Cobra Guardian: Cobra War: Book Two Read Online Free Page A

need to get you back to the Dome right away. I'll be there in five minutes--"
    "Wait a second, hold on," Lorne interrupted, his brain snapping fully awake at the simmering panic in her voice. "What's going on?"
    "There's no time," she said. "An astronomer at North Bank picked up a fleet of ships--Troft ships, they think--heading eastward towards Capitalia from orbit. And none of the ships register on radar."
    Lorne felt his muscles tense as the full implications of that fact blew away the last wisps of sleepiness. "I'll meet you at the gate," he said, and keyed off. Dropping the comm on the bed, he grabbed for his clothes.
    He'd been afraid the call was bad news about his mother and brother. It was far worse . . . because there was just one type of ship designed not to show up on traffic control's radar.
    Warships.
    A century ago, the Dominion of Man had set up the Aventine colony, ostensibly as a way to get rid of the Cobra war veterans, but also as a deterrent to the Trofts against launching future attacks on Dominion worlds. Barely twenty-five years later, the colonists' connection to the rest of humanity had been closed, but the deterrent effect of the Cobras' presence had remained.
    Until now. It was unbelievable. It was insane. But apparently, it was also true. The Cobras' century-old bluff had been called.
    Aventine was under attack.

Chapter Two
    "The secret to a contented life," Paul Broom commented sagely as he scraped bits of green spore off his silliweave tunic, "is to find a comfortable morning routine and stick with it."
    Jody Broom paused in the process of scraping her own tunic and gave her father one of the disbelieving stares she'd worked so hard to master during her teenage years. "You really want to be saying things like that when I have a razor in my hand?" she asked.
    "But I thought this was the life you'd always dreamed about," he said, turning innocent eyes on her. "Out here in the wilds of humanity's frontier, degrees in animal physiology and management firmly in hand, cutting an impressive swath through--" He indicated the tunic in his hand. "Well, through tiny little creatures growing on silicon clothing."
    "Oh, this is the life, all right," Jody said sourly, turning back to her work. "It's also been occurring to me more and more lately that I could just as easily have turned my impressive animal management degree into the field of hamster breeding."
    "Hamsters? Pheh," her father scoffed. "Where's the fame and glory in that?"
    "You ever see a hamster go rogue?" Jody countered. "Or worse, a whole herd of them?"
    Paul gave a low whistle. "I had no idea how dangerous--" He broke off, shifting his scraper to his other hand and flashing a fingertip laser blast across the room. Jody turned in time to see a coin-sized buzzic drop to the floor. "How dangerous livestock that size could be," he continued, his eyes carefully sweeping the room. "I'm grateful now that you didn't choose to go into that line of work. Get down a bit, would you?"
    Jody dropped into a low crouch, wincing as her father fired four more laser shots over her head into the wall and ceiling. There were four more thunks, louder ones this time, and she turned to see four freshly killed thumb-sized flycrawlers smoldering on the floor behind her. "I think they're getting bigger," Paul commented.
    "Almost big enough to take on my hamster farm," Jody agreed, her throat tightening. "How in the Worlds are bugs that size getting in?"
    "The boys must have missed a spot," Paul said, crossing the room and peering down at the insects. "Maybe in one of the upper corners or alongside a window where a vine's taken root and started pulling the plaster apart. You let them get a foothold and start a crack, and that's all they need."
    Jody went to her father's side. Already tiny spots of green were starting to appear on the burned insect carcasses as microscopic airborne spores found something to eat and set to work with a vengeance. And once the flycrawlers