Terminus (Fringe Worlds #1) Read Free Page B

me.”
    “Which was…?” Dr. Chantrey inquired.
    “Two words,” Maker replied. “‘Run. Trap.’”
    “What did you do then?” Browing asked.
    “I was taken aback,” Maker admitted, “to say the least. I immediately gave the Marines with me the hand signals indicating that enemy combatants were near. I then got on the comm and told the two I’d left outside the airlock that there was nothing to see in the sick bay – no survivors. I instructed them – along with the Marines in the sick bay with me – to head back to the shuttle, Tango Bravo, and that I would follow.”
    Browing frowned. “Tango Bravo?”
    “It’s code,” the general said. “It basically means that the enemy is close, so be ready to engage.”
    “Exactly,” Maker said with a nod. “So everyone else took off, while I tried to find some way to take the head with us.”
    “Take it with you?” Browing muttered. “Why?”
    “Because it was alive in some way, so it didn’t seem right to just leave it there,” Maker said. “Plus, it might be able to tell us what had happened on the ship. Finally, if what it had said was true, it had just helped us.”
    “And was it true?” Dr. Chantrey asked.
    “Yes,” Maker said. “After a few moments, I figured out that the electrodes attached to the head were connected to some sort of power pack that was magnetically bolted to the floor. In short, it didn’t appear to be portable, but I spent some time screwing with the sick bay’s controls just in case there was something I could do. Then I headed off after the others. Either I was moving fast or they were moving slow, because I caught up to them pretty quickly. We’d covered maybe half the distance back to the shuttle when it happened.”
    “The attack,” Browing said matter-of-factly.
    Maker nodded in response, noting that Browing’s statement removed any doubt that his guests had read his file. “We had come to the end of a narrow passageway that led to a large, open area – some kind of cargo space – with a number of catwalks along the walls. That’s where they were hiding.”
    Maker paused, remembering – the scene vividly coming back to him as if it had happened yesterday. His audience waited patiently, and after a moment, he continued.
    “They must have had some kind of cloaking technology in their armor,” Maker said, “because we never had a clue that they were there when we first passed through that area on our way to the sick bay. It was the same story on the way back.”
    “So you still weren’t picking up any life signs,” Browing stated flatly.
    “No,” Maker replied. “But the whole area – lots of open space with very little cover – just seemed like the perfect place for an ambush, so we holed up in the passageway for a few minutes, even though we weren’t getting any readings.”
    “But surely your sensors were detecting movement,” Browing insisted.
    “There was no gravity!” Maker almost screamed. “There was all kinds of crap floating around in there! Any movement we picked up the first time we were in there was probably categorized by all of us as debris. So I’m sorry we didn’t initially make the decision to verify that everything moving around us was trash.”
    Dr. Chantrey gave him a piercing stare. “What did you do?”
    Maker made a vague gesture. “What could I do? The most direct path back to the shuttle was through that cargo hold. We could try to find another route, but there was no guarantee that we’d be successful, and whoever had set this trap for us would probably be lying in wait no matter which way we went. Plus, at the moment, there was a good chance that they didn’t know we’d been given a warning – that we knew they were there. So I ordered us forward.”
    “Forward?” Dr. Chantrey muttered, almost incredulously. “Into what you knew was a trap?”
    Maker shrugged. “I put myself into our enemies’ shoes. I figured that they wouldn’t fire until we were at our