Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [86]
Caber came to stand over him, the angle accentuating the difference in their sizes. He pointed a thick, trembling finger at Nikolas and growled, “Stay out of this!”
“I can’t,” Nikolas insisted, his words slurred by the pain and stiffness in his jaw. He began to get up, hoping he could still keep Obal from harm.
But Caber had other ideas. As Nikolas got his feet underneath him, the other man launched a kick at his friend’s face. Nikolas was too surprised by the unrestrained viciousness of the attack to defend himself. All he had time to do was turn his face away.
Caber’s kick wound up smashing Nikolas in the side of the head with the fury of a phaser blast, putting him on his back again. For a moment, the ensign was too dazed to move. Then, his ear a fiery agony, he rolled over on his belly in an attempt to get up and stop the other man.
But it seemed that Caber was done with him for the moment. He was going after Obal again, his finger pointed at the helpless Binderian in an unmistakable promise of violence.
Nikolas groped for his combadge, found it, and tapped it. “Security to the gym,” he mumbled through his pain, his voice sounding strange and distant, as if it were someone else’s.
Then he thrust himself up onto all fours. It would take security a few minutes to get there, he told himself. In that time, Caber could inflict on Obal what he had inflicted on Nikolas.
Or worse.
Staggering to his feet, he saw Caber close with Obal. Too late, he thought. Too late.
Caber was going to take out the rest of his anger on the Binderian. And as fragile as Obal looked, there was no guarantee he would survive the beating.
But as Caber reached for Obal’s neck, something unexpected happened: the Binderian flung up one of his skinny arms and deflected the human’s attempt to grab him. Then, turning sideways, he lashed out awkwardly with one of his feet and speared Caber in the knee, eliciting a deep-throated cry of pain.
As Caber leaned over to grasp his injured joint, Obal struck again. He drove the heel of his hand into the ensign’s forehead, straightening him up and causing him to stagger backward a couple of steps.
Pressing his advantage, the Binderian rushed forward and, with blinding quickness, bounded feet first into Caber’s chest. The impact slammed the human into the bulkhead behind him, snapping his head back and forcing a groan out of him.
It was then that Nikolas realized that the doors to the gym were open and that Pug Joseph and a couple of his security officers were already across the threshold, their mouths hanging open as they watched Obal in action.
Caber, meanwhile, was no longer a threat. He slid down the bulkhead like a bag of assorted and unrelated bones, his eyes closed, a trickle of blood visible in the corner of his mouth.
Nikolas wondered if he had lost consciousness and dreamed it all. He was still wondering when Obal scurried to his side and put his spindly arm around him.
“Are you all right?” the Binderian wheezed.
Nikolas nodded. “Fine,” he wheezed.
By that time, Joseph had joined them. The other security officers were attending to Caber.
“What just happened?” the security chief asked Obal.
Looking apologetic, the Binderian shrugged his narrow, rounded shoulders. “I regret to inform you that Mr. Caber and I have had disagreements in the past. However—”
“They weren’t disagreements,” Nikolas interjected. “Caber didn’t like him. He bullied him.”
Joseph frowned at him. “I’d appreciate it if you would let Ensign Obal speak for himself.”
Nikolas controlled himself. “Aye, sir.”
The security chief turned to the Binderian again. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’m listening.”
Obal sighed. “As I said, we have had disagreements. I ignored them for the sake of decorum.” He glanced at Nikolas. “However, Ensign Nikolas chose this occasion to come to my aid, and was injured for his trouble. On Binderia, we call someone who