Broken Bow - Diane Carey [57]
The third and final restraint slapped to the floor. Klaang, now free, suddenly erupted. He raised his arm, clubbed Tucker in the chest, and very easily blew the engineer across the room. Tucker landed in a heap, shocked. Klaang stood to his full height and ripped the tubes and wires from his limbs.
Locking his stance, Archer raised his weapon—the interstellar common language.
“I really don’t want to have to carry you out of here,” he warned.
Klaang grew much more passive in the face of the unfriendly weapon. He wisely hesitated.
“I think he gets the idea,” Archer said. “Give him a hand.”
Tucker hesitated, too, not wanting to get close to the enormity again, but he steeled himself and gave Klaang a supporting hand as they followed Archer out the door.
Bearing the weight of the huge Klingon, Tucker rapidly became a gasping lump following Archer through the corridor.
“Qu’taw boh!” the Klingon roared, half dazed.
“Be quiet,” Archer snapped.
“Muh tok!”
A blast tore a chunk out of the wall. Suliban soldiers!
Archer dove to the left, Tucker and Klaang to the right, for cover.
“Dajvo Tagh! Borat!”
“You tell him, big guy.” Tucker hid behind the Klingon—or was he pinned back there?
“Give me the box,” Archer called.
Trip slid the silver case’s strap off his shoulder and handed it to him. Just then, a Suliban attacker rushed into view from an adjoining corridor and caught them by surprise. As the Suliban took aim at Archer and Tucker, the Klingon suddenly rose like a grizzly bear.
The Suliban was caught under its chin and went flying into a bulkhead. Klaang followed him, caught him, and joyously pounded him unconscious.
A moment later he simply turned and came back to Archer and Tucker, rumbling with satisfaction.
“Thanks,” Tucker said—more of that interstellar language.
But their moment of unity was ruined by another Suliban, and another after him, and more weapons blasting at them.
“Get to the ship!” Archer ordered. “I’ll be right behind you!”
Tucker shot him a horrified look, but he had agreed not to argue. Getting the Klingon off was the important thing. Tucker grabbed the mountainous stranger and hauled him down the corridor.
Archer crouched, alone now, with the silver case. He removed the rectangular device and attached it with its own magnetics to the nearest wall, then activated it with the encoded authorization.
Then he dropped to his knees and covered his head, and hoped to live.
CHAPTER 15
A LOW-PITCHED WHINE deafened Archer as he huddled too near the magnetic damper. Only two seconds passed before the device emitted a blinding pulse of energy that radiated in all directions.
Archer was blown over onto his side. As the light receded, he struggled to his feet and found all his arms and legs still with him. The corridor was trembling, shuddering! Thousands of magnetic docking ports unlocking—
The floor began to separate under his feet—the entire corridor was splitting in two! Force fields flashed on as the interlocking elements making up this section of the aggregate lost their cohesion. He was cut off.
He had no choice but to turn and run in the other direction, and hope Tucker and Klaang got through.
The entire upper section of the Suliban aggregate was dismantling over Archer’s head. He imagined the huge sections, comprised of dozens of cell ships, disengaging from the central mass, tumbling away into the blue atmosphere, powerless and pilotless.
“Captain? Captain!” Tucker’s voice called at him under the boom and clack of disengagement.
Archer found a corner to duck behind and clawed for his communicator. “It worked,” he said without formality.
“Where are you?”
“I’m still in the central core. Get Klaang back to Enterprise.”
“What about you, sir?”
“Get him back to the ship! You can come back for me.”
Lies, all lies.
“It’s going to be hard to isolate your biosigns,” Tucker protested. “So stay as far away from the Suliban as you can.”
Archer breathed a gush of relief that Tucker intended to follow the very hard order to leave someone behind.