Cobra Slave-eARC Read Online Free PDF Page B

“You’re in enough trouble just being related to me.”
    “Technically, we’re in trouble being related to your father,” Corwin said with a wry smile. “He’s the one most prominently in Nissa Gendreves’s sights these days. On a more practical level, you need us along because I doubt Chintawa owes you nearly as many favors as he owes me.”
    “So it’s settled,” Thena said, setting down the dish and cloth. “I’ll bring the car around.”
    “Maybe you’d better stay here,” Corwin said, looking across at her. “If there’s fallout from this later, it would be safer if you weren’t on any of the Dome’s security records.”
    “I used to work there, too, you know,” Thena reminded him. “We’re just a happy, innocent couple doing their grandniece a favor while taking the opportunity to catch up with old friends.”
    Without waiting for a response, she turned and disappeared into the hallway leading to the garage. “I guess she’s going to bring the car around,” Corwin said dryly. “Let’s get your coat.”
    Traffic was surprisingly thin tonight, Jody noticed as they headed through the glow of the overhead streetlights. It had been equally sparse earlier when her parents had driven them to the Island for dinner. Maybe everyone had simply gotten used to staying indoors, as they’d been forced to do during the Troft occupation.
    Or maybe they didn’t like the Dominion presence any more than they had the Trofts’.
    No one talked as Thena drove through her usual maze of back streets. As a child, Jody had fantasized that her great aunt was a secret operative, believing that she drove the city’s back streets as a way to evade capture by shadowy enemies. Only later did she realize that Thena took the slower route simply because she didn’t care for the crowds and higher speeds on the main thoroughfares.
    Now, long after the fact, reality and her daydream were finally merging. Thena was, in fact, driving the back streets in an attempt to escape notice.
    Only now it was their own government, not enemy operatives, whom she was trying to avoid.
    They were out of the maze of backstreets and had just settled onto Appletree, one of the local roads paralleling the wide swath of Cavendish Boulevard, when a pair of headlights behind them suddenly surged forward. Before Jody could do more than glance over her shoulder the car roared past. Thena reflexively tapped the brakes, and Jody grabbed for her armrests as she rode out the car’s slight bucking. “Well,” Jody murmured. “He sure was in a big—”
    She broke off as Thena hit the brakes again, this time hard enough to throw all three of them against their restraints. There was a stomach-churning second of fishtailing, and then the car came to a jolting halt behind the vehicle that had stopped abruptly right in front of them. “What in the Worlds?” Jody managed through suddenly chattering teeth.
    “Stay put,” Corwin said, his voice tight. “Keep the door locked.”
    Before Jody could find anything to say, a pair of figures suddenly appeared beside the car. There was the brief screech of a lockpop and one of the figures wrenched her door open. “Are you Jody Broom?” he demanded.
    Jody shrank back against the seat, her mouth frozen, her heart thudding. In the glow of the overhead lights she could see now that the man was wearing the uniform of a Dominion Marine. “Are you Jody Broom?” he repeated.
    “I’m Corwin Moreau,” Corwin said calmly from the front seat. “Stop yelling—you’re frightening her. What’s this about?”
    “Something that doesn’t concern you,” the Marine growled, his eyes still on Jody. “We want your brother, Broom. Where is he?”
    For that first frozen instant Jody thought he was asking about Merrick, that they knew about her recorder, and that it was all over. But a heartbeat later she realized that he had to be asking about Lorne. “You mean Lorne?” she managed. “I don’t—”
    “Damn it, talk