The Expanse - J.M. Dillard [64]
His first instincts were right; an instant later, Kessick frantically began to crawl after them.
Fatigue entirely forgotten, Archer climbed down as fast as he could without completely losing his grip; it was treacherous going, as the thick residue on the sides of the shaft was slippery. Within seconds, the tunnel seemed to brighten slightly; the Captain looked down and saw the distant, white-hot glow of superheated plasma.
Kessick had scrabbled so quickly down the shaft that he was now just behind Trip. The Xindi, too, caught sight of the approaching plasma, and cried out, “It’s too late! We’ll be killed!”
His cowardice wasn’t winning him any points.
“Shut up,” Trip shouted with disgust, above the plasma’s roar, “just shut up!” His tone made clear that he hadn’t come this far to become another tragic victim.
Archer kept blinking, dazzled by the plasma’s sunlike brilliance. Its presence gave him precisely one advantage: he could clearly see below him the partially opened maintenance hatch that led to the catwalk.
“I can see it!” he yelled up to the other two. “It’s just another ten meters!”
And then he saw the roiling plasma surge forward: Just another ten meters was too far. At this rate, they’d never make it.
Like Trip, he wasn’t in the mood to be another victim. “We’re gonna have to pick up the pace, gentlemen!”
Archer braced his arms and legs against the walls of the duct and began to slide at a dizzying pace; he forced himself not to look down. He could hear Trip just above him, boots and hands scraping against the slick surface as he, too, let himself go into a slide.
The hatch door was there before the Captain expected it; he barely managed to grab hold of it with a lurch that jarred his entire skeleton, then he swung himself inside. He turned around at once, ready to help Trip.
Tucker arrived a heartbeat later and grabbed the door. ...
Kessick came crashing atop him in a free fall, nearly knocking both of them down into the fast-moving torrent of plasma. Trip struggled to regain his grip on the door; as if the engineer were a rope, Kessick pushed him down and started crawling over him toward the hatch; clearly willing to send Trip sailing down to his doom if it bought the Xindi’s survival.
Trip fought back, maintaining a handhold on the door out of sheer cussedness. “Wait a minute, what the hell are you—!” He used his other arm to push Kessick back, to wait his turn.
The Xindi flailed at him. “Let go of me!”
The roar was deafening now; the two men fought and cursed each other, but Archer could no longer hear their words. He leaned forward out of the hatch, feeling the heat of the encroaching plasma on his face, and saw Kessick kicking Trip in a bid to gain leverage to reach the hatch floor.
Archer was strongly tempted to leave the Xindi behind—but they had made it thus far. He leaned forward even farther, and with Herculean effort, seized each man by an arm and dragged them inside.
They had just enough time to brace themselves behind the metal door as the plasma rushed upward past the open hatch. Archer closed his eyes, but still saw the star-hot glow; the image remained a time after the plasma passed, and he opened his eyes again.
Together, he and Trip pushed the hatch closed; nearby, Kessick collapsed on the floor, gasping, exhausted from his impressive display of cowardice.
Trip whirled on him. “You stupid son of a bitch! I oughta open this hatch and throw you ...”
He trailed off, not because his anger had died down, Archer realized, but because of the odd, wide-eyed look of surprise on Kessick’s face. The Xindi was looking past them, at something he did not particularly want to see.
Archer suspected he didn’t particularly want to see it either, but he turned nonetheless.
Behind them stood four of the towering alien guards, holding large, glowing pulse-weapons.
Kessick pushed himself to his knees.
“They forced me to come with