Timothy Zahn - Cobra 01 - Cobra

by Cobra(lit)

  He gave in awfully easily, was Jonny's first thought. A careful check of the bathroom, though, showed it was indeed clear of all sensors. Returning to the main room, he sat back down with his comboard-remembering to maintain an air of discomfort-and pretended to read.

  He waited an hour, ten minutes of which time was spent in the bathroom to see if the Trofts would get nervous and send in a guard. But they'd evidently decided there was nothing dangerous he could do in there and no one disturbed him.

  Taking slightly higher than normal doses of his anemia and arthritis medicines, he returned to his comboard... and when the drugs took effect it was time to go.

  He began with the normal human pattern for a pre-bedtime shower: pajamas carried into the bathroom accompanied by the hiss of water against tile. But under cover of the sound, Jonny's fingertip lasers traced a rectangular pattern on the thin metal panel between sink and shower stall, and within a minute he had a passable opening to the cramped service corridor behind the row of cabins. Leaving the water running, he squeezed into the corridor and began sidling his way forward.

  The Menssana's designer had apparently felt that separate ventilation systems for the various service lane levels would be a waste of good equipment and had opted instead for periodically spaced grilles to connect all of them together.

  It was a quirk that would ordinarily be of no use to anyone in Jonny's position, as the cramped quarters and high ceilings discouraged vertical movement almost as much as solid floors would have. But then, the designer hadn't been thinking about Cobras.

  Jonny passed three more cabins before finding a grille leading to the deck above. Bending his knees the few degrees the walls allowed, he jumped upward, stifling a grunt as a twinge of pain touched the joints. Catching the grille, he hung suspended for a moment as he searched out the best spots to cut. Then, with leg servos pressing his feet against the walls in a solid friction grip, he turned his lasers against the metal mesh. A minute later he was through the hole and sidling down that level's service corridor; two minutes after that he was peering out the corridor's access door at the darkened equipment room into which it opened. Next door would be the EVA-ready room. Beyond that was the main hatch and the probable connection to the Troft ship.

  Jonny eased out the equipment room door into the deserted corridor, alert for sounds of activity that weren't there. The main hatch was indeed open, the boarding tunnel beyond snaking enough to block any sight of the alien ship's own entryway. Whatever security the Trofts had set up was apparently at the far end of the tunnel, an arrangement that would be difficult but not impossible to exploit. But any such operation required first that the Menssana be under human control again... and to accomplish that, he would have to retake the bridge.

  Passing the hatch, he continued on forward.

  The spiral stairway leading to the bridge had not been designed with military security in mind, but the Trofts had added one of their sensor disks to the spiral in a position impossible to bypass. From a semi-shadowed position down the hall, Jonny gritted his teeth and searched his memory for a way to approach the stairway from behind. But any such route would take a great deal of time, and time was in short supply at the moment. On the other hand... if the Trofts saw an apparently unarmed man approaching their position, they were unlikely to greet him with an automatic blaze of laser fire. They would probably merely point their weapons and order him to surrender, after which they would return him to his cell and find out how he'd escaped. If they followed safe military procedure and called in before confronting him... but he'd just have to risk that. Now, while the Menssana was still in or near the Corridor, was their best opportunity for escape. Gritting his teeth, he started for the staircase.

  He moved quickly, though no faster than a normal human could have, and no challenges or shots came his way before he reached the stairs and started up.

  His catlike steps were small bomb blasts in his enhanced hearing, but between them he could hear the unmistakable sounds of sudden activity overhead. He kept going... and when he raised his head cautiously above the level of the bridge floor he found himself facing a semicircle of four Troft handguns. "You will make no sudden movements," a translator voice ordered as he froze in place.

  "Now: continue forward for questioning."

  Slowly, Jonny continued up the stairs and into the bridge, keeping his hands visible. The four guards were backed up by three more at the Menssana's consoles, armed but with weapons holstered. Sitting atop the communications board was a small box of alien design. The Trofts' link with their own ship and translator, most likely... and in a highly vulnerable position.

  "How did you escape from your quarters?" one of the guards asked.

  Jonny focused on the semicircle. "Call your captain," he said. "I wish to speak to him about a trade."

  The Trofts' arm membranes fluttered. "You are in no position to trade anything."

  "How do you know?" Jonny countered. "Only your captain can make that assessment."

  The Troft hesitated. Then, slowly, he raised a hand to a collar pin and let loose with a stream of catertalk. Another pause... and the communications box abruptly spoke. "This the Ship Commander. What do you propose to trade?"

  Jonny pursed his lips. It was a question he'd been working on since the Trofts first came aboard... and he had yet to come up with a really satisfactory answer. Trade back the Trofts aboard the Menssana? But the aliens didn't think of hostage as a word applicable to living beings. The Menssana itself? But he hardly had real control of the ship. Still, if politics had taught him anything, it was the value of a plausible bluff. "I offer you your own ship in return for the humans you hold plus the release of this vessel," he said.

  There was a long pause. "Repeat, please. You offer me my own demesne-ship?"

  "That's right," Jonny nodded. "From this ship I have the power to destroy yours.

  For obvious example, a hard starboard yaw would tear out the boarding tunnel, depressurizing that part of your demesne-ship, and a simultaneous blast with the drive at this range would cause extensive damage to your own engines. Is this possibility not worth trading to avoid?"

  His captors' arm membranes were fluttering at half-mast now. Either the room temperature had risen dramatically or he had indeed hit a sensitive nerve.

  "Commander?" he prompted.

  "The ability you claim is nonexistent," the box said. "You are not in control of that ship."

  "You're wrong, Commander. My companion and I are in full control here."

  "You have no companion. The soldier hiding in the dining-area ventilation system has been returned to his quarters."

  So the other Marine had been found. "I'm not speaking of him."

  "Where is your companion?"

  "Nearby, and in control. If you want to know any more you'll have to come here and negotiate the trade I've suggested."

  There was another long pause. "Very well. I will come."

  "Good." Jonny blew a drop of sweat from the tip of his nose. Perhaps it was just getting hot.

  "You will reveal your companion to us before the Ship Commander arrives," one of the guards said. It didn't sound like a request.

  Jonny took a careful breath... prepared himself. "Certainly. She's right here."

  He gestured to his left, the arm movement masking the slight bending of his knees-

  And he ricocheted off the ceiling to slam to the deck behind the four guards, fingertip lasers blazing.

  The communications box went first, fried instantly by a blast from his arcthrower. Two of the guards' guns hit the deck midway through that first salvo; the other two guards made it nearly all the way around before their lasers also erupted with clouds of vaporized metal and plastic and went spinning from burned hands. A sideways jump and half turn and Jonny had the last three

  Trofts in sight. "Don't move," he snapped.

  With the translator link down his words were unintelligible, but none of the aliens seemed to mistake his meaning. All rem
ained frozen where they stood or sat, arm membranes stretched wide, as Jonny disarmed the last three and then tore the communicator pins from the uniforms of all seven. Herding them down the staircase, he got them into a nearby water pumping room-spot-welding the latch to make sure they stayed put-and hurried aft toward the main hatch. The Troft commander wasn't likely to come alone, and Jonny needed at least a little advance notice as to what size force he'd have to handle. The possibility that the other would simply veer off, trading his occupation force for two humans, wasn't one Jonny wanted to consider.

  He heard them coming down the boarding tunnel long before they actually appeared: ten to fifteen of them, he estimated, from the sound. Hidden in an emergency battery closet a dozen meters down the hall, he watched through a cracked door as they approached. The commander was easy to spot, keeping to the geometric center of his guard array: an older Troft, by the purple blotches on his throat bladder, his uniform fairly dripping with the colored piping of rank.

  Six guards ahead of him, six behind him, their lasers fanned to cover both directions, the procession moved down the corridor toward Jonny's hiding place and the bridge. The vanguard passed him... and Jonny slammed open the door and leaped.

  The door caught the nearest Troft full in the back, jolting him forward and clearing just enough room for Jonny's rush to get him through the phalanx unhindered. With one outstretched arm he caught the commander around his torso, the action spinning them both around as Jonny's initial momentum drove them toward the far wall. Slipping between the two guards on that side, they slammed against the plating, Jonny's back screaming with agony as it took the brunt of the impact.

  And then, for a long moment, the corridor was a silent, frozen tableau.

  "All right," Jonny said as his breath returned, "I know you don't apply the idea of hostage to yourselves, Commander, so we'll just think of this as a matter of your personal safety. All of you-lay your weapons down on the deck. I don't especially want to hurt your commander, but I will if I have to."

  Still no one moved, the twelve laser muzzles forming shining counterpoint to the arched arm membranes spread out behind each of them. "I told you to drop your guns," Jonny repeated more harshly. "Don't forget that you can't hit me without killing your commander."

  The Troft leaning against him stirred slightly in his grip. "They have no concern for my life," the translator voice said. "I am not the Ship Commander, merely a Services Engineer in his uniform. A crude trick, but one which we learned from humans."

  Jonny's mouth went dry. His eyes swept the circle of Trofts, the steadiness of their weapons an unspoken confirmation of the other's words. "You're lying," he said, not believing it but driven to say something. "If you're not the commander, then why haven't they opened fire?" He knew the answer to that: they wanted him alive. History-personal history, at least-had repeated itself... and even more than on Adirondack, he knew the knowledge he held this time was too valuable to allow the enemy to have. Chrys, a detached fragment of his mind breathed in anguish toward the distant stars, and he prepared for his last battle-

  "They will not shoot," the Troft in his grip said. "You are a koubrah-soldier from the Aventine world, and if killed you would merely fight on until all aboard were dead."

  Jonny frowned. "How's that?"

  "You need not deny the truth. We have all heard the report."

  What report? Jonny opened his mouth to ask the question aloud... and suddenly he understood.

  MacDonald. Somehow they'd heard about MacDonald.

  He looked at the circle of Trofts again, seeing their rigidly stretched arm membranes with new eyes. Determination, he'd thought earlier, or perhaps rage.

  But now he recognized the emotion for what it was: simple, naked fear. D'arl was right, that same detached fragment of his mind realized. They are afraid of us.

  "I don't wish to kill anyone," he said quietly. "I want only to free my companions and to continue on my way."

  "To what end?" the same flat voice came from the direction of the boarding tunnel. Jonny turned his head to see another middle-aged Troft walking slowly toward them. His uniform was identical to the one wrapped in Jonny's arms.

  "That of protecting my world, Commander," Jonny told him. "By diplomatic means if possible, military ones if necessary."

  The other said something in catertalk, and slowly the circle of laser muzzles dipped to point at the floor. His eyes on the Troft commander, Jonny released his captive and stepped out from behind him. A trick to put the Cobra off-guard, perhaps; but the politician within Jonny recognized the need to respond to the gesture with a good-faith one of his own. "Have we any grounds for negotiation?" he asked.

  "Perhaps," the commander said. "You spared the lives of the Trof'tes in your control center when you could as easily have killed them. Why?"

  Jonny frowned, realizing for the first time that he had no idea why he'd handled things that way. Too long in politics, where one never killed one's opponent?

  No. The real reason was considerably less colorful. "There wasn't any need to kill them," he said with a shrug. "I suppose it never really occurred to me."

  "Koubrah-soldiers were created to kill."

  "We were created to defend. There's a difference."

  The other seemed to ponder that. "Perhaps there are grounds for compromise," he said at last. "Or at least for discussion. Will you and your companion come to my bridge?"

  Jonny nodded. "Yes... but the companion I mentioned won't actually be there.

  She's an insubstantial entity we humans call Lady Luck."

  The commander was silent a moment. "I believe I understand. If so, I would still invite her to accompany us."

  Turning, he disappeared into the boarding tunnel. Hesitating only a moment,

  Jonny followed. The escort, weapons still lowered, fell into step around him.

  He was back on the Menssana side of the tunnel four hours later when Wrey and

  Tarvn were brought aboard. "Good evening, gentlemen," Jonny nodded as their

  Troft escort silently disappeared back down the tunnel. "Captain, if you'll seal that hatch we're almost ready to be on our way."

  "What the hell happened?" Wrey asked, his bewildered tone making the words more plaintive than demanding. "No questioning, no demands-no talk, period-and suddenly they're letting us go?"

  "Oh, there was talking, all right," Jonny said. "Lots of it. That hatch secure?

  Good. Captain, I believe the drive repairs are finished, but you'll need to confirm that from the bridge. And make sure we're all ready before you pull away-the other Troft ship isn't in on this and they might try and stop us."

  Tarvn's eyebrows arched, but all he said was, "Got it," before heading forward at a fast trot.

  "What's going on?" Wrey demanded as Jonny started to follow. "What do you mean, there was lots of talking?"

  "The Ship Commander and I had a discussion, and I convinced him it was in his best interests to let us go."

  "In other words, you made a deal," Wrey growled. "What was it?"

  "Something I'll discuss only with the Central Committee and only when we reach

  Asgard," Jonny told him flatly.

  Wrey frowned at him, irritation and growing suspicion etching his face. "You're not authorized to negotiate for the entire Dominion of Man."

  "That's okay-the Ship Commander wasn't authorized to negotiate for the Troft

  Assemblage, either." A gentle thump rippled through the deck and Jonny relaxed muscles he hadn't realized he'd had tensed. "But what authority he did have seems to have been adequate to get us away."

  "Moreau-"

  "Now if you'll excuse me, it's been a long night and I'm very tired. Good-night,

  Mr. Wrey; you can figure out on your own how you'll write this incident up. I'm sure you'll come out the hero in the final version."

  Which was a rather cheap shot, Jonny admitted to himself as he headed aft toward his cabin. But at the moment his body was aching more than Wre
y would ever know and he had no patience left for mid-bureaucratic mentality.

  Or, for that matter, for illegal business practices and deliberate evasions.

  Which was why he planned to take a few days to recuperate before confronting Dru and Harmon with the half-truth the Troft Ship Commander had popped. Allies they had been; allies they might yet be... and he would like if possible to also keep them as friends.

  It was another two weeks' travel to the Troft-Dominion border, fourteen of the longest days Jonny had ever suffered through this side of the last war. The cooling attitude toward him aboard the Menssana was part of it, of course, bringing back painful memories of those last months on Horizon. Jonny had all but forgotten the fear mainstream Dominion society felt toward Cobras, and on top of that he suspected Wrey of spitefully dropping hints that he'd made some terrible deal to buy their freedom. Only Harmon and Dru seemed relatively untouched by the general aloofness, and even with them Jonny could tell their friendliness had a large wedge of self-interest mixed in. After the long and painful confession session Jonny had forced them through shortly after their escape, he had the power to bring a fair amount of official flak down on them, and they both knew it.