Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [3]
Oak Squad thundered forward relentlessly, their phaser rifles tight against their chests. As Stiles led his men across the patterned brick, he saw that just the raw heat from the coach’s VTOL thrusters had scorched some of the bricks nearly black and pitted them beyond repair, destroying the geometric design in the historic courtyard.
His boots felt secure and thick as he crunched over the litter of broken glass, smashed fruit, and rocks that had been thrown by the doters, who were now milling around the fighters and the coach. These Pojjan people were stocky and thick, with strong round cheekbones and bronze complexions tinged with an olive patina, reminding Stiles of Aztec paintings seen under a green filter. They wore various clothing, from the men’s ordinary shirts and pants or the women’s shift like dresses to the brightly beaded tribal tunics and leggings he’d seen on travel posters.
The travel agencies might as well rip those posters up. Nobody was going to want to come to this dump anymore.
He cast the rioters a threatening glance or two, but although some were touching the ships’ landing struts they weren’t doing anything destructive. Not yet anyway. If anything happened, the escort pilots would zap them. So he kept moving forward at a pace, letting the natives swerve out of his way. He led the squad manfully through a large puddle of fuel, some of which was still gulping out of a discarded and dented container. Their boots splattered it and freshened the stench. Thirty meters.
Cries of anger, protest, and insult at Starfleet’s intrusion into their courtyard grew louder, as the squad jogged across the brick plateau. Stiles didn’t understand the Pojjan language, but some of these people were shouting in English or Vulcan and waving get-out-of-town banners in English, apparently smart enough to know how to get to the Federation personnel.
It’s getting to me. I’m allowing it to shake me. Just do the job, get the people out of the embassy, into the coach, and lift off Ignore the crowd. Just ignore them.
At his right elbow, Travis Perraton was watching a gang of Po’ljan teenagers on the other side of the embassy fence. A flash of flame-the teenagers were lighting up a fuel-soaked towel.
“They can’t throw that this far, can they?” Blake asked from behind Stiles.
“They don’t have to,” Perraton said. “We’re jogging toward puddles of kerosene.”
“Gasoline;’ Midshipman Jeremy White corrected from the flank.
“Stinks” Dan Moose added, then cast to the man on his left, “Make room, Foster” “Sorry.”
“Bag the noise;’ Stiles snapped, turning his head briefly to the right. “Don’t splash through the gas. If we get it on our uniforms, we’re in big trouble.”
And that was his error-that one glance over his shoulder. A stunning force struck his left shin just below the kneepad, driving his entire leg out behind him. Blown forward by the force of his own movement, Stiles let out a single strangled yell, leaped forward over a slick of gasoline, and crashed to the bricks just beyond the slick. Though he evaded the gas, he slid sidelong into a pile of garbage dumped on the courtyard. Managing to thrust his arms out, he somehow kept from landing on his phaser rifle, which instead clattered to the brick and butted him in the face shield, then scratched across his bared jaw. If his visor had been up, the rifle would’ve taken out his teeth.
A blunt force rammed into his lower back-a boot-as Carter tumbled over Stiles, crumpling to the bricks on top of the garbage. Carter rolled and ended up on one knee.
With his jaw and knee throbbing, Stiles tightened his body, twisted onto his side, and brandished his weapon at the laughing crowd as his face flushed with humiliation. They were laughing at him. His fantasy of a clockwork mission had just cracked and blown up before his eyes.
Bile rose in his throat, a rashy heat down his legs.