The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [116]
“What’s happened to the transporter?” Shran asked as the seconds stretched out in silence.
Chang broke in before Reed could respond. “Lieutenant, I’m hearing some—”
A small but bright flash came from the doorway as Reed turned, and he heard a cry of pain. Even as he raised his own weapon, he saw that Chang was down, and Peruzzi was diving for cover.
“Everyone down!” Reed shouted into his com as a brace of muzzle flashes lit the room. The sudden brilliance played havoc with his night-vision sensors, but he couldn’t shut them off for fear of becoming blinded completely once the detention area plunged back into darkness.
He aimed his phase pistol in the direction from which the flashes had come and squeezed off multiple bursts, and was gratified to note that T’Pol, Peruzzi, and, behind him, Shran were doing the same.
More muzzle flashes from the doorway had Reed belly-crawling to the side of the room, where Chang lay. He heard a shriek behind him from an Aenar, and wondered who it was, and whether he or she was merely injured, or worse.
“Why aren’t they… beaming us out?” Chang asked, his voice suffused with pain.
“I don’t know, Chang,” Reed said, breathing a silent prayer of thanks that the MACO was still alive. “Maybe the Romulans found a way to jam our transponder signals as well as our communicators.” That seemed to be the most likely explanation.
A hot disruptor blast from the doorway nicked the heel of the boot on Reed’s environmental suit, and he shuddered at the closeness of the blast.
Another explanation for the sudden failure of the transporter was one he really didn’t want to consider, but it crept into his mind unbidden regardless. Enterprise might have been captured… or worse.
Gritting his teeth in grim resolve, he took aim at the doorway. And, he hoped, at their shadowy, faceless attackers.
Thirty-Six
Friday, February 21, 2155
Rator II
TRIP ALMOST HADNT BELIEVED that they would actually make it to the hangar before Valdore’s forces descended upon it, killing everyone in sight.
I guess it really is better to be lucky than good, Trip told himself as he helped a winded Ehrehin through the passage from the corridor into the large hangar that housed the Ejhoi Ormiin’s vehicle pool. Although the doors whisked shut behind him, they only muted slightly the noise and tumult of the running firefight that was swiftly engulfing the entire facility.
In the dim light, Trip saw the pair of guards stationed just inside the hangar at the same instant that they appeared to notice him.
He fired twice, sending both of the black-clad men- who had either been ordered to avoid the fight in order to defend the Ejhoi Ormiin’s small complement of space vessels, or else were about to make their own unauthorized escape from the bedlam outside- flaming to the deck, their weapons clattering impotently beside them.
In the light cast by their sickeningly burning bodies, Trip saw the corpse of Phuong, which still lay where it had fallen after Ch’uihv had so brutally cut him down. Evidently, between the distraction Ehrehin had created when he had conducted his long-winded warp-drive clinic- and the confusion that had engulfed the entire Ejhoi Ormiin facility ever since- no one had yet been detailed to dispose of Phuong’s body.
Trip regarded the weapon in his hand with disgust. Haven’t these bastards ever thought about carrying guns that come with a stun setting?
“Just a minute, Doctor,” Trip said, and walked quickly toward his late associate’s still, charred form. Carefully, and with no small amount of revulsion, he reached inside the dead man’s ruined jacket and felt around for the inner pocket.
“What are you trying to find?” said Ehrehin, who had come up quietly behind Trip, his question tinged with as much revulsion as curiosity.
Using two slightly shaking fingers, Trip extracted a black, oblong-shaped object about the size of the palm of his hand. “This. There’s a data chip inside.”
“Hmmm. A data chip doesn’t seem likely to have survived such an intense disruptor blast.”
“Ordinarily, it probably