The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [72]
Archer smiled that cursedly reasonable smile of his. “Let’s start by asking him a few more polite questions.”
“Polite. Wonderful. This should be very enlightening.”
Shran took a step back, allowing Archer to approach the man who lay sprawled and in pain on the concrete floor. The Orion seemed to be whispering, trying to speak, though his swollen, bloodied lips and damaged windpipe were obviously giving him no small amount of difficulty.
“What’s he saying?” asked Reed, who stood at the captain’s side, far closer to the Orion than was Shran.
“’Adigeon Prime,”’ said Archer. “The slavers rendezvoused with a ship bound for Adigeon Prime. Looks like the Aenar captives were to be delivered to their… buyers through an Adigeon business agent.”
“The Adigeons are nonaligned,” Reed said. “They could act as a third-party broker between anybody and just about anybody else.”
“Including the Romulans,” Shran said, his anger stoked anew, but not yet to the point of frenzy. “Who better for the Romulans to use to cover their traces than both the Orion slavers and Adigeon Prime’s paper-pushers?”
“Let’s get back to Enterprise,” Archer said, nodding in agreement. “We’ll head straight for Adigeon Prime, and there we can—”
Archer was interrupted by an amplified, mechanically augmented voice that rattled the storeroom’s steel-and-concrete walls. “Freeze right where you are!”
Shran glanced at the Orion, who was trying to sit up. Although Shran’s blows had evidently cured the clerk of his laughter, he was smiling triumphantly, his outsize white teeth smeared liberally with his own green blood. It occurred to Shran then that choosing an empty storeroom equipped with only one way in or out had been a spectacularly bad idea.
No wonder the Orion showed so little fear, he thought. He must have summoned help with a concealed transmitter of some kind.
“Throw down your weapons,” said the voice from beyond the storeroom’s closed door. “Come out of the room with your hands raised, and kneel in the outer corridor. You are in violation of Orion Syndicate Economic Protocols, and are therefore subject to immediate arrest and confiscation.”
Shran quickly took up a low defensive position along the wall beside the door, while Archer, Reed, and the dark-clad MACOs spread out across the small room, taking cover behind the various crates and boxes. None of those objects amounted to any serious protection, though they might serve to obscure everyone’s position for the few crucial moments the team would need to effect their escape.
Archer pulled his com device from his belt and flipped its grid open. “Archer to Enterprise. Emergency beam-out. Now.”
“Commander T’Pol here, Captain,” came the Vulcan woman’s crisp response. “Request acknowledged. Stand by for emergency beam-out.”
“’Confiscation,’” Shran said to Archer. “Do you understand what that means?”
He nodded. “I think so, unless something’s gone hay-wire with our translators. Sounds like they’re looking to add to their slave inventory.”
“When aren’t they?” Shran said.
Shran tried to adjust the setting on his phase pistol, but found that it had been locked into a stun setting. He shook his head in disgust. Coddling slavers such as these made no sense to him whatsoever. Pinkskins, he thought. I hope this Coalition they’re trying so hard to build doesn’t fall victim to their own timid natures.
“T’Pol already tried a stint as an Orion slave, Captain,” Reed said dryly. “I don’t think she enjoyed it all that much.”
“It’s not a job I’d recommend, either,” said Archer. Addressing T’Pol again through the com device, he said, “T’Pol, where’s that beam-out I asked for?”
“Please stand by, Captain. Lieutenant Burch is presently trying to establish a positive transporter lock. However, the Orions appear to be attempting to deploy some sort of scattering field to prevent it.”
“Then tell Burch he’d better hurry it the hell up,” Archer said.
“Unless you present yourself for confiscation within the next alik , we will use lethal force,” intoned the harsh voice from outside the storeroom.
“It would be a shame