The Expanse

by J. M. Dillard

  Even so, Archer missed human company: He’d always enjoyed discussing the events of the day with his engineer and friend—but now, the only events left to discuss were too grim, and certainly too painful for Trip. The Captain had no desire to saddle someone else with his own burden…so he kept to himself, maintained a professional distance from his officers.

  Such barriers weren’t good, he knew, but they wouldn’t last forever. They would succeed at their mission—Archer clung stubbornly to that belief—and things would return to normal, no matter how horribly surreal they were now.

  We’re nearly there.

  Archer stared up at the silhouette of the Xindi—a symbol of both doom and hope, his skin and sparse hair stained such a deep shade of blue it was impossible to guess at his natural coloration.

  Meeting Kessick face to face hadn’t been easy for Trip, Archer realized: Clearly, the engineer’s emotions warred within him. As much as he wanted to be fair to the Xindi, wanted not to prejudge him, the rage over his sister’s death spilled out at times. Admittedly, Kessick had been far from gracious to his rescuers—a fact that had left Tucker in a sour, sullen silence.

  Even so, Archer was glad he’d brought Trip: The engineer had as much, if not more, resolve than anyone else to see the Xindi safely aboard Enterprise.

  Abruptly, Kessick stopped his ascent. Archer peered past him and saw the source of the delay: a solid metal ceiling.

  The Xindi was clearly surprised and disappointed. “It’s another emergency baffle.”

  Archer scanned the tunnel walls, careful to maintain his balance. “Then there should be another maintenance port.” He began to finger the walls, scraping aside the thick mineral residue. His companions followed suit.

  Finally, beneath him, Trip called out. “I think I got it.”

  Archer peered down past his own feet. Trip was hurriedly clearing away the muddy blue deposits to uncover what looked like a release latch.

  Cautiously, Tucker braced both legs and one arm in their holds, then used one hand to pull down on the latch. It held fast, rusted by disuse and corrosion. Slowly, Trip leaned back against the tunnel, and pushed his feet hard against the opposite wall, pinning himself firmly in place. With both hands freed, he grasped the latch with both fists and pulled, groaning with the effort.

  Nothing. Archer was ready to crawl down and help—but Trip started moving upward until his feet were above the latch.

  Then, in a swift, precarious move that made the Captain catch his breath, Trip stepped onto the latch, and pushed downward with his full weight.

  Stop, Archer wanted to shout, you’ll fall…But he knew, like Tucker, that it was time for desperate action.

  Trip bent his knees again, pressing outward with both hands against either wall, forcing his weight down again, again.

  At last, the latch let go a screech; Archer glanced quickly overhead.

  The metal “ceiling” was beginning to open.

  A minute later, the three of them were making their way along a blessedly horizontal catwalk. It terminated in front of another sealed maintenance hatch to another tunnel leading up to the surface; Archer gave his fatigued, near-trembling muscles a silent pep talk.

  Hang on; not much farther to go.

  Kessick didn’t even seem winded, as if this were easy work after the extreme toil in the mines. The Xindi reached the maintenance hatch and groped at the ceiling in the dimness, searching for the ratchet that surely was there. After several unsuccessful tries, his expression grew anxious.

  “Looking for this?” Trip asked. Archer and the Xindi turned to see the engineer just as he picked up the ratchet, which had been propped against the wall. He tossed it to Archer, who quickly connected it to the opening mechanism and began ratcheting away.

  Almost there now…

  The foreman reached out with thin, large-knuckled fingers—each crease, each cuticle, each crescent beneath his nails outlined in a darker shade of blue—and brushed away the top layer of grit from an aging monitor screen.

  The display showed a schematic of the plasma ducts in the underground mines. The operation had long used plasma as a coolant; once it became superheated, it was released through the ducts until it at last cooled, only to be recycled. Since the mines were not operating at full capacity (a situation the foreman hoped the Enterprise crew would help correct), several of the ducts were currently sealed off.

  The foreman had imagined that the Captain and his engineer, being such fit, healthy specimens, would make fine miners; now he was beginning to have his doubts.

  He directed a finger at the glowing schematic. “Duct Thirteen. They’ve opened two emergency baffles.” It was an impressive effort, to say the least.

  The head guard stood beside him. “They’re nearly to the surface.” The alien’s deeper-than-bass growl revealed a note of concern—not for the good of the operation, the foreman knew, but for his own head. If the foreman’s superiors heard that an entire starship crew had been lost, there would be hell to pay. The foreman would receive the brunt of it, but the head guard was next in line for punishment. “We should destroy their landing pod.”

  “It’s too valuable,” the foreman snapped. He furrowed his worn brow. They were using the plasma ducts; why not give them plasma? Some nice, hot, heated-to-instantly-incinerating plasma…He pointed to the monitor again. “How long would it take to redirect the plasma flow into that conduit.”

  Beneath his rebreather, the guard smiled. “I’ll see to it.”

  He strode off, leaving the foreman to watch his future fortune trying to make its way to the planet surface.

  Chapter 14

  Muscles aching, Archer climbed up yet another shaft, last of the trio. His positive little mantra about being close to the surface had evolved into a slightly more desperate form: We’d better be there soon….

  Above him, Kessick led the way. He managed to continue his ascent at the same time he glanced down past Trip at the Captain. The Xindi’s tone was relentlessly curious. “You’ve risked your lives to learn where my homeworld is…because you say you have important ‘business’ with my people…. Which species?”

  Archer gazed back without reply, thinking of the image of the reptilian-looking biped Phlox had reconstructed from the crashed probe. Amazing, to think that two highly intelligent species had evolved independently on the same planet. Was this a situation where the reptiles and the humanoids were at war, and the reptiles had launched the Earth probe without Kessick’s people being aware of it? The Captain remained silent, unsure of the answer to the miner’s question.

  This served only to annoy Kessick. With supreme condescension, he demanded, “Have you ever even met a Xindi before today?” His snideness made Archer dislike him; he seemed oblivious to the concept of gratitude toward those who would save him. Perhaps he was incapable of ascribing honest motives to anyone. Archer tried not to assume it was a racial characteristic, but instead an individual one, honed by Kessick’s time in the mines. Anyone who had to deal with the foreman on a regular basis had good reason not to trust people.

  “One,” Archer finally answered. “And he didn’t look very much like you.”

  Kessick’s manner changed again, becoming abruptly open and unaffected; he seemed to appreciate Archer’s honest manner. “Not all of them do,” he explained. “There are five distinct species of Xindi…” His tone grew wry, and a bit self-deprecating. “…and five distinct opinions on which one is dominant.” Archer detected a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that gave him hope: Perhaps it would be possible after all to establish rapport with this alien. Maybe Kessick hadn’t hardened beyond all hope. Maybe—and it was a big maybe—he could even be told the truth, and be convinced to help for the good of both planets, Earth and the Xindi homeworld.

  Archer found the thought of five intelligent species evolving together inconceivable. He opened his mouth to ask further about the fact, but was interrupted by the distant sound of metal sliding against metal.

 
All three of them stopped climbing and looked down, toward the sound’s source.

  “What was that?” Trip demanded.

  Archer began to respond—but his first word was drowned out by a second identical sound, then a third. As the last sound, coming from somewhere high above them, died down, Archer spoke.

  “That sounded an awful lot like those emergency baffles we opened.”

  Trip was frowning. “Why would they be opening the rest? It’ll just help us get—”

  He broke off in midstatement as an ominous rumbling sound echoed through the shaft. Archer understood at once what was going on; he yelled, furious, at Kessick. Had the Xindi set them up?

  “I thought you said this duct isn’t used anymore!”

  But Kessick’s terror seemed all too real. “It isn’t! They’ve obviously rerouted the plasma!”

  The rumble had become a roar. Archer turned his face upward toward the Xindi, and shouted, “How far up to the next maintenance hatch?” Too far, and they were cooked.

  Kessick blinked rapidly, his mouth working; no sound emerged.

  “How far?” Archer’s tone grew shrill, demanding.

  “I don’t know!” The alien was clearly panicking; he gripped the wall, too frightened to move up or down.

  Trip, however, was all business as he called down to the Captain. “I think the safest bet is to head back down to the last one!”

  “I think you’re right,” Archer called up. Together, the two men began to crawl swiftly downward. The rumbling sound grew ominously closer.

  Kessick, however, continued to cling to the wall, petrified. “That’s where the plasma’s coming from! We should go up!”

  Archer didn’t stop moving down. “Suit yourself!”

  He was betting that Kessick would follow. Even if the Xindi didn’t, there was no point in Archer dying in order to save a possible lead. Enterprise was in the Expanse; she was bound to encounter other Xindis.

  His first instincts were right; an instant later, Kessick frantically began to crawl after them.

  Fatigue entirely forgotten, Archer climbed down as fast as he could without completely losing his grip; it was treacherous going, as the thick residue on the sides of the shaft was slippery. Within seconds, the tunnel seemed to brighten slightly; the Captain looked down and saw the distant, white-hot glow of superheated plasma.

  Kessick had scrabbled so quickly down the shaft that he was now just behind Trip. The Xindi, too, caught sight of the approaching plasma, and cried out, “It’s too late! We’ll be killed!”

  His cowardice wasn’t winning him any points.

  “Shut up,” Trip shouted with disgust, above the plasma’s roar, “just shut up!” His tone made clear that he hadn’t come this far to become another tragic victim.

  Archer kept blinking, dazzled by the plasma’s sunlike brilliance. Its presence gave him precisely one advantage: he could clearly see below him the partially opened maintenance hatch that led to the catwalk.

  “I can see it!” he yelled up to the other two. “It’s just another ten meters!”

  And then he saw the roiling plasma surge forward: Just another ten meters was too far. At this rate, they’d never make it.

  Like Trip, he wasn’t in the mood to be another victim. “We’re gonna have to pick up the pace, gentlemen!”

  Archer braced his arms and legs against the walls of the duct and began to slide at a dizzying pace; he forced himself not to look down. He could hear Trip just above him, boots and hands scraping against the slick surface as he, too, let himself go into a slide.

  The hatch door was there before the Captain expected it; he barely managed to grab hold of it with a lurch that jarred his entire skeleton, then he swung himself inside. He turned around at once, ready to help Trip.

  Tucker arrived a heartbeat later and grabbed the door….

  Kessick came crashing atop him in a free fall, nearly knocking both of them down into the fast-moving torrent of plasma. Trip struggled to regain his grip on the door; as if the engineer were a rope, Kessick pushed him down and started crawling over him toward the hatch, clearly willing to send Trip sailing down to his doom if it bought the Xindi’s survival.

  Trip fought back, maintaining a handhold on the door out of sheer cussedness. “Wait a minute, what the hell are you—!” He used his other arm to push Kessick back, to wait his turn.

  The Xindi flailed at him. “Let go of me!”

  The roar was deafening now; the two men fought and cursed each other, but Archer could no longer hear their words. He leaned forward out of the hatch, feeling the heat of the encroaching plasma on his face, and saw Kessick kicking Trip in a bid to gain leverage to reach the hatch floor.

  Archer was strongly tempted to leave the Xindi behind—but they had made it thus far. He leaned forward even farther, and with Herculean effort, seized each man by an arm and dragged them inside.

  They had just enough time to brace themselves behind the metal door as the plasma rushed upward past the open hatch. Archer closed his eyes, but still saw the star-hot glow; the image remained a time after the plasma passed, and he opened his eyes again.

  Together, he and Trip pushed the hatch closed; nearby, Kessick collapsed on the floor, gasping, exhausted from his impressive display of cowardice.

  Trip whirled on him. “You stupid son of a bitch! I oughta open this hatch and throw you…”

  He trailed off, not because his anger had died down, Archer realized, but because of the odd, wide-eyed look of surprise on Kessick’s face. The Xindi was looking past them, at something he did not particularly want to see.

  Archer suspected he didn’t particularly want to see it either, but he turned nonetheless.

  Behind them stood four of the towering alien guards, holding large, glowing pulse-weapons.

  Kessick pushed himself to his knees.

  “They forced me to come with them!” he said, his manner disconcertingly convincing. “They said they’d kill me if I didn’t!” He pointed accusingly at Trip. “Just now…this one…he tried to push me into the plasma! He said they didn’t need me anymore!” The Xindi paused, folding his hands together in front of his breast; his tone grew placating. “Thank you, thank you! If you hadn’t been waiting here, I don’t know what—”

  Archer applauded mentally as one of the guards struck Kessick’s head with his rifle butt; the Xindi fell backwards, dazed.

  “Pick him up,” the tallest of the guards ordered Archer and Trip.

  The two humans complied.

  The guard, clearly in command of the others, motioned for them to carry Kessick back across the catwalk. Wheezing with the effort, Archer stared grimly across the Xindi’s limp form at Trip Tucker. Things weren’t looking too good for them right now; the Captain silently cursed the fact that he could no longer communicate with the ship, no longer ask for backup. He could do nothing now except trust T’Pol to get Enterprise out of harm’s way before the warships arrived, even though he knew she would be powerfully drawn to stay and wait for the Captain and Trip to return on the shuttlepod.

  They stepped from the catwalk onto a landing; abruptly, the head guard came to a stop, and motioned for the others to do the same.

  Out of the indigo haze, the foreman emerged, flanked by three more guards.

  Archer looked on the weasel with undisguised loathing.

  All unctuous pretense gone, the grimy little man stepped forward, clearly annoyed. “I would’ve preferred having the two of you join your fellow crew members as new additions to my workforce,” he told Archer, “but you’ve turned out to be more trouble than you’re worth.” He turned and gazed up at the head guard. “Select a detail and take them to the surface.” He gave Kessick, who now stood unsteadily on his feet, a disgusted look, then once more addressed the guard. “Shoot all three of them.”

  The words caused Archer’s stomach to knot; they were not what he’d anticipated. He’d expected the weasel to order them back down to the workers’ area, where Archer an
d Trip would have been free to plot another escape attempt.

  Now time was running out. The Captain gazed up at the burly, towering aliens with their glowing rifles and tried to come up with a plan to overpower them—in vain.

  Meanwhile, the head guard nodded to two of his men, who then motioned for their prisoners to head for an iron stairwell. Archer paused, reluctant.

  He couldn’t let it end quickly, like this. He didn’t mind dying—in fact, it had always been his hope that he would die on an adventure, out in space—but right now, his mission was far too important. Death would be too much like surrendering. He had to think of something. Maybe if he signaled Trip, pretended to faint, allowing Trip to come over to him and distract the guards…It was a long shot, but he couldn’t just give up without fighting.

  T’Pol, I hope you’ve quit waiting and gotten my ship the hell out of here….

  At last, slowly, he turned as directed, catching a final glimpse of the remaining guards with the foreman, who stood, blue-stained fists on his hips, watching the proceedings with satisfaction.

  Archer caught a glimpse, as well, of a fast-moving shadows overhead. His initial instinct was to glance up; fortunately, his second instinct, to pretend he’d seen nothing, allowed him to suppress the first in time. Once again, he prayed to a particular Vulcan.

  T’Pol. Damned if she doesn’t have one of the strongest human intuitions I’ve ever encountered….

  Archer kept moving forward until he heard the blast of a pulse weapon behind him.

  He whirled, just in time to see one of the foreman’s guards lurching backward, midsection lit up by a brilliant volley of pulses.

  Between Archer and the foreman stood three MACOs in silvery-gray camouflage, each letting loose rapid streams of dazzling pulses from pulse rifles even more fearsome-looking than the guards’. The scene possessed a surrealistic beauty as the weapons’ fire intermittently lit up the faintly swirling blue haze.