Free Cobra Slave-eARC by Timothy Zahn Page B

was looking for a group of humans to take his frustrations out on. The slaves, being the only humans within his reach, had been elected.
    Still, the forced separation did make for limited lights-out conversation and a quicker settling down to sleep. Tonight, that was going to work to Merrick’s advantage.
    He waited half an hour after his auditory enhancers confirmed the last of the men had settled into the slow breathing pattern of deep sleep. Then, being careful not to disturb those on either side of him, he got up, rolled his sleeping pallet, and tucked it under his right arm. He set a target-lock on the catwalk to give his nanocomputer the range, bent his knees, and jumped. As the top of his leap brought him beneath the catwalk he slipped the fingers of his left hand through the grating, curling and locking the joints in place.
    The grate, he’d seen earlier, was made up of meter-square sections secured with bolts at each corner. He lifted his legs and braced his feet against the wall, then unrolled the pallet and laid it across his chest and legs to absorb the droplets of molten metal he was about to create. With four quick shots from his fingertip laser, he cut through the four bolts on one of the sections. Easing the gridwork out of its frame, he lifted it up and over and set it down on the next section, then pushed his pallet though the opening and followed. He replaced the loose section, spot-welded it back in place with four shorter bursts from his lasers, and headed down the catwalk, his pallet again rolled and tucked under his arm.
    Thirty seconds later, he was through the door and inside the Troft section of the ship.
    For a moment he stood still, listening with full audios to the hum of the engines, fighting against the sudden urge to do something more meaningful than simply steal a little food. If he could slip through the darkness to the heart of the ship and take control—
    Then all of them would be dead, because he hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to fly a Troft spaceship. Or even a human one, for that matter. For better or worse, he had no choice but to see this through the way Ukuthi had laid it out for him. He would find some extra food, and he would get back to the slave quarters, and that would be it for tonight.
    He took another deep breath, focusing this time on the smell. The kitchen would be the best place to look, but he had no idea where it was, and he could detect no likely aromas that might lead him there.
    But there were other possibilities. Taking a final sniff, wondering briefly if anyone had ever proposed adding olfactory enhancements to the Cobras’ repertoire, he started down the darkened corridor.
    One turn later, he found what he was looking for: an open door with soft light spilling out. Notching up his hearing, he glided toward it.
    It was, as he’d surmised, some kind of engineering monitor station. A lone Troft was sitting in front of a bank of monitors, his back to the door, his posture that of someone in a state of either complete relaxation or utter boredom.
    Throwing a quick glance both ways down the corridor, Merrick stepped inside the room. He’d been in Tlossie merchant ships a couple of times, and had noticed that monitor stations usually included a small selection of snacks and drinks for the crewers on duty. If Drim protocol worked the same way…
    It did. Just as he’d hoped, there was a small flat case fastened to the wall.
    Only instead of being beside the door near Merrick, which was where it was on Tlossie ships, this one was fastened to the left-hand wall, well within the duty crewer’s peripheral vision.
    Merrick scowled. This was going to be risky. But the option was to go back empty-handed and spend the rest of the trip watching Gina and the other children stay hungry. Bracing himself, moving as quietly as he could, he eased forward.
    He closed to within a meter of the Troft. Then, lifting his right arm, he pointed his little finger at the back of the