Timothy Zahn - Cobra 03 - Cobra Bargain

by Cobra Bargain(lit)

  "Stop, humans!" a flat, mechanical voice shouted in Qasaman from behind them.

  Jin spun around, dropping into a crouch at the base of the stairway and shoving

  Akim and Daulo to either side. A flash of light and heat sliced the air above her, and an instant later her nanocomputer had thrown her in a flat dive to the side. She rolled up onto her right hip, left leg sweeping toward the Troft as he swung his own weapon toward her. She won the race, barely, and the corridor lit up with the blaze of her antiarmor laser. She was on her feet in an instant, sprinting back to the stairway. "Follow me up," she snapped at Akim and Daulo, leaping onto the stairs and starting up them five at a time. Whoever was up there couldn't possibly have missed hearing the ruckus, and she had to get to them before they sealed off the bridge.

  And for one heart-stopping second it looked like she was going to be too late.

  Even as she came around the last turn of the staircase she looked up to see a heavy blast hatch starting to swing down over the opening.

  Her knees straightened convulsively, hurling her in a desperate leap straight up. Her hands caught the rim of the opening, barely in time-

  And she gasped with pain as the rubberine rim of the hatch slammed down on her fingers.

  For a long second she hung there, vision wavering with the agony in her hands, mind frozen with the realization that she was completely and utterly helpless.

  The triggers to her fingertip lasers were out of reach, her sonics useless with a metal hatch blocking them, her antiarmor laser impossible for her to aim.

  Servo strength... Pressing upward with the back of one hand did nothing but send a fresh wave of pain through her fingers like an electric shock-

  Electric shock!

  Her mind seemed to catch gears again; and, gritting her teeth, she fired her arcthrower.

  There was no way to tell if the random lightning bolt actually hit anything; but the thunder was still echoing in her ears when the pressure on her hands abruptly eased a little. Again she shoved upward, and this time it worked. Arm servos whining against the strain, the hatch swung open; simultaneously, she pulled down hard on her other hand, launching herself up and through the opening.

  They were waiting for her-or, rather, those who hadn't been leaning on the hatch in the path of the arcthrower blast were waiting for her-but it was clear they didn't really understand what it was they were facing. Even as she shot out of the hatchway like a cork from a bottle, the room flashed with light as a crisscross of laser fire sliced through the air beneath her.

  There were five of them in all, and they never got a chance to correct their aim. Jin reached the top of her arc, head coming perilously close to banging against the ceiling, and her left leg swung around in a tight crescent curve across the crouching Trofts, antiarmor laser spitting with deadly accuracy.

  By the time she landed, stumbling, on the deck, it was all over.

  For a moment she just sagged there, teeth clenched against the throbbing pain in her fingers. The ceramic-laminated bones were effectively unbreakable, but the skin covering them had no such protection, and it was already turning black and blue with massive bruising.

  "Is it all right?" a muffled voice called tentatively from behind her.

  She turned to see Akim poke his head cautiously over the level of the deck.

  "Yeah," she grunted. "Come on, hurry up. We've got to close this place off."

  Akim came all the way in, followed closely by Daulo. "What happened to your hands?" Daulo asked sharply, stepping forward to take one of them.

  "They tried to slam the door on us. Never mind that; you two get that hatch closed and sealed, all right?"

  They moved to obey, and she moved past the line of smoldering Troft bodies to give the control boards a quick scan. A dull thud from behind her signaled the closing of the hatch, and a moment later Akim stepped to her side. "I don't hear anything that sounds like an alarm," he commented quietly. "Is it possible they didn't have time to call for help before they died?"

  Jin frowned at one of the displays, which was showing the same outside scene she and Akim had watched earlier from the port drive monitor station. She wouldn't have thought it possible... but on the other hand, this craft was clearly built more along the lines of a small freighter than a warship. If there hadn't been laser alarms built into the corridors, perhaps there weren't any on the bridge, either. "It looks like they didn't," she agreed, gesturing to the display.

  "They're certainly not showing any signs of panic out there."

  "Which means we have some time," Akim nodded. "That's something, at least."

  "Only if we move fast," Jin said grimly. "I doubt that hatch will hold them for very long once they realize what's happened." A vague, half-formed plan was beginning to take shape in her mind... and unfortunately, she wasn't going to have enough time to work out all the details in advance. "You two stay here;

  I'll be back as soon as I can."

  "Where are you going?" Akim frowned, his voice dark with suspicion.

  "To try and put a wrench into Obolo Nardin's plans. Seal the hatch after me, and don't open it again until I signal-three knocks, two knocks, four knocks; got it?" She turned back toward the hatch... paused at the odd expression on Daulo's face. "You all right?" she asked.

  He tried twice before he got the words out. "You shot them down in cold blood."

  She glanced down at the dead Trofts. "It was self defense, Daulo Sammon," she bit out. "Our lives or theirs, pure and simple."

  But the words sounded strangely hollow in her ears; and even through the agony in her hands she could feel a twinge of guilt. Her grandfather, in very similar circumstances, had only destroyed his enemies' weapons... "And anyway," she snarled abruptly, turning her back on him, "whoever's running this operation needs a good object lesson. They're going to learn that fiddling around with human beings' lives is a damn costly proposition."

  She stepped to the hatch and unsealed it. Or, rather, tried to. But her fingers seemed dead on her hands, and Daulo had to come over and do it for her. "Can you tell us what you're planning?" he asked quietly.

  "I'm going to try and short-circuit Obolo Nardin's escape route." She paused for a moment, listening. If anyone was in the monitor intersection, he was keeping quiet about it. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

  Chapter 44

  The monitor intersection was still deserted, but Jin knew it wouldn't be that way for long. Slipping through the collision door, she left the command module and headed aft down the neck, taking long loping strides that gave adequate speed while still allowing her time between steps to listen.

  She was about halfway down the neck when she heard approaching footsteps, and she risked taking another two strides before ducking into one of the rooms lining the corridor. Standing just inside, her ear pressed against the door, she listened as four Trofts hurried past. Have they realized they've got intruders on their bridge? she wondered uneasily. But it wasn't a question she could afford to dwell on. Daulo and Akim wouldn't have been any safer anywhere else... and anyway, the Trofts would surely try to get their bridge back intact before resorting to anything violent.

  She waited until the footsteps had faded completely before opening the door and slipping out. Luck continued to be with her, and she reached the end of the neck without encountering any more Trofts. She stepped from of the neck into the large cargo/engineering section with a sigh of relief-here, at least, she would have room to maneuver if it came to a fight. And with many of the Trofts presumably working back here...

  She paused as a sudden idea struck her. Interfering with the loading back there was all well and good... but if she could cut down the opposition at the same time...

  She retraced her steps to the base of the ship's neck. Sure enough, the edge of a blast door was visible right where the cargo/engineering section began. The manual control for it had to be nearby... there. Hauling on the lever, she watched as the heavy metal disk slid silently across the corridor,
cutting her off from the front of the ship. If the door was connected to an automatic alarm...

  But no sirens or horns went off. Must be tied into the decompression sensors instead, she decided, looking for a way to seal the door. There was of course no lock; but she still seemed to be unobserved, and a two-second burst from her antiarmor laser did an adequate job of spot-welding it. The welds wouldn't hold longer than a half-hour or so, even if they were trying not to completely destroy the door in the process. But if she was lucky, a half-hour would be all they'd need.

  She continued on into the cargo/engineering section, switching from the main corridor to a smaller-and hopefully less traveled-parallel one. Staying alert, she headed back toward the aft entryway and the loading tower there.

  With voices and drones and clangings coming from all around her, her audio enhancers were all but useless; but even so, she heard the Trofts well before she saw them. They were talking, and with all the noise around them they were talking loudly, and for a moment Jin hung back behind a corner and listened.

  [-not allow them to board yet,] one voice was saying. [The Commander, he does not want them aboard until all equipment has been loaded.]

  [The isolation area, it is ready,] a second voice objected. [The humans, they would be out of our way if they were there.]

  [More equipment, it must yet be brought to the ship,] the first said.

  [The loading, we could handle it more efficiently alone.]

  [The equipment to come, much of it is beyond the wall. Would you have the humans there see us?]

  The second Troft gave a piercing, almost ultrasonic bray of laughter. [Why not?

  Their mythos, does it not allow for the existence of demons?]

  The first alien didn't echo the laughter. [A risk, it is not worth taking,] he said sternly. [Return to your post. The humans, inform them that anything still beyond the wall in fifteen minutes will not be loaded.]

  Jin licked her lips, setting her mind into full combat mode. Clearly, the Trofts weren't wildly enthusiastic about having their Qasaman clients aboard their ship, and while that was good for long-term plans, it did nothing for the upcoming near-term confrontation. The Troft outside the port drive monitor station had drawn on her without challenge or question; she had no intention of letting the ones back here do likewise. Setting her teeth, she stepped out from around the corner.

  Just in time to see the two Trofts turn a corner of their own back toward the noise and commotion at the airlock.

  She breathed a quiet sigh of relief and hurried after them... and was just two steps from the main corridor when the thin wail of an alarm abruptly split the air all around her.

  The bridge? Or the welded blast door? She had no way of knowing which the Trofts had discovered... but it didn't much matter. Either way, her short grace period was over. Increasing her stride, she swung around the corner-

  And skidded to a halt a bare three meters from a scene of chaos.

  The rubberine tunnel she'd burned a flap in barely eight hours ago had become a bottleneck of activity, with a half dozen humans, an equal number of Trofts, and several equipment-laden load carriers all traffic-jammed together. The reason for at least part of the congestion was obvious: like a bucket brigade with a single node, the humans were bringing the equipment to the airlock and then passing it on to Trofts to haul into the ship proper.

  And as she stopped every eye in the cramped space swung around to lock solidly onto her.

  [You!-halt and identify yourself,] one of the nearer Trofts called toward her, his hand swinging toward his belted pistol. "You!" the Qasaman translation boomed from his translator pin an instant later. "Stop where-" And the rest was swallowed up in the thunderclap as her arcthrower hurled a lightning bolt into one of the boxes of equipment lying against the airlock wall.

  Someone gave a choking scream; someone else cursed violently. Then all was silent, save for the wail of the alarm in the background.

  The six Trofts were all armed, as were one or two of the Qasamans. But no one made any move toward a weapon. No one made any move at all, in fact... and as

  Jin gazed back into their frozen faces she realized why. They all finally understood what it was they were facing.

  It would be easy to kill them all. A single swift crescent kick with her left leg, and her antiarmor laser would cut through them like a blazing knife. And it was surely the tactically intelligent thing to do. It would lower the number of opponents facing her, increase the odds of her and Akim and Daulo getting out alive.

  You shot them down in cold blood.

  She ground her teeth... but the memory of Daulo's quiet horror at her handiwork was too vivid to ignore.

  And the Trofts on the bridge had fired first. These people hadn't even drawn their guns.

  Damn them all. "You Qasamans will leave the ship," she grated. "Now."

  No one tried to be a hero; no one tried to argue the point. Those farthest back on the ramp turned and fled, and the others followed immediately, abandoning their load carriers where they were.

  Jin's eyes flicked across the Trofts, their arm membranes stretched wide with shock, fear, or anger. Or possibly all three. [Your hands, you will place them on your heads,] she ordered in catertalk.

  One of the aliens looked around at the others, his arm membranes rippling for a second before going rigid again. [But you are a female,] he said, clearly bewildered. [A cobra-warrior, you cannot be that as well.]

  [One of many things you don't know about cobra-warriors, consider this one of them,] Jin told him. [You and your companions, you will obey my order.]

  Slowly, reluctantly, the Troft raised his hands away from his weapon and placed them on his head. After a long second, the others did likewise.

  Jin stepped sideways to the edge of the airlock. [You will go into the ship now,] she instructed them. [The loading of equipment, it is now at an end.]

  The first alien looked at his companions, gave the Troft equivalent of a nod.

  Carefully, they filed past Jin into the main corridor. [What about the humans?] the first Troft asked as he joined them.

  [Your dealings with them are ended.] Carefully, Jin backed through the airlock toward the loading tower, trying to watch the Trofts and still keep an eye on the ramp behind her.

  [A promise, our demesne made them.]

  [The promise, it is broken.] At her side now was the control plate for the airlock, and her eyes flicked over to it. The large emergency button was, as she'd expected, easy to identify. Bracing herself, she set her feet, jabbed the button with her elbow, and simultaneously leaped back out of the lock onto the entryway platform.

  The outer lock slid shut at high speed, just barely in front of her face. The boom of it echoed in the rubberine tunnel-

  And a flash of laser fire sliced through the rubberine and metal behind her.

  Instantly, she dropped to her belly, twisting over to face down the ramp. A handful of Trofts were visible below, loping cautiously toward the tunnel with lasers drawn. She targeted them, her hands automatically starting to curve into firing position-

  She hissed a curse as a stab of pain shot through the injured fingers, belatedly reminding her that the triggers of her fingertip lasers were out of normal reach. Another laser blast sizzled the air above her head; swiveling on her hip and shoulder, she pivoted her feet around to point down the ramp and fired her antiarmor laser.

  Her left leg seemed to jump of its own accord, the nanocomputer guiding the blasts with deadly accuracy, and the laser fire from below abruptly ceased.

  Though presumably only for the moment. There would be other Trofts down there, as well as armed humans; but with luck, all such opposition would be concentrated on the ship's starboard side, between the Troft housing complex and the gateway to the human half of Mangus. Swinging her leg back toward the airlock, she repeated the welding procedure she'd used a few minutes earlier on the interior blast door. Then, shifting her aim, she lasered a chunk out of the rubberine tunnel. R
olling to her feet, she threw a last quick look down the ramp and leaped through the hole onto the ship's portside wing.

  The heat rising from the drive nozzle hit her like something solid as she ran across and past it. Keeping low, she kept going, sprinting forward along the wing. Directly ahead loomed the maintenance building, a familiar-looking rubberine collar molding itself around the last few meters of the ship's neck.

  To her right, the upper deck of the engineering/cargo section hid her from most of Mangus. To her left-

  To her left, a large section of the outer wall had vanished.