Cobra Outlaw - eARC by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online

Anya’s Plan A didn’t pan out.
    There was a quiet rustling in the undergrowth to Merrick’s right. Carefully, he turned his head to look.
    This particular animal hadn’t yet shown up on his brief tour of Muninn’s wildlife. But it was a good meter and a half long, it had the short neck, wide jaws, and long teeth of a predator, and it was moving stealthily in their direction.
    If it had been broad daylight, Merrick would simply have fired a double burst from his fingertip lasers into the creature’s half-open mouth and been done with it. Unfortunately, with Troft aircars presumably still flitting around up there, a flash of even muted artificial light would be dangerous.
    Something a little more subtle was called for. Watching the animal’s infrared signature closely, Merrick fired off a short burst from his sonic.
    The IR pattern changed, and for a couple of seconds the creature seemed to stagger. Then the pattern returned to its original form, the animal regained its balance, and with only a brief hesitation it resumed its stalking approach.
    Merrick grimaced. Unfortunately, that was the more or less what he’d expected to happen. Cobras had two sets of implanted sonics: one designed to shatter glass and other resonant breakables, as well as interfering with listening devices; the other tuned to stun or disorient Trofts. The former would be of no use against an animal, and he’d now confirmed that the latter wasn’t hitting any of the predator’s vulnerable frequencies.
    Merrick’s gear also included a current-based stunner, which would almost certainly put the predator down for the count. Unfortunately, the stunner worked off Merrick’s arcthrower, which would flash even more brightly than the fingertip lasers.
    All of which, even more unfortunately, only left Merrick one option.
    Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out the control bar he’d taken from his hang glider and got a grip on one end. The animal paused, as if evaluating this new move on the part of its prey, then continued inching forward. Merrick waited until it was just within reach, then leaned over and tapped the tip of the bar lightly against the top of its snout.
    The animal snorted, twitching against what its brain probably registered as an annoying insect. Merrick tapped it again, and this time the predator snapped its head up and grabbed the end of the rod.
    And with the animal’s jaws partially open, Merrick swiveled around on his hip, pressed his left heel against the gap between the upper and lower teeth, and fired his antiarmor laser down its throat.
    He’d been concerned that, even with the blast mostly contained, enough of the light might leak out to create a danger. Fortunately, the sharply back-angled teeth had put his heel well inside the jawline when he fired, and the only visible flicker was off the tongue and roof of the mouth. The creature collapsed and lay still.
    “Is it dead?”
    Merrick looked over at Anya. She hadn’t moved, but her eyes were open. The variegated IR pattern of her face was still changing—clearly, she hadn’t been awake very long. “If it isn’t, it will be soon,” he said. “How are you doing?”
    “Well enough,” she said, reaching up and briefly rubbing her eyes. She lowered her hands, and Merrick saw that her IR image had again changed with the newly altered blood flow. “Why did you let me sleep?”
    “You seemed to need it,” Merrick told her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone conk out so soundly lying on leaves and half-buried roots. Though after sleeping on a mat on the Sollas subcity concrete, I suppose even tree roots are an improvement.”
    “As you say, I was tired.” She hunched her shoulders and pulled herself up into a sitting position. “Shall we go?”
    “In a minute,” Merrick said. “I need to ask you a couple of things first.”
    “Questions can until we’re safely in the refuge.”
    “The questions are about the refuge,” Merrick told her.
    Her IR