Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [50]
Kemper, Money, and Hayes had all taken turns guarding Trahve as the pilot flew the small ship onward, and for the most part—Trahve’s interrogations excluded—the trip had been a rather quiet one. Whether sulking or hurting, the alien had only communicated when spoken to, his glib pre-beating quips no longer in evidence. The MACOs were as taciturn as Trahve had become, alternatively concentrating on watching the alien courier for signs of treachery, and repeatedly checking that their phase rifles were armed and at the ready in the event that the smuggler tried to deliver them to evil.
While the cockpit of Trahve’s courier vessel felt rather cramped with more than two people in it, the rest of the ship was a good deal roomier and replete with cargo spaces. Lots of cargo spaces. And lots of hidden smuggling spaces, Reed thought. Leaving the MACOs to tend to Trahve, Archer and Reed were already in the midst of scanning those stowage compartments for more traces of the Xindi isotope, while searching for any signaling devices that Trahve might have concealed as a security precaution.
“Malcolm. In here.” Archer was calling from an alcove that lay beyond a small, tubular corridor.
Reed stooped to move through the tube, entering the chamber. Several deck plates had been moved aside, and Archer was standing inside a previously hidden floor compartment, which came up to his shoulders.
“This is where he carried the Xindi compound,” Archer said, looking up at Reed. “I barely even need a scanner to detect it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t wade too deeply in the isotope’s residue, if I were you,” Reed said. “Who knows what the radiation might do to your descendants-to-be?” He crouched and held out his hand to help Archer up.
“You’re right,” Archer said, looking down into the compartment, a wistful look on his careworn face. Placing his padd off to the side on the floor where the bronze-hued deck plating was stacked, the captain reached up and clasped his hand around Reed’s proffered wrist. Bracing himself against the side of the compartment, he allowed his tactical officer to help pull him up.
Setting down his own instruments, Reed helped Archer replace the pieces of plating in their previous position over the hidden compartments. The pieces fit together almost seamlessly. Quite a good hiding spot, Reed thought. I wonder what other sorts of contraband our industrious Mister Trahve has handled over the years.
Slipping the final plate back into place, Archer yelped and hurriedly withdrew his right hand from harm’s way. He flexed his slightly mashed fingertips for a moment, scowling at them.
“Are you all right, sir?” Reed looked quickly for the small medical kit that the team had brought along, but realized it was out near the cockpit area. “Do you want me to get the medkit?”
Archer rubbed his injured fingers with his left hand. “Don’t bother, Malcolm. My hands were both a bit sore anyway. That deck plate really didn’t make the damage any worse.”
Reed saw the bruises that had blossomed on the captain’s knuckles; it was obvious that he hadn’t received them while exploring Trahve’s smuggling holes.
“When did we come to this, sir?”
Archer stared at him, his eyebrows knotted in the center—more in confusion than anger. “Come to what, Malcolm?”
“This,” Malcolm said, gesturing with his hand toward the corridor and the cockpit beyond it. “That,” he said, gesturing again, this time toward Archer’s hands. “When did we stop being the civilization and become the anarchists? We used to be explorers, and now we’re thugs.”
Archer glared at him for a moment, then finally spoke, his voice even and practically inflectionless. “We didn’t start this war