Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [98]
His hands were ice. Emblazoned on the flank of the scout, the Pojjana symbol of a gray lighting bolt crossed by a red arrow seemed alive to him, a swollen symbol of his captivity. Those terrors and miseries rushed back at him. His legs trembled so violently that he could barely stand. Only Spock’s steadying presence kept him from bolting, a spontaneity which would’ve fried him to a flake at the edge of the containment field. Strange-he knew that if he were the senior “eminence” here and his crewmates were with him, he wouldn’t be so shaky. He would never let them bolt. How there could be two men in one suit- “HOLD POSITION? the scout’s broadcaster boomed, so loud it knocked Stiles back a step.
Spock held up both hands in a surrendering gesture. Stiles couldn’t manage that. His hands were frozen at his sides, his chest heaving, his leg muscles bound up.
“Relax, Mr. Stiles,” Spock called over the scout’s hum as the craft nestled into the crusty burned stubble, his dark eyes squinted into shafts.
Without looking at him, Stiles gulped, “Remember what happened last time you told me that?”
The Pojjana craft settled completely and gave off a loud hiss as its antigravs equalized. The sight of Pojjana guards lumbering down the hatch ramp as it crashed down gave Stiles a cramp in the middle of his gut. All four guards and a sergeant came thundering out and leveled firearms at them.
“Our sidearms are completely drained,” Spock stated in passably fluent Pojjana to the sergeant who came to face them down. “We wish to speak to the planetary authorities.”
“You are aliens,” the sergeant said with malice, and confiscated their phasers instantly, drained or not. “This is Red Sector. We’re supposed to be left alone.”
Beside Stiles, the ambassador struggled to stand despite the fact that everyone could see his leg was bleeding. Spock faced the sergeant at eye level.
“Things change, Officer,” he said. “I am Ambassador Spock of the United Federation of Planets, former emissary to the Pojjana Assembly. This is-” “Don’t tell them,” Stiles whispered.
Spock instantly revised. “This is the commander of the transport ship you nearly brought down. We destroyed the emitter in self-defense. We have no aggressive intentions. We have a proposal for the provincial exarch.” “We have no exarch anymore. That position was eradicated.” “Who is in charge?” “The provost of the works.”
Spock tipped his head. “That is the supreme authority on the planet?” “That’s right.” “Please take us to this person.”
The sergeant shook his head. His helmet reflected light from the clearing sky. “You’ll be incarcerated in the provincial prison until you come to trial for invasion.”
“We must be allowed to see the senior authority. This is a matter of interstellar importance.”
“I’ll put you where I want to put you” the sergeant said. “Then I’ll wait to be asked what happened? Stiles beat down a shudder. “Nothing really changes.”
“We cannot wait,” Spock told the sergeant. “If you withhold us, you will be blunting advancement of a critical mission. Do you wish your name to be prominent when the provost discovers that he was not informed?”
The sergeant stood with an unreadable expression for a few silent seconds, then gestured them toward the scout’s ramp and the four other guards waiting to funnel them inside.
“Clear them for energy signals,” the sergeant ordered to his men, and one of them came forward.
The guard lowered his firearm, whipped out some kind of scanner, and ran it over Stiles from ears to toes, then over Spock, front, back, and both sides.
“No active energy or signals of any kind,” the guard confirmed. “No readings”
“He told you we were unarmed” Stiles complained, knowing that he wouldn’t have believed it either.
The sergeant stepped aside and leveled his own weapon. “Go in.”
Obviously there wasn’t much more to be done here. Stiles’s jaw ached to speak up, spit who he was and insist on some kind of instant retribution, but a thousand warnings clogged his throat. He was in command of the ship, not the mission. ff they found out