The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [85]
It was large, gray, and brutally efficient looking. The corridor was long and wide. Naked beams of metal, the skeleton of the building, arched overhead. No attempt to hide or beautify them had been made.
To the right and left, Paris noticed large windows. For a moment he wondered why such a pragmatic building had windows, but a quick glance outside showed him the reason.
He could see large, heavy equipment, now quietly at rest. Their function was to move huge chunks of rock and debris. When active, these monstrous machines could be extremely dangerous.
Just as well, Paris thought darkly, to have someone watching from inside as well as outside, just in case the Verunans tried to murder one of their captors using the machines as weapons.
What the Akerians didn't understand was that the Verunans--desperate, sick, angry, brutalized as they might be--would never even think of doing such a barbaric thing. It simply would never occur to them.
He moved slowly down the corridor, his eyes on the large rooms that loomed just ahead. That was where the ambush would come, if it came--and he was certain it would. He gestured to his companions, and they fanned out, tense, weapons at the ready.
Paris's own heart thundered in his ears.
They edged up to the rooms. The entrances had no doors, and Paris flattened himself against the wall and motioned to the others to do likewise. He raised his right hand, the left one cradling the rifle, and his fingers counted down: Three... two... one.
Paris leaped into action. He jumped in front of the doors and began firing. The phaser was on heavy stun--determined to be the most effective means of rendering the guards helpless for the duration without actually hurting them and the same frequency at which it had been set from the moment Paris had landed. The Verunan weapons were similarly programmed.
He'd been right. They had been waiting in ambush, six of them in each room. He could not see their faces, but he suspected that they were surprised at the fact that their ambush was ambushed.
Quickly Paris dropped three of them and then staggered back, pain shooting up his left arm. One of them had found its target. The envirosuit had been engineered to immediately seal if ruptured, but the damage had been done. Paris's left arm was now in agony and, worse, utterly useless. A second shot screamed, and Paris threw himself to the hard floor and rolled, barely avoiding being hit.
At once he heard another sound, deeper, more resonant than the Akerian weapons, shriller than a phaser. His Verunan friends were coming to his rescue, their weapons blasting away and dropping the remaining three guards. Then a strong, gentle hand was under Paris's right arm, lifting him up as though he weighed next to nothing.
As he scrambled to his feet, he heard the sounds of combat up ahead.
The guards who had been stationed in the second room had heard the noises and had taken the offensive. Two more Verunans went down, one with a minor injury and one, Paris couldn't tell who, with a gaping hole in his--her? chest. The Akerians were not using weapons set on stun. His stomach twisted in pained horror, but he grimly kept going.
Whoever it was, the Verunan would not wish to have died in vain.
His left hand hanging limply at his side, Paris managed the phaser rifle with his right and fired. There were only two guards, both of whom fell before the Verunan weapons. Miweni had his tricorder out and cried, "They're just up ahead! Turn right, turn right!"
"No, wait!" screamed Paris, but he was too late. The first group of Verunans, the ones who had gone ahead and not hung back to help Paris, had already rounded the corner.
He did not see the fight, but he could hear it. With a burst of energy, Paris pulled away from his assisting friend and caught up, phaser at the ready. The Verunans had held their own, though, and