I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Where are you going?" Akim frowned, his voice dark with suspicion.

"To try and put a wrench into Obolo Nardin's plans. Seal the hatch after me, and don't open it again until I signal-three knocks, two knocks, four knocks; got it?" She turned back toward the hatch... paused at the odd expression on Daulo's face. "You all right?" she asked.

He tried twice before he got the words out. "You shot them down in cold blood."

She glanced down at the dead Trofts. "It was self defense, Daulo Sammon," she bit out. "Our lives or theirs, pure and simple."

But the words sounded strangely hollow in her ears; and even through the agony in her hands she could feel a twinge of guilt. Her grandfather, in very similar circumstances, had only destroyed his enemies' weapons... "And anyway," she snarled abruptly, turning her back on him, "whoever's running this operation needs a good object lesson. They're going to learn that fiddling around with human beings' lives is a damn costly proposition."

She stepped to the hatch and unsealed it. Or, rather, tried to. But her fingers seemed dead on her hands, and Daulo had to come over and do it for her. "Can you tell us what you're planning?" he asked quietly.

"I'm going to try and short-circuit Obolo Nardin's escape route." She paused for a moment, listening. If anyone was in the monitor intersection, he was keeping quiet about it. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

Chapter 44

The monitor intersection was still deserted, but Jin knew it wouldn't be that way for long. Slipping through the collision door, she left the command module and headed aft down the neck, taking long loping strides that gave adequate speed while still allowing her time between steps to listen.

She was about halfway down the neck when she heard approaching footsteps, and she risked taking another two strides before ducking into one of the rooms lining the corridor. Standing just inside, her ear pressed against the door, she listened as four Trofts hurried past. Have they realized they've got intruders on their bridge? she wondered uneasily. But it wasn't a question she could afford to dwell on. Daulo and Akim wouldn't have been any safer anywhere else... and anyway, the Trofts would surely try to get their bridge back intact before resorting to anything violent.

She waited until the footsteps had faded completely before opening the door and slipping out. Luck continued to be with her, and she reached the end of the neck without encountering any more Trofts. She stepped from of the neck into the large cargo/engineering section with a sigh of relief-here, at least, she would have room to maneuver if it came to a fight. And with many of the Trofts presumably working back here...

She paused as a sudden idea struck her. Interfering with the loading back there was all well and good... but if she could cut down the opposition at the same time...

She retraced her steps to the base of the ship's neck. Sure enough, the edge of a blast door was visible right where the cargo/engineering section began. The manual control for it had to be nearby... there. Hauling on the lever, she watched as the heavy metal disk slid silently across the corridor, cutting her off from the front of the ship. If the door was connected to an automatic alarm...

But no sirens or horns went off. Must be tied into the decompression sensors instead, she decided, looking for a way to seal the door. There was of course no lock; but she still seemed to be unobserved, and a two-second burst from her antiarmor laser did an adequate job of spot-welding it. The welds wouldn't hold longer than a half-hour or so, even if they were trying not to completely destroy the door in the process. But if she was lucky, a half-hour would be all they'd need.

She continued on into the cargo/engineering section, switching from the main corridor to a smaller-and hopefully less traveled-parallel one. Staying alert, she headed back toward the aft entryway and the loading tower there.

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.