed into the eastern sky, trying to think. Rashida and their one functional Troft warship should have dropped off the last load of civilians by now and be heading back to Stronghold to collect the rest of the Cobras. Probably no way they could make it before the new ships arrived.

Or maybe they could. Warrior had said that Drim warships couldn't fire on each other. If he was right about that, Rashida might just barely be able to bring the warship in, grab the remaining twenty Cobras, and hightail it out of here.

But hightail it to where? One of the other settlements, where the invaders would be sure to follow? Somewhere out into Wonderland, where the Cobras would have the lethal Caelian ecology to help take them out?

He glanced over his shoulder at the curtain. Whatever he decided, he realized suddenly, he first needed to move out of Troft earshot. He'd already seen how inventive Eubujak was at getting messages to his fellow Drims.

Unless Harli could come up with something he
wanted
the incoming warships to know about...

"Here's what you do," he told Popescu. Actually, now that he thought about it, the warships were probably monitoring their radio transmissions anyway. Still, better to double down on this one and stay close to the curtain. "First, get a message to Smitty and have him divert Rashida to the Octagon Caves. Tell him to forget the booby-trap. He's to get the missiles and the rest of the gear out of the chimney, load 'em aboard, and get 'em back here. Got it?"

"Whoa, whoa," Popescu protested, sounding thoroughly confused. "What—?"

"Shut up and listen, you stupid spelunker," Harli snarled. "Don't worry—between the construction crew and the ordnance team he'll have at least fifty Cobras to help him with the loading. While he does that, we're going to fire up the weapons on the downed ship. Our new guests should be flying pretty much straight over us, so we should be able to take out at least one of them before they know what's up. Got all that?"

"Yeah, I got it," Popescu growled. "And lay off calling me a spelunker. Do it again and I'll come over there and pop your wings off."

Harli smiled grimly. Popescu had gotten the message, all right. "I'd like to see you try it," he growled back. "Go on, get moving."

The predators were still churning up the hookgrass. Harli ran as close as he dared to the frenzy, then did a full-servo flying leap that took him safely over the feeding melee. He hit the ground running and headed for Stronghold.

Popescu was waiting for him at the broken section of wall, along with the last of the Cobras still in the city. "I hope that was an act," he said as Harli came up to them. "If it wasn't, I have no idea what you're up to."

"You got it just fine," Harli assured him. "You relay all that to Smitty?"

"Word for word," Popescu said. "So what's our part of the plan?"

Harli pointed at the Troft ship lying on its side. "Basically, we get inside the ship and wait," he said. "I'm figuring that between Eubujak and the newcomers' own eavesdropping they'll get the word that we're going to try to ambush him."

"I thought we couldn't do that," Popescu said. "Didn't Warrior tell you there was an IFF setup on the lasers that would keep us from shooting at other Drim warships?"

"Right, but Eubujak doesn't know we haven't found a way around that," Harli said, gesturing the others to follow and heading at a fast jog toward the downed ship. "I'm hoping one or both of the Drims will land and try to get to us before we can get the weapons activated."

"And when they come charging in we ambush them?" Popescu asked doubtfully.

"I know it's not much of a plan," Harli said, "but with something like seven to one odds against, making them come at us in mostly single file is the best we're going to get."

"Especially since they're not going to have any more experience than we do fighting inside a sideways spaceship." Popescu lifted his radio. "Torrance? We're making our stand in there. Kick everything off standby and run it to full power. Might as well make a good show of it for them."

"Got it," Torrance's voice came back. "I'll start making a list of good places to set up traps."

"Thanks." Popescu lowered the radio and pointed east. "Whistler estimated another ten minutes before they get here. That's not much time."

"We'll make it," Harli assured him. "I just hope Smitty and his crew can figure out what it was I was trying to tell them."

"And can pull it off?"

Harli grimaced. "Yeah. And can pull it off."

* * *

"Got it," Smitty said into the radio. "Going silent now. Good luck."

"You too," Popescu said.

Smitty keyed off the radio and busied himself at the control board. "Well," he said. "Nothing brightens up a dull day like an alien invasion. You two doing all right?"

"Sure," Jody said, trying to keep her voice from shaking as her heart thudded in her throat and her stomach tried to do pole-spins around her esophagus. The Drim reinforcements were a day early. A whole day early.

And she wasn't prepared yet. None of them were.

"I'm fine," Rashida said, and Jody felt a flash of envy at how much calmer the other woman sounded than she did. "But I'm confused by Harli Uy's message. I'm also not familiar with the word
verbatim."

"That means Popescu gave us Harli's exact words," Smitty told her, tapping one final key. "Okay, I think I've sent you the course heading for the Octagon Caves. Did it come through?"

"Yes, I have it," Rashida confirmed, and Jody's inner ear registered the change as the ship angled onto a new vector. "We'll be there in approximately eight minutes. But I still don't understand the message. When did Harli Uy send fifty Cobras to the cave?"

"He didn't," Smitty said. "He and Popescu must have figured the Trofts were listening in on the conversation and had to make up a code on the fly. We just have to connect the dots to translate from what he
said
to what he
meant."