CHAPTER FIVE
The Dome’s hallways were deserted, the windows and skylights showing nothing but an empty, street-lit city. Jin’s footsteps echoed unnaturally loudly in her ears as she and the two Dominion Marines walked along, the sounds forming an eerie counterpoint to the thudding of her heart.
The Marines were just as silent as the hallways, having not spoken since opening the door of her holding cell and ordering her to come with them. The other pair of Marines standing guard at the conference room door were even less talkative, merely nodding acknowledgment to her escort and opening the door at their approach.
Taking a deep breath, Jin stepped through the doorway.
Commodore Santores was seated alone at the head of the table, staring down at the tabletop, his eyelids occasionally twitching. Reading something, apparently, from their fancy data system. The Marines ushered Jin to a seat a few chairs down from him and motioned for her to sit. She did so, noting that Santores hadn’t yet looked up or given any other sign that he was aware of her arrival.
She smiled cynically. If the early-morning wake-up call followed by the seemingly oblivious and uncaring interrogator act was supposed to impress her, they were going to be disappointed. She’d been through a war and back, and the intimidation value of stern, authoritative disapproval didn’t even begin to register. Settling back in her chair, wishing her generation of Cobra infrareds was sophisticated enough to allow her to track Santores’s emotional state, she waited for him to make his move.
“You’re smiling, Cobra Broom,” Santores said, his eyes still on the table. “You find something about this amusing?”
“Just admiring the theatrics, Commodore,” Jin said. It was risky, she knew—for some people, even a suggestion that they were being laughed at could turn pompous arrogance into cold fury. But a senior military officer should have better self-control than that.
To her mild surprise, Santores actually chuckled. “Touché,” he said, finally looking up at her. “Do you still use that term? Touché?”
“We do,” Jin said, relaxing slightly.
And immediately chided herself for it. If intimidation didn’t work, she knew, false friendship was the next most promising tactic.
“Sorry to drag you out of bed so early,” Santores continued, giving his eyelid one final twitch. “I trust your quarters weren’t too uncomfortable?”
“They couldn’t have been nicer,” she assured him. “Paul and I had no idea how pleasant the Dome’s holding cells were. We’re already talking about changing next year’s vacation plans.”
“I understand your frustration,” Santores said. “Actually, the Megalith’s brig is more comfortable, and I suspect the food is considerably better. But Governor-General Chintawa insisted you remain on the ground.”
“I’ll be sure to take that up with him later,” Jin promised. “Was putting Paul and me together his idea, too? Or were you the one who hoped we’d spill some deep, dark secrets in a bugged cell?”
Santores shrugged. “You’d be surprised how many people equate solitude with privacy,” he said without embarrassment. “Not on a conscious level, of course—people aren’t that gullible. But on an emotional level many still can’t resist the chance to compare notes or seek solace.”
“Well, you obviously didn’t bring me here for solace,” Jin said. “Does that mean you want to compare notes?”
“I have no interest in your notes, Cobra Broom,” he assured her. “But as a courtesy, and in recognition of your service during the recent Troft incursion, I thought I’d offer you a brief look at mine.”
Jin felt her eyes narrow. “I’m listening,” she said cautiously.
“Here’s what’s about to happen,” Santores said. “Later today, your son Lorne is going to do something foolish. He’ll either attack a member of my crew, allow a member of my crew to be harmed, or defy a direct order by that same crewman. When that happens—”
“My son would never disobey a legal order.”
“When that happens,” Santores continued emotionlessly, “he’ll have broken Dominion law, and we’ll be able to bring him up on Dominion charges. Chintawa will resist, but he’ll have no choice but to release him into our custody.”
“And what do you expect that to gain you?”
Santores pursed his lips. “There’s a device aboard the Algonquin called the MindsEye,” he said. “For various legal and political reasons it’s under the control of Captain Lij Tulu.” A grim smile touched his lips. “And the captain is very eager to use it.”
Jin forced herself to relax. Even the name of the device was sending chills up her back. “You going to tell me what it does? Or do I have to guess?”
“No guessing required,” Santores assured her. “The MindsEye sifts through the neural patterns and connections within the subject’s brain in an effort to reconstruct his or her visual and auditory memories.”
Jin stared at him, her stomach tightening. “What sort of memories?”
“All of them,” Santores said calmly. “Personal memories. Private memories. Embarrassing memories. Sometimes even legally actionable memories.”
“And you can do this to anyone?”
“Anyone whom the law permits us to examine. There are legal safeguards, of course.”
“I’m sure there are,” Jin said, fighting to keep the sudden fear and anger out of her voice. And Lij Tulu wanted to use this hellish machine on her son? “What kind of state is the victim in after you’re finished with him?”
“The subject, not the victim,” Santores corrected. “If it’s done properly and there are no complications, he walks out of the chamber in perfect health and with all his memories intact.” He shrugged. “Though depending on what the survey reveals he may face other legal problems.”
“And if it isn’t done properly?”
“It will be,” Santores promised. “Once he’s under official charges, we can take him to the Algonquin and take the time necessary to do the job right.”
“Instead of rushing through it like a wrecking hammer?”
“You’re joking, but that’s basically what Captain Lij Tulu originally proposed,” Santores said. “He wanted your son brought back here this evening on the pretext that we needed another day’s worth of testimony from him. Unfortunately, that would have given us only a few hours to run the procedure before someone noticed his absence and started asking questions.” He shrugged. “As you may have noticed, Governor-General Chintawa is very protective of you.”
“That’s because we’re up on treason charges and he doesn’t want to anger the Syndics who are on Nissa Gendreves’s side of this,” Jin said mechanically, her attention still back on the MindsEye. “Rushing the procedure is bad, I assume?”
“We would get what we wanted,” Santores said obliquely. “The point is that, hopefully, we won’t have to go that route.”
“And what exactly is it you want?”
“Nothing terrible,” Santores said, eyeing her closely. “I certainly wouldn’t use anything illegal we discovered to bring charges against your son. All we want is his image of the navigational display of the Troft ship that took you to Qasama.”
Jin curled her hands into fists. So Uncle Corwin had been right. The Dominion wanted Qasama, and they were willing to turn her son’s brain inside out to get it. “I doubt he even looked at the display,” she said as calmly as she could. “I know I didn’t. There were more pressing matters on all of our minds.”
“He doesn’t have to have looked directly at it,” Santores said. “A peripheral image might be enough. The only way to know is to try.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Jin said. “I hope you’re not too disappointed when it doesn’t happen.”
Santores shrugged. “As I said, we can but try.”
“I meant when Lorne doesn’t fall into your trap,” Jin said, getting to her feet. “If you’ll excuse me, the Cobra guards at our holding cell are probably wondering where I went, and we wouldn’t want them getting concerned. As you said, the governor-general is rather protective.”
“Sit down, Cobra Broom,” Santores said, his voice suddenly dark and ominous. “I’m not finished with you yet.”
“Yes, you are,” Jin said. “I’m under Cobra Worlds authority, remember?”
“And if I order my men to detain you?”
Jin looked measuringly at the two Marines standing behind her, their faces expressionless. Unlike the ceremonially-garbed group that had played escort to Santores and the other Dominion officers at the hearings, these men were dressed in high-collared burgundy-black outfits made of a heavy-looking material that shimmered strangely in the room’s indirect light. The men had small sidearms belted at their waists, but Jin guessed those were mostly for show, and that the suspiciously thick epaulets on their shoulders were where they carried their main firepower. “I doubt Captain Moreau would be pleased with such an action,” she warned.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t,” Santores agreed. “Unfortunately for you, Captain Moreau isn’t here. He and the Dorian left Aventinian space thirty minutes ago.”
Jin stared at him. “He’s gone? Where?”
“To the Hoibe’ryi’sarai home world to collect your wayward daughter,” Santores said. “A six-day round trip, according to Chintawa, plus whatever time he requires to serve Chintawa’s extradition request. Plenty of time for us to arrest your son in Archway and start the MindsEye procedure.”
“Jody’s never been to Qasama,” Jin protested. “Leave her alone—she’s of no use to you.”
“Most likely not,” Santores agreed. “On the other hand, she has a recorder she and your son worked very hard to keep out of our hands. I’m rather curious to see what she has on it.”
“If it’s of any use to you, she’ll already have erased it.”
Santores raised his eyebrows. “But she will have looked at it.”
Jin felt her blood go cold. “Are you suggesting—?”
“Why not?” Santores gave an odd sort of finger twitch. “You see, Cobra Broom, there’s no way for you to win. Even if you’re right about your son avoiding Colonel Reivaro’s provocations, it won’t matter. In a few days we’ll have your daughter.”
Jin took a deep breath. “You will not do this,” she said quietly, enunciating each word like it was a hand-crafted threat. “Not to my family.”
“We’re the Dominion of Man,” Santores said, his tone matching hers precisely. “We do whatever we want. Now sit down. Or my men will make you.”
“You have no authority to give such an order,” Jin said, trying to force back her fury. He was goading her, she knew, using the same tactic he’d already said he was going to use on Lorne. Trying to force her into making a move that would let him snatch her out from under Chintawa’s protection and put her under Dominion law.
But knowing the facts didn’t matter. Her whole body was shaking with the overwhelming desire to wipe that superior look off the man’s face.
No, she told herself firmly. Not now. Not yet. “And your men don’t dare attack without provocation or legal authority,” she managed. “But they’re welcome to walk me back to my cell.”
“Perhaps they’ll walk you to the gates of hell,” Santores said.
A whisper of air brushed the back of Jin’s neck as one of the Marines behind her took a step forward. A quick ceiling flip, she knew, would land her behind Santores and put him between her and his men’s weapons…
With a final, supreme effort, she forced herself to stand perfectly still. “Are you threatening me, Commodore?” she asked instead.
For a moment no one moved or spoke. Then, with a small, ironic smile, Santores gestured to the Marines. Jin turned her head far enough to see them each take a step backward. “You’re a cool one, Cobra Broom,” Santores said, a hint of grudging admiration in his voice. “I would have bet heavily that just hinting at danger to your children would drive you into an attack.”
“You should be damn glad it didn’t,” Jin told him darkly. “I’m already charged with treason. The murder of a Dominion commodore could hardly have made things worse.”
Santores shook his head. “You’d never even have reached me.”
“You think not?” Jin looked at the Marines again.
“I know not,” Santores said scornfully. “These are Dominion Marines, with the best personal weaponry ever created. Your hundred-year-old Cobra technology wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“Really?” Jin countered. “When did the human body become immune to lasers, sonics, and high-voltage current?”
“Since we created uniforms that deflect or disperse lasers, ear implants that block sonics, and conductive micromesh that drains away current,” Santores said calmly. “And with shoulder-mounted lasers that fire wherever the soldier is looking, even your target-lock system is obsolete.”
“I see,” Jin said in a subdued voice. So the Dominion had scrapped the whole Cobra concept in favor of a version of the Qasaman combat suits. Interesting. “Can I go back to my cell now?”
Santores exhaled a slightly frustrated-sounding sigh. “For the moment. Marines, return her to confinement.”
A minute later Jin was again walking down the corridor through the darkened dome and the darkened city.
So Santores liked to play cliff-edge games, did he? There’d been plenty of politicians like that during Uncle Corwin’s days in the Dome, she remembered. In the end, every one of them had either been taken down by someone who played the game better, or else had outsmarted themselves right off the cliff.
Santores would go the way of all the others. That much she was sure of. She just hoped he didn’t take down her family or her world before that happened.
In the meantime, she’d survived his first move. She could only hope Lorne would do the same.
#
The Hoibie merchant ship captain hadn’t been happy with Jody’s request to hitch a ride. He’d been even less happy when he learned she was hoping for that ride to take her to Caelian, nearly two days and exactly a hundred eighty degrees off his plan of heading straight for home.
None of that exactly surprised Lorne. What did surprise him was the fact that it took less than ten minutes for Jody to persuade him to accept her request anyway.
On Aventine, the Broom name might be linked to treason, he mused as he and the other two Cobras continued their trip toward DeVegas province and the provincial capital of Archway. But for the Hoibies, the Broom name was linked to victory.
What that victory consisted of for them, he had no way of knowing. Maybe it had manifested in a major restructuring of the local demesnes’ precedence order. Maybe it had created a situation where resources or cash traded hands. Maybe it had simply been a welcome humiliation of a rival demesne and its allies.
But whatever the Hoibies had gained, it had apparently bought enough good-will to get Jody safely off Aventine. For now, and for Lorne, that was all that mattered.
Getting Jody away from Santores’s people had been Lorne’s primary goal. Now, with that accomplished, he was ready to tackle his next task: drawing the Dominion’s attention toward himself and hopefully deflecting it away from inquiries about his sister’s whereabouts until the Hoibies were ready to lift. Keeping himself out of Santores’s target-lock as long as possible would be an added bonus.
Fortunately, there was a way for him to accomplish both.
Ten minutes after Werle set the aircar down at the Archway field, Lorne had signed himself into the Cobra duty roster for the day. Five minutes after that, as Werle headed for his apartment and some long-overdue sleep, Lorne and de Portola headed the opposite direction: through one of the gates in the city’s perimeter fence on nighttime patrol.
If the Dominion people had any brains, their first try at a computer check would spot the roster and mark him as being back in DeVegas. But with night patrols by definition following semi-random paths through the province’s fields and grazing lands, anyone Santores sent out to bring him back to Capitalia would have the devil’s own job finding him. They would first have to track everyone who was out and about, then figure out which of them were Cobra teams and which were ordinary citizens getting a jump on the day’s chores, and then get close enough for a positive identification. By the time they did all that, Jody should be well on her way to Caelian.
They’d been on patrol for three hours, with dawn less than an hour away, and were circling through the western part of Dushan Matavuli’s grazing land when a sleek aircar of unfamiliar design suddenly appeared directly above them, the red glow from its grav lifts blazing as the vehicle dropped like a stone. It braked at the last possible second and settled with only a small bounce across the dirt road twenty meters ahead of them.
“Nice,” de Portola commented as he let their car roll to a stop. “Makes you want to hop right out and applaud, doesn’t it?”
“I always like to wait until the orchestra stops playing and the performers take a bow,” Lorne said, eyeing the two big men who had now emerged from the aircar and were striding toward them. Unlike the fancy dress uniforms the Dominion men had worn at the Capitalia hearings, these outfits were unadorned, burgundy-black suits that shimmered strangely in the car’s headlights. A quick check with his opticals’ infrareds indicated the men’s stony expressions were hiding some serious annoyance.
More interesting was that the infrareds also showed a noticeable heat signature in the thick rank epaulets on both men’s shoulders. “Dill, take a look at those epaulets,” he said.
“Yeah, I see it,” de Portola said thoughtfully. “Any ideas?”
“Back in my great-grandfather’s day, Dominion Marines had weapons called parrot guns on their shoulders,” Lorne told him. “Automatic target tracking, with a choice between pulse lasers or short-range antipersonnel missiles. The pictures I’ve seen showed the things as being pretty bulky, which I gather was part of the point.”
“Like snipe dots,” de Portola said, nodding. “You’re obviously being targeted, so you behave yourself.”
“Right,” Lorne said. “Looks like the Dominion’s dropped blatant in favor of subtle this time around.”
“Could be,” De Portola agreed. “I wonder how you target-lock the things.”
“Maybe we’ll find out,” Lorne said, unfastening his restraints as the two Marines split formation, one heading down each side of the car. “Okay; nice and innocent.”
The Marines reached the two car doors simultaneously. There was a screech of a lockpop, and the man on Lorne’s side pulled the door open. “Lorne Broom?” he demanded.
“Morning, soldier,” Lorne greeted him genially. He nodded at the door. “It was unlocked.”
“Are you Lorne Broom?” the other repeated.
“Yes,” Lorne said. “And you?”
The Marine glanced over the top of the car at his companion, then looked down at Lorne again. “It’s Marine, not soldier,” he corrected stiffly. “Marine Sergeant Singal Khahar.”
“This is Cobra Dillon de Portola,” Lorne said, nodding at his companion. “You here to try your hand at killing some spine leopards?”
The Marine on de Portola’s side of the car snorted. “Hardly. We came to drag your—”
“Squelch it, Chimm,” Khahar cut him off. “Sure, why not? Where do you keep them?”
“Everywhere you want, and most places you don’t,” Lorne said, gesturing Khahar back. The sergeant’s eyes narrowed, but he obediently stepped back to make room for Lorne to get out of the car. “Down along Sutter’s Creek is usually a good place to start,” Lorne continued, pointing toward the wooded slope fifty meters away.
“We’re always clearing nests and way stations out of the groves bordering the creek,” de Portola added as he also got out of the car. “You two should probably hang back a little—they can come at you from unexpected directions. We’ll show you how it’s done.”
“You just worry about yourselves,” Khahar said. “We’ll be fine.”
“I’ll take point,” de Portola offered, and headed toward the cluster of trees and high grass. Keying in his infrareds and light-amps, Lorne followed.
They’d reached the tall grass on the edges of the grove, ten meters from the bank, when he caught the first hint of something warm in the middle branches of one of the trees. It was too diffuse to get a positive identification, but the positioning suggested that it was an adult, probably a male.
De Portola had spotted it, too. He snapped his fingers softly and pointed to the tree. Lorne snapped twice in acknowledgement, and as de Portola angled to the right of the tree Lorne shifted toward the left. A straightforward flanking maneuver would draw out the spine leopard and force it to choose between the two targets.
Lorne was still focused on the tree when, to his stunned disbelief, the two Marines strode between him and de Portola and headed at a brisk walk straight for the tree. “Wait!” Lorne whispered. “Don’t go that—”
Too late. With a crackle of displaced branches, the spine leopard leaped out of concealment. It hit the ground running, headed straight toward the Marines.
Lorne swore under his breath. The timing of that bonehead move had left him off-balance, his weight on his left leg, unable to bring the antiarmor laser running along that calf to bear on the attacker.
Fortunately, de Portola had been on his right leg when the spine leopard made its move. Even as the predator put on a burst of speed, he twisted to his right and swung up his left leg. The blue beam flashed from his heel to cut across the spine leopard’s head and flank. Its legs collapsed beneath it, and it plowed into the ground with a mournful screech.
As its final howl faded into the night, a dozen spine leopards boiled up into view from beneath the bank and charged.
Lorne dived to his right, flicking target locks on the three nearest predators as he sailed through the air. He landed hard on his side, his vision jolting with the impact as he triggered his antiarmor laser. His body swiveled around as his nanocomputer took control of his servos, pivoting him around his shoulder and swinging his left leg up to fire a triple blast into the spine leopards he’d targeted. He blinked to clear his vision, only to spot the rippling wakes in the tall grass that meant two more of them were headed toward him.
There was no time for even his nanocomputer to get his leg into position for these two. Rolling over onto his back, he pointed his right-hand little finger at the first of the predators and triggered his arcthrower. The high-voltage current snapped through the grass, riding the ionized path that his fingertip laser had burned through the air a microsecond earlier, and the spine leopard jerked and collapsed. There was a multiple flash of blue laser fire from somewhere to his left, and the second predator skidded to a halt in the brush.
And with that, the world was suddenly quiet.
Lorne frowned, running a quick mental count. That couldn’t possibly be it—he and de Portola couldn’t have accounted for more than half the predators he’d seen charging them. And with a group this big there was usually a second wave, as well.
“You chirpies always make such a big a deal about these things?” Khahar asked into the silence.
Frowning, Lorne sat up. The two Marines were just standing there, more or less where they’d been when the attack began, their faces wreathed in self-satisfied smirks.
Scattered on the ground around them were eight dead spine leopards.
“They’re getting themselves all dirty, too,” Chimm added. “Not very professional, are they?”
“Hey, we can’t all be Dominion Marines,” Khahar chided his partner. “Give them some slack.”
“Sure thing,” Chimm said. “But they promised to show us some action.” He raised his eyebrows blandly at Lorne. “That wasn’t it, was it?”
For a couple of heartbeats Lorne was seriously tempted to flatten both men with a blast from his sonic. But common sense kicked in, reminding him that it wouldn’t gain him anything except a brief moment of childish satisfaction.
On the other hand, if he kept his temper he might be able to learn something. Getting slowly to his feet, he adjusted his opticals’ infrared settings and gave the two Marines a good, hard look.
Mostly of what he saw was the standard human infrared pattern, topped off with the condescending cheerfulness he’d already noted. But there were two interesting anomalies. The first was the thick rank epaulets, which had an strong layer of heat everywhere except along the inside edges close to the Marines’ necks. Parrot guns, almost certainly. The second anomaly was a close-knit grid of slightly higher warmth throughout their uniforms, especially along the front of their torsos and down their thighs to their knees.
“Nicely done,” de Portola said with a grunt as he hopped back up and brushed at his back and butt where he’d been rolling around on the ground. “I never even saw you draw.”
Lorne looked down at the Marines’ belted sidearms. Neither of the guns had so much as a hint of infrared to them.
The sidearms hadn’t been fired. They’d probably not even been drawn. Pure camouflage, put there to distract a potential enemy form their real weaponry.
“You weren’t supposed to see us,” Chimm said loftily. “Like the sergeant said, not everyone can be Dominion Marines.”
“I’m sure we backwater amateurs have a lot to learn,” de Portola said with far less sarcasm than Lorne would have felt justified in using. “Spine leopards aren’t easy to kill, either. Those things must pack a real punch.”
“And have some nice targeting capabilities on top of it,” Lorne agreed, notching up his opticals’ magnification a little and studying the nearest of the dead spine leopards. Instead of the massive laser burn he’d expected to see there was a figure-eight pattern of perhaps twenty smaller burns across the predator’s head, neck, and chest. Three or four of the shots had hit kill points, but the others had done little but burn more or less uselessly through hide and muscle.
“Regardless, I think we can safely scratch off that way station for the moment,” de Portola said, throwing a lingering look at one of the other spine leopards before turning back to the Marines. “Next likely spot should be about half a kilometer up the road. You coming?”
“No, and neither are you,” Khahar said briskly. “We need to get back to Archway. Colonel Reivaro wants to see you.”
“We’re not done with our shift,” Lorne pointed out, impressed in spite of himself. So Reivaro had come all the way out here in person? Clearly, Lorne’s plan of drawing attention away from Jody had worked. Possibly too well. “We can’t put the citizens here at risk.”
“Point accepted,” Khahar said calmly. “Fine. Your buddy de Portola can stay here on patrol. The rest of us can head back in our flitter.”
Lorne felt his throat tighten. The last thing he wanted to do was get into an aircar alone with these jokers, especially with Reivaro waiting at the other end of the flight. Out of the corner of his eye he saw de Portola lift a finger. “I suppose I could do that,” Lorne said, rubbing his forehead. Under cover of the movement he flicked a look at de Portola.
One more, the other mouthed silently. One more.
“Or we could compromise,” Lorne continued, dropping his hand back to his side. “Let’s check the grove de Portola mentioned, and then all four of us can head back together.”
Khahar’s eyes narrowed. “The colonel doesn’t like being kept waiting.”
“And we really shouldn’t press their luck,” de Portola offered helpfully. “Just because they survived one attack doesn’t mean they could get through another one. You go ahead, Lorne—I can handle the rest myself.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Khahar ground out. “Just show us where they are.”
#
The second encounter was pretty much a repeat of the first. Lorne tried hard to stay on his feet this time, hoping to see first-hand how the Marines’ combat gear worked. But the attack had barely started when his nanocomputer once again threw him out of the way of a charging predator, and he spent the rest of the fight leaping and dodging and rolling on the ground.
De Portola didn’t have it any better. In fact, he had it worse—at one point Lorne spotted him flat on his back, holding off a spine leopard that had somehow gotten past his lasers and was going for his throat. He was still flailing around, and Lorne was trying to get a clear shot at the animal, when Khahar killed it.
Naturally, the sergeant’s back was to Lorne at the time, which meant he got nothing but a silhouetted view of the man’s head and torso against a quick-stutter of blue laser fire.
Sometimes, he thought sourly, he could practically hear the universe snickering at him.
He made one more effort to persuade the Marines to tackle another way station, but Khahar would have none of it. He announced in no uncertain terms that he and Chimm were heading back, and that Lorne was riding with them.
Which gave Lorne the small satisfaction of watching the sergeant’s face heat up when both Cobras politely but firmly told him that they would be riding together in their own car.
Given the still-early hour, the parking area at the Cobra command center should have been nearly deserted. It was therefore a disquieting surprise when de Portola rounded the corner and Lorne saw that there were already four cars in the lot. They hadn’t been sitting there for long—a check of the engines’ infrared signatures showed they’d barely begun to cool down. “Is that Eion Yates’ car?” he asked as de Portola angled them into a parking space.
“The fancy one on the end, yeah,” de Portola confirmed. “I don’t recognize the others, but I’ll bet a week’s pay it’s connected with this Colonel Reivaro character.”
“No bet,” Lorne said, opening his door and climbing out. “Let’s go see what’s going on.”
There was another Dominion Marine waiting just inside the main door. He looked the two Cobras up and down and then wordlessly pointed them along the darkened corridor toward the assembly room.
Inside the assembly room, as expected, they found Colonel Reivaro.
“Ah—Cobra Broom,” Reivaro called from the table at the front as Lorne and de Portola entered. “We wondered where you’d sneaked off to.”
“I didn’t sneak anywhere,” Lorne said mildly, looking around the room. Werle was there, looking somewhat bleary after only a couple of hours of sleep. Cobras Randall Sumara and Jarvic Whitherway were with him, looking only marginally better rested. None of the cars out in the lot were theirs: either they’d walked to the command center or else Reivaro had rented or commandeered some vehicles and sent Marines to roust them out of bed.
There were certainly enough of the latter for the job, he noted uneasily. Eight of them, to be precise, standing stiffly at various points around the room, all wearing the same shimmery burgundy-black outfits as Khahar and Chimm.
Standing even more stiffly beside Reivaro, looking like a storm cloud a minute away from opening up, was Eion Yates.
The DeVegas Cobras in general, and Commandant Ishikuma in particular, had had a somewhat rocky relationship with Yates over the years. As the province’s premier industrialist and third largest employer, Yates had a lot of money to throw at parks, roads, and general humanitarian causes. And for the most part he threw that money with generosity, grace, and occasionally even enthusiasm.
But he was also used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it, and Ishikuma’s eagerness to comply with his requests wasn’t always up to the man’s standards. Still, all in all, on most days Yates was less trouble than he was worth.
Judging from the look on his face, today wasn’t going to be one of those days.
“Apparently your definition of sneak is at variance with mine,” Reivaro said. “You never signed out, or even said good-bye.”
“Commodore Santores said you were finished with me, and I had work to do,” Lorne said. “And we don’t have to sign in or out everywhere we go.”
“Ah, yes—your so-called work,” Reivaro said, his tone managing to make the word into something mocking. “Slaughtering animals.”
“Killing predators,” Lorne corrected, knowing full well that Reivaro was trying to bait him. Santores and his people had had the Cobra Worlds’ complete records for a full week now, and Reivaro would have to be a complete idiot not to understand the threat spine leopards posed to people and livestock. “Comes under the heading of citizen protection.”
“Of course,” Reivaro said in that same condescending tone. “But don’t flatter yourself—we didn’t come all this way just to see why you ran out on us.” He gestured to Yates. “You know Mr. Yates, I presume?”
“Of course,” Lorne said, nodding to Yates in greeting. “He’s one of our most prominent citizens.”
“More importantly, he also owns a large-scale manufacturing facility,” Reivaro said. “We’re going to be borrowing it for a bit.”
“Colonel Reivaro uses borrow the same way a thief does,” Yates growled, the words clipped and precise. “He wants to take over the plant and completely retool and re-staff.” He gestured to Lorne. “I believe your great uncle Corwin still has the Governor-General’s ear. Would you kindly get on the comm and ask him to tell Santores and his crew of highway robbers to go stick their heads in a spiny burrow?”
“I’m sure Commandant Ishikuma will be able to clear this up,” Lorne said as soothingly as he could. “I presume he’s on his way?”
“Whether he is or isn’t is irrelevant,” Reivaro said off-handedly. “Commandant Ishikuma has been relieved of his command.”
Lorne looked at Werle and Sumara. Both men’s expressions had turned to carefully neutral stone. “I don’t understand.”
“Was I not clear enough?” Reivaro asked, shifting his eyes to de Portola. “Cobra de Portola, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” de Portola confirmed stiffly.
“I understand you and Cobra Werle were in Capitalia last night with Cobra Broom.”
“We were ordered to give him transport back to Archway after he’d finished his testimony,” de Portola said. “Why was Commandant Ishikuma relieved?”
“Forget Ishikuma,” Yates cut in impatiently. “So he gets some extra vacation while the Dome sorts it out—so what? What’s important is this military idiot’s got his thugs in my plant right now sending my people home.”
“For a little extra vacation,” Reivaro murmured.
Yates spun to face him, his face reddening dangerously. “Look, you sorry excuse for a—”
“It might help if we knew what you wanted with his factory,” Werle cut him off.
“As Mr. Yates, said, I’m going to retool and re-staff it,” Reivaro said. If Yates’s anger was bothering him in the slightest, he hid it well. “Tell me, Cobra Broom: how many starships do the Cobra Worlds possess?”
“Four,” Lorne said. Reivaro should know that one, too.
“Are they armed or armored?”
“Of course not,” Lorne said. “They’re freighters. They carry passengers and cargo.”
“Get to the point,” de Portola growled.
“The point is simple,” Reivaro said. “We’re going to use Mr. Yates’s facility to turn your freighters into warships.”
Again, Lorne looked at Werle and Sumara. Apparently, they hadn’t heard this part yet, either. “You must be joking.”
“I don’t joke about defending Dominion people and property,” Reivaro said icily. “Surely you haven’t already forgotten the recent Troft invasion? Your world is in danger, and we won’t always be here to protect you.”
“You weren’t exactly here to protect us before,” Yates countered. “What makes you think we need you now?”
“He’s right,” Lorne said. “I don’t know how things work at your end of the Troft Assemblage, but at this end military victories bring friends and allies out into the sunshine. We have plenty of both, thank you.”
“Only for the moment,” Reivaro warned. “Alliances based on mutual advantage are never stable. Those Trofts you’re counting on could turn into enemies in a single heartbeat.”
“Not a chance,” de Portola said firmly. “We’ve been trading with some of those demesnes for nearly a century. As Cobra Broom said, they’re not just our allies. They’re also our friends.”
“Friends?” Reivaro snorted. “Don’t make me laugh. We have no friends out here. You have no friends. No friends, no allies, no one who cares whether you live or die. We’re all we have, Cobra de Portola. We’re all we’ll ever have. We stand together, or an uncaring universe will erase us from an uncaring history.”
For a moment no one spoke. Then, Yates lifted his hands and clapped them together three times. “Beautiful,” he said acidly. “Patriotic and poetic both. I’m impressed.”
“You seem to think this is some kind of joke,” Reivaro said, his eyes flashing. “As it happens, your so-called allies have already begun their campaign against you. Earlier this morning, one of their ship captains kidnapped a young human woman.” He looked at Lorne. “To be specific, Cobra Broom’s sister Jody.”
Lorne felt his mouth go dry. So that was what this was all about. Santores hadn’t been able to keep Jody here, so he was going to use her disappearance as his excuse for taking over Aventine and the rest of the Cobra Worlds.
And the only chance he had of stopping that was for him to come clean about the real reason why Jody had left the planet. “Actually—”
“What makes you think she was kidnapped?” Werle cut in. “Maybe she just wanted to get away for awhile.”
“Did she?” Reivaro asked.
Werle shrugged. “I hardly know the woman. How should I know what she wants or doesn’t want?”
“Yet you raise the question of her mental state without even being asked about it,” Reivaro said, giving Werle a hard look. “Interesting. But also irrelevant.” He looked back at Yates. “Because Jody Broom did not, in fact, simply leave of her own volition. She was attacked while in the company of two Dominion Marines, her escort was neutralized, and she was subsequently taken to Pindar and put aboard a ship of the Hoibe’ryi’sarai demesne.”
He turned to Lorne. “But don’t worry. The Dorian, under the command of Captain Moreau, is on its way there even as we speak, with orders to bring her back. Using whatever means necessary.”
With an effort, Lorne forced himself to hold the other’s gaze, his pulse thudding in his throat. This was insane. Completely and utterly insane. Was Santores actually going to risk war with the Hoibies just to find Qasama? No—that couldn’t be. Reivaro had to be bluffing.
But what if he wasn’t?
Lorne clenched his teeth. He had to stop it. He had to tell Reivaro the truth about what had happened.
Only if he did that, he would also have to finger Werle and de Portola as the men who’d attacked those two Marines.
Behind Reivaro, Lorne saw the two Cobras exchange looks. They saw Reivaro’s trap, all right.
But Lorne could see his same uncertainty reflected in their eyes. If Santores had really sent one of his ships to the Hoibies…
“In the meantime,” Reivaro continued, “we need to plan for war. You in DeVegas province—and you in particular, Mr. Yates—have been assigned to start building armor plating in your factory.”
“If I refuse?” Yates demanded.
“Then your factory will no longer be yours,” Reivaro said flatly. “Cobra Broom, you will escort Mr. Yates to his facility. You will have him unlock the computers so that our people can go in and reprogram the manufacturing lines.”
“The hell I will,” Yates said, just as flatly. “And the hell he will.”
“Cobra Broom?” Reivaro said, ignoring Yates’s outburst. “You’ve been given an order. You will carry it out. Now.”
Lorne took a deep breath—
Behind him, the assembly room door slammed violently open. “Broom?” Ishikuma’s voice echoed angrily off the walls and ceiling. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”