Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [81]
The reply was audible, but only barely. “O’Neill here, Captain. Message acknowledged. It’s good to hear your voice, sir.”
“We can hug and kiss later, Lieutenant. This ship’s engines are overloading. She’s getting ready to blow herself apart. Are you hard-docked with us yet?”
She replied after a slight pause. “No, sir. I just made an attempt, but something went wrong during the docking capture procedure. I’m going to pull back a few meters and give it another try.”
Archer watched with mounting anxiety as the shuttlepod moved backward several meters. Small, silent puffs of compressed gas blossomed momentarily along its bow as the craft’s maneuvering thrusters fired. Very slowly, the shuttlepod’s hull closed again with Trahve’s outer airlock, until the two hulls met with a brief clang that was audible thanks to the vibrations being transmitted through Trahve’s hull.
Archer noticed that Money and Kemper were both eyeing him with undisguised nervousness, which he no longer found the least bit entertaining. The tense frowns exchanged by Reed and Hayes reinforced his growing suspicion that something was going terribly, terribly wrong. All the while, the keening of the alarm klaxons and the scream of the forcibly overloaded engines increased in both urgency and volume.
“Docking status?” Archer shouted into the communicator.
“Dammit!” O’Neill said. “Sorry, sir. The docking capture procedure failed again . I’m not sure why.”
Archer felt a single bead of sweat free itself from his hairline and begin rolling onto his forehead. “Lieutenant, this ship isn’t going to last much longer.”
“I need a few minutes to get this snag worked out, sir. Can you shut down the engine overload?”
“Not without letting the Xindi capture us all, Lieutenant. If you can’t get us aboard the shuttlepod, I’m going to have to order you to get clear of us, and make best speed back to Enterprise.”
Assuming that the Xindi don’t intercept the shuttlepod on its way back to the ship, he thought.
Archer could barely hear O’Neill’s reply, and tried to boost the gain on his communicator further as she spoke. “Understood, Captain. I’m scanning to try to figure out why I can’t achieve an airtight seal with Trahve’s ship.”
“We only have a few minutes left at most, Commander. You’ve got to dock with us now.”
Eternities passed during which Archer waited for O’Neill to slay whatever gremlins had assailed her. Despite the alarms, the sound of his own pulse thundered in his ears, drowning out everything except for the silence that blared from the communicator he clutched in his sweat-slicked hand.
Archer abruptly became aware that Hayes was speaking to him, sounding agitated as he struggled to outshout the din of the klaxons. “Even if we do manage to get aboard the shuttlepod and get away from here—”
“We will, Major,” Archer interrupted, in no mood for negativity. Somehow.
Hayes looked irritated. “Fine. Once we get away, can’t the Xindi just follow us?”
“I suppose that depends on how thoroughly Trahve’s ship destroys this place when it goes ‘boom,’ ” Archer said.
“And there are still dense clouds of dust and gas out there that we can use to hide ourselves,” Reed said.
O’Neill’s voice suddenly returned, slightly distorted by the high volume setting of Archer’s communicator. “Captain, I’ve figured out what’s going wrong with the docking procedure.”
Archer could feel his chest lurch as his heart took a hopeful leap. “That’s great, D.O. How quickly can you fix it?”
Another pause. Then, “I’m afraid I can’t, sir. Not without at least a couple of fully equipped engineers in environmental suits, and at least half an hour.”
The joyful flight of Archer’s heart suddenly felt more like a meteor’s fiery plunge on its way to cratering. At that precise moment, he made eye contact with Hayes, who restrained whatever fear he was experiencing behind a great bulwark of MACO stoicism.
“Explain, Lieutenant,”