"Fine," Siraj said, slipping deftly in front of Jin. "Except that I will go first."
"Siraj Akim--"
"I'm senior Djinni, and you are ill," he cut her off. "There will be no argument."
Turning to face the hatch, he keyed the release and the hatch slid open as the ramp swung down to the ground. He stepped out, pausing at the top of the ramp to look around.
And abruptly spun a quarter turn to his left, his glove lasers spitting a double burst even as he twisted over hard at the waist. A large, tawny creature shot past, crashing with a heavy thud onto the ground at the other side of the ramp. "It's all right," Siraj called back inside. "I think I--"
He broke off, staggering as a burst of deep sound resonated through the open hatchway. A second later a figure dropped onto the ramp from the roof, batted Siraj's arms aside as he tried to bring his glove lasers around, and sent a second, more potent sonic burst rattling straight through the opening into the freighter.
But Jin's nanocomputer had already evaluated the danger and thrown her onto her back on the deck, her palms pressed hard against her ears to minimize the weapon's effects. As the sound washed mostly harmlessly past her, she rolled her torso toward the open hatch, and as a second figure dropped off the transport's roof to join the first, she fired her own sonic.
Both figures staggered back, their arms waving madly as they fought for balance. Jin continued her roll onto her stomach, then shoved off the deck and bounced herself back up onto her feet. Three quick steps and she was on the ramp, grabbing one of the staggering men and locking her arms around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. "Hold it!" she shouted.
"Identify yourself!" a voice ordered from somewhere in the forest around them.
"I'm a citizen of Aventine," Jin called back. "What in the name of hell do you think you're doing?"
There was a short pause. Then, with a soft rustle of leaves, a young man stepped out into the narrow clearing that the transport's violent passage through the trees had created. "Who's in there with you, citizen of Aventine?" he called.
Jin keyed her opticals for a closer look at his face. He still looked wary, but at least his hands and fingertip lasers were at his sides instead of pointed at Jin and Siraj.
Though of course there were probably other Cobras out there whose weapons were trained on her. "They're allies," she told the young man. "You attack everyone who comes to Caelian?"
"Everyone who comes here in Troft spaceships, yes," the young man said stiffly. "In case you didn't know, we're at war here. You have a name?"
"Jasmine Broom," Jin said. "You?"
The man's face seemed to tighten, and she saw the telltale twitch as he activated his own opticals. "Jasmine Moreau Broom?" he asked carefully.
"Yes," Jin said. "And you?"
"My name's Kemp," the other said. "I believe I've met your husband and daughter."
Jin felt her heart leap inside her. "They're all right?" she asked.
He hesitated, just a fraction of a second too long. "Last I knew, yes," he said.
"What's happened?" Jin demanded, her pulse starting to pound in her throat. "Something's happened. What is it?"
Kemp's lip twitched. "Who are these supposed allies you've brought with you?"
And then, to Jin's utter amazement, a familiar voice called distantly from the direction of the Tlossie freighter. "One of them is her son, Cobra Lorne Moreau Broom," Lorne shouted. "The lady asked you a question, Kemp."
Jin twisted her head to look in that direction, a flash of dizziness briefly touching her as the landscape rushed past in her telescopic vision. Lorne was pressed against the freighter's bow, his fingertip lasers pointed warningly across the distance at Kemp.
And in that brief moment of distraction, the man she was holding turned suddenly in her grip, forcing enough slack to slip partially out of her hold. He grabbed her arm and bent it up, completing his escape. Still clutching her arm, he spun back around toward her, bringing up his free hand and angling his torso once again toward her.
Only to topple backward and slam hard onto the ramp as the still kneeling Siraj slapped his legs out from under him.
"Enough!" Jin bellowed, a fresh wave of dizziness rolling over her. With a supreme effort, she fought it back. This was no time to look weak. "All of you, just stop it! You want to fight the Trofts, or each other?"
For a stunned moment no one moved or spoke, and Jin could feel their eyes boring into her. "Speaking as Jin Moreau's son, gentlemen," Lorne called, his voice deadly serious, "and as one who's heard that tone many times before, I can tell you right now that you ignore it at your peril."
Jin focused on Kemp. For another moment he stood as still as the trees around him. And then, to her surprise, he actually chuckled. "Point taken, Cobra Broom," he called. Lifting a hand, he gave a signal.
And with a general crunching of leaves, a semicircle of over twenty Cobras emerged warily from the forest. "We've now met your number one ally, Cobra Jasmine Broom," Kemp said. "Would you care to introduce the rest of your team?"
Jin braced herself. "I've brought four representatives of the planet Qasama," she said. "They seek your help, and offer theirs in return." She shot at look at the Troft freighter. "I believe we also have possible allies in a group of Trofts from the Tlos'khin'fahi Demesne."
One of the Cobras spat. "You expect us to trust Trofts?"
"The Tlossies have been our trading partners for over a generation," Jin reminded him.
"Maybe you trade with them," the Cobra countered. "You and Stronghold. We don't get much drop-in traffic out in Essbend."
"Well, you're making up for that today," Lorne put in. His voice was clear and even, Jin noted, but in her enhanced vision she could see the wariness in his own eyes as he gazed at Siraj in his scaled gray Djinn combat suit. "Not only do we have Qasamans and Tlossies, but we also have a representative from the Dome, as well as one of the surgeons who probably helped many of you become Cobras back on Aventine."
"Who?" one of the other Cobras asked suspiciously.
"Dr. Glas Croi," Lorne said. He paused, and Jin heard a murmur ripple through the Caelians. They knew that name, all right. "And for the record," Lorne continued, "the commander of this freighter isn't just some Troft merchant. He's Ingidi-inhiliziyo, second heir to the Tlossie demesne-lord."
Jin waited, expecting another murmur of amazement. But there was only silence. Apparently, these men weren't nearly as impressed by Troft demesne-heirs as they were by Cobra surgeons.
Fortunately, they were impressed enough. "It's pretty rollin' clear that this is going to take some time to sort out," Kemp said, giving another hand signal. "But we can't do it out here in the open. Your, uh, landing"--his eyes flicked pointedly to the transport's crumpled bow--"drove away a lot of the predators, but they're starting to come back."
"No point in doing it here anyway," one of the older Cobras added. "Harli's waiting for us at Stronghold."
"And whatever you have to say you'd just have to repeat it to him anyway," Kemp agreed. He locked eyes with Jin. "You trust these people?"
"I already have," Jin said firmly. "With my life. More importantly, with my son's life."
"Okay," Kemp said. He still didn't look particularly happy about the situation, but it was clear he knew that any further decisions rested with someone higher up the command structure than he was. "We'll bring in the spookers and load up. I hope you haven't got much you need to take--it's going to be tricky enough riding double with all our stuff as it is."
"We'll manage," Jin promised.
"But we can't just leave the freighter here out in the open," Lorne called, pointing at the vehicle behind him. "We need someplace to hide it in case the invaders spotted us coming in. A deep river or lake will do--Warrior says a few days' immersion in water won't hurt it any. Any ideas?"
Kemp looked around the group. "Gish? You're the expert on this part of Wonderland."
"There's the Octagon Cave complex," one of the Cobras said.
"That would probably be proof against at least a casual sensor scan. You sure you want to let them out of our sight?"
"Don't worry, it won't be all of them," Lorne told him. "Warrior--that's Ingidi-inhiliziyo's more pronounceable name--has already told me he wants to be in on any discussions we might have."
"Oh, does he?" Gish growled.
"Yes, he does," Lorne said calmly. "And I think Nissa and Dr. Croi should come with us, too."
"At least Dr. Croi," Kemp agreed. "No offense, Broom, but his opinion regarding your Troft pals is going to carry a lot more weight here than yours."
"No offense taken," Lorne said. "If you'll send someone back here with the coordinates to those caves, I'll get the others ready to travel."
Chapter Eighteen
For Lorne, the spooker ride turned out to be far and away the most terrifying part of his entire wartime experience so far. His Caelian driver, a Cobra named Fourdalay who was clearly a lunatic, pushed the cranked-up, spike-covered grav cycle like he was trying to burn out all of its thrusters in one massive overload.
Or possibly his death wish involved something more spectacular. A thundering high-speed crash, say, followed by a massive fireball. The way he shaved the tolerances between the corners of the spooker and Caelian's never-ending assortment of trees, thorn bushes, and rock outcroppings--that could very well have been his plan. Clutching the grip bar, Lorne decided that even facing down two Troft warships on the rooftops of Aventine hadn't been this frightening.
His only comfort, and it wasn't much of one, was that all the rest of the Cobras were driving with exactly the same degree of recklessness.
The ordeal seemed to last forever. But finally, Fourdalay eased back on the throttle, and a couple of minutes later they glided to a smooth halt beside a pair of other men. There was a brief, quiet conversation between them and Kemp that Lorne didn't even bother to eavesdrop on, and with clear reluctance the visitors were passed through and escorted a dozen meters farther to where Governor Uy's son Harli was waiting for them.
Lorne had expected Harli to be just as suspicious of the newcomers as Kemp and his crowd had been, or even more so. To his surprise, once the initial shock had faded away, the Cobras' leader welcomed them all with at least a measure of guarded civility. It was only later that it occurred to Lorne that perhaps Harli's brief acquaintance with Paul and Jody may have paved the way for him to trust Jin's judgment as to the trustworthiness of both the Qasamans and the Tlossies.
And a few minutes later, after the Essbend contingent had been sent to one of the equipment caches to unload their gear, and sentries had been posted against the ever-present predator threat, Harli sat them all down in a circle and the debriefing began.
The stories were many and varied, and even with obvious time-editing going on, it took nearly an hour for the Qasaman, Aventinian, and Caelian accounts to be laid out before the entire group.
Lorne didn't say much during that hour. Croi had made it clear before they left the freighter that he, not Lorne or Nissa, would tell their part of the story. He'd made it even more clear that none of them was to even hint at the existence of the precious cargo aboard the freighter that Warrior's crew had now hidden away in Gish's cave complex. Despite Jin's assurances, it was obvious he didn't trust the Qasamans any farther than he could spit them.
The Qasamans. Lorne studied them as Siraj Akim presented their part of the story to the rest of the gathering in fairly decent Anglic. The head of the three Djinn didn't trust any of them, and wasn't particularly happy to be here, an attitude abundantly clear from the tightness Lorne could see in his cheek and throat muscles. But he spoke calmly and fearlessly enough as he described the attack on Qasama and the reason he and the others had traveled with Lorne's mother to the Cobra Worlds.
His grasp of Anglic puzzled Lorne until he realized that the Djinn had probably been created as an answer to the Cobras, with the intent of fighting them toe-to-toe whenever the expected Cobra Worlds' invasion of Qasama began. Under that scenario, one of a Djinni's jobs would certainly be to learn the invaders' language.
The second Djinni, Carsh Zoshak, seemed a bit more comfortable with the group as a whole. Reading between the lines of his part of the story, Lorne guessed that his greater acceptance was tied to the additional time he'd spent fighting alongside both Jin and Merrick back on Qasama. As with Harli, familiarity with members of the Broom family seemed to create a higher level of trust in their judgment.
Lorne did notice, though, that neither Siraj nor Zoshak seemed to be allowing Jin to add much to their rendition. More than once, he wondered if she'd been ordered to stay out of the discussion, just as he and Nissa had been ordered by Croi to do likewise.
The Qasaman woman, Rashida Vil, seemed nearly as nervous about the group as Siraj. But in addition, Lorne had the impression that she was trying very hard to make herself invisible, possibly trying to press herself into the massive tree trunk she was sitting against. She'd contributed virtually nothing to the conversation, and then only to answer direct questions posed to her by Harli or one of the other Caelians. Considering that she was not only the Qasaman's second pilot but also their primary Troft translator, Lorne could only assume that she'd received the same order of silence that his mother had.
The surprising one of the bunch was the third Djinni, Ghofl Khatir, who in contrast to the other Qasamans seemed completely at ease with his surroundings. Possibly more at ease, in fact, than even the Caelian Cobras. He had settled himself at the side of the circle beside Croi and Warrior, tossing in occasional comments wherever appropriate and smiling genially at everyone around him whenever he wasn't talking. Croi and Warrior, for their part, seemed to regard Khatir like a black-sheep distant cousin who'd unexpectedly showed up at a family reunion and who no one could quite figure out what to do with.
But the Qasamans weren't the real problem, at least not from Lorne's point of view. True, their government had once sworn eternal hatred against the Cobra Worlds, but that was all in the distant past. His mother had vouched for this particular group, and that was good enough for him.
What was bothering him was what his mother wasn't saying.
Because there was something she was holding deep inside her. Something tense and unpleasant. Lorne had always been able to detect one of his siblings' illnesses, usually before even the sibling was aware of it, and he could clearly see the signs of stress in his mother. He could see the extra tension around her eyes, well beyond even what their current situation warranted. He could hear the slight hesitation in her voice during her rare comments, her careful weighing of every word as if she was afraid she would slip and say something she shouldn't. He could see it in the way she'd been gripping her husband's hand ever since they'd all sat down together.
Even more significantly, he could see it in the Qasamans' faces. Though they were clearly trying to hide it, all four of them were paying close attention to her, their eyes flicking over to her for a quick evaluation every few seconds. Zoshak in particular seemed to be not quite settled on his patch of ground, as if he was expecting he might have to leap to her side at a second's notice.
Was there something important that she and the Qasamans were holding back? Something of the same caliber as the Aventinians' own Isis secret?
Or was it something more personal? She'd told them briefly about the injuries Merrick had suffered in the Qasamans' final attack on the invaders' occupation force. Had she been wounded, too, perhaps internally where it didn't show?
He didn't dare ask, not here in the middle of a war council. But he would find an opportunity to do so. And soon.
"Well," Harli commented when the last report was finished and the last question answered. "I guess I never really believed that Caelian was the whole focus of this whole Troft invasion. But I would never have believed how damn serious they were about the whole thing, either." He eyed Jin thoughtfully. "Though the reason why Warrior and his buddies would send you to Qasama still eludes me."
"P
erhaps because you wouldn't otherwise have believed that the Qasamans had also been attacked," Jin suggested. "If Siraj Akim and the others had shown up here alone, would you have listened to them?"
Harli made a face. "Probably not," he conceded, looking over at Siraj. "I'm still not sure what you think we can do for you, but right now that's kind of a side issue. Our first job is to figure out how we're going to get these damn Trofts off Caelian." He threw a hooded look at Warrior. "No offense," he added.
[Offense, I do not take it,] the Tlossie assured him.
"So what exactly is the situation over there?" Lorne asked. "You said the one ship had fallen onto the town's outer wall?"
"Was pushed over onto it, yes," Harli said. "A good-sized section was crushed, which is going to be another rollin' problem pretty quick down the road. Anyway, the second ship has set up shop right behind it, and they've put a cordon of armored trucks and troops around both of them. Your sister's currently got the best vantage point of any of us, and her guess is that they're trying to take off the downed ship's grav lifts and reposition them so that they can get the thing stood upright again."
"They can't just turn the grav lifts around in place?" Croi asked.
"Apparently not," Paul told him.
[Such equipment, it is not usually moveable,] Warrior put in. [A situation like this, one does not often encounter it.]
"Warrior agrees," Paul translated. "They're going to have to physically take the grav lifts off."
Harli snorted. "Pretty stupid design for a warship, if you ask me."
"You wouldn't think that if you'd seen how they took over the streets of Capitalia," Lorne said grimly. "They're exactly the right design for dropping into the middle of city intersections as mobile command posts."
"Well, they don't make much sense here," Harli said. "The point is that right now we've got the advantage, but only until they get that first ship back up again. Any ideas?"
"There's a hatch on the upper hull near the stern," Jin said. "Any chance the Cobras in Stronghold can get to it?"