Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

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. Rolling 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.