Timothy Zahn - Cobra Bargain

"Then perhaps it's time we grew up," Akim said stubbornly. "Would you have us hold onto petty quarrels and pride at the cost of civil war?"

"Civil war?" Jin snarled. "God above-you worry about civil war, and you want to add new weapons to the mixture?"

"The weapons will be controlled by the Shahni-"

"For how long? Months? Days? And what do you think will happen once a single village or city gets hold of one of them?"

Akim clenched his teeth. "I'm an agent of the Shahni," he grated out. "I'm charged to obey their orders, and to do that which benefits Qasama as a whole.

It's not my place to make these larger policy decisions."

"Why not?" she countered. "For that matter, you've already made a policy decision. If standing orders are all that count, why haven't you killed me?"

"If keeping Qasama defenseless is all that counts to you," he countered, "why haven't you killed me?"

She sighed. "Because ultimately it doesn't matter. No matter what you do, Qasama won't get this ship. If the Trofts can't get it off the planet, they'll destroy it."

"Even damaged, it'll be worth-"

"Not damaged-destroyed," Jin snapped. "They'll turn the engines into a minor fusion bomb and blow the ship, themselves, and Mangus into dust and scatter it into the upper atmosphere. You heard me talking to the Troft commander-they're scared to even let Obolo Nardin's people get a glimpse at their readout displays. You think he'll let you take his crew alive and his ship intact?"

For a long moment the only sound in the room was the muffled hiss of the laser torch coming from the direction of the hatch. Jin kept her eyes on Akim, acutely aware of the targeting lock on the other's weapon... acutely aware, too, of

Daulo's stiff presence a meter to her left. She wished she could see his face, try and get some feeling as to which side of this confrontation he was on. But she didn't dare look away.

"No," Akim said suddenly. His face was rigid, eyes almost unfocused, and Jin felt a sympathetic ache for him. But the other's voice was firm, with no hesitation left for her to work against. "No, my duty is clear. Even if it doesn't seem that I can win, I still have to try." He took a deep breath. "Stand up, Jasmine Moreau, and move over to the hatch."

Slowly, Jin stood up. "I beg you to reconsider, Miron Akim."

"Move over to the hatch," he repeated stiffly.

Licking her lips, her eyes still on Akim, Jin took a sidling step to her left toward the lock-

And gasped as her left knee collapsed beneath her.

Perhaps Akim had been expecting a trick; perhaps he merely reacted reflexively to her sudden movement. Even as Jin's hands snapped out toward Daulo's chest, she heard the faint snap of the palm-mate, and the hoarse whisper of the poisoned dart piercing the air bare centimeters from her right arm. She could almost sense her nanocomputer assessing the situation; could feel it preparing to take control of her servos and launch her into a defensive counterattack that would leave Akim burned to ashes-

And at the last instant before her outstretched hands reached Daulo's chest, she flipped her left hand over, curving the palm inward, and jammed the heel of her right hand against the left's fingertips. The fingernails slammed into Daulo's breastbone with the full force of her right hand behind it-

And with a flash of heat against her right wrist her left-hand fingertip laser fired.

Akim jumped violently to the side, swearing viciously as the blackened remains of his palm-mate went spinning to the deck. With a curse, he leaped toward Jin, hands curving into talons.

Jin waited, feet braced against the deck; and as his arms curved toward her shoulders she jabbed her arms out, the heels of her hands slamming hard into his upper chest. The impact stopped him dead in his tracks; sliding one hand around each of his shoulders, Jin twisted him around and shoved him hard into the chair she'd just been sitting in.

For a moment he just sat there, looking up at her in dazed astonishment as he caught his breath. "All right," she told him, taking deep breaths herself as the pain in her fingers slowly retreated again to a dull ache. "Let's get out of here before the Trofts get nervous and blow the ship regardless."

"Jin!" The Dewdrop's translator called faintly from the speaker. "What's happening? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she called back. "All of us are. Commander, call your men off and we'll open up the bridge."

"Understood," the Troft translator said. "You will not be harmed."

Slowly, Akim got to his feet and faced Jin. "Someday," he said bitterly, eyes boring into hers, "we will repay you in full for all you have done to us."

She met his gaze without flinching. "Perhaps. At least now you'll have a chance of surviving to do so."

Silently, he moved toward the hatch. She followed, keeping her attention on him... and because of that they were halfway there before she suddenly realized

Daulo wasn't following. "Come on, Daulo Sammon," she called over her shoulder.

"Time to leave."

"Not quite yet," he said quietly.

Frowning, she threw him a quick glance... and then looked again.

Daulo was standing well back from her, pressed against the communications board.

In his hand was one of the captured lasers. "Daulo Sammon?" she asked carefully.

"Thanks to you, your world is now safe from us," Daulo said tautly. His face was pale, but the gun was steady. "At least for now. But you, Jasmine Moreau, aren't nearly so safe... and the repayment Miron Akim spoke of can begin with you."

"Hold it!" Justin shouted. "You-whoever you are-if you harm her, you'll never get off that ship alive."

"You'll have to catch us first," Daulo called to the mike. "And by that time, we'll have figured out just what to do with her."

"Damn you! If you so much as-"

Stepping to one side, Daulo shifted his aim and fired a long burst into the communications board.

The Dewdrop's voice was suddenly cut off... and the clatter of Daulo's laser as he tossed it casually to the deck again was almost shattering in the taut silence.

"Daulo...?" Jin asked, feeling her eyebrows come together in bewilderment.

Daulo looked at her, took a deep breath. "Now we can leave," he said quietly.

"And we'd better go quickly. Before, as you said, the Trofts get nervous."

Beside Jin, Akim took a step toward Daulo. "Would you mind explaining," he grated, "just what in God's name that was supposed to prove?"

Daulo gestured upward. "Her father is up there," he said simply.

For a long second the two men eyed each other... and then a smile tugged at

Akim's lips and he snorted gently. "Clever. Very clever. Or it will be if it works."

"I think it will," Daulo nodded. "Like a good Qasaman family, they are very close." He looked at Jin. "Well, come on, Jasmine Moreau," he said briskly.

"Let's get out of here."

The walk down the corridor was a nerve-wracking one. Jin had rather expected a large escort to tag along to make sure they actually left Mangus, but to her uneasy surprise they rated only a single Troft to lead them out of the ship, and he abandoned them just beyond the portside entryway where Jin had earlier shot her way back into the ship. "I don't like this," Akim muttered as they hurried down the steps into the now deserted maintenance bay. "Obolo Nardin's men may be waiting to gun us down out there."

"If Obolo Nardin's got any brains, he'll have his people behind their own wall by now," Jin said as they ran across the bay toward an exit door that would let them out of the maintenance building near the gap in the outer wall. "The Trofts seem to be in a flat-out hurry-that drive rumble is getting louder, and I wouldn't want to be on this side of Mangus when they fire up the engines for real."