Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [25]
The creature held Reed immobile just long enough to grab the padd with one of its other two upper limbs, which moved with surprisingly whip-like speed. “I’m not your friend. And before you begin canvassing among the customers, you should at least speak to the management.”
Reed clung tightly to the small scanner in his hand, determined not to allow the device to escape his grasp. “And who might that be? You?”
“Near enough, off-worlder.” The alien studied the image that was still displayed on the padd, then abruptly released its grip, nearly causing Reed to fall down in the process. “Now get out, while you can still walk under your own power.”
It occurred to Reed then precisely where Archer and the rest of the Starfleet contingent had to be at the moment: they must have taken seats at one or more of the tables, blending in with the rest of the patrons as they conducted their searches. Since he hadn’t heard any sounds of struggle, they had evidently managed to avoid attracting the hostile attention of the bar’s staff.
Reed’s sense of embarrassment immediately overtook whatever fear the alien bouncer probably should have inspired in him. There’s no way I’m going to let myself foul up this badly. Not on a mission as important as this one.
And certainly not while serving in the same landing party as Hayes, who had from day one made no effort to conceal his differences with Reed about the tactical and security aspects of the ongoing Xindi hunt in the Delphic Expanse.
“How about showing me to a table so I can order something expensive?” Reed said aloud.
“I’ve got more than enough customers who aren’t here just to make trouble for me. Now leave. There’s no scanning of the patrons without asking permission first. That’s tavern policy.”
Sure, Reed thought. That way, your most favored criminal barflies end up getting fair warning—and continue to stay just one step ahead of whoever might be after them.
The alien grabbed Reed by both wrists and the back of his cloak. His feet left the floor, and he nearly dropped both scanner and padd as he flailed to get his boots back beneath him. “Now. Get. Out.”
This is bloody humiliating, Reed thought as the creature hauled him effortlessly back toward the very door through which he had originally entered.
“Easy there, Rekna. This gentleman’s with me. Got a table for us?”
Because of the slight echo effect generated by the translator, Reed had some difficulty locating the owner of the voice. But it was deep, male, and not entirely unpleasant.
The alien bouncer stopped, then dropped Reed unceremoniously onto his feet. Recovering his balance—if not his dignity—Reed glanced to the bouncer’s left, where a slightly-built humanoid male dressed in a one-piece flight suit stood and regarded him with a wry expression.
“Follow me,” the hulking alien bouncer said, then turned and led the flight-suited humanoid toward a low table located in a dark, smoky corner. Still feeling somewhat disoriented after his near-ejection, Reed followed and took a seat directly across the table from the newcomer, who Reed noticed had taken care to keep his back to the corner rather than the nearest door.
Reed laid his scanner and the padd on the tabletop and studied his rescuer’s pale, unassuming humanoid face. It superficially resembled the image displayed on Reed’s padd, but was also the countenance of someone for whom the ability to blend into a crowd seemed to be a basic survival tool. The insistent beeping coming from the padd, however, indicated that the scanner’s biometric comparison matrix hadn’t been fooled by the man’s obviously finely honed gift for appearing nondescript. A low-volume secondary alarm began sounding on the padd as well, evidently the result of one of the chemical trace scans he had been running in the background. Silencing the padd’s alarms with one deft keystroke,