The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [123]
Trip grinned at him. “Trust me.” He pulled back the throttle, and the small vessel shot forward. Trip was slammed backward into the pilot’s seat for a second or two, before whatever passed for the scout ship’s inertial damping system compensated for the g-forces generated by the sudden acceleration. Like Ehrehin, Trip had not yet donned the helmet of his pressure suit- both pieces of headgear were wedged securely beneath their respective seats, where they would remain until they were needed- so his pressure suit’s titanium neck ring bit briefly into the back of his neck as the little ship whipped upward at a steep-angled roll through the only partly opened hangar dome, narrowly missing the still spreading doors. Trip imagined the hangar bay filling with armed troopers, all of them vainly firing their disruptor pistols at his quickly vanishing stern.
Trip opened the throttle further, and the vessel swiftly arced high into the deep cerulean skies above the Ejhoi Ormiin’s secret island fortress. The paradisiacal blue of Rator II’s atmosphere quickly gave way to a deep, brooding indigo, passing within moments into the star-flecked blackness of space. The cold vista of the cosmos made Trip grateful for the pressure suit he was wearing, even if he was helmetless at the moment.
When he and Ehrehin had first come aboard the little scout ship, Trip had marveled at his good fortune in having found environmental suits constructed so similarly to the standard Starfleet-issue vacuum garb used by Enterprise personnel. He could only wonder how these suits had made it aboard. Perhaps Ch’uihv- or Sopek- had acquired a few of them through his espionage connections on Vulcan, or maybe the Ejhoi Ormiin had obtained them by raiding an Earth outpost or by hijacking an Earth ship. Wherever the suits had come from originally, it was easy for Trip to imagine that Phuong had found them elsewhere in the hangar while reconnoitering the place, and then had stashed them aboard the scout ship before leading Trip and Ehrehin into their initial- and catastrophically failed- escape attempt.
An alarm on Trip’s console suddenly flashed a deep sea green; he reminded himself yet again that to a Romulan, green was the color of blood, and therefore signified the presence of imminent danger.
“We’re being pursued,” Ehrehin said, leaning forward and to his left to observe the readings on Trip’s console.
“I’d be surprised if we weren’t,” Trip said.
“We need to hail them, Cunaehr. Otherwise, Valdore’s forces may kill us inadvertently, as you say.”
Trip shook his head, wondering how long he could continue dissembling, stringing the elderly scientist along- and when Ehrehin would finally figure out that he’d disabled the ship’s receiver to prevent the reception of any hails from their pursuer, which would certainly reveal the identity of the vessel that nipped at their heels.
“We don’t know for certain that the ship on our tail is one of Valdore’s,” Trip said.
Ehrehin fixed him with a hard stare that seemed to Trip to fairly ooze with suspicion. “Who in the name of Erebus could it possibly be if not Valdore?”
“It could be Ch’uihv’s people, Doctor. And hailing them would only confirm our escape for them.”
“If he’s pursuing us,” Ehrehin said, shaking his head. “Ch’uihv already knows we’ve escaped in this ship.”
Trip shrugged, pressing on even though his extemporaneous yarn-spinning was beginning to sound ridiculous even in his own artificially pointed ears. “Maybe, Doctor. Maybe not. If Ch’uihv is the one who’s chasing us, then all we know for sure that he knows is that somebody took off in this ship without any launch clearance.”
Ehrehin leaned back in his copilot’s chair and sighed. Trip spared a glance at him and saw that he was staring straight ahead at the distant, uncaring stars. The old man was scowling deeply, apparently becoming lost in thought.
He must suspect by now that I don’t have any intention of taking him to Valdore, Trip thought as he leaned forward, entering commands intended to coax still more thrust out