COBRA (novel series)


COBRA is a series of science fiction novels by American writer Timothy Zahn.

Setting

The books center around Cobras, elite soldiers augmented with bionic technology. These modifications include built-in weapons, sensory enhancements, effectively unbreakable bones, and their characteristic combat reflexes. These modifications to the human body are invisible to casual inspection, and allow the soldiers to appear as ordinary unarmed civilians, allowing them to be effective resistance leaders. However, most of the cybernetics are permanent, allowing Zahn to examine the position these individuals might fill in a society during peacetime. Their weaponry includes small lasers implanted in the little finger of each hand, an anti-armor laser that runs down the calf muscle of one leg and exits through a lens in the heel of their boot, plus an "arcthrower", a secondary weapon built into the fingertip lasers that delivers a high-voltage pulse, which disrupts nearby electronics. In addition, they are armed with a sonic weapon, which can produce sound at frequencies capable of shattering most objects. All of their weaponry is controlled by a "nanocomputer" that is implanted inside their skull. This computer also helps run the visual and auditory enhancers, targeting computer, automated reflexes, etc. Modifications include ceramic laminae over all of their bones, as well as servomotors at the major joints, which augment strength and speed. The design of the nanocomputer renders it impossible to reprogram, and its location makes it next-to-impossible to remove without killing the Cobra.

Books

The first two were also released in one compilation called Cobras Two in 1992. A complete compilation was released as the Cobra Trilogy in 2004.
Cobra depicts the story of first generation Cobra Jonny Moreau, who, following his participation in the Human-Troft war by aiding resistance movements on Troft-occupied world Adirondack, returns home, but finds himself an outcast. Unable to find a job outside of manual labor, he accidentally kills two teenagers and wounds two more when they swerve towards him in a car and his combat reflexes kick in, his nanocomputer interpreting his situation in a military context. Following this, the human government sends the Cobras to colonize a solar system on the other side of Troft Space, with the Trofts grudgingly allowing the humans passage through a narrow corridor through their territory. The Cobras prove to be perfectly suited to combating the hostile wildlife of the colony planets, and manage to prosper, despite incidents including an attempt to create a Cobra-run government and the closing of the Troft Corridor, isolating the Cobra Worlds from the Dominion.
In Cobra Strike, the Cobra Worlds are petitioned by the Trofts to stop a hostile alien civilization on the planet Qasama that is a threat to both them and the Cobra worlds, offering five uncolonized, hospitable worlds in exchange. Unable to decline the offer of additional planets, the Cobra Worlds agree to the offer, and dispatch a task force to the planet, where, much to their astonishment, they find that the hostile aliens are in fact humans, each symbiotically bound to a bird-like native lifeform, known as a mojo. Although their true mission is discovered, the team manages to escape, and a solution is developed, by releasing spine leopards to the planet, causing the avians to abandon the inferior - from the mojos' viewpoint - human partners to begin bonding to spine leopards instead.
In the third novel, the main character, the first of the female Cobras, is part of a Cobra strike team sent to investigate satellite indications of Qasama developing space flight. When her shuttle is shot down, she finds herself the sole surviving member of the task force. Though very nearly killed by the native Qasaman wildlife, she manages, with the aid of a Qasaman who discovers her secret, to unearth and destroy the project, a secret collaboration between a Qasaman industrialist and an unknown Troft Demense with to launch a coup against the Qasaman governing body - the Shahni - and establish the industrialist as the leader of a puppet regime, with the eventual goal of using the Qasamans to fight their fellow humans on the Cobra Worlds.
A fourth book, Cobra Alliance: Cobra War Book One, copyright 2009 was released by Baen Books and continues the saga of the COBRA warriors of Aventine. The Cobra Worlds and Qasama are invaded by a coalition of Troft demesnes, but other Trofts secretly help the humans defend themselves. This book focuses almost entirely on the Qasaman conflict, where Jin Moreau and her son, Merrick Broom, join the Qasamans in their resistance. A fifth book, Cobra Guardian, also released by Baen Books on January 4, 2011, further continues the story, this time focusing on Jin Moreau's second son, Lorne Broom, evacuating Aventinian Governor Treakness to a friendly Troft demesne, and his sister Jody Broom, along with their father, Paul, defending the world of Caelian. The third of the Cobra War trilogy is titled Cobra Gamble and was released in January 2012. It features the final victory of the humans over the invading Trofts, but Merrick is captured by Trofts who keep human slaves, and agrees to help the slaves gain their freedom. It ends on a cliffhanger, as the Dominion of Man arrives in Cobra space for the first time in 75 years, with another Moreau, Barrington, commanding one of the ships in the task force.
A third trilogy, Cobra Rebellion, was announced, the first book of which was released in 2013. It features the gradual takeover of Aventine by the returning Dominion of Man and Merrick Broom's infiltration of a Troft-occupied human colony. The second book was released in 2015 and focuses on Aventinian and Caelian resistance to the Dominion of Man, and Merrick Moreau's alliance with a lone Troft with unknown motives on the human world Muninn. The third book was released in 2018, and reveals a Troft plot to use mind-controlling drugs on humans to destroy the Dominion of Man from within. It ends with a cliffhanger, as a Troft fleet enters Aventinian space, forcing the Dominion to abandon their takeover of the Cobra Worlds to confront their enemies in space.