“Why are we standing around, then?” Gianetti asked, a hint of anxiety in his voice. “Let’s get the hell out of here before they send everybody with a weapon after us.”
Reyes felt the larger man grab his arm again as the trio once more set off through the winding corridors, and he could not help shaking the anxiety he was feeling at the thought of moving away from the ship’s more populated areas. Recalling what he knew of the vessel’s internal configuration, he knew that this section comprised living quarters, storage, and maintenance access points. The omnipresent hum of the Omari-Ekon’s engines was even more noticeable here, reverberating off the bare metal deck plates and bulkheads. The doors on either side of the passageway were unadorned save for a single small plaque set into the metal at eye level and providing its compartment designation. Reyes had taken the time to learn how the designators were assigned, so he was able to discern that they were on a lower level and nearing the aft third of the ship.
Dark and isolated. Perfect for a nice, quiet execution.
Turning one more bend in the hallway, Hetzlein stopped before a reinforced hatch set into the bulkhead at the end of a short corridor spur. A hexagonal keypad with a magnetic reader was set into the wall next to the door, with three rows of four keys highlighted in blue and featuring characters in Orion text. Without hesitation, Hetzlein swiped the card she had taken from the Orion, and this time was rewarded with the sound of the oversized door’s lock disengaging.
“Where are we?” Reyes asked, for himself as well as T’Prynn.
As the hatch slid aside, Hetzlein replied, “Maintenance passage. This’ll take us to the utility compartment.”
“Maintenance passage,” Reyes said, hoping T’Prynn was still listening. “Sounds cozy.”
Something bright flashed in the corridor an instant before the crackle of energy assaulted Reyes’s ears, and he cringed as a disruptor bolt slammed into the wall just to the right of his head. He felt Gianetti’s meaty hand on his arm just before the man pulled him aside and pushed him to the deck inside the maintenance hatch. Rolling onto his side, Reyes caught his first look back up the passageway and saw three more Orions at the intersection, firing from cover. Hetzlein, in the open, aimed her own weapon and snapped off several shots, which only added to the cacophony filling the corridor. The Orions ducked back around the corner to avoid being hit, giving her the opportunity she needed to get out of the line of fire. She jumped through the hatchway, vaulting over Reyes.
“Let’s go,” she said, reaching down to pull Reyes to his feet.
Gianetti, bringing up the rear, back-stepped toward the door, aiming his phaser back up the corridor. Reyes saw movement at the intersection just before one of the Orions ducked into sight, taking aim and firing his disruptor. The blast caught Gianetti in the thigh and the man grunted in pain as he fell to one knee.
“Get off me!” Reyes said, but by then it was too late. Though he was able to get off a few more shots, the Orions were like feeding sharks at this point, all three of them taking aim at the wounded man and unleashing the full force of their weapons. Gianetti was struck by half a dozen blasts in rapid succession, each shot pushing him back until he slammed into the bulkhead behind him. He fell limp to the deck, coming to rest with his head facing Reyes, who saw the man’s lifeless eyes.
“Move!” Hetzlein said, taking aim at the keypad set inside the hatchway and shooting it with her phaser. This had the effect of forcing the hatch to close and preventing the Orions from chasing after them. Without another word, Hetzlein pushed Reyes down the narrow, darkened passageway, their boots clanging on the metal grating that served as deck plating in this part of the ship while covering all manner of conduits along with power and other optical cabling. Never having been in this area of the Omari-Ekon,Reyes had no points of reference for determining his present location as they navigated the passageway’s numerous turns, though Hetzlein seemed to know with utmost precision just where they were going. Perhaps seeing the questioning expression on Reyes’s face, she said, “Almost there.”
“ Mister Reyes,” T’Prynn said. “ Your current position appears to be in an area of the ship that is shielded from sensors. I am unable to isolate your exact location.”
“Wonderful,” Reyes replied, a response that drew a quizzical look from Hetzlein.
They reached another maintenance hatch, similar to the one they had accessed at the other end of the corridor, and once more Hetzlein entered a sequence of commands on the door’s keypad. The door slid aside, revealing what Reyes at first took to be some kind of storage compartment. Tables lined the bulkheads at this end of the room, accompanied by equipment lockers, packing crates, and an assortment of tools and other items strewn around the room. Hetzlein led the way into the room, inspecting its interior while sighting down the length of her right arm and the phaser she still held in her hand.
“You need to get out of here before you get us both killed!” Reyes snapped. This was getting ridiculous. So far as he could tell, Hetzlein had led them into whatever passed for a mousetrap on this ship.
“With all due respect, Mister Reyes,” Hetzlein said, her voice low and tight, “shut up or I’ll shoot you myself.” Taking a knee, she reached for the sole of her right boot and twisted it so that it dropped downward, revealing a small rectangle of burnished metal. Extracting the object from the boot’s concealed compartment, she turned it over to reveal a single, recessed button in the item’s metal casing. “Burst transmitter,” she said, holding up the device. “Single-use, tight-beam focused transmission. It’ll punch through any jamming field they might have up around the—”
Something bumped into something else at the room’s far end, and Reyes and Hetzlein turned in that direction, each searching for the source of the odd noise. Reyes felt a knot form in his gut at the same time Hetzlein was retrieving her phaser from the deck next to her right foot. She managed to pick up the weapon before a burst of energy exploded from somewhere in the darkness and zipped across the room, striking her in the chest. Her face a mask of agony, Hetzlein crumpled to the deck even as a second disruptor bolt hit her.
Something clanked against the metal near the fallen woman and Reyes saw that Hetzlein had dropped the transmitter. For a fleeting instant, he considered diving for the device, but at the last second he kicked at it with his boot, sending it sliding across the deck away from him. He held up his hands to the approaching Orions, showing them that he was unarmed, but that was all he could do before something struck him in the back and he lurched as though touched by a live power conduit. His muscles jerked, racked by spasms, and his jaw clenched as the effects of whatever had hit him coursed over and through his body. Then, everything around him faded to black.
16
Heihachiro Nogura prided himself on not being a man given to negative displays of emotion. It was a rare event for him to raise his voice above a conversational tone, much less yell at anyone. Even more uncommon was his use of anything other than mild obscenities, and he preferred to avoid other abusive invective. He was confident enough in his position and in the authority he commanded that it was an infrequent occasion when he felt the need to make known his displeasure with anything other than a calm, professional demeanor.
Today felt as though it might just be shaping up to be one of those occasions.
His hands clasped behind his back so that they would not form fists of their own accord, Nogura stalked back and forth across the width of his office, pacing the section of deck between his desk and the silent, unmoving figure of Lieutenant Haniff Jackson. With the simple act of standing still and not saying a word, Nogura figured that Starbase 47’s chief of security was doing perhaps the smartest thing he had ever done in his young life. Though he might well have been content to let the younger man sweat for the next hour or so while pondering his fate, Nogura had no time for such distractions, satisfying though they might appear to be at the moment. With that in mind, he halted his pacing as he came abreast of the lieutenant, turning to face him from a distance of less than one meter.