Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [36]
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right, D.O.?” Archer asked O’Neill, lines of worry corrugating his brow. It occurred to Hayes then that he would never have thought to ask any of his people that question; the notion that, say, Corporal McKenzie might not be able to handle herself solo on a simple five-klick hike, even in a desiccated hellhole like this one, simply would not have crossed his mind.
“I’ll be fine, Captain,” O’Neill said, now regarding the captain with a deferential expression. “I’m not the one who’s about to fly straight into the proverbial lion’s den. Have a safe journey, sir.”
Archer smiled gently. “Thanks, D.O.”
“And if you let yourself get eaten by the proverbial lion, you and I are going to have words, believe you me. Sir.” She grinned.
Archer grinned in response as the lieutenant turned and stepped into the gangway, then vanished from sight. Corporal Peruzzi and Ensign Chandra quickly followed.
“Seeing the mood she’s in, I almost feel sorry for any unsavory characters they might run into on their way back to the shuttlepod,” Reed said quietly a few seconds later, a rueful smile crossing his lined face.
Archer nodded grimly. “Right now, I think we’d be better off paying some attention to one of those unsavory characters….” The captain trailed off as he gestured toward the fore section of the ship.
Hayes followed the Starfleet pair forward into the small vessel’s crowded cockpit, where a sullen-looking La’an Trahve sat manacled in one of the chairs that fronted a tertiary control console.
Sergeant Kemper, his phase rifle at the ready, stood watching the prisoner with a raptor’s attentiveness, silently discouraging him from trying to touch any of the console’s myriad toggles, buttons, and switches.
“Pirates,” Trahve said, his voice still echoing slightly through the Starfleet language-translation gear Chandra had left running atop one of the consoles. “You’re all nothing but common pirates, the lot of you. You realize that, don’t you?”
Archer approached him very closely, his craggy features taking on an almost mournful cast.
“We’re only doing what we have to do, Mister Trahve. Now you’re going to help us get this ship into space—discreetly.”
Standing behind Trahve and Archer—who were seated, respectively, in the pilot’s and copilot’s seats—Reed’s eyes were drawn to the forward cockpit port. He heaved a quiet sigh of relief as bright blue sky gave way to blackness, and the sere brown world dropped away until the curvature of its daylit limb was clearly visible.
Trahve’s vessel had made it to orbit, and there was no pursuit in evidence. So far.
Despite the extremely attentive presence of the very armed and vigilant Major Hayes, Sergeant Kemper, and Private Money, Reed was still more than a little surprised that Trahve had answered Archer’s questions about the ship’s systems and instrumentation as forthrightly as he had; after all, he might just as easily have tried to trick the captain into setting off some sort of cockpit alarm, or triggered a hidden security system before the ship had even cleared the spaceport hangar. Instead, he had simply walked them through the spaceport clearance procedures, including communications with the local traffic-control authorities (such as they were), as though they were paying passengers.
But he might still have a trick or two up his sleeve, Reed cautioned himself. He knew it wouldn’t do to let his guard down around the alien courier, even for a moment. Trahve surely had an agenda of his own, and that agenda most assuredly did not include saving the people of Earth from destruction at the hands of the Xindi.
Archer turned his chair toward Trahve. “We’re free and clear to maneuver, Mister Trahve. All we need now are the coordinates of the facility where the Xindi are building their particle-beam weapon.”
Trahve’s normally bland face now looked drawn and haggard. “Look, I know you claim to have some sort of debt of honor to