Part 23 (1/2)
The thrumming of the engines grew louder and pitched quickly upward as the stars on the viewscreen shot past.
”Course laid in and engaged, sir,” replied Lavena, her voice filtered through her aquatic breathing mask. ”ETA to target is approximately seven hours, nine minutes.”
To Vale, Riker added, ”Get ready for a hostile reception.”
Vale turned to T'Kel. ”All security personnel to stations.” Then she pivoted toward Tuvok. ”s.h.i.+elds to ready standby, weapons hot.” As the two officers carried out her orders with cool, quiet efficiency, Vale turned back to Riker and lowered her voice to a sub rosa level. ”Without comms, we won't be able to report our findings to Starfleet. If we get into trouble, we won't even be able to send a Mayday. We'll be completely alone out here.”
”We're already alone out here,” Riker replied in the same hushed tone. ”But I'm not breaking off or going back. Whatever's hiding out there in the dark, it's got my full attention.”
2168.
20.
Erika Hernandez awoke struggling and flailing as a gloved hand clamped over her mouth and nose.
A German-accented voice snapped, ”Quick, tie her!”
She lashed out and cuffed Private Steinhauer on the ear before someone else snared her wrist and yanked it backward.
Steinhauer and Mazzetti pulled Hernandez from her bunk. The German's hand slipped from her mouth, and she inhaled, a prelude to a shout-then Mazzetti wedged a rolled-up sock between her teeth, m.u.f.fling her panicked cry for help.
There were sounds of struggle in the rooms adjoining hers, more sharp-but-hushed orders, heavy thuds of bodies striking the floor, the meaty smack of fists against flesh.
Her attackers flipped her facedown on the floor. One of them, she couldn't see which, kneeled on her back and held her wrists behind her while the other bound them. The odor of their exertion was heavy in the air. She kept trying to pull free, and they tightened their hold. Beads of sweat rolled from beneath her hair, soaking her forehead and neck.
Mazzetti and Steinhauer each grabbed one of her arms, under the shoulder, and dragged her backward out of her quarters, into one of the corridors of their penthouse suite. At the same time, Commander Fletcher was dragged, bound and gagged, from her room by Sergeant Pembleton and Private Crichlow. Lieutenants Yacavino and Thayer pulled the similarly restrained Lieutenant Valerian into the hallway, while Major Foyle and Lieutenant Graylock towed Dr. Metzger from her chambers.
”Bring them to the main room,” ordered Foyle. The group did as the MACO leader said and pushed, pulled, and prodded their four prisoners into the suite's sunken living area, near the terrace entrance. Foyle released his hold on Metzger and said, ”Seat them back-to-back and tie them together.”
Hernandez eyed Foyle as he stepped away and watched Pembleton and the three privates lash the four Columbia officers together, each of them facing out, like points on a compa.s.s.
The major conferred in whispers with his second-in-command for a moment before he acknowledged Captain Hernandez's baleful glare. ”I won't insult you by apologizing,” he said. ”And I can't say as I mind our conversation being a bit one-sided in my favor, for a change.” He stepped down and kneeled beside her. ”You understand why I had to do this, don't you?”
She wanted to spit at him, but the sock was in the way.
”Yacavino,” said the major. ”I'll brief our guests on what happens next. Deploy the others and wait for my signal.” As the group began to leave, he added, ”Pembleton, hang back.”
The MACO sergeant turned and halted while the rest of the mutineers departed. Hernandez caught a backward, regretful glance from Lieutenant Thayer, but only a stern mask of resolve on Graylock. She was profoundly disappointed in both of them, but especially in her chief engineer.
I never should've let Tucker transfer back to Enterprise, she jokingly berated herself. It's so hard to find good help these days.
After the Caeliar elevator pod had departed, carrying the others back to street level, Foyle waved Pembleton over. ”Take their communicators,” he said. ”And anything else you find.”
Hernandez had suspected that Foyle would remember she had ordered everyone to carry communicators at all times, in case the scattering field ever lifted. All the same, as Pembleton plucked hers from her pocket, she felt a twinge of irritation at the MACOs' efficiency and thoroughness. The sergeant concluded his pat-down search of the four female officers and held up four communicators. ”This is all they had.”
”Stack them over there, against the wall.” Pembleton did as Foyle instructed. Then the major added, ”Frag them.”
Pembleton tugged the strap of his phase rifle and swung it off his back and into his hands. He squeezed off a burst of charged plasma and reduced the four communicators to smoking, sparking sludge.
Then he aimed his rifle at Hernandez.
”Give the order, sir,” said Pembleton, his index finger poised over the trigger, steady and certain.
Foyle absorbed Hernandez's murderous, defiant stare. His face was an icy cipher. After several seconds, he said to Pembleton, ”Lower your weapon.” He strode toward the elevator pod. ”We'll leave them here.”
Pembleton let his weapon's muzzle dip toward the floor as he watched Foyle walk away. ”Sir, that wasn't the plan.”
The major stopped, turned, and snapped, ”I know that, Sergeant. Sling your rifle and get in the lift.” He watched Pembleton engage the safety on his weapon and quickstep toward the returned elevator pod. Then he looked at Hernandez. ”I've chosen not to kill you, Captain,” he said. ”Please don't make me regret my decision.”
He followed Pembleton to the pod and stepped inside. Its transparent sh.e.l.l sealed itself around them, and then it vanished through the floor on its way to the plaza below.
Hernandez a.s.sessed her situation with dour cynicism. I'm bound hand and foot, unarmed, with no communicator. And I've got a sock in my mouth. She felt her nostrils flare as she sighed through her nose. I wish he had shot me.
Time was dragging for Kiona Thayer even as the wind whipped her long, dark hair above her head like Medusa's serpents.
She still had a sick feeling in her gut from helping Major Foyle and his men a.s.sault and restrain her four fellow officers. Everything had unfolded so quickly once the MACOs had set themselves in motion. Within minutes she and Graylock had been roused and pressed into service to restrain the captain and the others.
In the hour that had elapsed since they'd left the penthouse and persuaded the Caeliar to provide them with an automated transportation disk to the nearby city of Mantilis for ”cultural research,” Thayer had felt her pulse throbbing in her temples. At any moment her four betrayed s.h.i.+pmates would be discovered trussed like animals in the penthouse, she was certain of it. And then all of this would be for nothing.
Towers and spires blurred past in the darkness. Then the lines of the metropolis sharpened as the disk settled to a soft landing in the midst of a great plaza across from the opaque dome that s.h.i.+elded this city's majestic Caeliar apparatus.
The disk melted into the marbled stone of the plaza, and the eight-person team moved quickly toward the dome. A violet radiance shot up from the top of the dome and soared skyward.
”Nice thing about a species that never sleeps,” Crichlow said softly, with a grin. ”They don't ask why you'd want to take a trip in the middle of the night.”
Pembleton smacked the back of Crichlow's crew-cut head, and said in a whisper laced with menace, ”Shut up.”
At the base of the dark hemisphere that loomed large before them, the group halted. The MACOs unzipped side pouches on one another's packs and removed rolls of wide medical tape from their first-aid kits. They worked strips of tape between their fingers and wrapped a few loops, adhesive side out, around their palms and the toes of their boots.
Pembleton handed a roll of tape to Thayer. ”Just enough to give yourself some traction,” he whispered. ”Once we're past the first half, we should be okay without it.”
Thayer tried to wrap her hands and boots with the tape; it was clumsy work, holding one end in place while manipulating the rest of the roll. After it slipped from her grasp for the third time, Pembleton and Steinhauer did the work for her. When they finished, Pembleton asked her, ”Ready?” She nodded. ”All right,” he said. ”Let's climb.”
The sergeant and Major Foyle led the way, scrambling and fighting for purchase on the smooth surface. The rest of the group hurried behind them. In moments they were scratching and kicking their way up the dome like drunken bugs. Just as Pembleton had predicted, after they reached the halfway point they were able to move more quickly, jogging in a knuckle-dragging slouch, occasionally padding their palms against the dome for traction or balance. Recalling that the domes appeared transparent from inside, Thayer hoped that none of the Caeliar working on Mantilis's apparatus were looking up at that moment.
At the top of the dome, the eight-person team perched at the edge of the fifty-meter-wide aperture to the crystalline shaft that linked the dome to the enormous circular platform two hundred meters below. ”Moment of truth,” Foyle said as he stared down into the glittering empty s.p.a.ce and the constantly moving ma.s.s of dark machines at its nadir.
All six MACOs doffed their packs, opened them, and began extracting coils of high-tensile microfiber rope and carabiners that they snapped into reinforced loops on their standard-issue tactical vests. Their hands worked faster than Thayer could follow, threading ropes through the steel loops, tying knots, and securing pockets and packs.
Graylock carried a tube of cyanoacrylate from his emergency repair kit and moved down the line, stopping behind each person to affix a carabiner on the surface of the dome with a thick wad of the polymer superadhesive. Thayer eyed the fat dollop of glue with suspicion. ”Will that hold?”
”Ja, but not long. Six, maybe seven decades.” As Graylock moved on, Thayer reflected on the truism that there had never been any great German comedians.
Yacavino tapped her on the shoulder. ”Lift your arms, signorina,” he said. ”I need to tie you a harness.” She did as he asked and watched as he worked careful loops in a cross over her torso and then secured them with a strong simple knot through the carabiner at her feet. Then he threaded her descent rope through a carabiner on her makes.h.i.+ft harness. ”You know how to use this, si?”
”I think I remember, yes,” she lied.