Cobra Alliance

nearest wall, he sidled to the corner and took a quick look around it. No one in sight, but he could see the steps leading to an entrance door. Breaking into a run again, he headed for it—

Even without his auditory enhancers on, the buzzer that went off beside him was deafening. Jonny cursed under his breath; obviously, he'd hit one of the automatics Bai had warned them about. In a hurry or not, he still should have taken the time for a careful search. Now, it was too late, and there was nothing to do but prepare for combat. If he could get inside before the remotes reacted to the alarm there might still be a chance... he was at the door, aiming his laser at the solder lock, when a remote came around the far corner.

Jonny hurled himself from the building in a flat dive, arm swinging around as he targeted the guard. But even as he squeezed off the shot, the door to his side slammed open; and before he could do more than twist his head to see, he felt the dull punch of a dye-pellet against his ribs.

And, announcing his failure to the world, the alarm horn hooted from the wall. Feeling like an idiot, Jonny got to his feet and looked around for the way out.

'Let that be a lesson to you,' someone said from the building, and Jonny turned to see a man with a Cobra Operations patch on his coveralls standing behind the remote who'd shot him. 'When you've got two or more targets it can actually be faster to slag the first one visually, without the targeting lock.'

'Thanks, sir,' Jonny sighed. 'How do I get out?'

'Right over there—you can head back and get cleaned up. And if it helps, a lot of the others did worse.'

Swallowing, Jonny nodded and set off in the indicated direction. It wasn't much comfort to know that others would have died sooner. Dead is still dead.

'So, the great Horizon hope finally crusked one,' Viljo said, setting his tray down at the far end of the table and favoring Jonny with an off-cordial smile.

Jonny dropped his eyes to his own lunch and said nothing, concentrating instead on the last few bites of his meal as the blood rushed to his face. Viljo's snide comments had become more and more frequent the past couple of days, and though Jonny was trying hard not to let the other get to him, the tension of the whole thing was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Afraid of doing anything that would brand him as overly sensitive or— worse—that would emphasize his frontier origins, he could only sit on his anger and hope Viljo would get tired of his verbal target practice.

Though if he wasn't, possibly others were. Across from Jonny, Halloran hunched over the table to eye Viljo. 'I didn't notice you walking away with high honors, either,' he said. 'Matter of fact, except for Imel, I think we all got our egos nicely trimmed for show out there.'

'Sure—but Jonny's the one Bai always holds up like he was the ideal trainee. Haven't you noticed? I just wondered if he liked being demoted to mortal.'

Beside Viljo, Singh stirred in his seat. 'You're exaggerating rather badly, Rolon; and even if you weren't, it would hardly be Jonny's fault.'

'Oh, wouldn't it?' Viljo snorted. 'Come on—you know as well as I do how this sort of favoritism works. Jonny's family's probably got some fix in with Bai or even Mendro, and Bai's making sure they're getting their money's worth.'

And with that, the insults crossed a fine line... and Jonny abruptly had had enough.

In a single smooth motion, he stood up and leaped over the table, dimly aware of his chair slamming backwards into the next table as he did so. He landed directly behind Viljo who, apparently caught by surprise, was still seated. Jonny didn't wait for the other to respond; grabbing a fistfull of shirt, he hauled Viljo upright and spun him around. 'That's it, Viljo—that's the last breaff dropping I'm going to take from you. Now back off—understand?'

Viljo eyed him calmly. 'My, my; so you have a temper after all. I suppose 'breaff dropping' is just one of those colorful expressions you use out there in the backwaters?'

That final smirk was too much. Letting go of Viljo's shirt, Jonny threw a punch at the other's face.

It was a disaster. Not only did Viljo duck successfully out of the way, but with his servos providing unaccustomed speed to his swing, Jonny was thrown completely off balance and rammed his thigh hard into the table before he could recover. The pain fanned his anger into something white-hot, and with a snarl he twisted around and hurled another blow at Viljo. Again he missed; but even as his arm cocked for a third try, something pinioned it in midair. He shoved against the grip, succeeded only in losing his balance again. 'Easy, Jonny; easy,' a voice murmured in his ear.

And with that the red haze abruptly vanished from his brain and he found himself standing in a roomful of silent Cobra trainees, his arms gripped solidly by Deutsch and Noffke, facing Viljo who—completely unmarked—looked altogether too self-satisfied.

He was still trying to sort it all out when the room's intercom/monitor ordered him to report to Mendro's office.

The interview was short, but excruciatingly painful, and by the time Jonny left he was feeling like one of the solder targets on the laser range. The thought of having to go back out on the practice field—of having to face everyone—was a knot of tension in his stomach, and as he walked across Mendro's outer office, he seriously considered turning back and asking for a transfer to a different branch of service. At least then he wouldn't have to endure the other trainees' eyes.... But as he debated the decision, his feet kept walking; and outside the office the whole question of hiding suddenly became academic.

Deutsch and Halloran peeled themselves from the wall where they'd been leaning as Jonny closed the door behind him. 'You okay?' Deutsch asked, the concern in his face echoed in his voice.

'Oh, sure,' Jonny snorted, unreasonably irked by this unexpected invasion of his private shame. 'I just got verbally skinned alive, that's all.'

'Well, at least it was all verbal,' Halloran pointed out. 'Don't forget, all of Mendro's weapons are functional. Hey, lighten up, Jonny. You're still in the unit, aren't you?'

'Yeah,' Jonny said, the hard lump starting to dissolve a bit. 'At least as far as I know. Though Bai will probably have something to say about that when he hears what happened.'

'Oh, Bai already knows—he's the one who told us to wait here for you,' Halloran said. 'He said to bring you out