The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [47]
Ych’a’s stony silence, along with her sudden minute interest in the console before her, told Trip that his dart had landed very near the bull’s-eye.
What a relief it’s going to be to put all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit behind me, he thought, returning his full attention to his deceleration and landing procedures. Once this pointy-eared Mata Hari gets this one last spy mission out of me.
“The computer has locked onto the duranium signature,” Ych’a said as she studied a graphic display on her console. “Although it appears to be at least partially buried in surface ice, its sensor profile remains consistent with that of an extremely small auxiliary spacecraft. Most likely a larger vessel’s emergency escape pod.”
“Yeah, but is it one of ours or one of theirs?” Trip asked, pausing to glance at his own console, which now was displaying the same definitive yet not quite crystal-clear graphic Ych’a had just been analyzing.
“It is impossible to tell at the moment,” she said. “My hails have received no response.”
“Well, let’s hope we find a friend waiting for us down there who can’t talk to us,” Trip said. “Instead of an enemy who won’t.”
“We shall know which it is in fairly short order,” she said. “The object is now less than half a mat’drih away, and we are closing rapidly.”
He nodded, now dividing his attention only between the indicators on his console and the pockmarked icescape that was rushing headlong toward the window. “About five-hundred meters, then. Do you want to do the honors, or should I?”
“You have given me no reason to doubt your piloting abilities as yet, Commander Tucker,” she said.
There’s always a first time, he thought as he entered a quick sequence of commands into his panel. The view of the ice body changed, revealing a horizon that faded into the blackness of space as he positioned the little ship’s belly level with what he was quickly coming to think of as the ground below.
Ych’a counted down with a nerve-wracking calmness until the workpod—which had not been designed for such maneuvers—came to a stop with a single teeth-rattling wunk.
“We’re down,” Trip said, just barely resisting the urge to heave a sigh of relief.
The tension that had gradually ratcheted up during the descent finally slackened its hold on both his spine and bowels as Trip’s body realized that he had successfully cheated Isaac Newton yet again.
“Well done, Commander,” Ych’a said. “You set us down approximately point-zero-eight mat’drih from the object. Your knowledge of Vulcan technology is indeed impressive.”
“I’m a quick study,” Trip said as the hull’s last lingering reverberations slowly damped out and the console before him confirmed that the pod had neither suffered damage nor lost any atmosphere, despite the roughness of the landing. “It comes in handy when you have to improvise. Like when you have to perform a search and rescue mission in a little auxiliary pod that’s probably not rated for any duties that are much more hazardous than going outside the Kiri-kin-tha to inspect her paint job.”
Ych’a nodded somberly as she started to remove the seat restraints that crisscrossed her thin Vulcan environmental suit, the twin of Trip’s own attire except for its smaller size and rounder contours. “That has not escaped my notice, Commander,” she said, apparently unfazed by the abruptness of Trip’s stop.
That is why she brought me along on this mission, after all, he reminded himself as he extricated himself from his own restraints and rose from his seat. She needed to test me a bit. See what I’m really made of. He didn’t doubt that the V’Shar agent possessed sufficient ability as a small-craft pilot to have landed the pod ably enough herself, and perhaps even with a good deal more finesse than he had mustered.
Ych’a wasted no time turning to a nearby equipment rack and retrieving what they both needed in order to exit the pod safely. She handed him a helmet