Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [100]
As the motley trio retraced their steps swiftly through the chambers that led back toward the roof, they encountered no further resistance. The injured Reman actually seemed to help support Keru’s weight, despite his own bleeding multiple wounds.
Focusing past his own steadily escalating pain, Keru wondered about the group of Remans that had just come and gone, apparently with the express purpose of taking Commander Tuvok. If they aren’t prisoners, then who are they? Did they know Tuvok’s identity? And if they knew about a tunnel running underneath the prison, then why didn’t they help the other Remans use it to escape?
They reached the rooftop, where they found Vale waiting for them. Her damaged suit’s stealth system was deactivated. “Everybody else is already aboard the Handy,” she said, pointing toward a conspicuously empty space on the landing bay, where Bolaji had apparently taken the risk of setting down the cloaked shuttlecraft. “Where’s Tuvok? And who’s our guest?” Keru noticed that Vale’s hand hovered near her phaser as she eyed the fierce-looking, though clearly injured, Reman.
“Tuvok’s been taken,” Keru said. “This Reman’s a friendly, and in need of medical attention. I’ll explain later.”
As Vale led everyone at a run across the rooftop, the group heard the whine of a skimmer engine, and moments later disruptor blasts ripped into the stone roofing tiles all around them.
“Open the hatch!” Vale called out, and Keru saw T’Lirin inside the aperture that suddenly appeared out of thin air, a floating window that displayed a narrow slice of the shuttle’s otherwise invisible interior.
Rriarr and Vale reached the doorway first, but as the Reman pushed Keru across the threshold, a blast from the approaching skimmer punched through the prisoner’s shoulder, splattering green ichor on everyone.
The Reman began to slump to the rooftop. “Help me get him aboard!” Keru shouted, and T’Lirin, Sortollo, and Rriarr all grabbed hold of the downed prisoner. They managed to drag him aboard and shut the hatch just as the skimmer came about for another pass.
“Get us out of here, Olivia!” Vale shouted.
“Yes, sir,” Bolaji called back, her voice sounding intensely strained.
Vale helped Keru into a seat behind Bolaji, while Sortollo opened a fresh medikit. “Help the Reman,” Keru said, wincing. “Just give me a little triptacederin. That ought to hold me until we get back to Titan.”
As Sortollo and Rriarr began to work on the Reman, Keru looked at Vale. “There was another group down there looking for Tuvok. A Reman group. It looks like they escaped into a tunnel that runs under the prison.”
Vale nodded, scowling. “This planet seems to have way too damned many tunnels.”
The ship lurched to the side, and Vale and Keru turned toward Bolaji.
“Enemy fire? Is our cloak not working?” Vale asked as she seated herself in the copilot’s chair.
“No,” Bolaji said weakly. “Something’s wrong. The baby is…” She trailed off, her skin suddenly ashen, her hand trembling as she pointed downward.
Keru looked down and saw a puddle of clearish liquid pooling beneath Bolaji’s chair. It was stained with streamers of crimson.
“Oh, shit!” Vale exclaimed, her fingers tapping at the control panels in front of her. “I’m taking over.”
Still waiting for the painkiller he knew wasn’t going to come unless he got the hypo himself, Keru hoped that this wasn’t a portent of away missions to come. He and Denken were both seriously injured, as was the Reman escapee, whose wounds might very well prove mortal. On top of that, Bolaji was going into premature labor.
And they had failed to bring back the man they had come to rescue. The mission was a failure.
An urgent beeping from a nearby sensor console caught Keru’s attention, and elicited a triumphant smile. He read the data he saw there a second time, just to be certain.
“Christine,