Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [64]
“I am detecting several residual Xindi isotope trails apparently on outbound headings judging from their vacuum dilution gradients. But they seem unusually degraded, as though they were left by vessels that departed weeks ago.”
Hayes turned to Archer, his voice low. “I don’t like this, Captain. It’s all been too easy. Finding this reprobate—” He paused as he gestured at Trahve, who winced slightly at the MACO leader’s suddenly close proximity. “—getting passage here, and then finding their station apparently undefended. It all smells like a trap to me.”
Archer nodded. “I know. But we have to get close enough to find out whether or not this really is the target we need to destroy.”
“With all due respect, sir, what then?” Hayes asked, his eyes focusing on Archer’s. “If you decide this isn’t the target—that it’s really some kind of decoy—then do we turn tail and run? If they spot us fleeing, won’t that rouse their suspicions? We don’t know if we can outrun them back to Enterprise, and we don’t know what kind of firepower the Lucky Duck has. Hell, we don’t even know that there isn’t a scrimmage line of ships behind us just out of sensor range, waiting for us to turn.”
Reed looked up at Archer, his hazel eyes piercing, but said nothing.
Time to put some cards on the table, Archer thought. He put a hand on Hayes’s shoulder and turned him away from the forward part of the cockpit. Trahve might hear anyhow, but at least Archer could attempt to be discreet.
“We’d know,” he said. “We have backup.”
Hayes’ eyebrows shot upward in surprise. “What? Who?”
“O’Neill,” Archer said. “After Trahve agreed to take us here, I had Reed send her an encoded message burst. She has orders to follow us in Shuttlepod One, and to stay far enough behind us so that she’d notice and warn us of anything pursuing us.”
Hayes nodded thoughtfully, and Archer was glad to see that even Kemper—who had his rifle practically touching the back of Trahve’s skull—and Money seemed to be more than a little pleased by this revelation. “O’Neill and her crew are also gathering astrometric data to guide Enterprise here at top speed, should that become necessary. And she’s under orders to maintain com silence unless she discovers a direct threat to this ship. We haven’t heard from her, therefore we don’t need to worry about watching our back.”
“Or else something happened to them after they left Kaletoo,” Money said quietly. “Or maybe before they even got off the ground.”
Archer and Hayes both turned to look at the private, though Hayes’s expression obviously carried more of a reprimand for Money’s undisciplined outburst than did Archer, who was used to allowing his people to speak freely regarding mission-related matters. Apparently aware that she had overstepped MACO protocol by failing to ask Hayes’s permission to speak, the young woman shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other, saying nothing more as she concentrated closely on the barrel of the phase rifle she toted.
“So, we’re set from behind, but what about what’s in front of us?” Hayes asked, pointing toward the forward windows and the slowly growing Xindi facility that floated far ahead of the ship’s bow. “If it is some kind of weapons platform, and they decide to lock their batteries onto us, then we’re toast. And badly burned toast, at that.”
“Sometimes, Major, we have to take a few risks if we expect to make any progress,” Archer said, turning back toward the forward part of the cabin. “We’re in the ship of a courier who makes deliveries to the Xindi. By the time they realize that he’s not here to drop something off, we’ll already be somewhere very far from here.”
Reed turned to look up at him. “Captain, I am reading some life signs aboard the Xindi facility now. It could be as many as a few dozen individuals, though it’s still hard to separate them out because of all the particulate matter occluding