Blind Man's Bluff by Peter David

Author:Peter David [David, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery
Published: 2012-07-13T17:36:07+00:00

iii.

The room was swimming around Calhoun as he came to. At first he was totally unaware of how he had wound up on the floor, and then it came back to him in a flash. He realized what his brother had done and, even more importantly, anticipated just exactly the danger that D’ndai had deliberately placed himself in.

Usually Calhoun did not awaken by degrees, as most people did: He snapped fully awake, ready for anything that could possibly be facing him. But the circumstances of his unconsciousness in this instance were artificial, and so it was that he didn’t spring to his feet so much as lurch there. He nearly stumbled over his own ankles before recovering, throwing his arms out to either side to balance himself like a tightrope walker.

Then he heard D’ndai’s booming voice outside, from not too far away judging by the reverberation. He was speaking in a challenging manner to someone whose identity was still unknown to Calhoun, but he had to think that it was no one who was out to do anything positive for either the Xenexians or the captain of the Excalibur.

Calhoun pulled out his phaser and approached the door to D’ndai’s house. He didn’t know what he was going to be facing, but he had to operate on the assumption that it was going to be an enemy. So he was prepared for that. The question was: What sort of enemy was it?

Does it matter? As long as it’s the dead kind, what difference does it make?

He approached the front door, already in a crouch to present the smallest possible target. And at the exact instant that he opened it, he saw a member of what he knew to be the alien race known simply as the Brethren—the warrior race that served as the muscle to the relatively intellectual D’myurj—blasting his brother off his feet with some manner of energy pulse from his armor. D’ndai didn’t even have time to scream as his body was hurled through the air. Then D’ndai slammed to the ground with such an impact that, to Calhoun, it was as if he could feel it all the way from where he was standing.

Calhoun let out a howl of fury, and even as he did so, the fighting computer that was his mind reviewed the ways in which a member of the Brethren could be killed.

There was only one of which he knew.

Action matched thought, and barely had D’ndai’s limp body hit the ground when Calhoun charged forward, gripping his phaser tightly, targeting the small release vent on the side of the Brethren’s armor that provided the single vulnerable spot. Then he leaped through the air, firing off a single phaser blast in what should have been an utterly impossible shot.

It wasn’t.

The blast drilled into the vent, and the Brethren warrior threw wide his arms, staggered, shuddered for a few moments, and then toppled forward, hitting the ground with a resounding thud.

Calhoun performed a shoulder roll and came to his feet.

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