Slight editing glitch fixed-- didn't notice that I'd erased an entire sentence. That's what happens when you write instead of sleep!
Lady Jaye spent the rest of the day observing the various activities Cobra troops engaged in when not in battle. She quickly mapped the base in her head as she walked from area to area, though there were places that were off limits to her, like Zartan's lab. She was surprised to find out that he was there. Apparently he kept to himself while at that particular base, and for once, he was without the Dreadnoks.
The routine was somewhat similar to that of the Joes'. Weapons and combat practice, meetings, and specialist training seemed to take up a good chunk of the day. She noticed that the troops tended to be sloppy and the instructors lacking in discipline. Not that it surprised her. There was a good reason that the Joe Team consistently defeated Cobra. Unfortunately, she was due to start helping with the training the following day. She didn't want to help her enemies, yet she was sure that Bludd would be watching to make sure that her efforts were sincere.
She finally was able to eat a tasteless dinner and retire to her new quarters for the evening. It was not much better than her temporary room had been, but at least the door locked. She lay on the bed, not ready to sleep, but there was nothing with which to occupy her time. Her thoughts turned again to the puzzle she had been working on for so long. She had a little more information than before, although the list of suspects was still significant. She admitted to herself how relieved she had been to find out that whoever the traitor was, it couldn't be anyone above her in rank. Those team members all had passcodes to the infirmary, taking them off the suspect list. Certainly Bludd wouldn't have asked her for it if they didn't need it.
But why do they need the code anyway? She wondered. It was no use. She was no closer to an answer after an hour's thought, and she was finally getting tired. She changed into her blue and red sleepwear and turned off the light.
As she started to drift toward sleep, she allowed herself to think about Flint for the first time all day. Even if the team wasn't yet aware of her present location, the fact that she hadn't called him tonight would worry him. She hoped that Duke could keep him from leaving the base to look for her. Her heart ached as she thought of the trials ahead and how he would react to them. She hoped that Duke would let some of the others know about the operation now that they were no longer likely suspects. Until they were sure, though, he probably wouldn't. She pictured his concern turning to anger as her betrayal became common knowledge. There is nothing I can do about it, she told herself. Go to sleep. But now that her thoughts had taken that direction, sleep was a long time coming.
Her second full day on base was terrible. She had to deal with the commonest Cobra soldiers, and the half of them who didn't hate her because she had been a Joe hated her because she was a woman. Using Beach Head as a role model, she yelled, coerced, and sometimes beat the soldiers into obedience. Major Bludd actually applauded when she broke one man's nose. She hadn't—quite—meant to, but it seemed to do the trick. Most of the men were faster to listen to her orders after that. They were still lazy and argumentative, but at least she could finish a sentence without one of them interrupting with a derogatory comment.
By midday she was exhausted, and she began to commiserate with her own team's drill sergeant. She had often tried to rile Beach Head just for the fun of it, and now that she was on the receiving end it gave her insight into the amazing amount of patience the man must have.
Weapons practice began after lunch, and the only surprise was the appearance of Zartan. He had finally come out of hiding to see the newest Cobra member at work. He didn't speak to her once, simply watched her browbeat the soldiers for a while, then left.
The evening was spent with the Cobra technicians again, and she reluctantly gave them some tidbits from her supply of false information. They were pleased to receive what they thought of as valuable data, filing it away on the Cobra information network.
Lady Jaye didn't get much more useful information from them, though. Apparently they had been told to guard their tongues, and they refused to speak about the 'third party' contact who would carry out their plan. And although she had been promised details of the attack on Duke, her questions about it likewise went unanswered.
By the fourth day her routine was down, though she wished she would be given more free time. She had had no opportunity to snoop or to be left alone with a computer again. Major Bludd had stopped following her around, but was likely to show up at odd times of the day to check up on her.
She and Zartan had definitely not hit it off. The man continued to observe her at training, and had begun to put in comments of his own about her abilities. She finally turned to him one afternoon and said, "Fine. Why don't you come over here and I can prove to you that Joes are better at hand-to-hand combat than any Cobra soldier."
He smiled and stood, stretching languidly before replying. "It would be my pleasure to embarrass you in front of the troops." Some of the men made rude comments and catcalls, and it finally hit her what the problem was. Zartan must usually be in charge of the training, and she had usurped his place.
So be it. She could at least get the message across that she was as capable as he was, if not more.
They squared off on the center mat, a ring of Cobra troops surrounding them five deep. Since Lady Jaye had joined the Joe Team, she had had hundreds of hours of training with Beach Head, Quick Kick, Snakes Eyes, and Flint. She could hold her own against her teammates for the most part, unless it came down to a show of brute strength. That being the case, she had learned to make sure it rarely did. Being smaller and faster had its advantages.
She figured Zartan to be a brawler. His punches would likely be hard and lacking in elegance. She thought of what it was like to face off against Shipwreck or Gung-Ho—who tended to forget all martial arts training in a practice match—and made herself ready.
She saw him tense, and was already moving aside as his first blow came. It missed her by mere centimeters, and she threw a counter-punch. He twisted away and it glanced off of his back. They circled, occasionally feinting or trying to land a blow, but for several minutes rarely made contact. She could tell he was frustrated every time she ducked out of reach. He was probably used to fighting men who would rather take a punch than block one; she'd seen men before who had simply stood and pummeled each other until one of them fell over.
She aimed a kick at his midsection, and he managed to move out of the main force of the blow, but it still knocked the wind out of him. She stepped in quickly sideways and bent her knee to her chest, kicking down hard on his leg. He fell hard on his knee, but managed to bring up his fist fast enough to punch her in the stomach. She gasped but stepped away, blocking the second hand that aimed for her face.
They stepped up the pace, throwing punches more frequently, though Lady Jaye concentrated on her own kickboxing training, realizing that Zartan had little experience with that fighting style. She hit his legs and midsection a few more times before taking a hard punch to the jaw in the same place that Duke had hit her. The bruise from that incident had faded, but the blow made her lightheaded nonetheless. Zartan scored two more punches on her torso while she was shaking her head to clear it.
The third strike would have landed hard on the side of her head had she not crouched down, kicking upwards, foot hitting Zartan's collarbone solidly. He staggered back, and Lady Jaye stepped forward to press the attack, but Major Bludd's voice stopped her in her tracks.
"What is going on?" he demanded.
Zartan straightened as the troops spun around to face Bludd. "Just a little friendly competition," he answered. "The men wanted to see if she was really up to the task."
Bludd looked at Zartan's bloody lip and pained posture, and replied, "I take it she made a point… or did you let her beat you up?"
Zartan shot him a furious scowl, trying to rub his shoulder surreptitiously. "Check her for bruises if you'd like to see how well she did." A few of the soldiers spoke up in Zartan's defense, but most of them seemed to think it was a fairly even match. The single female trooper who had given Lady Jaye the uniform on the first day shot her a guarded smile, though.
Zartan stormed out, and the rest of the practice went fairly smoothly. She had earned some respect, even if it was the respect of Cobra ground troops.
In the computer lab that night, she listened to the talk among the computer techs, who seemed to think that the show earlier that day earned her the right to be a part of their little group. They explained how the next Cobra attack was going to work—another military lab was due to be raided that week. She gave her opinions on its chance of success, but told them that small teams of Joes had been stationed at the most likely targets, and that particular base might be considered one. It wasn't true, but she hoped that if she managed to warn Duke in time, Cobra would think that the Joes had been there as a preemptive defense rather than because of an information leak. She was playing a dangerous game, trying to balance her precarious trust with Cobra against the need to find and pass on information.
In fact, she did get the opportunity to send off a quick message to Duke when the others left for the night. She disconnected the computer in the same way that the technician had done before, gave Duke the update, along with a warning about the planned attack on the lab and on him, and put everything back the way it should be in under five minutes. Then she left for the evening, wishing she could find a faster way to complete her mission.
Unfortunately no opportunity had presented itself by the end of the first week, and the days continued to pass in a hurried monotony, each one making her more frustrated and nervous. Whatever they had planned for Duke was supposed to happen at the same time as the attack on the military installation. That was less than a day away, now, and she watched the preparations with mounting dread.
Bludd left with the majority of the troops in the morning. She had absolutely refused to go along, and he didn't try to press her on the issue. And although the attack left the base nearly deserted, Zartan shadowed her the entire day, making his distrust obvious. She acted the good little Cobra soldier and didn't even step into the computer room all day. She hated to waste the time, but his presence made any covert work impossible.
As Lady Jaye had hoped, the Cobras were defeated. She sighed in relief when the troops returned to the small base and Major Bludd filled her in on the details. He told her that a team of Joes had already been at the base and that back up had arrived quickly. Fortunately her ruse had seemed to work; he thought that their numerous attempts on similar facilities had simply made the team take blanket precautionary measures. She did her best to advise him on alternate modes of attack based on the Joe personnel who had been present, making sure to leave a few flaws in her analysis. He seemed intrigued anyway, nodding at her assessment of the Joe strategy and the methods they used in defense.
"That's something I didn't think about," he told her when she was finished. "Tomorrow Zartan goes back to his normal training routine, and you will begin to advise our section leaders in strategy. I'll give you a list of things they might find important. I'm sure you're very familiar with the leadership styles of the various Joes, and you can tell us how they would react in given situations."
She agreed, knowing that it would be easy enough to lead them in the wrong direction as far as that was concerned. But she had other things on her mind. "So… the deal with Duke. Wasn't that today? I'd like to know what's going on. I've been patient so far. But it's time for you to hold up your end of the bargain."
He nodded, still thinking about who would need to attend the strategy session the next day. "We've taken the first step," he told her. "The information was passed on to our contact today. In a few days he will use it to get to Duke, and you will have gotten your revenge."
Lady Jaye's mind reeled. It was something they hadn't considered. The traitor must be handing off information during battles against Cobra. It would certainly be easy enough in the chaos during a fight for a hand-off to go unnoticed. In almost every battle, the fighting ended up in close quarters; nearly every Joe came in contact with several Cobra troopers in the course of a fight. It made perfect sense. She had to find a way to tell Duke. Close inspection of the battle rosters should show an obvious pattern once they looked for it.
She snapped her attention back to the present. "Sorry, just picturing the scenario," she told Bludd. "Care to give me any details to add to the daydream?"
He gave her an evil smile. "Only that it will be very slow and very painful. Don't worry, you'll hear all about it in due time."