—Chapter 15—
"Mind telling me the plan, T'Pol?" said Trip to T'Pol as they waited for the turbo-lift to reach them.
The two of them had stair climbed up four stories before making a run for the lifts. Their pursuers were unsure on which floor they'd left the staircase, so they split up as well, to cover the first six floors.
"Stay alive. Make it to the roof. Get out of this sector and head back for Vulcan."
The elevator arrived and the two of them piled in just as two Happa and an Orion exited the staircase and headed for them.
"Just like that? We're giving up?"
"I'll explain later," said T'Pol.
"What about Misri?"
"What about her, Commander?"
"She's agreed to have my children, T'Pol," said Trip, as the elevator started moving upwards. "We're to be mated."
T'Pol's heart stilled at the stupidity of the Commander's words. That female was no fit mate for a man such as he.
"Tell me you are joking, Commander."
"I am," said Trip with a lop-sided grin.
T'Pol's heart started beating again.
"Really? You are making jokes now? I am going to kill you when we get out of this jam, Commander Tucker," said T'Pol, "and I am not joking, I assure you."
Trip's response was cut off by the turbo-lift's whine as the brakes engaged. The power went off, and the emergency lights came on as the lift came to a standstill between floors.
"The Orions," hissed T'Pol.
"Yes," said Trip, glancing at the ceiling. "There's the emergency hatch. See it?"
"I do," said T'Pol.
Trip intertwined his fingers together to make a step for T'Pol. She noticed and stepped onto Trip's hands with one foot, rested the knee of her other foot on his shoulders as she fiddled with the latch.
On the other side, the Orions began working to open the door and though it was illogical, T'Pol's imagination was wondering how the Orions would kill them if they managed to open their doors, before she opened the hatch.
"Got it," she said, and pulled herself onto the elevator's roof, only to spin around and look down on Commander Tucker. "Give me your hand, Commander."
The lift doors began to open and the glassy face shield of a Happa was apparent as the Orions grunted with a makeshift crowbar.
"Forget it," said Trip as he saw the Happa try to bring a phaser to bear on him: door opens one more inch and I'm done.
"Your hand, Commander. Now."
Trip hesitated. He didn't want his weight to drag T'Pol down into the elevator with him and he'd rather see the shot coming, instead of getting shot in the back or the stomach.
"Commander!"
Trip jumped and T'Pol grabbed him by the wrist, as he held her's. He was about to grasp at the hatch with his free hand to pull himself up, when he found himself swiftly pulled up, and through the hatch.
Oh, right, he thought. Vulcan strength. He would have been able to pull T'Pol up through the hatch, if not as swiftly, but a human female would have had no chance to duplicate T'Pol's maneuver.
"Impressive."
"Here," said T'Pol, as she began climbing a service ladder welded onto the wall.
They climbed three stories in the shaft, before they forced the turbo-lift's doors apart and pushed their way into the hallway. They heard the Orions calling out in the staircase and it was impossible to tell from here if the Orions were above them, or below them, or both.
"How much further, T'Pol?"
"This is 188. Twelve stories. We were fortunate that Misri's place was located so high in this building or we would be dead before reaching the roof."
"Mmm, hmm," said Trip, thinking for a way out, when they both turned suddenly as an apartment door opened twenty feet from them.
A bulky Orion stepped out, a box of tools in his hands. Maintenance man, thought Trip. The Orion looked at them both, suspiciously. I guess we are quite a sight, thought Trip.
"The lift's broken," said Trip.
"We'll get it back online soon."
"Any way for us to get to the roof, barring the staircase?," said Trip. "We've climbed enough for today."
"What do you want on the roof?"
"Aero-flight landing pad. Tour of the city with a business client."
"There's the service elevator. Used mostly for delivering appliances and such. It's on a separate power grid than the passenger lines," said the Orion. "It should still be working."
"Listen," said Trip pulling out a fifty gram gold strip which he'd earmarked as bribe payment for information on the Happa earlier in the night, "I've got to make that flight. How about you give us a lift to the roof?"
"Done," said the Orion, looking at the gold strip.
Trip handed it to the Orion, and the man said, "This way."
It was on the elevator that the maintenance man's comm unit squaked, with the frustrated voices of their Orion pursuers.
"Let me guess," said the Orion. "They're looking for you."
"They are," said Trip, deciding to level with the Orion. "I would suggest you not get involved with this. We're tougher than we look."
"I have no intention of getting involved," said the Orion, waving the gold strip which Trip had given him.
"I'll give you another strip for your radio," said Trip. "My pet here will punch you several times and then put you to sleep with a nerve pinch. You'll be bruised for a few days and sport a bloody nose, but if you tell them you were jumped, you'll be believed."
The Orion calculated the value of 100gms of gold and said, "All right."
Trip handed the Orion another strip and the man decided to place both strips in his tool box, hidden in a box of screws.
"I'd be disappointed if you stole your gold back once I'm unconscious," said the Orion.
"No worries," said Trip. "I'm a man of my word."
Trip, Malcolm and T'Pol made contact on the roof.
"Travis," said Trip, "do you have a fix on us?"
"Yes, sir," said Travis.
He and Hoshi were still in low-orbit. Once they broke position to rush in for the pickup, the Orion security forces would be alerted, and would try to capture them in order to determine the cause of their odd behaviour.
"How long to get here?"
"Ten minutes, give or take a minute. There's a lot of air traffic I'll have to watch out for, Commander, or I'd get there sooner."
"Ok, head on in, now, Travis. Make sure Hoshi is ready on her end."
"Yes, sir."
Trip held the Orion's comm unit out for T'Pol.
"You do it, Commander."
"In five minutes?"
"If we have that long, Commander."
Malcolm looked back and forth from Trip to T'Pol. They seemed to be communicating quite effectively, but they were leaving him out of the mix.
"What's the plan?" said Malcolm.
"In five minutes, Commander Tucker will contact the Orions," said T'Pol. "That will give them five minutes to get here, with the Happa. If it goes off well enough, we'll snatch up the Happa and ride off into the sunset."
"Things rarely work out as planned," said Malcolm. "Backup plan?"
"We are fortunate," said T'Pol, looking around the roof. "Relatively so. It's night, so even with the artificial lighting here, there are plenty of shadows in which to hide. Other than the two aero-flight pads, we have these large backup generators, and a mechanic's tool shop which will provide some primitive weapons. The roof structure itself provides us with many irregular surfaces, and that odd hump is responsible for making that loud whine, which should cover our sounds. This is a large area and even with nine men, they'll have to spread out quite a bit to make sure we don't slip by them. We should be able to hide among all this confusion for a while, at least a few minutes."
"Yeah," said Malcolm. "Ok."
Trip flipped out his comm unit, and said, "Travis?"
"Six minutes, fifteen seconds out, Commander."
"Got it," said Trip and walked away from Malcolm and T'Pol. "Listen, when you get here, have Hoshi make T'Pol her first priority, then the Happa, then Malcolm and I."
"Yes, sir," said Travis.
Trip turned to find T'Pol facing him and for once, her face was closed to him. He wasn't sure what she was thinking. She'd heard him though, of that he was sure. Damn her Vulcan hearing!
"You're the ranking officer, T'Pol."
"Yes," said T'Pol, and surprisingly left it at that. "It's time, Commander."
"Hey you dumb bastards, can you hear me?" said Trip and the manic chatter by the Orions came to a halt. "I'm not sure which you is more useless than the other. You Orions are dumb as dirt, but at least you try. You Happa are just as dumb as the Orions, but you're even less effective."
"You want to play games, human, let's play. Where are you?"
The voice had a slight mechanical tone to it, so Trip wagered it was due to the Happa's words being filtered through his mask.
"On the roof, you smelly Happa turd. I had the good fortune to run across a couple of armed Orions and had the presence of mind to relieve them of their weapons. I'm tired of running. Why don't you come up here, see what I've got for you?"
"Coming," said the Happa.
"You think they'll all come?" said Trip, looking at Malcolm and T'Pol. "For all they know, we're still on the floors below and this is a ploy to get them off our backs."
"We will see," said T'Pol. "I do not think they can ignore the possibility that we are up here, since they have not found us on the floors below."
"We should scatter, SubCommander," said Malcolm, before turning from them and dissapearing around a corner.
Trip looked at T'Pol and she looked back at him. She was a stunning woman. There was no trace of fear in her now, or if there was, it was controlled behind layers of discipline, which was beautiful in its own way, and Trip knew that if T'Pol were killed here today, he'd be haunted by her for the rest of his life.
"Stay safe, T'Pol," said Trip.
"Commander," said T'Pol, backing up while still looking at Trip until the man himself turned to conceal himself in the organized clutter of the roof.