Trap Line

A Short Story

By: Timothy Zahn

Narrated by: 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.

Cool Idea, Boring Execution

Pros: cool starting idea, good narration, some interesting moments

Cons: boring story, not fun overall

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.

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.