Timothy Zahn - Angelmass

But she hadn't, and it wasn't. Ornina's tools? Too small to serve as weapons. Loose pipes, then, or discarded storage crate lids? But there wasn't anything he could see that wasn't fastened down.

"Enough!" Trilling barked, snapping Kosta's attention back to the discussion. The argument, such as it was, was over.

And Chandris had lost.

"You don't want to watch, you can leave the room," Trilling went on, looking back at Kosta and lifting his knife. "This'll just take a second."

Beside him, Kosta felt Ornina's hand fumble for his. He took her hand, and she squeezed once. Not a grip of panic or even fear, but merely of comfort and friendship. And, perhaps, farewell.

And then she gently disengaged her hand from his. Leaving him free for whatever action he was preparing himself for.

A sudden flood of determination surged through him like a hot cup of Ornina's sadras tea. Ornina was counting on him for her life; Chandris was counting on him for her freedom from this man.

There was no way in hell he was going to fail them.

"All right," Chandris said, her voice humble and defeated. Her eyes flicked once to him as she stepped behind Trilling and headed for the door. Lifting his knife, his eyes glowing with expectation, Trilling started forward.

Kosta let his knees bend slightly into the combat stance he'd been taught and turned his torso slightly, presenting a smaller target to his opponent. His hands were still at his sides, but he could visualize bringing his left arm up to sweep Trilling's knife arm away to the side. With Trilling's torso open, he would throw the hardest kick he could at the other's knee, and follow it up with another kick to the abdomen...

And then, behind Trilling, Chandris turned silently on one foot and brought the angel carrying case down as hard as she could onto his head.

Trilling bellowed with rage, shaking his head once to clear it as he spun around toward his betrayer.

A sweep of his left arm knocked the box from her hands and sent her staggering backwards. The knife flashed in his hand as he brought it back for a killing blow—

And with another bellow he sprawled off-balance as Kosta's kick landed in the back of his right knee.

He hit the deck hard and twisted catlike around onto his back. Kosta started to dive on top of him, broke away at the last second as he belatedly saw that Trilling still had hold of his knife.

Too little, too late. Even as he tried to veer off, Trilling slashed the weapon in a vicious upward arc across Kosta's chest. He felt the tug as his shirt was sliced through; and then his momentum and tangled feet got the better of him and he too toppled onto the deck.

Trilling was back on his feet in an instant. Chandris started toward him; half turning, he slashed the air once to keep her back, then turned back to Kosta, his face contorted into something inhuman.

Kosta scrambled backwards crab-style, his eyes fixed on the knife, trying desperately to get far enough away from Trilling to be able to get back onto his feet.

But Trilling clearly had no intention of giving him that much breathing room. Baring his teeth, he kept coming, his knife held ready. From somewhere to Kosta's left came a soft buzz—

And suddenly Trilling jerked in place as if he'd stepped on a jellyfish. The enraged madman's expression softened into an odd sort of bewilderment, the knife dangling in a loosened grip.

"Again!" Kosta shouted, scrambling to his feet and shooting a glance to his left. Ornina was standing there, her eyes wide, Kosta's shocker gripped in her hand. "Hit him again!"

She squeezed the weapon. There was another buzz, and Trilling jerked again. "Again," Kosta ordered, gingerly trying to ease past the wavering knife. The shocker was still on its lowest setting, and that wasn't going to hold someone like Trilling very long. If Kosta could get to Ornina and dial a higher power—

And then, with a sort of gurgling moan, Trilling lunged at him.

If he'd been in full control of his muscles, Kosta would have died right there. But two jolts from the shocker, even at low power, had scrambled his nervous system just enough. Kosta jumped back, and the knife blade sliced through his left sleeve instead of burying itself into the center of his chest.

Reflexively, he slapped at Trilling's knife arm with his right hand, and to his own vague surprise the knife went flying away to clatter off the pipes and conduits lining the bulkheads.

For a fraction of a second Kosta could see his own surprise mirrored in Trilling's face at the loss of his weapon. Then, with a slurred curse, Trilling lunged again.

Kosta tried to slap away the hands stretching out toward his throat. But Trilling was already shrugging off the effects of the shocker and the counter-move failed. An instant later the hands reached their target, one grabbing him by the throat, the other closing around Kosta's left upper arm.

An agonizing wave of pain shot through the skin and muscle like a crack of lightning. He had just enough time to gasp once—

And then his back was slammed against the bulkhead hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

The grip around his throat tightened, cutting off his air, and Trilling began to beat his head against the cold metal.

Kosta's vision began to waver, fog alternating with sparks of pain with each blow. He tried to bring up his knee into Trilling's groin, but his body seemed to have turned into soft cotton. He was vaguely aware of someone screaming something in the background, but he couldn't make out the words. He reached up to try to pull Trilling's hand off his throat, but there was no strength there, and he was barely even able to grab hold of the other's wrist.

And then, suddenly, the hammering of his head stopped. Even as he wondered whether the halt was real or simply the hallucination of a dying brain, the grip around his throat loosened and then was gone. His head began to clear, and he found himself sagging against the bulkhead, gasping for breath, his left arm throbbing with pain.

And then Chandris was at his side, gripping his right arm. "It's all right," she said, her breath coming in shaky gulps. "Just sit down, okay? Just sit down."

"I'm okay," he said, letting her help him down into a sitting position on the deck. The words hurt his throat to say.

"Here," Ornina said, appearing on his other side with a first-aid kit. "Chandris, can you start getting his shirt off?"

"Sure."

She began carefully pulling off his shirt. Kosta winced as a line of fire flashed across his chest, joining counterpoint with the agony in his left upper arm, and to his amazement he noticed for the first time that the shirt there was soaked with blood. Apparently, that first slash had been deeper than he'd realized. Odd that he hadn't felt any pain there until now.

It was only then, as he raised his eyes from the blood on his chest, that he saw Trilling.

The man was crumpled on the deck behind Chandris, unmoving. His right hand was wet with blood where he'd been squeezing Kosta's slashed arm.

Protruding from his back was the hilt of his own knife.

Kosta looked back at Chandris. Now, for the first time, he could see the tears running down her cheeks. "Chandris?" he asked softly.

"I had to," she said, her voice so low he almost couldn't hear it. "He was going to kill you. He was going to kill you both. There was nothing else I could do."

"I know," Kosta said, wincing as Ornina carefully rolled a bandage across the cut in his chest.

"I'm—"

"No, don't," she cut him off, flashing a tortured glare at him through the moisture brimming in her eyes. "Don't."

She dropped her gaze away, half turning toward the body lying on the deck behind her. "He was my friend once," she said, her body jerking with silent, gasping sobs. "He was all I had. He cared for me, protected me."