Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

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."

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.