“Did you hear that?” Callina asked unnecessarily.
“I’d better get to the control room and see what happened.”
The woman trailed her down the hall. “I hope the pirates aren’t here.”
“You and me both.” Half formed plans cascaded through Meg’s mind. Should she move the Bettises into the tunnel now? Move the food and water? When she entered the control room, the situation seemed normal. Only a single indicator was glowing amber. Remembering from Red’s tutorial earlier, the signal was connected to the aerial scanner, she hastened to the board and hit playback. Adrenaline pounding in her veins, she watched an unusual flitter pass over the installation, circling twice before flying off to the south.
“Did we see a Shemdylann ship?” Callina asked.
“Maybe. I never saw anything like it before.” Meg sank into the chair, realizing her hands were trembling. “But it’s gone now. Can you go ask your husband to join me here? I want him to check whether the entrance is securely locked. Tell him what happened.”
Callina gave her a half salute and rushed off. Meg stayed in the chair, watching the overhead scanner, afraid of what she might see.
Moments later, Bettis hobbled in leaning on his wife and confirmed not only was the main entrance to the installation locked, the gravlift from the reception area to where they sat on Level One was also disabled, with the door sealed. “We’ll be fine,” he said, false cheer in his voice. “The Shemdylann might not even think it’s worth their time to check this building. It looks pretty insignificant from above.”
Meg and he sat together in the control room, eyeing the screens for what felt like hours. Mrs. Bettis said the waiting made her too tense, so she returned to the cafeteria.
“When is Thomsill getting back?” Bettis asked.
Jittery, Meg tried to keep her voice from shaking. “When he’s done checking out the landing field.”
“I wish we had some way to contact him, warn him.” Bettis chewed his lip.
“Too risky to try the com link over there. The sound might attract the wrong attention. There’s nothing he can do—” Meg broke off, gasping as the flyer appeared in the scanner again. “Lords of Space, it’s landing.”
The intruder was a small ship, and for a few moments after touching down in the grassy expanse, nothing happened. Then a ramp shot out and two hulking Shemdylann soldiers emerged, armed and cautious as they moved to the front portal.
“Turn off the alarms, will you?” Meg asked. “I can’t think over the racket.”
Bettis obliged her. “You do remember I, uh, can’t move fast if we need to evacuate.”
“You said the enemy couldn’t get in.”
He shook his head. “I said the door was locked.”
“Will it withstand blaster fire?”
“I guess we’re going to find out.”
One of the soldiers raised his weapon and fired off a barrage of blue tinged energy at the entrance. He and his fellow leaped to opposite sides as the weapon’s bolts rebounded from the material the PolyStarMed people had used to build the visible portion of their complex. A tree several hundred feet away cracked and toppled as the weapon’s energy hit it. Tremors shook the earth around the building as the mighty tree, hundreds of feet tall, collapsed into the clear space, narrowly missing the entrance and the cowering soldiers.
“This would be funny if it were a trideo. Or if I wasn’t actually here,” Bettis said.
“Red wasn’t kidding when he kept saying the Shemdylann weren’t too bright.”
“Well, not their workers and the lower ranks,” Red said from the doorway. “The officers have smarts. The females are rumored to be the most intelligent, but have never been observed in the field. Intel suggests queens actually rule the homeworlds. The Shemdylann are a spacefaring race, after all, although we suspect the Mawreg gave them the technology, in return for doing their bidding.” He came to stand beside Meg, resting a hand on her shoulder and bending over for a quick kiss. “How long has this been going on?”
“The ship flew overhead about half an hour ago, then returned, and the soldiers are trying the door.” Meg’s terror subsided a few notches with him standing reassuringly beside her. “How was the landing field?”
“Run down and overgrown, which is good for us. Nothing to cause the robo any problems.”
“Maybe we should go out there now, wait there,” Bettis said.
Red shook his head. “We’re secure in here. If the enemy finds the landing pad and checks it out, their suspicions will be lulled if they don’t find any signs of us. Their scanners are capable of pinpointing our location if we’re out in the open, remember?”
“Right.” Bettis subsided into his chair, tapping the chrono with his fingertips. “Six hours standard to wait.”
“Too long for me,” Meg said. “We don’t have any choice, do we?”
Red shook his head. “The extraction attempt will occur when Max said it would and not a moment earlier or later.”
Meg had another discomfiting thought. “Is the tunnel mouth secure at the other end?”
“It opens in a small building that was damaged in a storm at some point. The access is locked tight, like the portals here.” Red’s answer was reassuring. “I’ll take the watch if you want to start moving some supplies into the tunnel?”
“Why would she move anything?” Frowning, Bettis assessed them both, eyes bright with suspicion. “What do we need food and water for if we’re leaving on a shuttle tonight?”
“Most likely we won’t need anything,” Meg said. “But if we miss the shuttle for any reason, Sectors’ command won’t send another. We want to be prepared.”
“Then we come back here and sit it out,” Bettis said. “The war has to end someday.”
Surprised, Meg explained the logic. “Mr. Thomsill and I decided we’d be better off to move north and avoid all contact with the Shemdylann or any other enemy combatants.”
“I’m not sure my wife and I would agree.”
Red moved into the chair Meg had vacated. “That’s your privilege. I’m not going to fight you over it. But Miss Antille and I’ll be heading north without delay if the extraction fails. You’re welcome to take your chances with us, or to stay here if you like the odds better.” He shook his head at Meg when she opened her mouth to argue.
As she left the room, she decided Red was right. The Bettises were adults, and if the couple voted to stay here, even though the enemy plainly had the installation in their sights now, there was nothing she could do about it. But Red wouldn’t let the planned escape into space fail, so worrying about what ifs was a waste of time. Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the kitchen and her stockpile.
Dinner in the cafeteria on Level One was tense. Red talked them through his plan for the night. “The tunnel has a few minor cave-ins along the way, nothing we can’t get past, but the obstacles will slow us down.” He glanced at Bettis. “And your ankle slows us even more, but it can’t be helped. I have to be in place half an hour before the scheduled landing time, so the robo’s AI can lock in on me the moment it breaks out of hyperspace above Dantaralon. It will track me if I have to shift positions, but we want a clean extract, in and out. So we’ll leave here an hour ahead of time.”
Meg opened her mouth to detail the items she and Callina had dragged into the tunnel, but was cut off by the alarms. “Lords of Space, now what?”
“We’d better go see.” Red led the way to the control chamber, all four of them crowding inside.
The Shemdylann were back, in force. Three large flyers had landed in the artificial clearing in front of the entry. As Meg watched, heart pounding, soldiers exited from each and then Crxtahl appeared, Finchon walking beside him, still chained by the wrist, but appearing quite at ease, if a bit grubby and with a facial bruise or two. The two of them were talking as they approached the portal.
“Can we get sound?” Meg asked.
Red flipped a tab. “Old Ar-Taan-Crxtahl’s lost a for
elimb.” He pointed at the screen. “See? He’s regenerating. I’d guess he faced a few challenges over losing us. Just gonna make him more determined.”
“They don’t know we’re here, though,” Meg said, trying to reassure herself as much as the others.
Finchon’s voice came through the audio. “Yes, this is the installation the crew was talking about evacuating to, the night before you arrived. The missing people will be here if they’re anywhere on the planet.”
“Son of a bitch, he’s betraying us,” Red swore.
There was a burst of speech in Shemdylann from the nearest soldiers.
“Telling the leader about their fruitless attempt to force the door,” Red translated. “Saying we can’t possibly be in here, because how would we gain entry when Shemdylann weapons couldn’t breach the barrier. Not the best logic, so we’ll see what their leader says.”
“Maybe we’ll be okay.” Meg took a deep breath as Callina reached for her hand, squeezing tight.
The alien commander was not appeased by the protest from his soldier. He and his second in command approached the door, examining the portal closely, while their troops waited. The lower ranking officer crowded Crxtahl, uttering phrases in Shemdylann that Red merely said were veiled insults. “Preparatory to a challenge, if he doesn’t gain access here, and fails again to recapture us.”
The two Shemdylann faced off in front of the door, huge pincher claws opening and closing as the aliens sidled back and forth. Meg was reminded of poisonous insects as they postured. All that was missing were the stinger-barbed tails.
Yanking on the chain binding him, Finchon cleared his throat as both Shemdylann turned on him. “I can open it for you.”
Meg couldn’t believe her ears, but Finchon obligingly repeated himself, speaking louder.
Red swiveled to stare at Bettis. “Can he make good on his offer?”
Swallowing hard, Bettis said, “Yes. It’s one of his idiosyncrasies. He has access to anything he owns, no matter how minor. He negotiates the stipulation into every contract and agreement. There’s an entire programming section writing the necessary code. He likes to pay surprise visits to his minions sometimes.”
“Why would he help them? He’s going home as soon as the ransom’s paid.” Horror at the betrayal by Finchon made Meg nauseous.
“Maybe he doesn’t want witnesses to what he did, especially his refusal to ransom my wife, his stepdaughter.” Bettis pointed at Callina. “Maybe he’s cut some new deal with the Shemdylann. That’d be like him.” Bettis sounded admiring of his boss’s penchant for negotiation.
“We move now,” Red said. He grabbed Meg by the arm. “Don’t stop for anything—run. Get to the tunnel and head for the landing field. Stay inside the tunnel for now. I’ll catch up.”
He was already pulling Bettis from the chair and half dragging the man into the corridor. “I’ll get you to the gravlift and then you’re on your own. Make the best time you can.”
Callina ran ahead. Meg supported Mr. Bettis on the other side. When the four of them got to the gravlift, Red pushed their passenger into the beam and grabbed Meg for a fast kiss before urging her into the lift as well. He was right on her heels, drawing the blaster as he descended.
No stranger to antigrav, she twisted with one easy movement to face him. “What are you going to do? Why aren’t you coming with us?”
“I’m going to take care of this problem once and for all. If I don’t join you at the landing field by the pickup time, head north.” Reaching Level Three, he hugged her close. “Promise me.”
She clung to him, eyes wide and distressed. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m going to breach Level Four and self-destruct this place, catch them in the blast, I hope. Otherwise, the enemy will follow us into the tunnel. Or there’ll be some other nasty surprise from Finchon.” He disentangled her hand from his. Giving her a gentle push into the antigrav stream, he said, “Now, go. We only have a few moments. Shemdylann can’t handle antigrav, so that’ll delay them a bit. Lucky for us, there’s no other way to get into Level One.”
Meg stepped onto the access pad for Level Three, but kept her hold on his shirt, tugging him nearer. “I love you, Simon Thomsill, so don’t get yourself killed. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Leaning close to her, he lowered his voice and said, “I’ve been in love with you for weeks, you know.” He kissed her cheek and pushed her through the open tunnel entrance, sealing the door with one rapid motion.
Meg watched through the portal for a moment as he dove into a rapid descent toward Level Four. Brushing the tears from her cheeks, she cycled the air lock and stepped into the tunnel to find the others waiting for her.
Red usually had no problem focusing on the mission imperative, but right now it was hard to clear his last glimpse of Meg from his mind. Which could get us both killed. Concentrate, idiot. Clenching the blaster in his fist, he arrowed to the Fourth Level. Red lights flashed and the large NO ACCESS sign on the exterior of the airlock drove home the fact this area of the complex had been a disaster area. Red hadn’t told Meg, but seven researchers had been vaporized along with the lab animals and the virus in question. PolyStarMed hadn’t been casual when they designed their precautions.
He wished he hadn’t had to turn off the vid screens. He’d like to be able to see what Finchon and the Shemdylann were doing, whether they’d broken through from the reception level above ground to Level One yet. He didn’t want the enemy to be able to see him, though. Hopefully, Finchon wasn’t tech savvy enough to terminate the building’s systems, and the pirates would have a hard time as well, unless someone on their team was a specialist in human tech.
At best, he probably had only a few minutes to get this job done. The building’s AI had to be online for his plan to succeed and Shemdylann solutions to tech vexing or impeding them tended to be messy and large scale. Taking a deep breath, Red punched his access code into the Level Four air lock outer door.
He could hear sounds as the heavy portal cycled for opening, even as a robotic voice sounded a warning that he was about to access a restricted area. “As if I didn’t already know where I was,” he muttered, stepping from the entry area into the air lock. He didn’t touch the controls to access the lab complex. Instead, he laid the blaster right next to the sealed inner door and set the weapon to overload. Fortunately, he’d been able to recharge the blaster to maximum on Level One. The blast wouldn’t carry the explosive impact a military grade blaster could deliver, but he hoped it would be enough to convince the AI the Level had been successfully breached.
Backing onto the threshold, he assessed the blaster a final time as the weapon glowed red while the power core melted down. Cycling the air lock door to close, hoping to contain the blast and direct it more forcefully into Level Four, he leaped into the antigrav stream and kicked upward, like a waterdweller swimming against the current. He refused to think about the possibility of the antigrav being turned off while he was inside the tube, but it was with relief he landed on Level Three with both feet and caromed into the air lock.
It couldn’t cycle fast enough for him and he was relieved Meg and the others had apparently heeded his orders and weren’t waiting for him inside the tunnel. Breaking into a full out run, he headed away from the expected blast. The initial explosion, the blaster going critical, was a small vibration under his feet. Taking the warning, he dove over the first small cave-in, a pile of rocks and dirt oozing into the tunnel from the sidewall.
The earth shook. He heard the explosion and a loud metallic clang as the air lock door apparently blew into the tunnel. A long tongue of orange flame reached toward him as the AI responded to the “intrusion” into Level Four by incinerating the entire facility in a firestorm. Red buried his face in his arms and scrabbled as low as he could get behind the mound of dirt. As rapidly as it had expanded, the flame retreated, sucked into the research facility before it reached his position.
Ears ringing, he hoped t
he problems of Finchon and the Shemdylann commander’s honor were now solved once and for all. Finchon had definitely put himself in the enemy camp by volunteering to open the above-ground entrance. Red had no regrets. Rising, he brushed himself off, turned on the hand lamp he’d brought, since the power was now gone, and trotted at a steady pace in the direction of the landing field.
All too soon, he rounded a gentle curve in the tunnel and came upon Meg and the others, examining a solid wall of debris from a cave-in, filling the entire tunnel. Aiming his hand lamp at the obstruction in front of her, frustration grated on his already tight nerves. So much for easy escapes. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”
Shining her light in his direction, angled so as not to blind him, Meg said, “Was that explosion you destroying the facility?”
“I encouraged the PolyStarMed AI to take the appropriate action.” He eyed the pile of dirt and rocks beyond her, running his light over the barrier. “Well, we’re not digging through this.”
“You’re calm about it.” Bettis was slumped on the tunnel floor, leaning sideways against the wall. His wife hovered nearby.
“There’s an access tunnel in the roof, about fifty feet behind us,” Meg said before Red could get a word in edgewise.
Why was he even surprised she’d noticed the maintenance tunnel? Meg was always on top of things, which was part of what he loved about her. “Right. Time’s wasting, we’d better get a move on.” Helping Bettis to rise, Red followed Meg as she retreated from the cave-in to the spot where there was an access port in the ceiling. Smoke was drifting lazily through the tunnel in their direction and the air had an increasingly acrid tang. If the smaller vertical tunnel was compromised, their present position was a death trap.
Allowing Bettis to lean on the wall, Red moved underneath the access plate, the women on either side of him.
“Uncomfortably narrow,” Meg said, eyeing the access door.
Star Cruise: Marooned: (A Sectors SF Romance) Page 14