Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [68]
Hayes moved with the speed of a panther, grabbing the alien by his still blood-spattered tunic, lifting him off his feet, and throwing him bodily into another chair located on the cockpit’s starboard aft side.
Hayes cocked his phase rifle and pushed its barrel into Trahve’s face until Archer thought he might shove it right down the alien’s throat. Standing beside their superior, Kemper and Money both raised their weapons as well, their expressions blank and all but unreadable.
“If you know a way out of this, you’d better share it with us,” Hayes said in a foreboding tone that gave even Archer a chill. “Now, mister.”
Another unpleasant grin split Trahve’s face, but he said nothing.
“Did you know that a phase rifle instantly cauterizes the stump when it blows a limb off?” Hayes said. “Unless you start cooperating, you’re going to find out the hard way. Now help us get clear of this place.”
Archer rose, leaving the console to Reed, who continued working it, though to no apparent effect. He was thankful, at least, that Malcolm hadn’t spoken up again in protest against their admittedly unsavory tactics.
Trahve replied with a smug laugh. “Do you really think I can take your threats seriously anymore?”
“You will if you want to keep all your original equipment in place,” Kemper said, his warning sounding out of place wrapped in the sergeant’s usually easygoing, round-voweled Minnesota drawl.
“You all seem just a little bit too ambivalent about violence to do anything quite that…permanent,” Trahve said.
Archer pointed at the front of the man’s tunic, which was still stained conspicuously orange. “Are you really prepared to take that chance—especially after Major Hayes showed everybody here the color of your blood?”
Trahve chuckled again. “What’s a mere beating or two? The major doesn’t have the courage to maim me, nor do his guardbeasts here. And you need me too badly to simply kill me outright.” Trahve sneered at Kemper, who controlled himself only with an obviously herculean effort. Money was again beginning to look apprehensive, as though the situation was spinning entirely out of her control and away from her expectations.
“I wouldn’t make that assumption if I were you,” said Archer. “Especially if you keep going out of your way to goad us.”
“Oh come now, Captain. Don’t be insulting. Do you really think that a clichéd ‘sensitive constable and crazed interrogator’ routine will actually work on me?”
“We’re not doing any sort of ‘routine’ here. We’re as serious as a supernova. Help us get out of this, or you’re going to wish you had.” How far is he going to push me? Archer thought. How close to the abyss would Trahve force him to walk?
Trahve shook his head, still smiling his infuriating smile. “These soldiers—or MACOs, or whatever you call them—obviously answer to you, and they’re far too disciplined to act without your express authorization. But I have looked into your eyes, my gentle captain. And I’ve seen that you simply don’t have it in you to get really serious about inflicting torture.”
Archer forced himself not to wince at Trahve’s mention of torture. Did the blows he and Hayes had already struck against their helpless prisoner already constitute torture? And was it actually going to come down to that—again?
Archer glanced over his shoulder once more at the Xindi facility, which now completely filled the forward window. One of the nearest docking ports was beginning to bear an unpleasant resemblance to the mouth of a hungry carnivore.
Turning away from the window, Archer resumed his staring contest with Trahve. “Maybe you’re right,” he said at length, then returned to the pilot’s seat.
Ignoring Malcolm’s look of relieved surprise, he resumed the task of rerouting the ship’s main power.
After Captain Archer resumed his place at the pilot’s console beside Lieutenant Reed, Hayes alternately studied