Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [110]
Chuihv scowled, shaking his head in an exaggerated display of mock disappointment. “Mister Tucker, I know that engineering has long been your primary area of expertise. Nevertheless, I thought youd been in the espionage business long enough to understand the occasional need for thoroughgoing security purges in any clandestine organization. Im certain your friend would have agreed that such things are an unavoidable hazard of our trade.
Although Chuihvs lips continued to move, Trip suddenly found that all he could hear was an intense whistling sound. An instant later, the dissident leader interrupted his own monologue, grimacing in apparent agony as he placed his fists over his sharply pointed ears. The armed troopers looked to be suffering every bit as badly; at least one of them dropped his weapon onto the floor.
Moving almost faster than Trips eyes could follow, Terix leaped on the nearest of the distracted guards, taking her down in a bone-crushing tackle that sent her weapon flying.
Trip wasted no time diving toward the floor. “Get down! he yelled toward the owl-eyed academics, none of whom had yet taken the simple expedient of ducking beneath their table for cover.
Chuihv/Sopek had already collapsed to his knees, as had fully half his armed people. Of the remaining three, one was unconscious thanks to Terixs quick action. Trip landed a hard right cross on anothers jaw before the disoriented man could get his weapon pointed in the right direction.
Terix blew a large, charred hole right through the chest of the last of them even as Trip grabbed up one of the fallen guards weapons.
“Stay right where you are! Terix shouted, holding one of the troopers pistols before him in a double-handed combat grip.
It took Trip a startled moment to understand that the centurion was addressing him, rather than Chuihv or any of his people. A heartbeat or two later, Trip realized that he and Terix were the only people in the room who were still conscious.
“What the hell happened? Trip asked. It had all started with that peculiar, transient whistling sound.
“Put the weapon down, Terix said. His weapons muzzle was pointed straight at Trips head in a gesture of unambiguous menace. Across a distance of maybe four meters, there was no way the centurion was going to miss if he were to open fire.
“Settle down, Terix, Trip said as he made a careful show of allowing a weapon to fall from his hand for the second time today.
When Terix spoke again, his voice seemed to be unnaturally loud. “That man has my weapon. Pausing, he gestured toward one of the unconscious troopers who lay on the floor nearby. “Lift it out of his belt. Slowly. Then drop it on the floor and kick it over here.
Trip nodded silently, and did as the centurion instructed. From what hed observed of the weapon, he knew hed never get the safety setting disengaged before Terix burned him up like a Roman candle. Or a Romulan candle, he thought absurdly.
A few moments later, Terix had recovered his weapon. While covering Trip with the troopers pistol in his left hand, he manipulated a switch on the handle of his own weapon with his right. He then holstered the weapon in his left hand, apparently content to keep it as a backup for the one he kept pointed at Trips head.
With his free hand, Terix removed two small objects from inside his ears, first the right, then the left.
Understanding began to dawn on Trip. That was no safety catch on his weapon, he thought, appreciating the engineering ingenuity involved as much as the tactical genius. It was some sort of ultrasonic attack. Something that works on a frequency so high that only dogs and Romulans can hear it. Unless theyre wearing protective earplugs.
Or theyre not really Romulans in the first place.
“We are not leaving together, Terix said as he took a single menacing step in Trips direction. “Commander Tucker.
I didnt fall down the way everybody