Cobra Gamble Read Free

away into the woods.
    "I must apologize for Gama Yithtra," Kinstra said as the others' footsteps faded into the forest. "He doesn't speak for all of us."
    "I know that," Merrick assured him. "And to be honest, he has a point."
    "Point or not, this is not the place for such debates." Kinstra gestured around them. "You're the one most experienced with these invaders. What are your thoughts?"
    Merrick looked around them. During the Trofts' first incursion onto Qasama, the aliens had simply sent out spotter aircraft equipped with infrareds and motion sensors to locate their target razorarms, which were then neutralized with small tranquilizer gas bombs. When the spotters decided they had enough for a pick-up, a freighter would put down in a convenient clearing and armed parties would go out to collect the sleeping predators.
    The parties had been careful to steer clear of the villages scattered through the forest. But they'd quickly learned that avoiding the villages didn't necessarily mean avoiding the villagers. The rural Qasamans were just as outraged by the invasion as their city counterparts, and while there were few actual soldiers among them there were plenty of expert hunters.
    It wasn't long before the Trofts discovered the flaw in their harvesting technique: there simply weren't all that many clearings large enough for even a small freighter to put down in. That meant the harvesting parties had to locate a suitable landing spot before they sent out their spotter ships. All the Qasamans had to do was study the search pattern and figure out which clearing the Trofts were planning to use, then be waiting in force when the freighter put down.
    The Trofts had lost a couple of harvesting parties before they caught on. Their next approach had been to create their own clearings, blasting the trees with lasers and occasionally with missiles from above so that the villagers wouldn't know in advance where they would be landing.
    The Qasaman response had been to track the razorarms, concentrating on the larger family groups that the Trofts preferred, and scatter their own hunters around the most likely target zones. Often they guessed wrong, but there were enough times when they guessed right. And of course, once the trees started falling, any team within earshot knew exactly where the evening's entertainment was going to be held.
    The harvesting had stopped, along with all other Troft activity, when the Sollas forces drove the invaders off the planet. But with this second incursion the razorarm raids had resumed. The aliens' latest tactic was to not land the freighters at all, but to simply hover over their latest prize and rappel a team of soldiers down to roll the sleeping animal onto a lift pad and winch it up.
    Unfortunately for them, hovering freighters made wonderful targets, and the five days of calm between invasions had given the Qasaman military enough time to get a few heavy weapons into the villagers' hands. Two of the village teams south of Milika had succeeded in severely damaging Troft freighters with mortar fire a couple of days ago, and there were rumors that a team still farther south had destroyed one completely.
    The Troft response had been to again halt the hunts, and for the past two nights the spotters and freighters had stayed close to the forces besieging the cities. But tonight they were back.
    Merrick was looking forward to seeing what new wrinkle they'd come up with.
    "For starters, I'm guessing they're finished with the hover-and-rappel approach," he told Kinstra. "That one cost them way too much."
    "Agreed," Kinstra said. He paused, and with his enhanced vision Merrick saw the man's nose wrinkle. "You smell that?"
    Merrick took a cautious sniff. The air was brimming with the usual mix of Qasaman woodland aromas. "Is there something different?" he asked.
    "I don't know," Kinstra said, sniffing harder. "It just smells odd. Like... springtime."
    Merrick frowned. "Come again?"
    "I know that sounds