Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [80]
“I simply meant that a last-minute reprieve wasn’t too much to hope for, Major. But I also think it’s not a good idea to count on it.”
“That’s the spirit,” Hayes said wryly, patting Reed on the shoulder. The whine of the overstrained engines grew ever louder and more ominous. Since Reed’s specialty was blowing things up, he knew that it wouldn’t be long before Trahve’s vessel vaporized itself.
“You people must be insane,” Trahve said, the translation equipment rendering his words in suitably fearful and incredulous tones. “Do you want to die?”
The ship abruptly shuddered again, this time far more roughly than it had when the Xindi docking arms had released it. The jarring noise and vibration, coupled with the screaming of the alarm klaxons and overtaxed propulsion components, momentarily convinced Reed that the end had indeed come at last.
But half a beat later he noticed that Trahve’s courier ship hadn’t yet disintegrated, in defiance of the escalating noise and tumult.
“What was that?” Hayes said, shouting to be heard over the din.
Archer got out of his chair and faced Hayes. “Get everybody into the airlock, Major!”
Reed rose and grinned at Hayes, savoring the major’s look of confusion. “I think the cavalry has just arrived.”
Archer had never much enjoyed placing himself in extreme physical jeopardy. But over the past two years he had discovered that he could make the sensation far more tolerable if he pretended he was merely engaged in a particularly cutthroat water polo match. The sport had been his principal athletic pursuit during his university years, and he had been a serious competitor, always playing to win.
But today, with La’an Trahve’s ship perhaps only moments away from violently immolating itself, the stakes were far higher than Stanford U.’s standing in the championships. Today, he would either win the match, or he would die, along with his entire team.
As well as, quite possibly, his mission to safeguard the planet Earth from the Xindi.
Archer allowed Hayes and Kemper to lead the way from the cockpit into the single narrow corridor that ran along the spine of Trahve’s courier vessel, and around a corner that led to the ship’s single, utilitarian airlock bay. Assisted by Money, the two senior MACOs hustled Trahve along with them down the corridor.
As the MACOs moved forward, Archer glimpsed their faces in profile, then focused on Hayes in particular. While he appeared markedly less nervous than did his two subordinates, even the MACO commanding officer couldn’t conceal his apprehension entirely.
While Archer couldn’t say he was exactly enjoying their discomfiture, he made an even greater effort than usual to appear cool and confident whenever any of the MACOs were watching him. There’s no harm in letting them see they’re not the only branch of Earth’s services that receives expert training, he thought.
The team came to a stop a moment later at the corridor’s end. Through the slender observation port located to the side of the airlock chamber’s inner door, Archer could see portions of the hull of Shuttlepod One, angled so that its dorsal surface—specifically, its already-open airlock hatch—was facing the starboard-side external airlock door of Trahve’s vessel.
“I don’t suppose there’s any reason to continue maintaining com silence now,” Reed said, barely managing to outshout the alarm klaxons that the acoustics of the corridor were amplifying slightly past the point of pain. “If we can just look out the window and see the shuttlepod out there, then so can the Xindi.”
“Agreed,” Archer said.
“Can’t they just slap another tractor beam on the shuttlepod?” Money asked.
“Maybe,” Archer said as he withdrew his communicator from his field jacket. “But I think they may have their hands full trying to get rid of the ticking time bomb we’re about to leave at their front door.”
Archer flipped open the communicator’s antenna grid with practiced ease, and the little transceiver’s distinctive activation chirp was completely lost in the ambient