Cobra Alliance-Cobra War Book 1 (36 page)

Zoshak was silent for another few paces. "One thing I don't understand. I thought your equipment enhanced your normal abilities without being a substitute for them. Yet you state that your mother will die without her nanocomputer?"

Merrick sighed, the whole situation once again wrenching at him. "She won't literally die," he said. "But the condition she's going to end up in might as well be death. Our nanocomputers control our servos, not just their extra-strength capabilities but also the normal everyday movements. Without that control, the servos won't function. Every movement she makes will be against little motors that don't want to move and will have to be forced. Throw in the inherent extra weight of our ceramic laminae, and it'll be like she's wearing exercise wraps all over her body. Add in the arthritis and anemia that are already starting to affect her, and you have a prescription for a living hell."

"Is there nothing that can be done to help?" Zoshak asked. "Perhaps implant a new computer?"

"In theory, I suppose that could be done," Merrick said. "But the equipment to do that is forty-five light-years and a long visit to a Qasaman brain surgeon away. The point is that she'll have to go through her surgery and recovery in that state." He shook his head. "I'm just worried about what it'll do to her."

"And so you volunteered to take her place," Zoshak said, his voice thoughtful. "Willing to sacrifice yourself for your family."

Merrick shrugged. "Probably sounds a little selfish," he admitted. "After all, without my nanocomputer, I'd be pretty much out of the war. That's a lot safer than going out in the streets and getting shot at."

"I hardly consider such a sacrifice to fall under the heading of selfishness," Zoshak said. "I was merely noting that you're perhaps more like us than you realize."

An hour later, as Merrick finally began to drift off to sleep, he was still wondering whether being like the Qasamans was a good thing or a bad thing.

Jin sighed. "Merrick won't like this," she said. "Neither will Shahni Haafiz."

"Nor will probably anyone else on Qasama," Akim agreed soberly. "But my concern right now is for you, Jasmine Moreau. What do
you
think?"

Jin looked away from him. What
did
she think of Akim's plan?

Perhaps more importantly, what
could
she think with a tumor grinding inexorably away at her brain and mind? Merrick had commented earlier on her sense of logic, but she wasn't at all certain she could even trust her thought processes anymore. Especially not when it concerned something this potentially explosive. "You're the one putting your life on the line here," she pointed out instead. "You're the one who told me thirty years ago that on Qasama treason is punishable by death."

"Oh, they can't afford to execute me," he scoffed, waving a studiously nonchalant hand. "Not in the middle of a war. I'm far too important to them."

"That's an assumption," Jin warned. "And Shahni Haafiz in particular seems to be largely driven by pride."

Akim smiled sadly. "Aren't we all driven partially by pride?" he asked. "Even you, with your desire to warn your people of the Troft attack."

"That's not pride," Jin insisted.

"Isn't it?" Akim countered. "Tell me, how were you treated when you returned home from your last time on Qasama? Were you honored for your service in helping to eliminate a threat to our world? Or were you vilified for that action?"

Jin grimaced. "The latter, I'm afraid. In fact, my uncle lost his political position because of me. Is it that obvious?"

Akim shrugged. "You came here with only your son," he reminded her. "An honored and respected warrior would have answered the summons with a full contingent of warriors."

Jin stared at him. "Then you
did
send the message."

Akim shook his head. "Not I," he said. "Perhaps it came from one of the Shahni, though who that could be I can't even begin to guess. More likely the note was from Daulo Sammon, who is now simply lying about it. My point was that I was treated much the same way you were. On the surface I was honored for my role in eliminating Obolo Nardin's threat. But beneath that layer of gratitude lay a quiet anger and suspicion for my having cooperated with you. That distrust lasted long after most of the Shahni had forgotten even my name, let alone what specific crimes I was accused of committing."

He smiled tightly. "So I'm not a stranger to charges of treason, Jasmine Moreau. And if preventing my people from beating themselves mindlessly against an enemy they can't defeat is treason, then I'm willing to wear that badge."

"I admire your courage, Miron Akim," Jin said. "You rather remind me of my uncle that way."

"I'll take that as a high compliment," Akim said gravely. "Then you'll do this?"

"Yes," Jin said, a tingle running up through her. With that word, and that promise, the deal was made. There would be no going back. "You know the real irony here? Two weeks ago, back on Aventine, I was wishing something dramatic and dangerous would happen to our worlds. Something that would remind them that the Cobras are still a vital part of our society." She shook her head. "As the saying goes, one should be careful what one wishes for."

"We have that saying here, too." Akim took a deep breath and exhaled it in a tired-sounding sigh. "I'll escort you back to your room now. Get as much rest as you can."

Jin felt her stomach tighten. "It's set for tomorrow, then?"

"Barring any last-minute problems, yes," Akim confirmed. "The Djinn can be made ready in time, and delay only favors the invaders."

"I suppose so," Jin said. "Will I be seeing you again before then?"

Akim shook his head. "I'll be occupied all day with other matters."

And even if he wasn't, he probably wouldn't want to be seen with her anyway. "Understood," Jin said. "Good luck to you, Miron Akim."

"And to you, Jasmine Moreau," he said. He hesitated, then touched his fingers to his forehead and lips in the sign of respect. "Travel with God."

Ten minutes later, the nurse bade Jin good night and closed the door to her room. Listening to her heart pounding in her ears, she closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep. And wondered if she would ever see Miron Akim again.

The rooftop beneath Merrick was cold and hard, the warmth of the day's sunlight long gone. Above him, the Qasaman stars glittered in a cloudless sky, their patterns subtly different from the ones he'd grown up with on Aventine. Beside him, Zoshak and the other three Djinn of their squad huddled together in the radar and infrared shadow of the building's heat-plant chimney.

And directly in front of him, past the edge of the building's roof, was the Troft sentry ship, the same one Zoshak's team had attacked the previous day. Theoretically, or so Akim had said, now that the Trofts were alerted to possible attacks on their ships, one that had already repulsed an attack would be thought unlikely to be the target of a second one.

Theoretically.

"Two minutes," Zoshak murmured.

Merrick checked his nanocomputer's clock circuit. One minute and fifty-eight seconds, according to his count. "Check," he murmured.

"You ready?" Zoshak added, hunching his shoulders to resettle the heavy backpack he was wearing.

Merrick grimaced. Crouching in the middle of a Qasaman rooftop, dressed in a Qasaman Djinn combat suit—which the techs assured him would alter his infrared signature to something nonhuman, should the Trofts happen to pick up on him—surrounded by Qasaman warriors, preparing to take on an alien warship. Was

anyone, he wondered, ever ready for something like that? "As ready as I'll ever be," he murmured back.

"This time we'll succeed," Zoshak said firmly. "I have no doubts. We'll show them that Qasamans—" He gave Merrick a lopsided smile. "That
humans
aren't to be trifled with."

"Let's hope they get the message," Merrick said, studying the shimmery mass of alien metal in the distance and doing one final ranging check. The wing supporting the weapons cluster was three meters above the level of the rooftop, plus another three from the edge.

An impossible jump for a normal human. Also well beyond the range of a Djinni in a combat suit, though Merrick doubted the Trofts knew enough about Djinn to have positioned their sentry ship that deliberately.

No problem at all for a Cobra.

Assuming, that is, that Merrick's borrowed combat suit didn't get in the way. The techs had also assured him that the built-in computer had been disconnected and that there would be no residual resistance or sluggishness from the suit's servos. But Merrick had had only limited opportunity to experiment with his new outfit between the day's practice sessions, and he couldn't quite shake the feeling that it might suddenly turn against him at the worst possible moment.

He peered across the rooftop again, where Siraj Akim and his squad were supposed to be waiting on the rooftop on the far side of the avenue, ready to provide cover fire for Merrick's team. Siraj had insisted on being included in this second attack on the sentry ship, and his father and the other team leaders had signed off on it, but that was yet another bad feeling Merrick couldn't shake. It had been barely a day since Siraj had led his original squad in the first disastrous attack on this same target, and Merrick wasn't at all sure Siraj was up to trying it again this soon.

Oddly enough, he had no such doubts about Zoshak. The Djinni crouched beside him seemed to have come out of that experience stronger, more determined, and somehow more optimistic than he'd gone into it. Siraj Akim, though, seemed to have come out darker and grimmer.

Merrick had seen that sort of response a few times before, in Cobras whose mistakes during a spine leopard hunt had gotten someone killed. Sometimes it took months or even years for them to fully snap out of it.

Which led to the even more interesting question of why Siraj was not only aboard, but had also been put in charge of Ghofl Khatir's team.

That one bothered Merrick a lot. True, Khatir had been decidedly unenthusiastic about having to work with the offworld Cobra, and it was possible that Miron Akim had decided he wasn't right for the job after all.

But for him to then replace Khatir with his own son was even more ominous. Was this Akim's version of the old get-back-behind the-wheel philosophy, that the best therapy for Siraj's dark mood would be to lead the charge on the return engagement?

Certainly Siraj seemed determined to do it right this time. Even after Merrick's team had been declared fully prepared, Siraj had insisted his own squad stay in the arena for more drills. The question was whether the Djinn was being driven by thoroughness, or obsession.

"One minute," Zoshak murmured.

Merrick took a deep breath and tried to put his concerns about Siraj out of his mind. It hadn't been his place to question Miron Akim's authority in these matters before, and it wasn't his place to be second-guessing him now. Long ago, Merrick's mother had trusted her life to Akim, and it had worked out all right. He would just have to hope that thirty years hadn't dulled the older man's judgment. Getting a fresh grip on the heavy rope bridge coiled up beneath his left arm, he watched his clock circuit count down to zero.

Exactly half a second later, the neighborhood exploded with the thunder of automatic gunfire.

It was an awesome display of firepower, particularly given that no one had any illusions that it would do any good against the sentry ship's thick armor. The entire point of the attack was to draw the Trofts' attention away from the small groups of men huddled here on the rooftops. The crucial question was whether or not the aliens would really let themselves be fooled this way.

And then, beneath the wing, Merrick saw the lasers and missile launchers of the weapons cluster swivel around and began spitting their deadly fire toward the impertinent humans who insisted on fighting against their new overlords.

"Five seconds," Zoshak announced tensely.

Merrick squeezed his hand into a fist. Over the years the Qasamans had slowly built up a profile of the basic Troft mind, and had concluded that it would take five seconds from the opening salvo of their counterattack until they were mentally and emotionally committed to that course of action.

But even five seconds was an eternity when you were at the business end of an enemy barrage. There were Qasamans behind each of those chattering machine guns, and the delay that would help protect Merrick's team would cost some of them their lives.

"Go!"

Merrick shoved himself out of his crouch, leaning forward into an all-out sprint toward the edge of the roof. The under-wing lasers were still firing at the other attackers, the Trofts apparently still unaware of this new threat closing in on their flank. Merrick kept going, waiting tensely for the moment when someone aboard the ship would suddenly notice him and bring one of those lasers to bear...

And then, sooner somehow than he'd expected, the edge of the roof loomed directly ahead. Gauging his distance, giving his stride one final tweaking, he ran to the very edge, and jumped. There was a tense half second as he soared toward the sentry ship, a half second of ballistic flight where no programmed reflexes could do him a damn bit of good if the Trofts locked up on him—

And then he was there, landing neatly on the center of the wing's two-by-three-meter expanse. He braked quickly to a halt, then spun around and hurled the coiled rope bridge back toward the rooftop. Zoshak was in position; catching the coil, he snapped out the bridge's anchoring spikes and jabbed them hard into the rooftop. Getting a firm grip on his own end, Merrick dropped onto his back, bracing one foot against a small ridge at the wingtip and the other against the wing's trailing static discharge wick. He stretched the bridge tight and locked his arm servos in place.

And with a multiple thud that jarred him with each footstep, the rest of the Djinn ran single-file up the bridge and onto the wing.

Zoshak was the last one up. As he stepped past Merrick onto the wing, Merrick tossed his end of the bridge to one of the other Djinn, waiting beside him for that purpose, then bounded back to his feet and followed Zoshak toward the line where the wing joined the hull. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw the remaining two Djinn climb up onto the crest of the hull and crouch down into guard positions.