Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [23]
Slightly behind Kemper, Major Hayes turned back toward the Starfleet trio and favored O’Neill with a lopsided grin. “That’s what we’re here for, ma’am,” he said. Reed noticed that Hayes’s disposition seemed to have improved considerably since the mission briefing back aboard Enterprise. Though he looked just as sharply vigilant as any of his MACO subordinates, he, too, was keeping his rifle slung across his back, obviously in order to avoid provoking panicky responses among the locals.
O’Neill responded to Hayes with a sour-milk scowl. I think she was actually pretty much on your side, Major, Reed thought, suppressing a chuckle. Until you called her “ma’am,” that is.
The group walked on in silence, following Grakka’s directions to the southeast section of the spaceport. The rabbit warren of a street narrowed even further, bringing closer the powerful aromas radiating from the dilapidated stone inns and eateries and the busy, awning-covered food-and-beverage stalls. Reed found the odors at once intriguing and objectionable; the street was a whirling olfactory carousel that changed from moment to moment as they moved along a hard-packed roadbed that they shared with sparse crowds of buyers and sellers, most of whom wore clothing that had clearly seen better days. Rag-clad arms reached toward Reed from the stalls as he passed, imploring him to partake of the proffered bowls of alien meats and vegetables, in exchange for the oddly denominated precious metals the locals were using as currency.
Many of the people they passed offered no food, however, but instead held out beggar bowls, pleading for alms, some wordlessly, others loudly. All of these were studies in misery and desperation. Revulsion for the society—or lack of same—that had produced such circumstances seized Reed as the group continued forward. How can such squalor exist on a world covered with spaceports and warp-driven vessels?
The narrow road soon widened, and the density of the stalls, inns, and ramshackle shops abruptly thinned out. Away from the crowds of vendors and beggars, the horizon once again became visible. A flat, sunbaked field stretched into the distance, beyond which lay a collection of wide, stone buildings arranged in a rough semicircle. A motley collection of perhaps a dozen space vessels—all of them much smaller than Enterprise—sat with their landing legs splayed across the hard, desolate ground. Reed didn’t recognize any of the ship configurations, though he noted that some looked truly baroque and alien. The antigravs on one of the ships activated then with an earsplitting howl, raising the vessel slowly skyward on a rapidly dissipating cloud of brownish-gray dust as a pair of conspicuously armed, uniformed men—local police or private security personnel, Reed surmised—looked on.
At least the spaceport’s actually here, he thought, eyeing some of the larger buildings that lay horizon-ward. He was relieved to learn that the information their informant had provided had been accurate, at least so far.
“Those big structures out in the distance must be ship hangars,” Archer said.
“Too bad we couldn’t get more information about our Xindi-friendly pilot’s vessel,” O’Neill said. “Like the exact location of the hangar it’s parked in, or even a registration number.”
Reed nodded. “It would be nice to at least know where Trahve’s ship is, in case he tries to make a run for it after we catch up to him.”
They walked onward toward one of the nearer structures, a low-slung wattle-and-daub building that seemed to have been extruded aeons ago out of the planet’s very crust.
“We might not know exactly where he moored his