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of its claws to try to escape.
    The trap had worked perfectly on the team's first two captures, and as Jody reached the hole and peered down through the mesh top she saw that they were now three for three. The gigger was lying on its belly inside the box, rocking back and forth as it tried to get some kind of purchase with its feet, jabbing uselessly at the sides with the pair of hollow mouth tusks it used to impale and then suck the blood from its victims.
    "Ugly little beasts, aren't they?" Geoff commented as he squatted down and started brushing the leaves from the two carrying bars that ran through the top of the cage. "Freylan, you want to get the other end?"
    "Hold it," Paul said sharply. "Everyone be quiet."
    Jody froze, the other two following suit. In the unmoving air the forest around her was alive with quiet sounds, muted chirps and soft buzzings. She strained her ears, wondering anxiously just how big the predator was that her father had heard sneaking up on them.
    And then, somewhere in the distance, she heard a rumbling roar. Not the roar of any of Caelian's predators, but the roar of approaching aircraft. Big aircraft. She turned toward her father, frowning, as the sound rapidly intensified.
    And suddenly, a pair of large ships shot past to the south, their upper sides visible for just an instant above the trees. The roar cut off suddenly--
    "Alert!" Governor Uy's voice crackled abruptly from their aircar's comm. "All Caelians! Troft gunships have landed at Stronghold. We are under--"
    The voice cut off. "Dad--?" Jody began.
    "Shh," Paul said, a darkness in his voice that Jody had never heard there before. She listened to the sounds of the forest and the sudden thundering of her own pulse.
    And then, drifting through the still air, she heard the distant, muffled crack of an explosion. Followed by another, and another, and another.
    She looked at Geoff's taut face, and at Freylan's pale one, and at her father's grim one . . . and slowly, it dawned on her that the unthinkable had happened. The Trofts had invaded Caelian.
    The Cobra Worlds were at war.

Chapter Three
    Nissa was waiting when Lorne reached the gate at the end of the walkway. "Any ID on the ships yet?" he asked as he dropped into the seat beside her.
    "They're Trofts," she said tautly as she pulled back onto the deserted street and shoved her foot against the accelerator, sending the car leaping forward like a scalded leatherwing. "What else do we need to know?"
    "Whose demesne they're from, for starters," Lorne said, grabbing at the armrest for support and fastening the restraints across his chest and hips. "It might also be nice to know if anyone's been threatening us or is an unhappy customer or something."
    "I don't know anything about that," Nissa said, taking a corner dangerously fast. "Governor-General Chintawa said not to use the comm any more than I had to--he wanted to keep the system open for emergency use."
    She had pulled onto Cavendish Boulevard, the main thoroughfare leading into the central part of the city, when the western sky abruptly lit up with the red firefly glows of a hundred distant grav lifts. "Here they come," Lorne said, pointing.
    "Oh, God," Nissa breathed, her voice sounding half strangled. "What do we do ?"
    "We keep going," he told her, peering past the girl's head and trying to gauge the ships' speed. Two minutes, he estimated, maybe three, and the armada would be right on top of them. He and Nissa should make it to the government section of the city by then, but probably not to the Dome itself. "Can you get any more speed out of this thing?" he asked.
    "I don't think so," Nissa said, leaning forward a little as she presumably pressed harder on the accelerator. There was no change in the car's speed that Lorne could detect. "Where are we going?" she asked.
    "The Dome, right?" Lorne countered. "That's where Chintawa told you to bring me."
    "Yes, but--" She flashed a look at him. "Aren't they going to the Dome,