Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [82]
“Our airlock and Trahve’s don’t appear to be compatible, sir.” She sounded embarrassed as well as frustrated. “Without access to a transporter, the only way to establish an airtight dock between these two ships is to unroll one of our pleximer emergency tubes.”
Archer knew that he had no right to be surprised by this. After all, spacecraft built by various species, many of them never previously contacted, had docked successfully with Enterprise, and few crew members now regarded this fact as noteworthy in itself. However, what was really remarkable was the fact that more alien vessels hadn’t proved incompatible with Starfleet’s airlock specs.
“Tubes?” Trahve asked, his speech evidently still being translated by Reed’s padd despite the noise.
“They’re pressurized boarding tubes made out of a lightweight polymer plastic,” Reed explained. “But setting one up would take about ten minutes more than we have.”
Time seemed to dilate and distend as Archer’s mind worked the problem, searching for a hitherto undiscovered angle, yet finding none. Why do things never get this complicated in those old flat-projection sci-fi films? he thought, suddenly experiencing an absurd desire for a comfortable seat in the crew mess, to partake in the recently lapsed Enterprise tradition known as movie night, a bag of fresh, hot-buttered popcorn in his lap as he watched the ancient, flickering images.
And with that fleeting, impertinent wish came another, perhaps equally absurd idea.
“Sir?” said Reed, who Archer realized was watching him with a concerned expression, as were all three of the MACOs. Trahve appeared to be very close to birthing puppies.
“Respectfully, Captain,” Reed continued, placing a hand on Archer’s shoulder. “Perhaps you should order Lieutenant O’Neill to get the shuttlepod to safety.”
Archer nodded solemnly. Then he grinned, and this time couldn’t help but enjoy the nonplussed expressions of everyone else present. “Maybe you’re right, Malcolm. I guess we’ll all find out in another minute or two.”
Then he placed his left hand on a keypad on the wall and tried a couple of experimental commands. Within moments, the airlock’s inner hatch slid obediently open.
The klaxons continued to blare unabated, and Archer shouted into his communicator. “Archer to Shuttlepod One. I want you to listen carefully….”
Fifteen
Outside Shuttlepod Two
“TWENTY-SEVEN SECONDS,” Guitierrez said, speaking directly into Mayweather’s helmet over the strike team’s open channel. Mayweather was thankful that she stopped counting aloud at that point, but a glance at the digital display on his dust-caked, gauntlet-mounted padd display quickly confirmed that the three dozen explosive devices Strike Team Hammerhead had planted were continuing to tick down toward their coordinated date with oblivion—while four members of the team, including Mayweather himself, remained electromagnetically glued to the Xindi isotope storage tanks.
As he stared at the tiny shuttlepod that still hung at the end of its tether just over the huge fuel tank’s short horizon, Mayweather wondered for a fleeting instant what the coming explosion would feel like. Would death take him instantaneously? Or would a jagged piece of flying shrapnel tear his environmental suit first, treating him to all the blood-boiling, freeze-drying ravages of explosive decompression and vacuum asphyxia before he lost consciousness and died?
“There’s got to be a way to stop the bombs from counting all the way down to detonation,” Mayweather said, hoping that the increasingly intense static the Xindi security countermeasures were sending into the team’s com channel wouldn’t drown him out entirely.
“Not if the countdown gets down below five,” Chang said.
Mayweather glanced again at his digital readout. TWENTY-TWO, TWENTY-ONE, TWENTY.
“Chang to Guitierrez. Activate the remote override.”
“Already tried it twice, boss,” Guitierrez replied, shouting over the steadily intensifying interference. “—ignal’s not getti—through to more than half of them.”
Dammit!