Cobra Alliance-Cobra War Book 1 (7 page)

The danger she had long ago accepted. The loneliness she hadn't counted on.

"Carry your bags, ma'am?"

She spun around, feeling her eyes widen with shock. Merrick was back there, smiling solemnly as he strode toward her, a survival pack of his own settled across his shoulders. "What are
you
doing here?" she demanded.

"What do you think?" he countered, stopping beside her and getting a grip on the straps of one of his mother's packs. "I'm coming with you."

"You most certainly are
not,
" she insisted, trying to snatch her pack away from him. It was a waste of effort—his servos were every bit as strong as hers were. "Now get of here and back to Capitalia before someone sees you."

Merrick shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I'm on temporary detached duty, assigned to watch over one of the legendary heroes of the Cobra Worlds."

"What legendary hero?" Jin asked, thoroughly confused now.

"You, of course," Merrick said. "In case you hadn't noticed, you've gone into a tailspin of depression over Jody and Dad's plan to go to Caelian. Lorne and I have been very worried about you, especially when you announced you were going out to the wilderness north of Pindar to, quote, think things over."

"So what, I'm a strap-stretcher case now?" Jin demanded, not sure whether she was more outraged or embarrassed by the story her sons had concocted.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll pull out of it after a while," Merrick said. "The point is that I'm on indefinite leave, and we're off in the wilderness all alone where no one's likely to notice us."

"Brilliant," Jin growled. "But your poor, aged mother is perfectly capable of, quote, thinking things over on her own."

Merrick took a deep breath. "Mom, remember back at the Island three days ago, and the talk Uncle Corwin and Aunt Thena had with you after dinner?"

Jin grimaced. Like she would ever forget. Corwin had grilled her for nearly an hour about her motives for wanting to go to Qasama, trying to get her to admit that she was doing it solely to vindicate him. Which she wasn't. "I remember it very well," she said. "And how exactly do
you
know about it? I thought you were all off in the billiards room at the time."

"I know because Uncle Corwin, Aunt Thena, and I planned the talk long before you and the rest showed up, of course." A brief flicker of grim amusement touched his eyes. "When did you think Dad, Lorne, Jody, and I cooked up the rest of this scheme? The only safe time to do it was while you were busy defending your honor."

"Only you'd already made up your mind about this, hadn't you?" Jin asked, thinking back to that evening. "That's why you were so quick to take yourself off Jody's escort list."

"Uncle Corwin and I had already run the logic," Merrick said. "Dad was too old to go with you—he's got the same health limitations you do. Lorne's is too young, plus he really
is
needed in the expansion regions. That leaves me."

"Or it leaves me going by myself," Jin said. "Or don't you think I can handle it?"

Merrick sighed. "If you insist. No, we
don't
think you can handle it. Not if worst comes to worst."

"Because I might be going with the wrong motives?"

"Because you're fifty-two years old," Merrick said bluntly. "You're not exactly in prime fighting condition anymore, you know."

"Bring me a couple of spine leopards, kiddo, and I'll show you what condition I'm in," Jin retorted. "Besides, the idea is to avoid
any
fighting."

"Amen," Merrick said fervently. "But if it
does
come down to a fight, you know as well as I do that two Cobras will always have a better chance than one."

"Unless it was the presence of that second Cobra that precipitated the fight in the first place," Jin said. "As long as we're remembering conversations, do you remember
that
one?"

"Certainly," Merrick said. "But as I recall, the Qasamans are very family-oriented, and I as your son am the kind of close blood relation that even Dad can't match. The Qasamans will respect that."

He was right, Jin had to admit. Even if they discovered he was a Cobra, they would more likely interpret his role as that of his mother's protector than as an invader.

And as she gazed at the determination in her son's eyes, she realized suddenly that she really
didn't
want to do this alone. "There's no chance I can talk you out of it, is there?" she asked, just to be sure.

"None," he said in a voice that left no room for argument.

"Then let's do it," she said, turning toward the ship. She paused and let go of the bag he was still holding. "And yes, you
may
carry my bag."

Besides, this was just a friendly visit between old acquaintances, she reminded herself. There wouldn't be any fighting. Surely there wouldn't.

The last time Jin had traveled to Qasama, the ship had been running on a fuel-conserving course and had taken two weeks. She was therefore somewhat surprised when, barely five days into the trip, the Troft captain announced that they would be arriving at Qasama within the next twelve hours. Even granting three decades' worth of advances in starship efficiency and the fact that this was a modern Troft freighter instead of the older models the aliens typically foisted off on the Worlds, the captain clearly wasn't all that concerned about his transportation costs. Either he had an important schedule to keep, or else the crisis on Qasama was as critical as the mysterious note had made it sound.

Not that Jin was able to find out which. The captain and crew were polite enough, as befit the long trading history the Tlos'khin'fahi demesne had with the Worlds. But the veneer of hospitality had a steel wall behind it, and five days' worth of gentle probing and wheedling had gained Jin exactly nothing in the way of new information. Merrick, who had inherited his father's calmer and more diplomatic wheedling approach, came up equally dry.

Jin had also hoped the captain might have further information on the logistics of the operation, particularly some advice on how to sneak into Daulo Sammon's town of Milika without attracting unwelcome attention. But the captain assured her he'd been given nothing but the original note, a small collection of old-smelling Qasaman clothing, and an easterly approach vector that would

hopefully slip his passengers into the forest west of Milika without tripping whatever radar coverage the Qasamans had set up to guard the Great Arc region where most of their people lived.

Which meant that as far as actual penetration of the Qasaman populace was concerned, Jin and Merrick were on their own.

They made a final check of their gear, including the Qasaman clothing , and loaded it aboard the freighter's shuttle. Designed as it was for cargo transport, the shuttle had no actual passenger seating. But the cockpit was designed for a crew of four, and the captain assured them that the engineering and supercargo stations could be left open for a trip this short.

They dropped over the nighttime side of the planet, the freighter pulling up and away as the Troft pilot sent the shuttle skittering toward the dark mass below. Five minutes into the flight they hit the first noticeable wisps of upper atmosphere, and the shuttle began to shiver, then tremble, then shake as the air around them grew steadily more dense.

Jin spent the trip staring at the mass rushing up toward them and consciously forcing herself not to dig her fingers into her seat's upholstery. Occasionally, she sent a furtive glance at Merrick, noting with a small nugget of wry resentment that her son showed no hint of the tension Jin herself was feeling. The buffeting hit a teeth-chattering peak, then began to subside again as the shuttle slowed to subsonic speeds. The ground below remained a mostly featureless inky black, but as they headed eastward toward the western arm of the Great Arc Jin began spotting little clusters of lights nestled among the forests that dominated the western part of the planet's inhabited regions. She watched the lights as they went slowly past, her muscles taut as she waited for a repeat of the attack that had killed her first team.

But no attack came. An hour after leaving the freighter, they touched down in a small clearing at the edge of their planned landing zone.

Jin and Merrick and their gear were at the edge of the clearing in ninety seconds flat. Thirty seconds after that, the shuttle was back in the air, clawing for altitude. Ten seconds more and the red glow from its gravity lifts had vanished over the treetops.

Hopefully, the captain's information about this area being outside any likely radar coverage had been correct. If not, Jin and Merrick would be getting some company very soon.

But for now, at least, they were alone, and Jin took a moment to stand beneath the tree canopy, the sounds and scents of Qasama whispering through her senses and echoing back from her memory. Suddenly, the last thirty-two years of her life seemed to vanish. She was once again the young Cobra all alone on a distant and hostile world . . .

"Spine leopard at three o'clock," Merrick murmured from beside her.

As quickly as they'd gone, the lost years came crashing back onto Jin's shoulders. Activating her optical enhancers' light-amplifiers, she looked to her right.

The spine leopard was standing motionless in the shadows, its eyes staring at the two rash humans who had intruded on its territory. The quills on its forelegs were quivering as the creature apparently mulled over whether or not this would be a good time for lunch.

"So that's a mojo," Merrick murmured.

Jin shifted her gaze from the spine leopard's forelegs to the silver-blue hawk-like bird perched on the spine leopard's back behind its head. The mojo, too, was watching the humans, gazing at them with a disconcerting alertness and perception that Jin had never quite gotten used to. "That it is," she confirmed. "The question is, has he figured out that we're not someone he and his companion want to mess with?"

"Maybe we can help him out a little," Merrick suggested. "Watch your eyes."

Jin switched from light-amp to infrared, watching as the images of the spine leopard and mojo shifted from pale green to flowing shades of red and orange. "Go."

Lifting his right hand, Merrick fired a brief low-level burst from his fingertip laser into the tree trunk beside him.

The spine leopard dropped into a crouch, its quills flaring outward. But the mojo showed no such agitation, merely fluttering its wings as it got a fresh grip on the predator's back. For perhaps half a second both of them continued to gaze at the humans. Then, with a shake of its head, the spine leopard straightened out of its crouch, its quills resettling themselves along his forelegs. It turned away, and without a backward glance strode back into the forest.

"Smart bird," Merrick commented.

"Luckily for us," Jin agreed, the warm scent of burned wood from her son's laser shot drifting across her nose. And luckily for the animals, too, she added silently. The spine leopard and mojo made up a symbiotic pair, with the bird functioning as the primary decision-maker of the team. On its own, the spine leopard would probably have leaped blindly to the attack and been dead by now.

Once, the mojos had served a similar purpose for the humans of Qasama, calming natural aggression with guidance so subtle that the inhabitants had never recognized it for what it was. Jin's own father, grandfather, and uncles had helped create the scheme for seeding Qasama with spine leopards, hoping that the mojos would be lured away from their human hosts and onto the more useful—from the mojos' point of view—predators.

Unfortunately, the Qasamans hadn't seen it that way. The introduction of new and deadly predators onto their world had driven much of the hatred they felt toward the Cobra Worlds.

Distantly, Jin wondered if the people here would ever truly understand that the plan had been for their ultimate good. Or whether such understanding would make any difference.

"It's about thirty kilometers east, right?" Merrick asked.

"East by north," Jin said, shaking the thoughts away. Standing in the middle of the Qasaman forest at night was hardly the time and place for deep philosophical contemplations. Shifting back to light-amp, she checked her compass. "That way," she added, pointing.

"Assuming, of course, Daulo Sammon is still living in Milika," Merrick warned as he adjusted his pack across his shoulders.

"He will be," Jin assured him. "Qasaman families stick very close to their hereditary land."

"Let's get to it, then," Merrick said.

Jin frowned at him. His expression had the same oddness she'd just heard in his voice. "Something wrong?" she asked.

"No, nothing." Merrick nodded in the direction the spine leopard and mojo had gone. "I was just thinking that Qasaman birds seem to understand the concept of deterrence better than some of our own politicians."

"No argument there," Jin agreed sourly. "But then, mojos don't have political agendas muddying their thinking. All they care about is survival." She took a deep breath. "Which is something you and I should also keep in mind. Quietly, now. And from this point on, we speak only Qasaman."

The trip wasn't nearly as difficult as Jin had expected. There were plenty of natural hazards along the way, with the complete range of tripping vines, thorn bushes, and leaf-covered roots that a healthy forest had to offer. But their optical enhancers gave them fair warning of most of the pitfalls, and even when the forest did manage to trip one of them their bone laminae and strengthened ligaments protected them from sprained ankles or worse.

More interesting to Jin was the fact that the only animals that gave them any trouble along the way were the six-limbed monkey-like baelcra, the gliding-lizard monota, and a few varieties of annoying insects. They saw a handful of spine leopards and a couple of the native krisjaws, but those larger, more deadly predators merely watched the two humans go past without interfering with them.

But then, none of the baelcra had mojos watching over their best interests. All of the spine leopards and krisjaws did.