Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [58]
When Mayweather looked away and didn’t respond, Chang pointed to a trio of large, rounded objects that were affixed to a side of the mining platform that was just turning into view as the asteroid continued its slow, stately rotation. Though they were still only dimly visible through the forward window, the false-color image on the console monitor showed that each of the football-field-sized objects was tethered in place by long tubes or conduits of some sort. “What are those things? Fuel storage tanks?”
Mayweather tapped some controls, and the scan image zoomed in to provide a closer view. “The lines tethering them seem to be flexible tubing of some sort, probably designed to accommodate geological instabilities on the asteroid’s surface. I can’t tell you just what the tanks themselves are made of, but they definitely contain large amounts of a liquid or gas that gives off a strong signature of the Xindi isotope we’ve been tracking. I’d call that proof positive that they’re storing the raw stuff here as well as refining and enhancing it into fuel for their ships—and probably for the large-scale beam weapon they’re planning to send to Earth.”
Even as a red light began blinking on the pilot’s console, a muted alarm sounded. Mayweather’s hands flew over the controls, and a look of panic crossed his features.
“There’s a Xindi vessel closing on our stern,” he said, punching another button.
An instant later, the interior of the shuttle went completely dark.
Mayweather found himself praying, something he hadn’t done for a very long time. But the situation seemed to merit a call to whatever deity or deities might be within divine earshot of the Delphic Expanse.
He wasn’t certain how long they’d been sitting in darkness. It felt like an eternity, and yet he was reasonably certain that it hadn’t been longer than a few minutes. The moment the sensors had detected the Xindi ship, he’d shut down virtually every system aboard the shuttlepod other than the grav plating, whose emergency shutdown sequence might have produced a telltale power spike visible to Xindi sensors. Even the main console’s life-support indicators were now dark; if the Xindi vessel didn’t linger long, Mayweather knew that he and the MACOs could survive for a short time on the breathable air and residual heat that remained in the crew cabin.
“Are they gone?” He heard Guitierrez whisper the question from behind his cockpit chair.
“I don’t know,” he murmured in response. He didn’t turn around, not wanting to tear his gaze away from either the forward cockpit window or the few passive-scan monitors and gauges that continued to glow faintly on the console before him. All he knew was that he couldn’t see any movement through the forward windows, and the passive sensors had lost the approaching ship’s profile, no doubt because of the profusion of dust and debris that surrounded both the shuttlepod and the Xindi fuel depot. The layer of camouflaging dust-cloud material that caked virtually all of the shuttlepod’s hull probably wasn’t helping matters.
He heard a sharp clank as someone behind him came into sudden unexpected contact with the crew cabin’s port-side wall.
“Don’t move!” It was Chang hissing an order to whoever had made the noise. “Everybody stay still and stay quiet.”
Mayweather smiled grimly to himself; the idea that the occupants of the other vessel out there might somehow hear their footsteps across huge volumes of airless space was absurd on its face, a concept that belonged to the days of Earthbound submarine warfare. But he found Chang’s impulse toward caution, belated though it was, immensely reassuring. He knew that if the Xindi’s sensors had spotted them, then Shuttlepod Two would be a sitting duck, drifting helplessly while the cold-blooded alien killers picked her off at their leisure.
Even worse, the team might be captured. But here we are, and we