Cobra Strike

"And she likes having Joshua's visual transmission too much to give it up. Is that it?"

Pyre sighed. "You can hardly blame her. She'd wanted the whole contact team implanted with those optical sensors, I understand, and been turned down on grounds of cost-split-frequency transmitters that small are expensive to make.

And now with all our other eyes taken away, Joshua's all we've got left if we want to see what's going on." He held up a hand soothingly. "Look, I know how you feel, but try not to worry about him. The Qasamans are hardly going to attack them now without a good reason."

"I suppose you're right." Justin thought for a moment, but there didn't seem anything else to be said. "Well... good night."

" 'Night."

Pyre left, and Justin flexed his arms experimentally. Thirteen hours in the couch had indeed left the muscles stiff, but he hardly noticed the twinges as his thoughts latched onto Pyre's last comment. Without a good reason... but what would constitute such a reason in the Qasamans' minds? An aggressive act or comment on Cerenkov's part? Discovery that the ostensibly voice-only radio link to the ship also had a split-freq cha

Eyes on the darkened display, Justin settled into his exercises, pushing his body harder than he'd originally intended to.

Chapter 9

With less need for immediate debarkation-and more comfort and room aboard ship in which to wait-the Menssana's passengers didn't bother with filter helmets, but simply stayed inside until the atmospheric analyzers confirmed the air of

Planet Chata was indeed safe for human use.

Long tradition gave Jo

Once again the passengers waited; but when an hour of Cobra work failed to entice any predators out of the nearby woods-or to flush out anything obviously dangerous within the perimeter itself-Team Leader Rey Banyon declared the

Menssana's immediate area to be safe enough for the civilians.

Jo

Chata looked nothing at all like Aventine, really; certainly not after even a cursory examination of plant life and landscape. Yet the simple fact of Chata's strangeness relative to Aventine's by-now familiarity gave the two experiences an identity. A new world, untouched by man-

"Brings back memories, doesn't it?" Chrys murmured at his side.

Jo

"It'll be harder to do it again," Chrys said. Dropping to one knee, she gently fingered the mat of interlaced vine-like plants that seemed to be the local version of grass. "Chata may only be thirty light-years from Aventine, but we don't have anything like the Dominion's transport capability. It hardly makes sense to spend our resources this direction with so much of Aventine and

Palatine still uninhabited. Especially-" She broke off abruptly.

"Especially when this whole group is only ten to fifteen light-years from

Qasama?" Jo

She got to her feet with a sigh, brushing bits of greenery off her fingers as she did so. "I've heard all the arguments about buffer zones and two-front wars," she said, "but I don't have to like it. And I keep coming back to the fact that the only reason we consider Qasama a threat is because the Trofts say we should."

The beep of his phone preempted Jo

"Banyon, Governor," the Cobra team leader's voice came. "Got something off our satellite I think you should look at."

Chrys's presence beside him was a silent reminder of his promise to play passenger on this trip. "Can't you and Captain Shepherd handle it?" he said.

"Well... I suppose so, yes. I just thought that your advice would be helpful on this."

"Unless you're talking emergency-" Jo

"What are you doing?" Chrys stage-whispered fiercely. "Let's go see what they've got."

If I live to be a thousand, the old line flashed through Jo

They found Banyon and Shepherd on the Menssana's bridge, their attention on a set of three displays. "It wasn't something that registered right off the blocks," Banyon began without preamble, indicating a dark mass now centered in the largest display. "Then we found out it was moving."

Jo

Shepherd nodded. "There's a lot of upper atmosphere turbulence over us at the moment, and that's limiting drastically what the computer has to work with."

"I'd say it's a herd or flock of some sort," Jo

"Hard to tell-they're still a hundred kilometers away-but it looks right now like the flank will sweep across us," Shepherd said. He touched a switch and the infrared picture on one of the other screens was replaced by a schematic. The various extrapolation regions were done in different colors; and, sure enough, the edge of the red "90% probable" wedge just touched the Menssana's indicated position. The mass's average distance and speed were also given: 106 km, 8.1 km/hr.

"So we've got thirteen hours till they get here," Jo

Cobras to check out this herd and see if they can be stopped or deflected."

"Yes, sir, that's what we thought." Banyon hesitated, and Jo

Jo

If I live to be ten thousand.... Turning back to Banyon, he nodded. "All right, then. Let's get cracking."

It was indeed a herd-a big herd-and to Jo

"I think," Banyon commented as they all took in the sight, "we're going to have to rethink our basic plan."

One of the other Cobras snorted, and someone else let loose with a rather strained chuckle. Jo