Trap Line

Trap Line

A Short Story

Timothy Zahn

Publication
March 25, 2025

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About the Book

An engineer’s groundbreaking solo mission is rudely interrupted when he stumbles into an interstellar trap. The New York Times bestselling author of the Thrawn trilogy is back with a wholly original short story of first contact.

En route to far-off stars, Toby’s consciousness has a crucial mission: inhabit his clone long enough to repair a spaceship, then zip back to Earth. He’s done it a million times, more or less. OK, twelve times. It should only take a few hours.

Until he wakes up in jail. And he’s not alone.

His fellow prisoners: a cadre of alien soldiers. His prison: an ethereal boundary that will imprison their spirits until their bodies die. His jailers can’t even see him. But their pet cat (er, iguana cat?) can—and it’s got a serious case of the zoomies.

With humanity’s place in the odd and ever-widening universe riding on Toby’s choices, it’s time to saddle up for a ghostly game of cat and mouse.

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About the author

Timothy Zahn

Timothy Zahn is a name that has become synonymous with science fiction, particularly in the world of Star Wars literature. Born in 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, Zahn’s path to becoming one of the most respected authors in the genre was anything but ordinary. His early fascination with science fiction sparked a lifelong…

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