Trap Line

A Short Story

De: Timothy Zahn

Narrado por: Greg D. Barnett

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.

©2025 by Timothy Zahn. (P)2025 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Intriguing Story with a Unique Solution

I was surprised and delighted to see a short story from Timothy Zahn on Kindle Unlimited. As a huge fan of his Star Wars novels, I wanted to read some of his new work. This was an intriguing short story about a traveler who is caught in trap and how he works together with some aliens with a unique solution to the problem that helps everyone involved. Greg D. Barnett does a fantastic job on the audiobook version with a lively narration. Still hoping for more Grand Admiral Thrawn books in Star Wars, he is missed.

Interesting, fun, and short

I really enjoyed the premise and how it unfolded. The story requires some suspension of disbelief, but it was worth it. Looking forward to more from this author.

A Very Human Story

Astral projection at its best, with a small but interesting cast of characters Inter species cooperation and a great ending.

Entertaining

This is a fantastic story about space age antics. Humorous and fun. I really enjoyed the characters.

Wow! Great! It's nice to see that Timothy Zahn hasn't lost his touch!

Wow! Great! It's been a while since I've read a book by Timothy Zahn, but I see that he hasn't lost his touch. And this short story proves it. This is a story about Toby trapped in an alien world on the Astral Plane. But he's not alone... other beings are trapped with him, and with the help of a iguana cat he plans on not only making his escape but taking his new friends with him. So yeah grab the book and audiobook while they're free on Amazon prime! Ohhhh and the narrator is stellar!

You really gotta give this a try!

Timothy‘s Zahn is amazing. And he knows how to write a great story. Very cool sci-fi adventure. Humans and aliens traveling out of body to reach places very exciting. And the end was applause worthy too.

Interesting Scifi Short Story

Good story and environment for speculative fiction, kept me interested though the ending. I will check into listening to some more stories by the author.

Great Zahn short break

Zahn at his best, enjoyed a concise and well told hour long story that didn't need to be anovel!!

A quick and clever story!

I was sceptical that any short story Timothy would write couldn't be adapted into a plot to a bigger book but this felt great. A snack sized adventure with the same clever problem solving I'm used to from his books.

Brilliant Creative

What an excellent idea and execution of science fiction. This is the kind of thing that made me fall in love with science fiction in the first place, over half a century ago. Thank you, Timothy Zahn! 🤓