Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [48]
“I guess it could be what’s left of a planet or moon that got clobbered by some giant impact,” Guitierrez said. “The stuff out there doesn’t look quite like the contents of your garden-variety cosmic dust cloud.”
“I wonder if this was another planet that the Xindi attacked,” Chang said. “Maybe they needed to try their weapon out before they unleashed it on Earth.”
The thought chilled Mayweather to the bone, though he regarded Chang’s speculation as unlikely. “The weapon the Xindi attacked Earth with didn’t have that kind of power,” he said, not bothering to look up toward Chang. “Why would they build something that could pulverize an entire planet and then bring the pop-gun version to Earth?”
“Maybe it was a different type of weapon,” Chang said, his tone as icy as the dust particles dancing just beyond the shuttlepod’s skin. “Maybe the Xindi targeted this planet because it was so rich in the isotope they’re using for fuel. We’ve certainly seen dilithium-rich planets targeted by exploiters and pirates before.”
A sensor alarm on the primary conn panel suddenly began beeping and flashing; a cursory read of the incoming data told Mayweather everything he needed to know about the reason.
“Brace yourselves,” he called out as he slammed the impulse drive into an abrupt deceleration, matching the shuttlepod’s velocity to that of one of the house-sized debris particles that drifted nearby.
Despite his warning, the MACOs struggled to maintain their footing without toppling forward as the ship lurched.
“What the hell are you doing?” Chang roared.
Mayweather was flipping switches, shutting systems down all over the shuttlepod. He hoped that they hadn’t been detected.
“Calm down, Corporal. I’m trying to save our asses,” Mayweather said. A moment later, satisfied that he had done all he could, he turned to glare at the MACO. “That alarm,” he said, pointing to the beeping panel, “just told me that we’ve found what we were looking for. There are Xindi ships inside this cloud. Three of them at least, just coming out of warp, from the look of their isotopic trace patterns. And unless I’m reading the cloud’s density and chemical profiles all wrong, there’s some kind of base or facility in here as well. If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say it’s some sort of processing plant.”
“So they are mining the isotope here,” McCammon said. “And maybe refining it into fuel here, too, right inside the dust cloud. And those ships could be picking up cargo to take to other Xindi facilities.”
“It certainly looks that way to me,” Mayweather said. “We’d have to get a bit closer to absolutely confirm that, but I think those are all safe assumptions to enter into our report to Sub-Commander T’Pol.” He was eager to return to Enterprise in order to do just that.
Chang stared at Mayweather for a moment, his eyes switching from side to side like those of a predatory animal considering its prey’s next move. “You stopped us from plunging right into the center of the cloud so we wouldn’t show up on their sensors. Good idea, Ensign.”
Mayweather nodded. Score one for me, he thought. “According to our sensors, they haven’t run any active scans on us yet. And they can’t find us from our warp-drive emissions, because we’re only equipped with impulse engines. So unless we’ve somehow given ourselves away to some unknown type of passive scanning technique, they don’t know we’re here. But if we keep moving toward them at high impulse speed, they’re bound to notice us sooner or later, with or without the debris cloud obscuring our motion.”
“But we need to go after the bastards,” McCammon said to Chang. “These are the Xindi. We’ve actually found the Xindi. We’ve gotta shoot at ’em with something other than cameras.”
As Mayweather looked at the pair of MACO corporals, his incredulity finally got the better of him. “You think we should attack them? The five of us? One shuttlepod against three ships, with unknown firepower or speed? Does your MACO bravado really make you that stupid?”
McCammon frowned, and Mayweather realized he’d stepped on a nerve. “Since when