Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [40]
But no one knew for certain just how far away the Xindi were from completing and deploying their terror weapon. Therefore the weapon’s location was the only question he could afford to pursue at the moment.
“You delivered fuel?” he said. “Let me guess: It was the same compound we found when we scanned your clothing, right?”
Trahve coughed and nodded. “I remember that some of my Xindi associates mentioned that the fuel was supposed to power a new, large-scale piece of ordnance they were in the process of building.”
“Go on.”
“There’s not much more to tell,” Trahve said, chuckling ruefully around a bulbous, swollen, and bleeding lower lip. “It’s not as though they showed me the blueprints to their weapon. In fact, they seemed downright secretive about certain aspects of it. Such as exactly where they intended to deploy it.”
Archer nodded. Maybe that’s because it hadn’t been completed yet. That might mean it’s still vulnerable to a carefully executed surprise attack.
“We already know where the Xindi intend to deploy their weapon,” he said aloud. “What I need to find out is where the damned thing is now. I don’t suppose they told you.”
Trahve stared upward in an unfocused manner, apparently considering just how much he could afford to keep concealed even now. Hayes scowled and raised his rifle butt again. Nearby, Kemper and Money appeared to blanch slightly, as though their MACO discipline was grappling with their own private doubts about the “coercion” they were witnessing. Out of the corner of his eye, Archer saw Reed turn away in undisguised disgust.
Archer hated himself. But he had a mission, and knew he had to do whatever was required to accomplish it—no matter how ugly it might be. He closed his eyes briefly, opening them after his mind’s eye greeted him with the gently accusing face of his late father. He had been a gentle yet determined man, a builder rather than a destroyer.
How would Henry Archer have dealt with a situation like this?
“Wait,” Trahve said.
Hayes froze.
“Did your Xindi contacts reveal the weapon’s exact location?” Archer asked, reiterating his question. Glancing down at the prisoner’s manacles, he saw that dark orange blood had spattered across their metal rims. The blood was already drying, darkening into the precise color of shame.
“Not intentionally, I’m sure,” said the alien, a little bit of his earlier carefree demeanor returning. “But I did take the liberty of doing a little…surreptitious investigating of my own a few turns later.”
“Why would you do that if you’re as concerned as you say you are about not offending the Xindi?” Reed asked from the aft part of the cockpit.
Archer suppressed a smile. Malcolm might have been concerned about how their prisoner was being treated, but that didn’t mean he trusted him.
Trahve smiled again, around his bloody ruin of a lower lip. “It’s as your captain said: I’m the kind of man who goes out of his way to gather all the potentially profitable information he can.”
“Then let’s have those coordinates,” Archer said.
“I, ah, I’m afraid I can’t quantify the location quite so specifically as that.”
“He’s playing with us again, Captain,” Hayes said, brandishing his rifle butt once more.
Trahve’s eyes grew large, fearful, and appeared utterly sincere; his gaze remained desperately fixed on Archer’s. “There’s a gravitic particle cloud located not very far from the Kaletoo system. The weapon construction facility is located near the cloud’s center.”
“ ‘Gravitic particle cloud’?” Malcolm repeated. “That sounds rather dangerous.”
Trahve chuckled. “Perhaps. If you don’t know what you’re doing, that is. Or if you lack a qualified guide—or a ship as well shielded as mine.”
“It also sounds pretty damned vague,” Hayes said,