Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [96]
He put out a hand, though he didn’t really know what to do when the ambassador abruptly grabbed the protruding two inches of the metal shard and simply slid it out of his leg.
“You’re not supposed to pull out something that’s sticking in you like that!” Stiles protested. “What if it hit an artery? You could bleed to death!”
“I clot well.” Spock tossed the shard into the scorched grass and pressed the heel of his hand tightly to the wound. “I must be able to maneuver, and certainly a metal implement in my leg would be troublesome.”
Stiles stood up again and looked around. “They’ll be here any minute. We can take cover in those hills… I’ve heard of people digging down a few feet and finding the hollows made by ancient root systems that aren’t there anymore.” In the blast-flattened grass, tie found a large piece of a support strut with the bolt still attached in one end. “We can dig with this. I think I can hide you for a while in there, mid after nightfall we can make it into the foothills.” “Commander… would you consider-“
“No, I will not consider leaving you and going off on my own. That’s not even in the picture, so don’t think about it. If you’ll let me help you up …. “
Holding his digger in one hand, he slipped the other arm around the ambassador, who allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Smeared with Vulcan blood, their clothing scorched, hair filthy, they hitched their way out of the almost invisible depression that had saved both their lives by allowing the blast wave to pass over them instead of deep-frying them into the ground. Any minute now a patrol would show up to investigate the blast, which probably showed up on every scanner on this part of the continent. Obviously, too, the Pojjana must’ve known they’d caught something in that gravity-weird contraption.
“This way, sir.” He drew Spock along, dismayed that the Vulcan seemed not to be helping much. “We’ll hide until night, then we can make a bivouac in the hills and figure out a way to defend it. There they are! I see a plane! Come on, before they spot us!”
Chapter Twenty
STILES PRESSED FORWARD, aiming for the shadowy protection of the rocklands ahead. He could hear the distant murmur of the plane’s engine, recognized the type of aircraft, and made his bets.
“They’re still miles away,” he gasped, pulling Spock along, “but even if they spot us they can’t land on this terrain. They’ll have to send a recon hoverscout with a patrol team to flush us out. If we can make it to the hills-” “Commander?”
“Don’t worry, I can take more of your weight. We can’t slow down. If we can make it to-” “Of course, Mr. Stiles, but I do have a question.” “What’s that, sir?” “From whom are we hiding?” “Watch that rock-don’t trip!” “From whom,” Spock repeated, “are we about to hide?” “The authorities. They’ll be here any time-” “And to whom… did we come here to speak?”
Stiles dragged the ambassador along another five or six steps before this sank in. As the drone of the aircraft drew closer to the bomb site, he felt his face screw up in a frown of confusion and doubt. Something just didn’t seem right about this.
The ambassador tentatively put more weight on his injured leg.
Stiles shifted back and forth on his own feet and finally met Spock’s eyes. “I’m doing it again, aren’t IT’
Spock bobbed an eyebrow, flattened his lips, and charitably avoided nodding.
While digesting that little nugget, Stiles lowered the ambassador onto the first sitting-sized rock they’d come upon, a harbinger of the fact that they could’ve made it to cover if logic hadn’t gotten in the way.
They remained still, unresisting, out in the open, as the Pojjana aircraft buzzed the scene of the explosion and Stiles thought his arms and legs were going to fall off with the urge to run again, hide, defend-The plane strafed the flattened beam emitter for several seconds before veering abruptly toward them. His spine shriveled. They’d been spotted. ‘They’ve seen us,” Spock said with