Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [59]
Still, he felt fairly certain that if the Xindi had spotted the shuttlepod without summarily destroying her, the well-armed MACOs would put up a fierce fight before being taken prisoner. In that event, he fully expected that none of them would survive to be interrogated, even if it meant that many of them ended up succumbing to “friendly fire.” It wasn’t a very comforting prospect to contemplate.
Time ticked onward, and even though he knew the shuttlepod still had many hours of breathable air, Mayweather noticed that he was instinctively taking shallower-than-normal breaths. He tried to will himself into a calmer frame of mind, but he’d never been particularly adept at forced relaxation or meditation techniques—especially during times of impending doom.
Finally, Chang spoke from slightly behind him, his voice still pitched at a stage whisper. “If they were going to get us, they should have done it by now. I think they must’ve moved on.”
Mayweather’s mind flashed to some of the horror films that had been screened a few months back on movie night, prior to Enterprise’s entry into the Expanse. It was almost de rigueur for the comely heroine to think she was safe even as she turned the lights back on, or retreated backward only to find a knife-wielding killer lurking behind her, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Cat and mouse. Let’s hope we aren’t about to walk right into the jaws of a very patient Xindi pussycat.
“Do you want me to power our systems back up?” he asked Chang quietly.
“Only the essentials,” Chang said, his voice disembodied in the near-total darkness.
Mayweather toggled several switches, his hands guided by memory as much as by the few dials that continued to glow very faintly. The brightness of the console lights intensified, and the unnerving silence that had engulfed the cabin vanished as the almost subliminal hiss and hum of oxygen scrubbers, heat exchangers, and atmosphere pumps returned.
Most importantly, the passive sensors abruptly regained most of their usual acuity. Mayweather blinked and studied the readings on the displays, then let out a heavy breath. “They sailed right past us, on a heading toward one of those fuel tanks.”
Chang leaned forward, peering at the display. “How close are we to the tanks?”
“Another fifteen minutes on our current heading and speed and we’ll be right in the thick of things.” He summoned a tactical image to the largest monitor on his console.
Chang pointed toward the three-dimensional image, on which a wireframe representation of the Xindi ship was steadily approaching one of the three vast fuel cylinders that was tethered to the Xindi depot.
Two more ships had appeared as well. Both newcomers were slightly farther away from the Xindi fuel depot than the first was, but they were definitely on approach vectors as well. Mayweather’s breath froze in his lungs, and he only barely contained his urge to point the shuttlepod’s stern toward the incoming Xindi traffic and open up the throttle all the way.
“See if you can intercept any of their com traffic,” Chang said with annoying coolness. “I want to know if any of these ships are communicating with each other, or with someone inside the Xindi facility.”
“Where did these other ships come from?” Guitierrez asked. “Are these the same ones we detected a while back?”
Mayweather studied the sensor readings for a moment while the computer scanned up and down the EM bands in an effort to lock onto any detectable Xindi signals, without any immediate success. Then he turned toward Guitierrez and replied, “It’s hard to say. As long as we’re restricted to passive scanning techniques, this dust cloud could be hiding a dozen more Xindi ships. Wherever these ones came from, they obviously arrived after we went dark.”
“So more of them might be on their way?” Eby asked, concern