Kobayashi Maru - Michael A. Martin [39]
Shit. At least two of em are in here with us.
“Are you armed, Cunaehr? Ehrehin said quietly, a fearful quaver in his voice.
“Dont talk anymore, Trip whispered back, ignoring the question. Though he didnt, in fact, have an effective weapon within handy reach, he didnt want to admit it out loud. Keeping the bad guys guessing about things like that was always the best policy in this sort of situation.
“Stay here, Trip whispered directly into Ehrehins ear. Despite the darkness, he was close enough to Ehrehin to see that the old man was beside himself, owl-eyed with commingled fear and outrage.
Trip heard another noise coming from the front of the lab, the direction from which the disruptor bolt had originated. Someones feet moved slowly and stealthily forward. No one was visible as yet behind the farrago of tables, desks, bookcases, and computer terminals scattered about the room, so the shooter had to be crouching, keeping his profile low.
Taking his cue from the intruders, Trip slowlyand quietlycombat-crawled toward the source of the intermittent sound before him. A moment later, another disruptor blast cleaved the air above him, at perhaps chest level.
Trip grinned as he imagined a pairhe hoped it was only a pairof assassins, hunkered down on the floor much as he was, at opposite sides of the lab. They dont know exactly where to shoot just yet. And they have to fire high to protect each other. He wondered whether the assassins tactics implied that they lacked night-vision equipment, or were merely displaying an overabundance of caution.
As he inched forward toward the edge of a storage cabinet, Trips hand brushed against a padd that hed evidently knocked to the floor when hed tackled Ehrehin. He picked it up and felt its reassuring heft. It was solid, square, and not too badly balanced. Taking care to remain silent, Trip rose to a crouch, clutching the little device nearly hard enough to shatter it.
More motion, this time coming from the right side in his peripheral vision. Without thinking, he turned and hurled the padd with every ounce of strength he could muster. Moving from a crouch to a full run, he wasted no time chasing the object hed thrown, shouting as he executed a flying tackle on the source of the movement.
He landed hard and found himself lying directly atop a supine humanoid bodyone that was very much alive and struggling. As he tried to grab and restrain his assailants wrists, he realized his adversary was female.
And as strong as the proverbial ox.
The Romulan woman sat up abruptly in spite of his strenuous attempt to pin her shoulders to the floor, and forced him relentlessly sideways and onto his back. Hot liquid dripped from her face onto his. He realized it was most likely blood; the missile hed thrown must have split her lip open, or perhaps clipped her in some other part of the head or face. Just nowhere near hard enough, he thought as she kept pushing him steadily backward and downward in spite of his best efforts to push in the opposite direction.
The rooms scant illumination gleamed at the threshold of visibility against the disruptor pistol she still clutched in her right handand whose barrel he saw she was trying to point directly at his head. His arms trembled with exertion as he tried to push back against her and keep the weapon away, succeeding only in slowing its inexorable progress toward him. He remembered his bureau colleague, a deep cover field agent named Tinh Hoc Phuong, whod been killed elsewhere in Romulan space by a blast from a nearly identical weapon. He forced that horrific recollection aside with an absurd transient thought about TPol, and how much fun an encounter like this might be in an entirely different context. If, that is, he ever got to see her again.
Trip felt as though he were in an arm-wrestling contest with a piece of farm machinery. His biceps, triceps, and forearms