Free Cobra Gamble by Timothy Zahn

goes?"
    "Not really," Paul said. "Jin? You have a preference?"
    Jin eyed the two Caelians. Everette Beach was a big man, a couple of years younger than her own fifty-two, with a lot of gray sprinkling his brown hair and a seemingly permanent half-grin on his face. Wendell McCollom, who also happened to be Jennifer's husband, was even bigger, though he usually maintained a more serious air than his colleague. Possibly something that had rubbed off from his wife, who was apparently the closest thing Caelian had to an expert on matters Qasaman and Troft. Both men, Jin suspected, had probably been formidable fighters in their youthful days, even before they became Cobras. "Everette will go," she decided. "I'm also thinking Carsh Zoshak should be the one to accompany him. He's been inside Milika, and therefore knows both the area and the village layout."
    "Your reasoning is sound," Siraj said, nodding. "Djinni Zoshak? Retrieve your outer clothing and two survival bags and meet Cobra Beach at the spookers."
    Fifteen minutes later, dressed in Qasaman clothing and equipped with survival bags, the two men zoomed out of the clearing on their battered grav-lift cycle and disappeared into the forest.
    "I'll take the first watch," Wendell volunteered. "The rest of you can head downstairs and get something to eat."
    "I should probably stay with you," Jin offered. "I know the local predators. You don't."
    "Don't worry about it," Wendell assured her. "Anything with teeth or claws gets too close, I'll just kill it. Once I've got a collection, you can come and tell me which is which."
    Jin grimaced. Still, the razorarms were the most dangerous predators out here, and with mojos riding herd on them they should steer clear of human scent. "Just don't let them get too close," she warned. "And use your sonic whenever possible. Laser shots will start being more and more visible as the sun goes down."
    "Thank you; I had figured that one out," Wendell said dryly. "One of you can relieve me in a couple of hours. Oh, and make sure Jennifer eats too, will you? She sometimes gets so busy she forgets."
    "We'll force-feed her if we have to," Paul promised. "See you in two hours."
    * * *
    Jin, Lorne, and Wendell had unanimously decided that Paul and his damaged leg weren't fit to stand guard. They had thus taken it with varying degrees of consternation when he calmly pulled rank as senior Cobra present and added himself to the sentry rotation anyway.
    He was midway through the third watch shift, shivering with the unexpected nighttime chill and wondering whether perhaps he should have just let the others give him a night off, when he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.
    He had levered himself into an upright position and had his thumbs resting lightly on the triggers of his fingertip lasers when the spooker floated into view between the trees and coasted to a haft.
    "Over here," Paul called softly as Zoshak and Beach started to dismount. Beach nodded and kicked the spooker forward, crossing the clearing and bringing the grav-lift cycle to a second halt beside Paul. "I wasn't expecting you back until morning," Paul said, notching up his light-amps. There was a hard set to both men's faces. "Do they have Milika blocked off?"
    "No, we reached the village just fine," Beach said grimly. "We also heard the Trofts' demands, which they seem to be blasting over a loudspeaker once an hour."
    "They want your son, Paul Broom," Zoshak said quietly. "He's to surrender himself to them by dawn or they'll begin destroying the village."
    "I see," Paul said, dimly surprised at how calm he sounded. Jin had called it, ah right. The Trofts had come to Milika for the express purpose of smoking Merrick out.
    And now his earnest, conscientious son was being forced into the most horrible choice any human being could ever face: whether or not to offer himself in exchange for the lives of innocent people.
    "The villagers are Qasamans, Cobra Broom, and they're at war," Zoshak