Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [17]
Through tears of pain, he looked up at Agnarsson. The man was gazing at his victim triumphantly, in no apparent hurry to finish him off. Almost reluctantly, he lifted his hand.
But before he could accomplish anything with it, the corridor erupted with a blinding, blue light. It caught the engineer by surprise and sent him staggering into the bulkhead.
The captain squinted and was able to make out two high-intensity shafts. Lasers, he thought. On their highest settings. They seemed to be coming from the opposite end of the corridor.
Forcing his eyes to focus, Tarasco saw that two more of his security officers had arrived. Their laser barrage was pummeling Agnarsson without respite, forcing him to expend more and more of his newfound energy just to remain conscious.
The captain knew that this might be his last chance. Looking around for his laser pistol, he found it lying on the deck less than a meter away. Putting aside the pain that squeezed his midsection like a vise, he dragged himself over to the weapon and took hold of it.
When he looked up again, he saw Agnarsson fighting the security officers’ lasers to a draw. It was difficult to predict which would give out first—the engineer’s stamina or the pistols’ batteries.
Tarasco made the question moot by adding his own beam to the equation. Skewered in the back with it, Agnarsson groaned and crumpled to his knees. Then he fell forward, momentarily unconscious.
The captain turned his beam off. So did his security officers, whom he recognized as Siregar and Offenburger. In the aftermath of the battle, they couldn’t help glancing at the corpses of Pelletier and the others.
“Are you all right, sir?” asked Offenburger, a tall man with blond hair and light eyes.
Tarasco nodded, despite the punishment he had taken. “Fine, Marc.” He managed to get to his feet, though it cost him a good deal of pain. “I need your help, both of you.”
“What is it, sir?” asked Siregar, an attractive Asian woman.
“We need to get Agnarsson to the weapons room,” the captain told them. “And I mean now.”
Their expressions told Tarasco that they didn’t follow his thinking. But then, Pelletier had been the only security officer to whom the captain had revealed his intentions regarding the engineer.
Strictly speaking, he didn’t owe either Offenburger or Siregar an explanation—but he gave them one anyway. “Agnarsson’s become too dangerous. We have to get rid of him while we still can.”
The security officers didn’t seem pleased by the prospect of killing a fellow human being—a man with whom they had eaten and shared stories and braved the dangers of the void. However, they had seen the engineer’s power, not to mention the bodies of their friends on the floor. They would do whatever Tarasco asked of them.
Kneeling at Agnarsson’s side, the captain felt the man’s neck for a pulse. It was faint, but the engineer was clearly still alive. And that wasn’t the only thing Tarasco noticed.
Agnarsson’s eyes, or what the captain could see of them through the engineer’s half-closed lids, weren’t glowing anymore. They had returned to normal again.
As before, Tarasco was tempted to believe that the crisis was over—that their laser barrage had somehow reversed whatever had gotten hold of the engineer, stripping him of his incredible powers. Then he considered the bodies of those Agnarsson had murdered with a gesture and knew he couldn’t take any chances.
“Pick him up,” the captain told Offenburger and Siregar. “I’ll keep my laser trained on him in case he wakes.”
Tucking their weapons into their belts, the officers did as they were asked. Offenburger inserted his hands under the engineer’s arms and Siregar grabbed his legs. Then they began moving in the direction of the Valiant’s weapons room.
There were hatches that were closer to their location. Unfortunately, Tarasco mused, shoving Agnarsson out into space might not be enough. If the engineer was able to survive in the vacuum—and he might be—it was also possible that he could work his way back inside.
The weapons room was a deck above