Cobra Bargain

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."

The words were barely out of her mouth when, abruptly, the rumble swelled to a roar and a piercing ultrasonic whine rose to accompany it. "It's moving!" Daulo shouted over the noise, waving back at the ship.

Jin glanced over her shoulder. My God, he's right, she thought, stu

They needed no urging. Flinging open the building door, they sprinted out across a short patch of bare ground to the wall. Even here the air was becoming noticeably warmer; if they were anywhere near the nozzles when the Trofts kicked the drive to full power, Jin knew, they would stand a good chance of being charred on their feet.

They passed the edge of the wall at a dead run, and it took only a glance to see that there was nothing anywhere that could possibly serve as cover. "That way!"

Akim shouted into the din, waving his arm to the right as he turned to run that direction. "Around the corner of the wall!"

It was the best they were going to get. Akim in the lead, they tore along the wall toward the south-east point of the Mangus diamond-shape a hundred meters away. Jin's left knee flashed stabs of pain with each step; gritting her teeth against the agony, she forced herself to keep going. Behind and to her side, she heard Daulo panting with the effort-sensed him stumble-

"Daulo!" She skidded to a halt and grabbed for his arm, gasping with pain as she reflexively tried to close her hand.

"No!" he panted, waving her forward. "Just go-never mind me-"

The rest of his protest was swallowed up in a sudden blast of sound from beyond the wall. Jin didn't hesitate; throwing one arm across Daulo's back and the other behind his knees, she lifted him bodily and ran.

She nearly made it. Akim was around the corner, and she and Daulo were within five paces, when the landscape in front of them abruptly flared with light and an incredible wave of heat washed over them from behind. In her arms Daulo cried out; blinking back tears, Jin fought to keep her balance against the hurricane windstorm behind them. She reached the corner-tried to turn-

And from seemingly out of nowhere Akim's arm darted out, grabbing Jin's just above the elbow and spi

For a few seconds Jin couldn't speak... but then, for that same time neither of the others would have been able to hear her, anyway. The roar from the Troft ship was deafening-far louder than she would have expected it to be-and seemed to go on forever. Finally-finally-it began to ease, and within a few seconds had faded to a whine in the distance.

Leaving behind it the crackling of fire.

"God in heaven-they've set Mangus on fire!" Akim snarled suddenly, leaping up and disappearing around the corner in the direction of the wall opening.

Jin scrambled to her feet and took a few steps back from the wall. Sure enough, the overhead canopy was flickering with reflected light from the flames beneath it. On the ground in front of her, Daulo said something under his breath.

"What?" she asked, stepping closer.

"I said they were fools." Gingerly, Daulo propped himself up on an elbow, took a deep breath. "If they'd wanted to destroy their half of Mangus properly, they should have had a self-destruct set up ahead of time. Now they're always going to wonder what they left behind we might be able to use."

"Good," Jin said grimly. "Maybe that fear will keep them from coming back and trying this again. Odd that they'd panic like that, though; once they were rid of us, they really had all the time they needed to do their cleanup properly."

Daulo chuckled. "No, they didn't." He squinted toward the sky. "Take a look."

Frowning, Jin peered skyward... and felt her throat tighten.