by Timothy Zahn
She finished, and waited. And waited . . . and as some of the Trofts beneath her began stirring again there was the sound of released catches above her and the hatch suddenly swung open.
"Jin!" Daulo gasped, eyes wide as he stared down at her. "Are you—?"
"I'm fine," she grunted. "Get out of my way, will you?—they'll be able to fire again any second now."
He stepped back hastily, and she leaped up the last steps into the bridge. Akim was waiting to the side, and she'd barely cleared the rim before he slammed the hatch back down again. "You came back," he said, squatting down to seal the catches.
"Didn't you think I would?" Jin countered. Suddenly her knees were going all wobbly; staggering over to one of the chairs, she collapsed into it.
Akim stepped over to her, eyes flicking down her body. "We'd thought you might go for help."
"Help from where?" Jin countered. "Didn't we agree that we couldn't even reach any of your people for several hours?" Her foot touched something metallic; leaning back, she spotted a row of five laser pistols beneath the panel. "You making a collection?" she asked.
"We thought it would be good to have all the weapons together," Daulo told her. "For when . . . we weren't sure you were coming back, you know."
"Why did you return?" Akim demanded. "Let me be honest: I don't want to share my death with an enemy of Qasama."
Jin took a deep breath, exhaled it raggedly. "With any luck, you won't have to. Has the Troft commander tried to communicate with you?"
"He wants us to surrender," Daulo put in from behind her, clearly fighting against a tremor in his voice. "He says we can't possibly win and that they don't want to kill us if they don't have to."
"I don't blame them," Jin nodded. "Especially since he'd probably wreck his bridge in the process." She leaned forward, studying the control panels before her.
Akim followed her gaze. "What exactly are you planning, Jasmine Moreau?" he asked. "Are you going to fly this spacecraft out of Mangus?"
Jin snorted. "Not a chance. I've never flown anything bigger than an aircar in my life, and this isn't the time to start." She paused, looking over her shoulder as a faint crackling sound wafted into the bridge. The sound was coming from the hatch. . . . "They're back again," she said, stomach tightening as she turned back to the controls. Somewhere here there had to be—
There it was. Taking a deep breath, Jin hunched forward and tentatively touched the switch. "What are you doing?" Akim demanded suspiciously.
"You remember, Miron Akim, how surprised we were that Obolo Nardin would panic this early?" she asked. The volume control . . . there. Microphone? . . . clipped to the wall over there. "We wondered why both he and the Trofts would throw away their listening ear when there couldn't possibly be any enemies on their way here yet?" she added, working the mike free of its clip and gripping it awkwardly between palm and thumb.
"I remember," Akim growled. "Are you leading up to giving us the answer?"
"I hope so." She took a deep breath. If she was wrong . . . Raising the mike to her lips, she touched the operating switch. "This is Jasmine Moreau," she said in Anglic. "Repeating, this is Jasmine Moreau. Please respond. This is Jasmine Moreau; please respond. This is Jasmine—"
And abruptly the board speaker boomed in reply. "This is Captain Koja; commanding the Dewdrop. We read you, Cobra Moreau, and we're ready to come down and pick you up."
Chapter 45
It took Jin three tries to relax her throat enough to speak again. "Understood, Dewdrop," she managed at last. "I—" she glanced up to see Akim gazing darkly at her. "Please tie in your Qasaman language translator."
There was a slight pause from the other end. "Why?"
"I have some Qasamans here with me," Jin explained, switching back to their language herself. "I think they ought to be in on the discussion."
"Who are you talking to?" Akim demanded.
"An Aventinian ship," Jin told him. "Here to rescue me. Captain, are you still in orbit?"
"Yes." The word was Qasaman, the voice the artificial one of a translator program. "Where are you?—wait a minute, the head of the rescue team wants to get in on the conversation."
"Jin?" a familiar voice said in accented Qasaman . . . a voice fairly dripping with relief. "Jin, it's Dad. Are you all right?"
Jin felt her mouth drop open. "Dad! Yes, yes, I'm fine. You—but—"
"What, you didn't think I'd drop everything to come get my daughter back? Oh, God, Jin—look, where are you?"
"In that covered compound west of Azras—Mangus, they call it. Wait a minute, though, you can't come down just yet."
"Why not?"
"You might run into a hunter/seeker missile. Courtesy of the Trofts whose ship I'm talking to you from."
There was a long pause. "We were wondering how you'd gotten on this frequency," the Dewdrop translator said at last. "What in blazes are Trofts doing there?"
"At the moment, trying to get us out of their bridge so that they can airlift some Qasaman allies to safety."
"Allies? You mean the Trofts and Qasamans have made an alliance?"
"No, no, it's not that bad. There's nothing official about this; it was a private deal with some Qasaman thugs making a power play."
"A power play which may yet succeed," Akim muttered.
Jin glanced up at him. "Yeah, right. The problem, Dad, is that we've got to find a safe passage out of here for the three of us and at the same time make sure Mangus's owners don't get away before the Qasaman rulers can deal with them."
"Now, wait a minute, Jin," Justin said cautiously. "We'll get you and your friends out, certainly, but the rest of it sounds like internal politics. Nothing we ought to get involved with."
Jin took a deep breath. "We're already involved, Dad, just by my presence here. Please just trust me on this one."
"Cobra Moreau, this is Koja," the translator interrupted him. "Let's table this discussion until you're safe, all right? Now, you said you were on the bridge?"
"Yes, and we're sort of trapped—"
"Can you describe the ship? Is it a warship, or what?"
"From the way the crew fights, I doubt it. Let's see: the ship's got a large cargo/engineering section with sagging swept-forward wings over twin drive nacelles. The front section looked like a pretty standard flat-steeple command module, and there's a long neck connecting the two sections. No identification marks anywhere I could see."
"Okay. I'll see if we've got anything on this design on file."
"Jin?" Justin's voice came back on. "This is Dad. Now, you say you're trapped on the bridge?"
"Yeah, and they're trying to burn up to us through the emergency blast hatch. I can fight them if necessary, but I'd prefer it if we could find a way to convince the commander to just let us go."
"It's worth a try. Can you tie him in to us?"
Jin peered at the board again. "Hang on . . ."
[That will not be necessary,] a burst of catertalk cut in. [I have been listening.]
"I thought you might be," Jin said, only lying a little. "In Qasaman, please, Commander—as I told the Dewdrop, my companions need to hear all this, too."
There was a momentary pause. "Very well," the Troft's translator voice said. "I will listen, but you must realize that I cannot allow you to escape."
"Why not?" Justin asked.
"Our demesne-lord's agreement with the Qasaman Obolo Nardin will come to nothing if his plan is ruined."
"The plan's already ruined," Jin told him. "How are you going to get your allies into your ship for transport, now that I've sealed off the cargo section? And where are they going to stay during the ride?"
"Foolish human! How many other ways into our ship do you think there are?"
"Several," Jin agreed. "But you really don't want to let them see the areas you'd have to take them through. True?"
"The Qasamans can learn nothing from a casual glimpse of our equipment."
"Maybe. But if you're wrong, the Qasamans mi
ght advance a little too quickly . . . possibly quickly enough to break your grip on them before you have a strong enough puppet government in place. Is your demesne-lord willing to take that chance?"
"It is a negligible risk," the Troft insisted.
"Perhaps," the Dewdrop's translator put in. "Let's put it another way, then. Would your demesne-lord be willing to let an entire Crane-class starcarrier fall into Qasaman hands?"
For a long moment there was silence; and in that hiatus, a keen awareness of her body's condition seemed to flood into Jin's consciousness. Awareness of the throbbing ache in the stiff fingers of both hands—of the burning sensation in her left ankle from excessive use of her antiarmor laser—of an even more painful burning along her ribcage where one of the laser shots fired earlier must have come closer than she'd realized. Her eyes drifted around the bridge, and she realized for the first time just how much equipment was really here. Would she have the ability and stamina to systematically destroy all of it if she had to? Because that was the only realistic threat they had to bargain with.
And the Troft commander clearly knew it. "Our ship can be flown without the use of the bridge," he said at last.
"Oh, certainly," the Dewdrop agreed. "Most ships can. But not very easily. Besides which, the bridge isn't the only thing in danger here. There's a sensor bubble directly over her head, for one thing—it wouldn't take all that much for her to punch through to that. Oh, now there's an interesting idea," Koja interrupted his own thought. "If your ship follows standard design, there should be parallel connections between all your sensors for making synchronicity checks. A good jolt of high voltage along that connector cable might just take out every navigation sensor you have on the ship."
"Ridiculous," the Troft snorted.
"Maybe. There's one sure way to find out."
Again the Troft was silent. "You may have the Cobra," he said at last. "If she will leave the ship now, she will be allowed safe passage away from here. The Qasamans with her may not leave, though."
"Jin?" Justin asked.
"No," she said firmly. "My companions leave with me, or I wreck the ship. But I'm ready to make you a counter offer."
"I am listening."
"Okay. You let the Dewdrop land—safely—and allow the three of us to leave here, and there'll be no further damage to your ship."
"And . . . ?"
"No ands. We'll leave Qasama, you'll leave Qasama, and it'll all be over."
Akim snorted and turned away from her. Jin frowned over at his stiff shoulders, then turned back to the panel. "Face reality, Commander; your demesne-lord's scheme has failed, and all you can do is cut his losses."
"The scheme has not failed until the Qasaman authorities have been made aware of Mangus's true purpose," the Troft countered.
"Then your ship is dead," the Dewdrop said flatly. "Not just the bridge and sensors, Commander, but the entire ship. If Jin wrecks the bridge, it'll be hours before you can fly—you know it and we know it. Long before then we'll be there, even if we have to drop down outside your hunter/seekers' patrol range and come in on foot. And we have thirteen Cobras aboard."
A movement caught Jin's eye, and she looked up as Daulo stepped over to the spot at her side that Akim had just vacated. "Do you think he'll accept?" he asked in a whisper.
"He'd be a fool not to," Jin murmured back. "He has to have some idea of what a ship full of Cobras could do to him. Even just by myself, I could have killed half his crew if I'd wanted to."
"You should have done so," Akim growled from behind her.
"I'd like to end this mess with as little bloodshed as possible," she shot back over her shoulder. "It's enough that we chase the Trofts off Qasama; we don't have to kill them all just to underline the point. Unless the commander insists on that kind of lesson, of course."
"I do not so insist," the Troft commander said with something that sounded almost like a sigh. "Very well, Cobra: I agree to your terms. To your left is a keypad. Enter the following words."
Jin swiveled to the keypad as the Troft shifted into catertalk and gave a series of commands. "What's he telling you?" Daulo asked.
"Looks like the procedure for recalling the roving hunter/seeker missiles to the ship," she told him. A display above the keypad came alive. "Yes," she confirmed, studying it. "The missiles have been deactivated . . . they're on their way back to the ship."
"We're ready to break orbit, then, Jin," the Dewdrop said. "Shall we land near Mangus?"
"Better not—the Qasaman military may track your path in." She paused, thinking. Presumably the Qasamans weren't listening in . . . but Akim was, and she didn't want Qasaman helicopters getting to the Dewdrop before she did. On the other hand, if she shifted back to Anglic now, both Akim and Daulo might worry that she was giving the ship secret instructions.
And that bothered her. For reasons that weren't clear even to her, it had become very important to her to show that Qasama and the Cobra Worlds could trust each other at least this once. "Okay, here's how we'll do it," she said at last. "Picture Qasama as Aventine, with Mangus where Capitalia would be. Get down low where they can't track you and then take a circumspect route to Watermix. You get that?"
"Got it," the Dewdrop came back immediately. "You ready to head out to meet us?"
Jin looked at the hunter/seeker readout. If she was interpreting it correctly, the missiles were within fifteen minutes of reaching Mangus. "Yes, we're ready," she said into the mike.
"No, we're not," Akim said.
Beside her, Daulo turned and inhaled sharply. Slowly, carefully, Jin swiveled around in her seat, to find Akim standing against the opposite side of the bridge, a small device in his hand pointed at her. "What do you mean by this, Miron Akim?" she asked quietly.
"Exactly as I said," he replied, equally quietly. "We're not leaving yet. I'm claiming this ship for the Shahni of Qasama . . . and I intend to make certain it won't escape us."
Chapter 46
For several heartbeats Jin and Akim just gazed at each other. "I wondered why you went along with me on all this," Jin asked at last. "Now I know. You want the stardrive in this ship, don't you?"
"The stardrive?" Akim snorted. "You think too small, Jasmine Moreau—or perhaps too big." He waved his free hand around him, keeping the other pointed at her. "There's literally nothing aboard this ship we won't be able to use. The stardrive, the computer systems, the powerplants—even the crew's personal effects will give us information about these new enemies we face." He nodded his head slightly toward the lasers behind her under the panel. "Daulo Sammon and I had time in your absence to learn how to use those hand weapons. You were right; they are indeed powerful. All by themselves they will be worth a ransom."
Jin's eyes flicked to his hand. "Weapons mean a lot to you, don't they? That's, what, a breakapart palm-mate dart pistol?"
Akim nodded. "Designed from the one Decker York used on our people thirty years ago. We learned a great deal from your last invasion; we'll learn even more from this one. Get up, now, and go over to the hatch."
"Why?" she asked, not moving from her seat.
"I want one of those lasers behind you. This ship is staying here, and your people were kind enough to tell me how to keep it from leaving."
I can stop him, she thought. My sonic—
Would be slow enough to leave Akim time for a reflexive shot. And if the poison they'd coated the darts with was anything like the ones the original model used . . . Okay, okay, don't panic girl, Jin told herself firmly. You're still in control here. With a flick of her eyes her nanocomputer's autotarget capability was locked onto the palm-mate in Akim's hand; and with a casual curving of her hands—
She inhaled sharply as a fresh wave of agony lanced through her injured fingers. Once again, she'd forgotten about her hands.
And it left her only the antiarmor laser and arcthrower to use against the palm-mate. The first of which would vaporize Akim's hand in the process . . . the second of which would kill him out
right.
A hard knot began to form in Jin's stomach. I won't kill him, she told herself firmly. I won't. "Miron Akim, listen to me—"
"I said get up!"
"No!" Jin snapped back. "Not until you hear me out."
Akim took a deep breath, and Jin could see the knuckles on his gun hand tighten momentarily. "I don't intend to break our truce, Jasmine Moreau," he grated. "You've been of great help to us, and I won't kill you unless I have to. But I mean to have this ship."
Jin was suddenly aware of the mike still in her hand, and of the total silence from the speaker behind her. Both the Dewdrop and the Troft commander were waiting. Listening. "Miron Akim, listen to me," she said, fighting hard against the trembling in her voice as she reached behind her to set the mike down on the panel. "You don't want this ship. Qasama isn't ready for it yet."
He spat. "And you of Aventine are omniscient enough to know that, are you?"
"How are you going to control it?" Jin persisted. "You've seen how Obolo Nardin used the computers he was given—how are you going to keep someone else from doing something similar?"
"The Shahni will control the technology. They'll make sure it's used properly."
"Used by whom? Are the Shahni going to become a technocratic oligarchy, then?—doling out new technology to those they deem fit?" She shook her head. "Don't you see, Miron Akim, how something like that would change the whole texture of Qasaman society? I've seen how you do things here, the way your cities and villages each have their own unique political balance, independent from that of the next town over. Your people take great pride in this, and well they should; it's one of your society's greatest strengths. For that matter, search your records and legends—it was to escape from an overly centralized government that your ancestors left the Dominion of Man in the first place."
