Tales from the Captain’s Table (25 page)

“Swords are an honorable way of doing battle.” The Klingon slammed her fist on the table and glared around the table.

“No question about that,” Archer said.
Time to wrap this story up.
“They have other nasty weapons as well.”

Porthos cocked his head as if to say, “Interesting story, boss. What’s next?”

Archer chuckled. “There are other ways than brandishing weapons to catch someone’s attention, however….”

A whistle shrieked through the clearing—one perfect note so loud and shrill it knocked a purple spy bird out of the closest tree and drew the Nausicaan up short.

“Be careful with that beagle,” the woman said. “He’s worth more than all the junk you’ve got in these crates.”

The Nausicaan holding me close enough to dance clamped a band around my wrists and tossed me over by the woman. Metal flashed in the small one’s hand as he headed toward his partner in crime.

“Porthos is one of a kind,” the woman continued. “My own creation. He’s the reason you’re getting paid a fortune to kidnap me.”

Sun glinted off the sword as the big Nausicaan started to swing. The smaller one lunged forward with the rod in his hand. Metal connected with Nausicaan rump. Sparks flew, and the acrid stench of burning hair stung my nose. The big guy must have been zapped with a ten-megawatt jolt. I have to give him credit: He didn’t fall over. He just sort of crumbled in place.

Now seemed like a good time to introduce myself. “Doctor Findalot, I presume?” I closed my eyes and turned my head as the woman looked me over from head to toe—and giggled.

I opened one eye, then the other.

“Yes, I’m Doctor Findalot, and that,” she pointed at the Nausicaans, “is Buff and Fluff. The big one’s Buff. The other one’s Fluff. Your not-so-typical Nausicaan couple.”

I nodded and squinted at the pair. Besides the different sizes and hairstyles, it was difficult to tell them apart.

Buff was back on his feet, but his eyes weren’t really in focus. He shuffled over to the loading ramp, grabbed the doctor with one hand, the back of my shirt with the other, and carried us both inside the shuttle, where he dumped us into an empty space between a stack of ragged crates and the open cockpit door.

Fluff bounced in and tossed the beagle’s limp body in a small cage nearby. I swallowed hard, willing Porthos to move, but Double-O One didn’t even whimper.

The shuttle was a utility model, a stripped-down hollow tube, with cockpit up front, engine compartment in the rear, and lots of floor space in between.

In spite of their constant bickering, the Nausicaans managed to haul the rest of the booty inside in a remarkably short time. The loading ramp retracted and the exterior door snapped shut as the pair filled the shuttle with their not-so-fragrant presence.

I had a pretty good view of the cockpit from my aisle seat. Fluff slipped my phase pistol into a bulkhead compartment along with an implement I didn’t recognize, then came back to make sure we were comfortable.

“Welcome aboard,” she said in barely understandable English. There was no misunderstanding the prod in her hand, though. She grabbed my chin and smiled. “We’ll be departing shortly. Please make sure your bindings are securely fastened.” She grabbed our wrists and clicked the bands closed another notch. “And bring your knees into a full, upright position.” A swift kick from that lovely, size-twenty boot got us into the proper position.

“I have some breath mints,” I said, trying not to gag at the stench of who-knows-what sliming my face. She definitely needed a visit to Dentists-R-Us. Failing that, maybe I could talk her into a deal of some kind. “Whatever they’re paying, we’ll double it.”

Fluff sneered, not a pretty sight. “Enjoy the flight—it’ll probably be your last.” She spun around, flipping snake braids in all directions, and returned to the cockpit as the shuttle left the ground with an ear-numbing rumble.

“Feels like the thrusters need adjusting,” I said to no one in particular. The acceleration pressed me tight to the floor for a moment; then we settled into a nice cruise.

Maybe now was the time to indulge in a little light conversation. I skipped the “what’s a nice girl” line and got straight to the point. “So, Doctor Findalot. Do you have any idea why we’re about to be sold into slavery?”

The doctor shrugged. “A few years ago I discovered a new cloning procedure. I’ve had one major success: my daughter Cari.”

“Doctor Fetchalot is a clone?”

“The Nausicaans claim there’s a transport ship out there, waiting to torture me into submission.”

“Sounds terrific.” I couldn’t tell what direction we were headed, but I knew one thing: Once the shuttle hooked up with the transport ship, escape would very likely be impossible. I glanced at Porthos and frowned. The beagle hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d been knocked silly.

“Porthos,” I whispered, glancing toward the cockpit. “You’re going to miss dinner.”

Porthos immediately rolled into a prone position and shook his head so hard his ears flapped against his cheeks. He struggled to his feet, flipped the latch on his cage open, and slipped out the door.

“Wait a minute. How did it manage to get out of the cage? It has no hands!”

Gotcha!
Archer stifled a grin. “
He
is a consummate escape artist. I’m not doing him justice, though; it isn’t so much the fact he escaped. Double-O One had a flair for the dramatic. I’d swear he straightened his coat and winked as he stepped free of that cage.”

“Winked…?” Big Ears was flummoxed—a situation Archer thoroughly enjoyed.

“As I was saying…”

Porthos eased between a stack of crates and the bulkhead wall. My stomach did nervous butterfly things while we anxiously waited to see what he would do. He reappeared in the shadows near the engine-room door, clambered up a set of access rungs, shoved a vent open with his nose, and scrambled inside. All without making a sound.

At least not a sound loud enough to be heard over the burping engine.

“What is he up to?” I whispered.

“Double-O One has a few genetic enhancements that allow him to go places ordinary beagles dare not go.” Doctor Findalot grinned like a proud mother.

My pulse echoed in my ears at the sight of the cage door standing open. We’d lose a major advantage—maybe our only advantage—if they found Porthos missing. But I was helpless to do anything with my hands going numb behind my back, so I ignored the pond stench wafting off my soggy shirt and concentrated on the scraping noise overhead.

Porthos had worked his way into the ventilation system, and he wasn’t being quiet about it. Before I could deduce what my partner had in mind, a noxious odor swept through the shuttle. I pressed my nose tight to my shirt and tried not to breathe.

“Did you give Porthos cheese?” I detected a slight note of accusation in the doctor’s muffled words.

“I didn’t give him anything.” I thought about the empty cheese-burger wrapper. “Your daughter did.”

“Ugh.”

Up in the cockpit, the Nausicaans were being tortured. A lunghacking cough had Buff curled in a ball. Fluff wasn’t in much better shape. She’d pulled her collar up over her nose, but her color was pale—for a Nausicaan. She lashed out at Buff, her screeches echoing off the shuttle’s hull. I couldn’t understand a word she said, but Doctor Fetchalot thought it was something about dying.

I suggested to the good doctor that we take advantage of the distraction. We inched ourselves around back-to-back and worked on each other’s bonds.

The scratching overhead started, stopped, started again. Porthos was on the move.

Slowly the coughing and gagging subsided. Buff mumbled something about running a maintenance check on the ventilation system once they’d delivered their cargo. Fluff scratched her right arm—the arm that had carried Porthos into the shuttle—and growled something unintelligible.

“Looks like one of our fearless captors has a skin problem,” I said to Findalot.

“She probably activated Porthos’s nanoflea defense system. If he’s rendered unconscious, the fleas automatically head for the nearest warm-blooded body.”

Why did every inch of my skin not covered by mosquito bites or leech lesions suddenly start to itch? I pulled my feet close and studied the floor for tiny troops.

The vessel bucked and rolled, flinging Doctor Findalot and me against the wall.

“Maybe we ran into an asteroid belt,” I whispered in the doctor’s ear.

“Get off me before I give you a belt,” the doctor whispered back.

My hypothesis proved wrong a moment later when Buff appeared in the cockpit doorway, smoke trailing from the seat of his pants. The doctor and I held our collective breaths as the big Nausicaan stormed past, yanked open the engine-room door, and stepped inside.

We sagged back into a tangled lump: Buff hadn’t noticed the empty cage.

The shuttle lurched again, slamming the rear door shut. Porthos scrambled out of the air vent, tumbled to the floor, and disappeared behind the crates. A broomstick—an ancient Nausicaan weapon—fell across the engine-room door, lodging in the handle. After a moment of silence the door thumped.

It thumped again a few seconds later, louder this time. Then again and again until Fluffy slammed the control panel with both fists. I found myself introduced to all sorts of interesting Nausicaan curses as she staggered back to the engine room.

My breath stuck in my throat as Porthos dashed into the cockpit, shoved open a section beneath the control console, and proceeded to make a few adjustments. He ducked a few flying sparks and sizzling wires, snatched an object in his mouth, and raced out of the cockpit.

The stench of fried circuits reached my nose about the same time Porthos pressed something hard into my hand. He ducked into his cage as I curled my fingers around the cold metal. Fluff yanked the broom out of the handle and tore the rear door open, releasing Buff from his prison. Both aliens glared in our direction.

You’d have sworn Porthos was a newborn puppy, the way he stretched out in that cage, eyes closed in feigned innocence. Even I believed him.

A brilliant display of electric blues and reds erupted from the control panel. The Nausicaans thundered into the cockpit, kicking everything out of their path.

Every cell in my body leapt into action. I managed to free the doctor and myself with the stolen key after only three attempts. Taking a deep breath, I crept up to the cockpit door and studied the situation. Porthos crawled up beside me.

My phase pistol peeked out of the compartment next to a furious Fluff. Too close for me to grab it and make a quick getaway.

I needn’t have worried—Porthos was in complete control of the situation. He sauntered up beside Buff and lifted his leg, a move I definitely approved of. A wet trickle appeared on the Nausicaan’s pants. Buff lunged from his chair with a roar as Porthos leapt onto the control panel and danced across the buttons. Without any warning the gravity system went haywire and everyone floated into the air, moving like a slow-motion vid.

The doctor and I drifted up to the ceiling.

Porthos drifted right into Buff’s grimy hand.

Fluff hooked a foot around her chair and continued to punch buttons until the gravity system kicked back in, dropping everyone to the floor with a crash.

Porthos scrambled to his paws and swiped Buff’s big, ugly face—with his tongue. He followed up with a sneeze right between the Nausicaan’s eyes.

Buff let out an ear-shattering bellow and rolled to his side in agony. The beagle snatched my pistol as he dodged around the pilot’s chair, then sprang for the cockpit door. Buff staggered to his feet and lunged after Porthos, but the beagle was too quick. He dropped the pistol and leapt at the Nausicaan’s throat, a bristling ball of pure beagle fury. Buff yanked a serrated dagger from his belt and struck out blindly.

The two of them went down in a snarling heap just outside the cockpit door.

I dove over the wrestling pair, snatched the phase pistol from the floor, and aimed it at Fluff. It took two crackling shots to knock the Nausicaan prod from Snake Lady’s hand. Once I had the electric zapper in hand, I glanced into the cargo compartment. Buff was sprawled across the floor in an unconscious heap.

Clearly Porthos had everything under control.

“Looks like you should have made that deal, after all.” Quickly, I found the discarded bands and bound Fluff’s wrists tight enough to get a satisfying wince.

Certain that everything was wrapped up in a neat little package, I put in a call to the admiral, gave him our coordinates, and suggested he also send someone to intercept the transport ship.

“You’d better make sure he sends an emergency team,” Doctor Findalot said.

My stomach plunged as I stepped to the cockpit door and dropped to my knees. Doctor Findalot sat in a bloody puddle, Porthos’s head cradled in her lap. Air wheezed in and out of an enormous hole in the beagle’s side. I spread my hands and swallowed back the shock. “What can I do to help?”

Doctor Findalot sighed. “Find me the medical kit, if there is such a thing on this ship.”