least make a couple of half-decent pillows. I’ll also put the rock back over the entrance in case the Trofts wander this direction.”
“All right.” Anya hesitated. “I’m sorry, Merrick Moreau. I’ve failed us.”
“Oh, come on—we’ve hardly even started,” Merrick said. “And don’t forget, we wouldn’t have gotten even this far if you hadn’t taught me how to hang glide and then dropped my glider into the ravine. Under the circumstances, I think we’re doing just fine. Some sleep, and then we’ll figure out our next step. I’ll get the leaves and be right back.”
He headed up the ladder, feeling a grim set to his jaw. In fact, he’d already figured out what their next move would be. The wrecked Troft ship, the one whose crash site they’d spotted from the mountain, wasn’t more than a few hours’ journey away. He’d planned to visit it sometime anyway, first to confirm that it was the source of the stray razorarms they’d run into, and second to see if there were any clues as to what had caused the crash.
But for the moment that plan was going to remain his secret. He didn’t think Anya was playing games with him, but with their lives firmly on the betting table he had no intention of taking unnecessary chances. Once they’d rested and the sun had risen and warmed the forest enough to make them harder to spot on Troft infrareds, would be soon enough to share it with her.
CHAPTER FIVE
They were just one day out from Caelian, with four more to go until they reached Qasama.
And to Jody Moreau Broom’s surprise and annoyance, she discovered she was getting cold feet.
It was discomfiting. It was also embarrassing, shameful, and annoying. She’d prepped her original proposal carefully, and delivered it to Moffren Omnathi with just the right mixture of passion and cold logic. Omnathi had listened gravely to her arguments, as a Shahni of Qasama should, and had then declared himself convinced. Jody Moreau Broom, daughter of Cobras, would be granted the privilege of becoming a Cobra herself.
Jody had convinced him. She’d also convinced herself. Now, less than a day after her triumph, she was wondering if she’d really and truly thought this through.
And she was three-quarters convinced that she hadn’t. It was no light thing, after all, to become a Cobra.
To become a Cobra . To step willingly into the hideously complex Isis machine hidden somewhere on Qasama. To lie still while the computerized lasers, transorptors, and laminators implanted sonics, servos, layered bone-strengtheners, weapons, audio and visual enhancers, and a pre-programmed reflex nanocomputer into her body.
To let herself be turned into a machine of war.
She’d thought it was what she wanted to do. She knew it was something she needed to do. Her brother Merrick was lost in the vastness of the Troft Assemblage, snatched and taken somewhere unknown for purposes equally unknown. Jody’s mother, father, and other brother Lorne were back on Aventine, trapped under the unblinking gaze of Commodore Rubo Santores and the three-ship Dominion Fleet task force that had appeared over Aventine, unexpected and unwanted, less than two weeks ago. If the Dominion’s heavy-handed attempt to arrest Caelian’s Governor Uy was at all representative of Santores’s intentions toward the Cobra Worlds as a whole, Jody’s family would have their hands full back home. She was the only one of the family with any hope of following up the tenuous lead that might or might not lead to her missing brother.
And the only chance she had against Trofts, the Dominion, and whatever else was out there was the secret edge she would have as a Cobra.
It was logical, reasonable, and practically inevitable. Jody’s mother Jin had been the first female Cobra in Aventinian history. It was only right and proper that her daughter should be the second.
So why did the very thought of it make Jody shudder with what felt disconcertingly like
“All right.” Anya hesitated. “I’m sorry, Merrick Moreau. I’ve failed us.”
“Oh, come on—we’ve hardly even started,” Merrick said. “And don’t forget, we wouldn’t have gotten even this far if you hadn’t taught me how to hang glide and then dropped my glider into the ravine. Under the circumstances, I think we’re doing just fine. Some sleep, and then we’ll figure out our next step. I’ll get the leaves and be right back.”
He headed up the ladder, feeling a grim set to his jaw. In fact, he’d already figured out what their next move would be. The wrecked Troft ship, the one whose crash site they’d spotted from the mountain, wasn’t more than a few hours’ journey away. He’d planned to visit it sometime anyway, first to confirm that it was the source of the stray razorarms they’d run into, and second to see if there were any clues as to what had caused the crash.
But for the moment that plan was going to remain his secret. He didn’t think Anya was playing games with him, but with their lives firmly on the betting table he had no intention of taking unnecessary chances. Once they’d rested and the sun had risen and warmed the forest enough to make them harder to spot on Troft infrareds, would be soon enough to share it with her.
CHAPTER FIVE
They were just one day out from Caelian, with four more to go until they reached Qasama.
And to Jody Moreau Broom’s surprise and annoyance, she discovered she was getting cold feet.
It was discomfiting. It was also embarrassing, shameful, and annoying. She’d prepped her original proposal carefully, and delivered it to Moffren Omnathi with just the right mixture of passion and cold logic. Omnathi had listened gravely to her arguments, as a Shahni of Qasama should, and had then declared himself convinced. Jody Moreau Broom, daughter of Cobras, would be granted the privilege of becoming a Cobra herself.
Jody had convinced him. She’d also convinced herself. Now, less than a day after her triumph, she was wondering if she’d really and truly thought this through.
And she was three-quarters convinced that she hadn’t. It was no light thing, after all, to become a Cobra.
To become a Cobra . To step willingly into the hideously complex Isis machine hidden somewhere on Qasama. To lie still while the computerized lasers, transorptors, and laminators implanted sonics, servos, layered bone-strengtheners, weapons, audio and visual enhancers, and a pre-programmed reflex nanocomputer into her body.
To let herself be turned into a machine of war.
She’d thought it was what she wanted to do. She knew it was something she needed to do. Her brother Merrick was lost in the vastness of the Troft Assemblage, snatched and taken somewhere unknown for purposes equally unknown. Jody’s mother, father, and other brother Lorne were back on Aventine, trapped under the unblinking gaze of Commodore Rubo Santores and the three-ship Dominion Fleet task force that had appeared over Aventine, unexpected and unwanted, less than two weeks ago. If the Dominion’s heavy-handed attempt to arrest Caelian’s Governor Uy was at all representative of Santores’s intentions toward the Cobra Worlds as a whole, Jody’s family would have their hands full back home. She was the only one of the family with any hope of following up the tenuous lead that might or might not lead to her missing brother.
And the only chance she had against Trofts, the Dominion, and whatever else was out there was the secret edge she would have as a Cobra.
It was logical, reasonable, and practically inevitable. Jody’s mother Jin had been the first female Cobra in Aventinian history. It was only right and proper that her daughter should be the second.
So why did the very thought of it make Jody shudder with what felt disconcertingly like
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