Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

"-was here to stop you. Unfortunately for him, you were also armed." He nodded to one of Jin's guards and the man reached a gloved hand into his holster to produce a standard Qasaman projectile pistol. "He shot you, but you managed to kill him before you died. A pity."

"And you then put the gun in my hand to get my fingerprints on it?" Jin asked coldly, watching the pistol being held at her side. The second he raised it to shoot she would have to act...

"Ah-something else you don't know about Qasama," Radig said sardonically. He nodded again, and to her surprise the man with the gun pressed the weapon into her hand, keeping his own gloved hand around hers in a firm controlling grip.

"Our science is quite advanced in such matters-more so, obviously, than yours.

Here it's possible to prove from a careful residue analysis that a specific shot was fired by a specific gun held in a specific hand. Therefore, each of you will have to fire the fatal shots yourselves. With our help, of course."

"Of course," Jin said sarcastically. A reddish haze seemed to be stealing across her vision, and for a second she wondered if they'd decided to risk drugging her after all. But it wasn't that kind of haze... and after a moment she realized what it was.

It was fury. Simple, cold-blooded fury.

A good Cobra is always self-controlled, the dictum ran through her mind... but at the moment none of those platitudes seemed worth a damn. Daulo had looked quietly horrified as he'd been led off for his interrogation; Radig's own self-satisfied expression here and now was in sharp contrast as he choreographed his double murder... and it occurred to Jin that up till now Mangus had been gaining all the benefits of treason without having to pay any of the costs.

It was time for the balance to be evened up a bit.

A third guard was moving up to Akim's side now, pressing his pistol into the other's clearly unwilling hand. Consciously unclenching her teeth, Jin activated her multiple targeting lock, keying for the centers of the three guards' foreheads. "I presume it's almost time," she said coldly, glancing at Radig before focusing on Akim. "Tell me, Miron Akim: what's the penalty for attempted murder on Qasama?"

Radig snorted. "Don't try to scare us, woman-" he snarled, taking a step toward her.

"Miron Akim?"

"This is more than simple murder, Jasmine Moreau," Akim replied, his eyes on

Radig. "It's murder combined with treason. For that the penalty is death."

"I see," she nodded. "I trust, then, you won't be too upset if I have to kill some of them?"

One of the guards snorted something contemptuous sounding. But Radig didn't even smile. Stepping to her side, he grabbed the barrel of the pistol in her hand and brought it up to point directly at Akim. "If you're waiting for your companion to save you, wait for him in hell," he snarled, eyes glittering with hatred. "In fact, I almost hope he's watching. Let him watch you die."

Jin glared straight back, twisted her right arm free of the hands holding it, and slammed the gun across the side of Radig's face.

He flopped over backwards onto the ground without a sound. The guard holding

Jin's left arm spat a curse, but he'd gotten no farther than tightening his grip on her arm before she turned partly around in his direction to slam the pistol against his head. The grip abruptly loosened; and even as the guard to her right threw his arms around her shoulders, she twisted back that direction to swing the weapon into his face. Simultaneously, her left hand whipped up, swept across the group around Akim-

Her peripheral vision caught the triple sputter of light as her nanocomputer fired her fingertip laser, and she turned back just in time to see the three guards drop like empty sacks to the ground.

Leaving Akim standing among the carnage. The pistol they'd meant him to kill her with still gripped in his hand. Not quite pointed at her...

For a long moment they stared at each other. "It's all over, Miron Akim," she called softly, the haze of fury evaporating from her mind. The hand holding the pistol was noticeably trembling now. "May I suggest we get out of here before these men are missed?"

Slowly, the pistol sagged downward; and after a moment, Akim stooped and laid it on the ground, his eyes on her the whole time. He flinched slightly as she stepped toward him, but didn't back up. "It's all right," she assured him quietly. "As I said earlier, we're on the same side here."

He licked his lips and seemed to finally find his voice. "A demon warrior," he said. A shiver abruptly ran through him. "A demon warrior. Now it finally makes sense. God in heaven." He took a shuddering breath. "On the same side, you say,

Jasmine Moreau?" he said with a hint of returning spirit.

"Yes-whether you believe it or not." She risked a glance around the compound. He hadn't tried to jump her by the time she looked back at him. "If for no other reason than because Obolo Nardin wants both of us dead. So which will it be?-you want to join forces, or would you rather we tackle Obolo Nardin's private army separately?"

Akim licked his lips again, glancing down at the three dead men around his feet.

"I don't really have much of a choice," he said, looking her firmly in the eye.

"Very well, then, Jasmine Moreau: in the name of the Shahni of Qasama, I accept your assistance in return for my own. Do you have a plan for getting us out of

Mangus?"

Jin breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "A plan of sorts, yes. But first we're going to have to go back into the administrative center. Or I have to, anyway."

He nodded with far too much understanding for her taste. "To rescue Daulo

Sammon?"

She gritted her teeth. "His family saved my life, long before they knew who I was. No matter what Daulo Sammon thinks of me now, I owe them his life in return."

Akim looked back at the administrative center. "How did you plan to get him out?

More of the same firepower you just demonstrated?"

"Hopefully less of it." Jin grimaced, locating Radig's unmoving form. "I'd hoped to persuade Radig Nardin to tell me where they'd taken him. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he'll be up to talking for a while."

"He'll be on the lowest level," Akim said thoughtfully. "Probably in a corner room. An airtight one, if possible."

Jin frowned at him. "How do you know?"

He shrugged. "Historical precedent, coupled with the nature of the drugs used in the kind of interrogation they're probably doing. Drugs that are reported to be extremely unpleasant, incidentally. The sooner we get him out, the better for him."

Jin bit her lip. "I know. Unfortunately, there's something else we have to do first."

"Such as?"

"Such as getting our escape route set up. Come on."

The hard part wasn't taking the high road for the second time that night, jumping from ground to housing complex roof to the top of the wall. The hard part wasn't even inching along the wall on her stomach, leaning precariously down to cut the power cables linking the spotlights and splice them together into a makeshift rope.

The hard part was wondering the whole time whether Akim would still be waiting down below when she finally finished the chore.

But he was. Evidently, she decided as she carefully pulled him up, Shahni agents were not as fanatic as she'd feared they might be. A true fanatic would probably have preferred death to dealing with a perceived enemy of Qasama.

She got him up and spreadeagled in a safe if not entirely comfortable position atop the wall, and for a long minute he gazed in silence at the Troft ship below. "May God curse Obolo Nardin and his household," he spat at last. "So you were telling the truth after all."

"Keep your voice down, please. You know anything about Troft ships besides what they look like?"