Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [15]
“T’Pol, you’ll have command of Enterprise. Keep whatever crew you need to on-shift to replace those who’ve been…temporarily incapacitated by our mess-hall anomaly. Put some of O’Neill’s third-watchers on double duty if need be.”
Archer swept the room with his gaze, a grim smile on his lips. “Shuttlepod One leaves in seventy minutes. Everybody lock and load.”
Major Joss Hayes felt heat creeping up the back of his collar as he exited the command center, his quintet of MACO officers following close behind him for the brief turbolift ride down to the armory on F deck. Archer’s little dressing-down had been humiliating. What kind of idiot ship’s captain puts himself directly into harm’s way at every opportunity?
And then there was Archer’s implication that the Enterprise crew was as capable of dealing with danger as were the MACOs. Absurd. If the squids were so capable, then why had General Casey assigned Hayes’s MACO company to the NX-01? Clearly, Starfleet had misgivings about Archer and his crew’s ability to deal effectively with the Xindi threat.
It galled Hayes too that, despite his rank, he was equal only to the top lieutenants in Enterprise’s command structure. He half-expected the prissy Lieutenant Reed to pull rank on him soon, and the scene that would surely follow immediately afterward would not be pretty.
Still, a part of him grudgingly respected Archer for wanting to jump into the fray. Hayes was the same way himself, always leading from the front rather than from the rear. He was seventh-generation military, and his father and grandfathers had experienced armed conflicts going as far back as Earth’s Second World War. And all of them had been decorated after battlefield engagements. “A Hayes doesn’t run from the enemy,” his father had told him often while he was still a teenager, back when he was still preparing for his first MACO candidate entrance exams. As he’d run his son through drills and calisthenics, the elder Hayes would offer many such adages in what sometimes seemed to be an endlessly repeating loop. Pushing him, reminding him never to quit, no matter how tired or dispirited he might become. Semper Invictus, Hayes thought, just as he had done repeatedly as a teen whenever he had questioned whether he really was MACO material. Ever Invincible.
Just after the group emerged from the turbolift near the armory, a voice jolted Hayes out of his momentary reverie. “Sir, I’d like to lead the squad going to Kaletoo,” Corporal Fiona McKenzie said. She walked briskly at his right side, her pace even with his own.
He shook his head. “No. I’m going with Archer, to make certain he isn’t taken prisoner again by any more slavers.” He regretted for a moment that he had made this sarcastic comment out loud, but a quick glance to the rear told him that none of the other MACOs present appeared to have heard his words.
He stopped and faced the petite brunette woman, and the rest of the group stopped behind her, standing at attention. “You can have dibs on the next suspicious aliens that Enterprise encounters, McKenzie.” He pointed to one of the other MACOs. “Kemper, get your gear. Notify Peruzzi and Money that they’ll need to suit up as well.”
The ruddy-faced Kemper gave Hayes an inquisitive look. “Money, sir?”
“Yes,” Hayes said, nodding with a slight grin. “I think our youngest shark needs a bit more time in the tank. Besides, her scores on the firing range beat yours to hell and gone.”
He remembered another of his father’s proverbs: “You’re never too young to shoot a gun.”
Private Money might be a bit of a greenhorn, but Hayes knew she would do just fine.
Four
KEMPER TRIPLE-CHECKED HIS WEAPONS as he stalked down the corridor on E deck’s port side. He had a phase pistol holstered to his right hip, a phase rifle over his back, a grapple gun secured snugly to his heavy Sam Browne belt, knives strapped to each calf, and a whipcord suitable for garroting circling his waist.
“Nelson.”
Hearing the familiar voice call his name, he stopped and turned. In