War Stories (Book 2) - Keith R. A. DeCandido [10]
“I’m open to suggestions,” Drew said.
Fabian ran over to the assorted tools he’d found when he was trying to reassemble his tool kit. He needed one particular tool that he’d seen. He was amazed when he saw it before, as he thought his mother was the last person in the entire galaxy who actually had one.
C’mon, c’mon, it’s in here somewhere.
The Bynars’ screams continued.
Finally, he found what he thought might work.
As he rummaged, Drew said, “What, you’ve got some super-scientific gizmo that’ll get ’em outta there?”
“Something like that,” Fabian said as he stood up, holding a long piece of metal, with two small prongs at the end of it. One of the prongs was movable.
Drew frowned. “What the hell is that?”
“A wrench.” Fabian rummaged some more and found a pair of nonconductive gloves. “Everybody stand back,” he said as he put them on.
Abramowitz and Okha did so—Drew did not, but stayed about a meter behind Fabian. Fine, if Mr. Security Guard wants to keep an eye on me, who am I to say no?
Slowly, Fabian approached the golf ball. 110’s (or was it 111’s?) left hand was in the left-hand part of the opening, with 111’s (or 110’s) right hand in the right-hand part. Both their mouths were wide open, letting loose with a maddening barrage of high-pitched ones and zeroes. This close, Fabian could see the arc of electricity linking them to the golf ball—indeed, that was all that linked them. Neither hand was actually touching any part of the inner workings of the golf ball, which made Fabian’s life easier.
I hope to hell this works.
He shoved the wrench in under 110’s (or 111’s) hand.
A flash of light encompassed his eyes, and the next thing Fabian knew, he was lying on the floor, on top of something rather lumpy, and feeling a bit dazed. “What happened?” he asked in a slurred voice.
“You fell on top of me is what happened,” came a muffled voice from under him, which he realized was Drew.
Clambering into a standing position, Fabian chuckled. “I did tell you to stand back.”
Drew also got upright. “Remind me to listen to you next time.”
“Fine. Listen to me next time.”
Sighing, Drew said, “Yeah, you’re gonna fit in just fine here.” He looked around.
Fabian did likewise and was at once glad to see that 110 and 111 were now separated from the golf ball and distressed to see them unconscious—possibly dead—on the floor. The little boxes they each wore on their belt—some kind of processing unit, he knew—were broken and smoking, small components falling onto the deck next to them.
Tydoan entered then, along with two other people, one an older human male, the other a young human female, all in blue-trimmed uniforms.
“What is it this time?” the Bolian asked. Then he noticed the security guard against the bulkhead. “Not Hawkins again. I’m going to just give him his own damn bunk in sickbay. Copper, Wetzel, look him over. I’m gonna take a look at the twins.”
The other two started examining Hawkins while the elderly Bolian knelt down next to 110 and 111. As he ran the scanner over them, he started muttering, “Damn stupid engineers sticking their noses in where they don’t belong, and then they wonder why they’re hurt all the time. Should just retire and be done with it.”
“Will they be okay, Doctor?” Fabian asked.
Tydoan ignored Fabian as he finished his examination. Then he stood upright, groaning. Fabian thought he heard the Bolian’s knees actually crack. “They’ll be fine,” he finally said. “Bynars can take a heaping dose of juice, but this was more than a heaping dose. I’ll bring ’em to sickbay and—”
“That won’t—”
“—be necessary.”
Fabian looked down and saw that the Bynars were both starting to rise.
“Hang on, you two,” Tydoan said. “You took a major jolt, and—”
“The ‘jolt’ we took—”
“—is well within—”
“—standard Bynar tolerances, Doctor.”
As they spoke, Fabian’s tricorder beeped. He looked down at the display, and his jaw became unhinged. Oh, this isn’t good. Quickly, he switched his tricorder off and purged the records of the Bynars’ utterances, suddenly quite grateful that he’d isolated them.
“We thank