Free Cobra Guardian: Cobra War: Book Two by Timothy Zahn Page A

was moving nearby, and the group slipped out into the early morning gloom.
    By this time, Lorne knew, Capitalia would normally be starting to come to life. Traffic would be picking up as merchants arrived at their stores for pre-opening checks, restaurateurs began preparing the day's dishes, and early-rising office workers got a jump on the traffic and headed in to tackle the work waiting on their desks.
    But not today. Today, the rising sun might as well have been looking down on a ghost town.
    Or at least a ghost neighborhood. Over the thudding of the group's footsteps in his enhanced hearing Lorne could pick out the confused-sounding rumbles of multiple spine leopards as they tried to figure out the unfamiliar surroundings they'd been unceremoniously dumped into. Behind the sounds of the animals he could hear muffled metallic whirrings and clanks as the Trofts in their warships finished locking down their landing gear, tested the gimbals on their wing-mounted weapons, and probably prepared their troop deployment.
    "Where is everyone?" Nissa shouted.
    Lorne jumped, cursing, as he quickly dialed back his audios. "Sorry," Nissa said, her voice this time sounding more like the murmur the question had actually been.
    "Where do you think they are?" Treakness growled before Lorne could answer. "You expect them to all rush outside to see the pretty fireworks?"
    "I was asking about the Trofts, sir," Nissa countered stiffly. "Shouldn't they be moving troops into the Dome or the patroller stations or something?"
    "Don't worry, that'll happen soon enough," Lorne said. "My guess is that they're waiting for the spinies to sort themselves out into territories, maybe draw a few more Cobras or patrollers into the open--"
    And with his audios off, he was caught completely off guard by the spine leopard that appeared suddenly from behind an under-drop trash container across the street and charged.
    Reflexively, Lorne took a long step to his right, perpendicular to the spiny's path, putting some distance between himself and the others. A flick of his eye set a target lock on the predator's head, and he shifted his weight onto his right foot. He would let it close about half the remaining distance, he decided, then swing his left leg up and nail it with an antiarmor laser shot. Maybe a quick burst with his sonic a step or two before that, just to slow it down--
    "Lorne!" Nissa gasped.
    --and in that frozen second he belatedly remembered where he was and who he was with. Not out in the Aventinian wilderness with his fellow Cobras, but in a city with a trio of helpless civilians. Civilians who couldn't fight, couldn't get out of the way, and probably didn't even have enough sense to duck.
    And the spine leopard was charging directly toward them.
    Lorne cursed under his breath, leaping back again to put himself between the civilians and the predator, realizing in that same instant that he couldn't use his planned response. An audible sonic, a visible flash, and he would have every Troft in range converging on this street.
    Which left him only one option.
    The spiny had made it two more steps, with maybe six more and a short leap to go, by the time Lorne had his original head shot cancelled and a new targeting lock on the front of the animal's neck where it met the lower jaw. Then, bracing himself, he squatted down and fell backwards, doing a controlled roll from hips to shoulder blades onto his back. He heard Nissa gasp something else as the spine leopard, sensing wounded prey, shifted direction slightly and bore straight down on him. As the predator shoved itself off the pavement into what it surely expected to be a killing leap, Lorne triggered his antiarmor laser. His leg servos, responding to the spiny's position and Lorne's own programmed target lock, swung his left leg up to meet the incoming threat.
    And as Lorne's heel connected solidly with the attacker's throat, the laser finally fired, burning instantly through muscle and throat and