Taz chimed in. “Considering the town probably doesn’t have many undamaged flitters right now, I bet they’d be grateful for use of the shuttle and your skills.”
“Okay, I’ll ping Yanoshi and trade him volunteer time for a full tank of fresh water. Keep in touch.”
“Copy that,” Rylando replied. “We’re green-go here. See you soon.”
3
Salamaray Citizen Activity Center, Perlarossa • GDAT 3242.334
Taz noted with wry amusement that the CAC building looked no better close up than it did from a distance. Adding texture to utilitarian blocks made them look like construction-print rejects.
Because her armor was better protection than what the airsled offered Rylando and the animals, she led the way through the wide entrance. The building’s AI answered her queries with variations on “please try later,” so she ran every scan her suit could manage the moment she got inside the meter-thick walls. Being buried alive under a failing roof would absolutely ruin her day.
The architectural schematics labeled the long, cavernous space beyond the wide entrance as the Grand Foyer. It looked more like a retro transport depot. She took it as a good sign that all the interior lights still worked, not just the glowing emergency beacons. Functional life-support systems were always a bonus.
While connected to her suit, she didn’t need to tap her earwire to talk to Rylando over their GSAR secure net. “My scans say this end of the structure is sound. Lifesigns are clustered in an area leased to a business called Eye-Fire-Mind. The doorway in the northwest corner of this room should be a hallway that leads to it.”
She switched on her top torch and aimed it toward the hallway. Dust swirled in and out of the light beam, suggesting the ventilation system was still working.
“My scans say the same.” The suit’s superior tech made his voice sound like he stood right next to her. “Let’s proceed.”
Turning to her right, she crossed toward the target hallway. “That’s odd. In this part of the building, at least, my scans say the subfloor is made of incalloy.”
“Mine, too. Yanoshi did say it was built like a fortress.”
Taz made a rude noise. “Starships need incalloy for transit space. Space stations need it for the gravity layer. Terrestrial buildings in small towns don’t need incalloy anything.” She made a scornful sound as she stepped over a pile of glass that might have once been a sculpture. “Unless RSI installed it so they could run up the settlement debt.”
He laughed. “You’ve been talking to Hatya.”
“She did send me… Oh, hell, the hallway’s blocked.” She read the scan results. “Three interior wall units collapsed into the hall. At least it’s wide enough to maneuver in. Ceiling is solid but tight for the sled. Floor is solid. I can clear the debris and you can follow, or we can look for another way in.” She couldn’t resist teasing him. “What are your orders, exalted Field Commander, sir?”
“Clearing it will be faster.” After a pause, he added, “And I’m demoting you if you keep calling me that.”
She grinned at his grumpy tone. “Yes, sir. I’ll make a note, sir.”
Stepping into the hall, she extended her straight forks and slid them under the first large section of tilted wall. As she lifted it, she used her teke talent to clear material from the separation point to give it room to tilt inward, away from the passage. Thankfully, only one had cracked into several pieces. The rest of the wall units were modern and modular, rather than the monolithic, chisel-textured denscrete blocks that made up the exterior.
Mindful of the taller, wider airsled behind her, she monitored the scans to make sure her actions weren’t causing unintended problems for her teammates, human or otherwise. The airsled had one bad propulsion coil and two marginal coils, so it wasn’t as fast or maneuverable as it should be.
“Architectural plan updates just came from the town.”
She finished pushing aside debris. “Anything new about our search target? The building’s AI is still traumatized, I think.” The technical term was “crisis fallback basic state,” but to her, its disoriented responses sounded like humans who’d gone into tunnel-vision survival mode.
“Yeah, the space used to belong to a financial firm. Looks like our lifesigns are together in what used to be a four-meter-square datavault. Multiple air vents. Used to have its own chiller, but that might be gone now.”
“Good shelter in an earthquake.” She pulled in the updated schematics to look for herself. “Left at the upcoming intersection, then forty meters west to the door.”
“Concur. Proceed.”
One of the first things she’d noticed about Rylando was his similar respect for field safety and communication protocol without going overboard. It was a welcome pleasure to finally work with someone she synced with. And look at her, mooning over that someone instead of paying attention to her job.
Retracting her suit to as small a profile as possible, she stepped into the intersection and ran scans and visuals. “One more downed wall. Ceiling’s still stable. Just a cheap install job on the wall sections, I think.”
“Probably. Based on the number of overlays and changeouts on the plans, the interior has been reconfigured dozens of times since the local government moved out.”
“I wouldn’t rent here even if it was free. Too depressing. No natural light at all, not even piped in.” She lifted the wall up and tilted it out of the way. “Clear.”
“Agree and proceed. Moyo smells recent human scents.”
“Good. Looks like the business has an external wallcomp for visitors. Want to try it, or barge right in?”
“Let’s knock first.” Humor laced his voice. “One trauma per day for them is probably enough.”
She moved farther down the hallway so Rylando could glide the airsled into position. He hovered in front of the wallcomp and pinged it. His amplified voice rang out. “Hello. Subcaptains Delroinn and Correa from Galactic Search and Rescue. Do you need assistance?”
The response came fast. “Oh, hell yes, we need assistance. We’re stuck in the storeroom and the door is jammed. We’ve been here for six hours, no comms.”
The mid-pitched voice had a Spanish accent and sounded more peeved than panicked.
Taz guessed the current business converted the datavault into a storeroom.
Rylando spoke into the wallcomp. “How many people are with you, and is anyone hurt?”
“We are six adults, one teenager, and one toddler,” said a softer, higher voice with a Standard English accent and a businesslike tone. “Instructor Nadryer broke her leg and cannot walk. Everyone else is well.”
Rylando nodded. “We’re outside your main entrance and are coming for you now. As a precaution, please get as far away from the storeroom door as you can.”
Taz stayed where she was as Rylando backed up the airsled a few meters, then grounded it, got out, and pointed toward the door. “While you get us in, I’ll get the med pack and team ready.”
“Copy,” she said, letting her suit amplify her voice. It had taken her years to remember that people couldn’t see her nodding her head while she was encased in petroplas and metal.
Thanks to the GSAR rescuers’ exclusive access to a vast collection of security-system emergency keys and overrides, it only took her a few moments to breach the business’s front door and duck inside. Outside of the gallant hearts of the rescuers, those keys were probably GSAR’s most valuable asset.
Other than the corner to Taz’s right, which was occupied by a huge, grey denscrete block that looked like it had crashed through the ceiling, the rest of the room seemed inviting. Soothing colors, real springwood floors, mirrored walls. A scattering of shoes, plus upended tables with broken crockery under them and disarrayed cushions made it look like the aftermath of an exuberant pillow fight.
Shen, Moyo, and Rylando followed right after her. Moyo planted herself in front of what looked like a vault door to what was now the storeroom, nose to the seam where it met th
e floor. The hellhound loved meeting new people.
Shen made a lightning-fast run around the room and disappeared into what the plans said should be a kitchen, then returned to sit next to Rylando’s foot and look up at him alertly. He smiled and patted her head. “Yes, Shen, people will soon need herding.”
Taz laughed. “She loves having someone to look after, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” Rylando agreed with amusement, “and telling them what to do.”
Her suit flashed an alert. “My scans say the door is a standard internal pivot-hinge. The frame is bent at the upper left corner. I think I can straighten it enough to free the door.”
He nodded. “Anything above us we should know about?”
She checked the plans as she focused deep scans upward. “Roof is solid denscrete and intact.” She pointed to the block that had cratered a hole in the corner. “I don’t know where that came from. Building headspace storage, maybe? Nothing on the plans.” She stepped closer and extended her mech suit’s vertical jacks. “Please ask Moyo to move for a minute.”
Rylando and Shen stepped back into the middle of the room. Moyo rose and crossed to stand beside them, but her attention remained on the door.
The jacks snugged into the doorframe, then slowly expanded to lift pressure off the frame. She kept an eye on the ceiling scans. At the bottom, the springwood buckled and splintered, but the plascrete subfloor held. The moment the readings said the frame evened out, she hammered the door once on the non-hinged side. It bounced open with a crash. Only her armored fist stopped it from unhelpfully banging closed again.
When she retracted the jacks, the frame sank, but held firm. The thick vault door would probably never close again. “Scans clear.” She marched backward four long steps and stopped.
Before Rylando could move, a bronze-haired man came out of the storeroom. Once away from the door, he bent over, breathing deep. “Grácias a Diós para aire fresco!” Probably the source of the Spanish-accented voice from their first contact. Sweat rings dampened the armpits of his casual green tunic.
Taz knew the storeroom had plenty of fresh air, or they’d have all been unconscious, but the stress of the situation had probably made it seem stuffy.
Rylando moved closer to the opening. “I’m coming in with medical equipment. I have two trained rescue dogs with me. If it’s okay, they’d like to make friends.”
“Yes, of course,” said a soft, feminine voice from within.
Taz stayed in her suit but retracted her helmet. Distressed people responded better to a human face than a hunk of metal, even though she’d printed flower designs on the outside.
Within a few minutes, five barefoot adults and one barefoot teenager carrying a clingy toddler stood in the main room. Taz’s scans said none had major injuries, but she’d prefer to confirm that with the better medical scanner from Rylando’s medical pack.
Shen ran through the group like they were an agility course, then vanished into the storeroom after Rylando. Cheerful, friendly Moyo circled the group slowly. When she caught someone’s eye, she sidled closer. People found themselves smiling and petting the big, goofy head before they realized she’d suckered them into it.
Zero-heads like Captain Bhayrip thought any animals were a nuisance. In Taz’s opinion, teams like Rylando’s should be a part of every rescue involving people.
The soft-voiced, brown-skinned woman wearing a loose tunic and pants introduced herself as Vangelio, the co-instructor of a meditation class. Her serene nature seemed to be a good influence on the others, though it might also be her active empath talent.
Taz had no intention of asking. For one, the woman’s talent helped the other victims as much as Moyo did, especially people like the claustrophobic man. For another, despite a decade’s accumulation of Central Galactic Concordance anti-discrimination laws, experienced minders didn’t announce their talents to strangers. Just like Taz had never admitted to anyone that she was more than just the telekinetic the CPS thought. She was also a sifter.
That talent had shown up several years after her teke, long after her CPS testing and training ended. Once she’d realized she wasn’t warping toward delusional, she’d secretly researched how to use it. She’d gotten pretty good at telling when someone was lying or about to get violent, and could usually sense activated minder talents in others if she was close enough. However, she tanked at being able to affect the brain chemistry in anyone.
High-level sifters could dope people to insensible, or flood them with happy hormones like they’d taken la-la chems, or make them trusting and talkative during interrogations. She could barely sense brain receptors at all. Her trauma-medicine training hadn’t addressed the nuances of neurotransmitters and hormone generation.
She didn’t dare ask the CPS, either, or they’d put her on heavier minder drugs that required more stringent monitoring. Her current drug-evasion method of taking the drugs, getting tested, then dosing herself with a black-market reverse wouldn’t work if they checked more frequently than once every hundred days.
Rylando’s tone sounded in her earwire. “Could you call in the floater? Casualty is a female, broken leg and dislocated hip. Tried to heal herself with her minder talent and nauseated herself.”
“Will do,” Taz subvocalized. “In the meantime, I’ll get names for the records.”
“Good idea.”
Sending detailed navigation instructions to the self-propelled emergency-medical capsule waiting outside only took a few seconds. Once she stepped out of her mech suit, she realized she had a rapt audience in the teenager, who’d handed the toddler off to what looked like the mother.
She grinned. “If we have time, I’ll show you how it works.”
The boy started to nod, then glanced toward this bronze-haired man and dropped his gaze.
“Is that a hellhound?” asked the woman now holding the toddler. A Spanish accent softened her consonants. “Such bright colors.”
Taz chuckled. “I know, right? Subcaptain Delroinn says she’s a teenager experimenting with her style.” Rylando traded with the commercial body parlor on the space station to keep Moyo from looking like a nightmare menace. He said it hurt Moyo’s feelings when people were scared of her.
The actual teenager in the room, whose hair and glittery surface skin art put dazzling interstellar spectra to shame, rolled his eyes.
Taz spoke to the group. “We’ve got a med capsule coming for Instructor Nadryer. In the meantime, can I send your names and ping refs to the town’s Emergency Response Command?” She held up her gauntlet percomp and set it to record. “They’ll get posted to the regional status hub so if anyone’s looking for you, they’ll know you’re okay.”
One by one, they spoke their information. Unsurprisingly, the bronze-haired man turned out to be the father of the teenager and the toddler and cohab to the toddler’s mother.
Taz looked at their bare feet. “Stay there a second while I collect your shoes. The airsled can’t carry you all, so a couple of you will have to walk, and the entrance area has a lot of broken glass.”
The lavender-skinned intersex person in the group laughed sardonically. “I hope it’s the remains of that ugly-ass monstrosity from RSI that was supposed to represent Perlarossa as a pink pearl in a cosmic clamshell.”
“Yes,” said the Russian-accented, green-haired woman in flowing, summery clothes that Taz envied. GSAR’s distinctive yellow and red uniforms were flexin-armored and tough as incalloy. They weren’t cool or comfortable. “But not as ugly as the company that would have stolen all our family compounds if it could.”
Taz gathered all the footwear she could find and let the group sort them out. The toddler refused to wear hers and threatened a tantrum. A few moments after Vangelio activated her empath talent, the little girl settled down and let her brother help her.
For several seconds, the room lights flickered, and the subtle sounds from the air vents stuttered.
A shadow crossed Vangelio’s expression. �
�That shouldn’t have happened. This building has its own independent power source. It’s one of the reasons we chose it.”
Keeping her own concern off her face, Taz pointed to the business’s wide-open front door. “We’ve already cleared the path, and we’ve got floodlights, even if the emergency lighting fails.” She turned to the rest of the group. “Did any of you see anyone else in the building this morning before the earthquake?”
The adults shook their heads, but the teenager spoke up. “When I was in the hall with Hermanita, a girl in a big coat asked me where the lifts down to the commercial basement storage units are. I told her.”
“What time was that?” asked Taz.
The boy shrugged. “Zero-five-fifteen? Hermanita quit fussing, so we went back inside.”
Taz didn’t know much about the boy, but she was impressed that he was up and awake at that hour. In her own youth, she’d needed at least ten hours of sleep, and mornings had been torture.
She used her controller implant to tell her suit to scan in the direction of the lifts. The architectural plans hadn’t even hinted that the vague “basement storage” label actually meant individual units that could be rented or accessed any time.
Unfortunately, from her current location, the lifesign scans were inconclusive because of the denscrete construction and the damned incalloy. Turning her back on the group, she pinged Rylando and subvocalized what she’d learned.
“Trade places with me. I’ll send the team out for a quick scouting mission while you get our wounded into the floater. I already asked Hatya to find out about the building’s power situation.”
Movement outside the entrance caught her eye. “Floater just arrived. I’ll bring it in now.”
The capsule was about the size of her mech suit, so it fit through the storeroom’s doorway, but with little room to spare.
When Rylando stood and strode out, Shen hesitated at the entrance, head swinging back and forth, like she couldn’t decide whether she should follow him or stay with the injured woman.
Galactic Search and Rescue: A Scifi Space Opera with Adventure, Romance, and Pets: A Central Galactic Concordance Novella Page 4