The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [119]
Ehrehin only hoped the entire hangar wouldn’t come down around their ears before they finally got themselves strapped in and headed for orbit- and for the safety of Valdore’s fleet.
Thirty-Seven
Friday, February 21, 2155
Romulantransport Vessel T'lluadh
THERAS COWERED ON THE DECK as blast after blast slammed into the metal surfaces all around him. He imagined he could feel the fierce heat of the disruptor beams singeing his back through his heavy environmental suit. He hadn’t felt such terror since the day the raiders had invaded the Aenar enclave nestled beneath Andoria’s northern wastes.
Recollections of how those freebooters had mercilessly ripped his beloved Shenar, Vishri, and Jhamel from his life- and during their sacred shelthreth ceremony, of all the days they could have chosen- helped him to focus his thoughts and steel his courage against the ongoing fusillade that was keeping him pinned to the floor.
I must not let fear sunder our shelthreth, Theras told himself, his smoldering outrage fanning itself into an incandescence that he hoped would consume his all but debilitating dread. I cannot allow it.
Not wishing to fumble for the external controls of his suit’s com system, Theras spread his mind out across the wide interior spaces of the transport ship, his telepathic senses once again “feeling” the locations of his colleagues and protectors. Shran and Lieutenant Reed were positioned closest to him, both hunched behind a dense metal pillar to Theras’s left as they returned their assailants’ fire. Commander T’Pol and both of the Earth soldiers were slightly farther away in the other direction, all three lying on their bellies and returning fire despite the much scantier cover they had at their disposal. He could feel the pain of the wounded human soldier as though it were a dull ache of his own.
Theras also searched about telepathically for each of the armed Romulan troopers, noting with some sadness that two of them had been hit by the Earth soldiers, their bodies now lying just inside the chamber’s doors. He couldn’t be certain from their pained, disordered thoughts whether their injuries would prove fatal.
But he knew with visceral certainty that someone- or perhaps several someones- in the boarding party would soon be very dead unless the situation rapidly changed for the better. They’ll kill us all if they can, he thought, tapping into the keenly honed martial savagery of the Romulans’ thoughts; the painful intensity of that contact allowed him only a thankfully brief glimpse.
How can anyone harbor such ugliness in his soul? Theras’s ingrained Aenar sensibilities barely allowed him to frame the question. He couldn’t help but hope that such monstrous violence didn’t loom quite so large in the psyches of the Earth soldiers, or anyone else in the boarding party, including Shran, whose anger and impatience Theras could often feel palpably.
Another blast came disconcertingly close as the firefight continued inconclusively. I have to do something, Theras thought. Yet I cannot fight. I am Aenar.
He felt Shran’s rage, which was no doubt being intensified by the fact that Jhamel remained trapped aboard this cursed slave ship.
An inspiration seized him.
I am Aenar. I cannot fight.
But neither am I helpless.
Theras smiled grimly to himself and carefully reached out once again with his mind….
Centurion Rhai had unexpectedly ceased firing, making Decurion Taith fear that one of the interlopers shooting at them from out of the darkness had scored a lucky shot and killed him.
Taith paused for a moment to ascertain his superior’s condition, creeping toward him cautiously on knees and elbows. Reaching the centurion’s supine form, he placed a hand on his shoulder, preparing to turn the body over in order to check for injuries.
The centurion swung into motion at Taith’s touch, bringing the muzzle of his disruptor aggressively up toward the young decurion’s face.
“Hold!” Taith whispered.
“Don’t sneak up on anyone like that!”
“I thought you