Cobra Outlaw - eARC Read Online Free Page B

not?”
    “Then we’ll see what is there and weigh our options.” Santores’s lips compressed. “One other thing you should consider. If Ukuthi is playing games with us , I don’t doubt he’s also willing and able to play games with the Qasamans. If that’s the case, any delay in getting the planet’s location may very well facilitate their destruction.”
    “Maybe,” Paul said, determined not to be lulled by the man’s apparent sincerity any more than he had been by the earlier verbal elbowing. “Let me point out in return that the Balins already had a run at the Qasamans, and lost badly. I can’t see them being eager for a rematch.”
    “Unless someone new is in charge,” Santores pointed out. “Demesne-lord changes happen, probably more often than you realize. Regardless, I trust you see now that this whole thing has moved well beyond the struggles and defiance of a single Aventinian family. The faster you recognize that we need to work together, the better our chances of living through this.”
    “Or you could leave my family alone and focus on all these other more important matters.”
    “Trust me, we’re capable of doing both at the same time,” Santores assured him. “Just as Colonel Reivaro is capable of getting our new armor factories retooled and operating at the same time he’s setting up a network of informants among the DeVegas civilians. Once that network is in place, it should allow him to easily neutralize any further operations your wife and son might be planning.”
    A shiver ran up Paul’s back. “You’d have done better to try asking for cooperation before demanding it.”
    “We did ask,” Santores snapped. “The result was your daughter running away, your wife sabotaging a vital industrial facility, and your son attacking two Marines.”
    Abruptly, he stood up. “We’re through with asking, Cobra Broom,” he said. “The Dominion of Man is at war. Now, so are you. It’s time for you to decide whose side you’re on.”
    “Because you won’t be asking about that, either?”
    “No, we won’t be asking,” Santores said softly. “But we will be watching. Very, very closely.”

CHAPTER THREE
    Most of the officers and crewers Captain Barrington Moreau had worked with during his career in the Dominion Fleet had been true professionals, the sort of men who could maintain their calm and proficiency through the hell and death of combat. Ironically, perhaps, for many of these men it was the hours of safety and relative inactivity leading up to a battle that were harder than the battle itself. Tension, sleeplessness, and frayed nerves grated across individual psyches and interpersonal relationships, and Barrington had lost track of the number of arguments and brawls he’d had to avoid, live through, or break up over the years.
    It was an emotional strain that Barrington himself was thankfully unaffected by. An hour or two before combat, perhaps, his mind and adrenal glands would start their pre-battle ramp-up, but until then he had no trouble putting the uncertainties and stress out of his mind.
    The Dorian was two days out from the Hoibie homeworld, with four more projected until they reached Commander Ukuthi’s coordinates, and Barrington was soundly and peacefully asleep, when he received the urgent summons to the ship’s Command Nexus/Coordination Hub.
    He tapped into the data stream while he dressed, and was up to speed by the time he reached CoNCH.
    Up to speed on what , though, was still not entirely clear.
    The ship’s first officer, Commander Ling Garrett, was standing beside the command chair on CoNCH’s upper level when Barrington arrived. “Status?” Barrington asked as he sat down.
    “We’re doing our third pass through the data,” Garrett said. “Probability is up to eighty-seven percent that we clipped the edge of a flicker-mine net.”
    Barrington scowled as he twitched his eye, bringing up the result of the latest data scrub on his corneal projector.