Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [62]
“Not an option,” Chang said flatly. “You’re our pilot, not a MACO.”
“Hold on just a minute, Corporal,” Mayweather said, twisting around in his seat. “You guys may have had extensive munitions training, but how much work have you done in zero-g?”
“Enough,” Chang said, turning away.
Mayweather turned to Guitierrez. “Are those armed?” he asked, pointing to her carefully stacked munitions.
“Not yet,” she responded, one eyebrow raised slightly in apparent curiosity.
“Good,” Mayweather said, turning back to the controls. He tapped a few of them.
Immediately, the dim illumination inside the shuttle lowered to one-sixteenth intensity, and the gravity plating shut down completely. Mayweather heard the others swearing as their movements sent them pinwheeling aft through the crew cabin, their own momentum and inertia banging them ungently against the walls, the deck, and the ceiling.
Mayweather released his seat straps and pushed his foot against the console, propelling himself gracefully back into the semidarkened cabin that he knew like the back of his hand. It had been months since his last microgravity experience, but having grown up on a ship that frequently lost its artificial gravity meant that he was almost as comfortable in freefall as he was walking—even when carefully dodging flailing MACOs in a relatively confined space.
In the faint light, he reached up to snatch two of the bombs, all of which were drifting aimlessly in the gravityless chamber. He saw Guitierrez above him, trying and failing to keep several of them from spilling out of her grasp in all directions.
“Get the gravity back on!” Chang yelled. He had tumbled to the port side of the shuttle’s ceiling, and was clinging to it like a barnacle. Mayweather couldn’t see his expression fully, but he knew there was no mistaking the anger in the MACO’s voice.
“Sorry,” Mayweather said. “Must be a glitch somewhere in the environmental controls.” He toggled the mag switches on the bombs he had gathered, then adhered them to the bulkhead. Even as the MACOs struggled to right themselves and keep hold of their munitions, their tools, and the drifting pieces of their environmental suits, he adroitly flipped and dived, shoving off from the ceiling in order to grab more of the bombs, which he rendered harmless by attaching them to whatever metallic plane surfaces were handy. Then he began grabbing up and securing the free-floating environmental-suit helmets and life-support packs, hoping to get them all out of harm’s way quickly.
Ignoring the ongoing stream of MACO invective, Mayweather finally returned to the forward cockpit area, and made a fine show of studying the systems readouts there. “My goodness, it seems that I am able to restore gravity now. Best find something to grab onto, everybody,” he said, calling out loudly toward the stern section, his voice dripping with mock sincerity.
A moment later, he abruptly brought the lights back up and switched the gravity plates back on. He heard multiple thumps and thuds behind him as the MACOs, much of their equipment, and various small environmental suit components crashed unceremoniously to the deck.
Chang immediately picked himself up and charged into the cockpit. “I’ll see to it you’re cashiered out of Starfleet for that stunt!” he said, delivering his words in a single, uninterrupted snarl.
Mayweather shrugged. “What stunt? The records will show that there was a temporary glitch in the system—no doubt caused by some Expanse-related anomaly that we haven’t catalogued yet—and that I was the most capable person aboard in dealing with the resulting zero-g conditions. It seems to me you should be thanking me for helping to make certain that the bombs didn’t go off where they shouldn’t.”
He turned back and looked at the others. Although Eby seemed fine, Guitierrez and McCammon both looked a bit green around the gills from the experience. He felt a twinge of shame for what he’d just put Guitierrez through. I hope she’ll still talk to me after this is all done, he thought. Fortunately, she seemed