“’Fraid that’s not going to happen, either,” Quinn said, his patience obviously nearing its end. Stepping forward, he reached to take Armnoj by the arm. “We’re wasting time. Let’s go.”
“I can’t fly, I tell you. I can’t!” The accountant attempted to wrest himself from Quinn’s grasp just as Sniffy reacted to the commotion.
“Calm down, will you?” Quinn asked as he tightened his grip. “We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
“Stop it, Quinn,” Pennington said, forcing a calm voice and trying to restore some measure of peace as he stepped closer. “Mr. Armnoj, please…”
Armnoj cried out in what seemed like dire pain, the tone and pitch of his voice so loud and piercing that Pennington feared for the nearby glassware. At the same time, Sniffy moved with more animation than the journalist ever would have expected, rearing up a bit on its flabby, wedge-shaped body and loosing from its snout a booming sneeze.
Throwing his arm up as a cloud of yellow-green mucus flew from the animal’s nose, Pennington ducked as the viscous outburst saturated his arm and hand. Then his eyes widened in fear as he realized that his bare hand, sprayed with the tacky fluid, seemed to burn and tingle as if he had reached out toward an open flame.
“Bloody hell!” he cried as he wiped his hand on his shirt, an action that only seemed to heighten the sensation. “Oww!”
“That’s a boy, Sniffy,” Armnoj said, leering in Pennington’s direction as he kneeled down to pet the spent beast. “That’s a goodboy.”
“Good boy, my ass,” Quinn said, reaching into his jacket to retrieve a stun pistol, essentially the civilian equivalent of a phaser. He aimed the weapon at Armnoj. “Now, get the hell up!” Looking over his shoulder to Pennington, he called out, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” the journalist replied, his eyes widening upon seeing the weapon in Quinn’s hand. “Put that thing away!” With relief, he noted that the burning on his skin was subsiding, and he detected no other injury to his hand. “I’m okay. It fades after a minute.” He noticed that the pilot somehow had managed to avoid the mucous shower save for some spotting on his soiled jacket.
Figures.
“Yeah? Well, so does this,” Quinn said as he fired his stun pistol. The whine of energy filled the room and an ice-blue beam lanced from the weapon, washing over Armnoj and the slijm. The two slumped to the carpet.
Pennington stood frozen in place, keeping his still tingling hand wedged under his opposite armpit. Staring at Quinn, he noted the odd expression that crossed the pilot’s features.
“Damn,” Quinn said, suddenly appearing as forlorn as he might be upon learning that the alcohol content of every intoxicant in the quadrant had been neutralized. “Ah, shit.”
“What?” Pennington asked, dreading the answer.
“I’m supposed to bring Ganz this guy’s accounting records,” Quinn replied, “and I don’t know where they are.”
Nodding in resignation, Pennington said, “Probably should have gotten that information before you shot him.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Quinn replied as he returned the stun pistol to the inside pocket of his jacket. Looking around the room, he shook his head. “We’ll never find them in this place.”
“You think?” Pennington exclaimed, starting to pace around the perimeter of the room. “What in hell do we do now?”
“Wait for him to wake up,” Quinn said. Nodding in the direction of the door, he added, “If you’re bored, you could try to rustle up a Sniffy-sitter.”
Releasing an exasperated sigh, Pennington shook his head as he considered their current situation, which was becoming more ridiculous with each passing minute. Even if and when they finally managed to get off this godforsaken planet, they still had to travel to the Jinoteur system in order to complete the mysterious assignment Quinn had been given by T’Prynn.
Bollocks.
“We’re never getting to Boam II, are we?” he asked.
Quinn shrugged. “Don’t see why not. To be honest, we’re ahead of schedule.”
“Right,” Pennington replied as he reached for the unconscious Zakdorn’s arm and pulled him to his feet. Dragging Armnoj across the room, he allowed the sleeping accountant to fall without ceremony onto a nearby couch. That done, he indicated the stunned Sniffy with a nod. “You get that one.”
He was sure he saw Quinn’s hand flinch toward his stun pistol.
22
His satchel slung over one shoulder and leaving behind the growing crowd of station personnel who had come to welcome home crew members departing the Endeavour,Xiong made his way with all due haste from the gangway and away from the space-dock’s main terminal. No one awaited his arrival, and he certainly had no desire to engage in any of the emotionally mixed greetings currently being bestowed upon his shipmates.
They’re notyour shipmates,he reminded himself as he stepped along with three other passengers into a waiting turbolift.
Even as the thought surfaced, Xiong pushed it away. While he might not be a permanent member of the Endeavour’s crew, he had stood beside them during crisis and tragedy. Their captain had died saving his life, sacrificing himself with bravery and resolve as he likely would have for any of the men and women under his command. In all the ways that truly mattered, those people were his brothers and sisters, and the grief they endured over their loss was his to bear, as well.
Forcing away the unpleasant line of thought, Xiong instead tried to focus on his surroundings as the turbolift descended into the depths of the station. He waited patiently as the lift slowed to a stop at different levels, allowing the other patients to disembark. Thankfully, no one else arrived to take their place, and he was able to complete the rest of his own journey in solitude.
The lift brought him to a stop on one of the station’s cargo decks, and Xiong adopted a casual stride as he made his way down the corridor, doing his best to affect the illusion of just another member of the crew going about his duties. He maintained the charade until he arrived at his destination, an office marked like those around it with a simple location designator labeclass="underline" CA/194-6.
Entering the room, which was furnished with standard-issue Starfleet office furniture—a desk and two chairs—and featured no extraneous decorations of any kind, Xiong ensured the door was locked before stepping around the large gray desk and without preamble placing his right hand flat against the room’s rear wall. A soft, ruby glow emanated from the wall panel underneath his hand, after which a section of the bulkhead slid aside without so much as a whisper of sound to reveal a pair of red doors. They slid apart, revealing a corridor illuminated in stark, bright white.
Home at last.
His eyes squinting as they adjusted to the sudden shift in light intensity, Xiong stepped through the doorway and into the quite familiar passageway, which extended fifteen meters to another set of doors. These were transparent, offering the lieutenant a view of the hive of activity carrying on behind them. Only when the doors slid aside at his approach was he bathed in the ambient sounds and atmosphere of this, the surreptitious heart of the Vanguard station.
To those who even knew of its existence, it was referred to simply as the Vault.
Xiong entered the expansive laboratory area, not for the first time thinking that if the hallway was a river of white then this place was the milky sea into which it emptied. Floors, tabletops, furniture, and equipment, nearly all of it appearing pristine and colorless. The main floor was partitioned into groupings of smaller rooms, some outfitted with tables and chairs for conferencing while others housed scientific equipment designed for specific and sensitive studies. Nearly all of the sectioned-off areas featured at least two walls composed of transparent aluminum, adding to the lab’s sense of enormity.