Cobra Alliance by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 1439133069
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2009-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

The door closed behind the Trofts, and Jin heard the click of a lock.

And she and Akim were alone.

"Well, damn," she muttered, looking around. The room had seemed empty enough a minute ago when the Trofts had led them in here. Now, on closer examination, it looked even emptier. There were nail holes in the walls where paintings had once hung, decorative hooks in the ceiling that had once supported planters or hanging artworks, and deep indentations in the carpet marking the former positions of desk, chairs, and other furniture. It looked rather like a student apartment, hastily and carelessly abandoned at the end of the term.

She frowned as the oddness of that belatedly struck her. Why would the Trofts have bothered to take down the paintings and planters? Had they been afraid their soon-to-be prisoners would somehow break free and find something in the room to use as a weapon? In that case, they'd missed the most obvious bet of all: the metal chairs she and Akim were shackled to, which weren't even bolted to the floor.

Or had the Trofts removed everything so that the prisoners wouldn't suspect hidden cameras or microphones lurking among the palm fronds? Smiling to herself, Jin keyed in her telescopic enhancements and took another, closer look at the nail holes.

There they were: a pair of tiny cameras nestled into two of the holes on opposite sides of the room. It was a little hard to tell, but one of them seemed to be angled slightly toward the door, while the other was angled toward the two prisoners. The Trofts hadn't skipped the audio, either: hanging in the near corner of the room, masquerading as a plant hook, was the telltale perforated plastic of a small microphone.

"All you all right, Niora Kutal?" Akim asked from behind her.

Using her assumed Qasaman name, which meant that he also knew or suspected they were being monitored. "I'm unharmed, Miron Akim, but highly offended," she replied stiffly. "We're ambassadors, and not to be treated in this way."

"Agreed," Akim said, and beneath his own tone of controlled outrage Jin could detect a hint of approval for her quick pickup of the situation. "The invaders will have a great deal to answer for when this is over."

"If they think this will frighten us or the Qasaman people, they're gravely mistaken," Jin agreed. Bracing herself, she activated her omnidirectional sonic.

A tingle ran through her, an unpleasant vibration as the speakers buried inside her body slipped through harmonics of natural body resonances. The pitch altered as the sound dug into the walls, seeking out similar resonances with the cameras and microphone ...

"Are we under attack?" Akim asked quietly.

Jin didn't answer, focusing instead on counting down the seconds. It was supposed to take about a minute for the sonic to find all the possible resonances and vibrate the bugs into paralyzed uselessness. She let the minute tick by, then gave it another fifteen seconds just be on the safe side. "No, that was me," she said, answering Akim's question.

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