by George Olney
Technically, the cruiser was assigned to Frenchy, but Maev was far the better choice to drive the sled at these speeds, given her decades of experience. Besides, it left Frenchy free to operate the sensors on the cruiser, allowing her to home in on Nos's communicator signal. Sensors were her real skill set, not flying.
"He's just ahead," Frenchy said, highlighting the icon of Nos's location on Maev's HUD.
"Okay, I've got it," Maev replied. "We'll land just beyond him."
Maev slowed as they overflew Nos and Frenchy's concern shot skyward as she saw the bodies of gorts scattered around and her little boy standing there waving. For some reason he was holding a tribal sword almost bigger than he was.
As soon as the sled stopped and canopy retracted, Frenchy was out and running hard for Nos. "Are you okay, baby?" she shouted as she charged.
His reply immediately slowed her to a walk. "I'm fine, Mom."
Mom? Not Mama? Frenchy took a better look at him, including the scabbarded sword in his hands and the bolt pistol tucked into his belt. His composed posture was different, too. More purposeful.
Her little boy was growing up.
Instead of grabbing him up like she originally intended (which could have been both complicated and painful with the longsword in the way) she slowed to a stop and gave him a big tribal style greeting hug (after thoughtfully moving the sword out of the way) like she would an adult. Nos deserved it. After everything that had happened to him, it looked like her boy had decided he was going to handle his future on his own two feet. Growing up, indeed.
Dallas, thankfully, had come to the same conclusion and given him the same type of hug. Dallas was a very perceptive person.
"Tell us the whole story again, son, and tell us where you got the sword," Frenchy said.
Nos had obviously had time to settle down. His report was complete and rendered without much in the way of emotion. He only got a little shaky at the end, when he hefted the sword. "This was Yarmout's. I'm taking it home for his family, Mom."
Frenchy nodded her approval. "That's a fine idea, son. You do that." Nos stood a little straighter.
"Any idea which way they went?" Her eyes got cold as she changed the subject. "I want to meet those guys again."
"That way, I think," he said, pointing to the southwest and away from the general direction of the Hold. There was a low range of steep hills over that way.
"That's what I make, too, Frenchy," Maev called. She'd been out pacing the general area of the ambush. Like anyone tribal, she was very good at reading signs. She'd also been using the vehicle tracker on the cruiser. "They used ground carryalls. From the tracks, they parked their vehicles over there a ways. I found where they set up their ambush, but nothing to indicate who they were, except they weren't wearing tribal boots. Looks like Galactic style.
"My guess," Maev continued, "is they were tracking the group from their vehicles and set up a good ways ahead of the kids once they were sure of the path the group was using. After that, it was only a matter of letting them walk into the kill zone." Her voice was professional cop. Her expression wasn't.
"The GPS map shows a valley splitting the hill range in the right direction. If they went that way, we might be able to detect their base once we get line of sight down the valley," Maev finished.
"Detect it, hell!" Frenchy snarled. "I want our little girls out of there and I want the bastards that did it!"
"Which will happen but we can't do it alone," Dallas said firmly.
Frenchy spun her head and glared at Dallas, who returned the look calmly but firmly. "We don't know what's happening except that there are more than three bad guys doing it. I know you, babe, and you charge in halfcocked. This is one time we're going to stop and think, which you haven't been doing since Nos called you. Have you?"
Frenchy took a deep breath and told herself to settle down. Dallas was right. As usual. She was charging into something without thinking. Again. As usual. She gave Dallas a slow nod.
Time to think. Whatever hideout the girls were taken to, it was bound to be more than the three women present could handle. Time to call in the big guns, which meant Grae, Evan, Weykhaz, the whole damned Arm on this planet, and anyone else that could help her rescue those girls without getting them killed. Hell, Jongular was welcome on this one!
Frenchy slumped slightly as she relaxed. "You're right, babe, we need help with these guys. We'll call in as soon as we can get some idea of where our side needs to go."
Dallas started to open her mouth to say what Frenchy expected her to say, but stopped when Frenchy held up her hand. "I know, but the trail's still fresh and we can get a better idea of where they're going. We need to be moving fast, or those bastards could just vanish and those girls would be lost. Grete's calling in the clans right now, but we need to keep a line on that bunch while everyone gets together. Right now, we can't add anything to what everyone knows."
Dallas frowned at that, but brought up another subject instead. "What about Yarmout?"
What about him, indeed? Frenchy was a little embarrassed to realize she'd forgotten the man's body. They couldn't just leave him here in the open while they went tearing off. That's when she looked around and realized she couldn't see the corpse. There was a low mound of rocks in the middle of the dead gorts, though.
Nos spoke up in a very slow small voice. "I covered him up with rocks so animals couldn't get to him," he said. "It was all I could do."
"And you did right," Frenchy replied. Nos stood even straighter as he heard the approval in her voice. "It's all we can do until the folks from the Hold get here and recover him."
Frenchy looked at the other two women. "Now we need to get on that trail."
"And call in," Dallas added with determination.
Frenchy thought for a second, then realized Dallas was right after all. "Okay, I'll call Grae while we fly."
The cruiser's pace, as they tracked the unknown ambusher's carryalls, was much slower than the hell-for-leather charge they'd made on the way out to Nos. It had to be, for Frenchy's equipment to follow the faint wheel tracks marking the bad guy's trail. Running a quick projection, Frenchy determined the tracks were headed straight for the valley splitting the hill range just in front of them. Neither she nor Maev wanted to rise high enough to see over the hills. If they did, whatever was over the hills could see them. That would be Not Cool. The thought made her tense. In fact, everyone in the cruiser was tense, including Dallas and Nos in the back seat.
As she got closer to the mouth of the valley, Maev brought the cruiser close to the ground, flying a slow nap of the earth pattern. A little further then they were in the valley. "Back off!" Frenchy yelled. "I can see it and the damn place is radiating like downtown Manhattan."
Maev jerked the cruiser into a reverse course immediately, shooting away from the valley mouth. "Did they acquire us?"
"I don't know," Frenchy replied, concentrating on the readouts of the various surveillance monitors in front of her. "I can't see anything yet. Slow down. We don't know what that place is yet, and they may not have seen us.
"Hope not, anyhow."
Suddenly, there was a warning tone and Frenchy's eyes lit on a moving icon on one of the screens. "Incoming! Missile at left rear, heading up. It'll be coming for us as soon as it tips over."
Maev slammed the cruiser into full acceleration and nosed up. "I need airspace to dodge that thing," she said through gritted teeth.
Frenchy was glad Maev was flying. The kinds of maneuvers needed to dodge a ground-to-air missile were far beyond her. She looked at the cruiser's instruments and special equipment in frustration. If she was back on board Grae's ship at her usual weapons station, that missile would be only a minor annoyance. Here and now, without protective screens or antimissile weapons, they were in trouble.
The missile reached the top of its arc and dived after them, constantly adjusting its course to follow the frantically twisting cruiser. Maev maneuvered without looking out the canopy, he
r eyes fastened on the tracking monitor showing the incoming missile coming rapidly closer. "Hang on, guys," she said hoarsely, "'cause it's about to get rough. I'll only have one chance to dodge this thing and it has to be done at just the right moment."
The cruiser jerked violently sideways and turned on its side in the air. The missile detonated at the same time.
"We're hit," Maev said, still in the same hoarse voice. "Drive's shot. Stabilizers are gone. I'm trying to get us down on antigrav.
"Get ready. We're going to hit hard."
#####
The clock on the wall said it was nearly full dark, but it wasn't obvious to Sarena, given the way the School was lit up. It was Evening Study Period, otherwise known to the girls as Lockdown. She was standing in front of one of the windows in her dorm room, watching and thinking. It was her turn in the rotation. They'd set it up almost as soon as they were assigned the room. Nobody knew when something - like a lee'thal flock - was going to hit the place, but at least with a sentry in place after dark they'd know when it happened.
Sarena watched the brightly lighted grounds outside with male guards and female instructors or administrators walking from place to place on some business or another between the single story buildings that made up the campus. And she thought.
When they were first put in the dorm room, the guard told them there was no escape by the window and no way any of the girls could get from one room to another, thinking he was being intimidating instead of stupid. If the window field was permeable - which the ones in the dorms weren't - nobody in their right mind except the bastards running the School would get near one or even be in the same room after dark. The window field was strong enough to keep out smaller athul, but even windows with impermeable fields could be penetrated by a lee'thal if it tried hard enough. The field would slow it down, though. With warning, Tribal girls would use anything to hand to discourage the damn bat from getting inside. They knew all about how to handle lee'thal.
When - not if - the lee'thal hit this place, the only people going to be truly safe would be in structures that couldn't be entered easily from outside, one of the reasons everything outside the Port was either sunken or fully underground. A wide open and lighted place like this, however, would attract them like a magnet. Sarena was surprised they hadn't hit the campus already. She was certain lee'thal scouts were out there.
All of that was something she'd grown up knowing, but the guards and staff apparently didn't know. To her, a lee'thal attack was as inevitable as sunrise. She was sure of it. She was hoping for it. She was making a plan.
She was sure the girls in the other dorm rooms had window sentries, too. That was only common sense to anyone tribal, but she really didn't know. Talking to girls outside of the nine others in her dorm room was nearly impossible, at least about escape plans. On the other hand, the ten of them in the room could pass notes or easily whisper to each other. They were teenage girls. Teenage girls did that. Every girl in the dorm room knew Sarena was planning an escape.
For a few moments, Sarena fumed about the way they were treated. Not treated, abused! Nobody had a vid-tex anymore, and those were absolutely essential to maintaining society for girls her age. The guards and staff had also confiscated everyone's miso, and those straps were important to a girl's individuality. They weren't even allowed to talk and that was a crime against nature.
Then there were the uniforms. Yuck! Her leathers weren't just practical, she was smugly certain they made her look sleek and just nova hot. These uniforms were so ugly and just plain dumb looking they were Cause all by themselves, never mind the kidnapping and slavery.
They had to get out of here and out of these stupid uniforms!
However, Sarena's plan had a few holes in it. Getting out of the dorm building was one of them. Getting off the campus during a lee'thal attack was another. It didn't matter to her. She was tribal and she had Cause. She was going to escape somehow and take the girls in her dorm room with her. Try to kill somebody along the way, too.
Whenever she could, she thought and planned, considering and tearing down plan after plan. She didn't need to study like some of the younger girls. The classes were easy for her and the older girls. Among other blind spots, the staff didn't know just how good tribal schools really were and none of the girls were going to tell them. Meanwhile, she had to plan and wait... and hope for a chance to get out of here. If they could get home, Daddy and the rest of the adults at the Hold - or any Hold - would clean this place out.
The lee'thal were going to attack. She just had to be ready.
Barrens trained alertness was why she immediately noticed the first flickers of darker shadow in the air above the lights. It was going to be tonight. Casually, she pulled her shoulder length hair back and secured it into a pony tail with the flexible band she kept in the pocket of her bolero jacket, the way every girl did when they were going to be doing something active. Several of the other girls noticed her doing that and nudged others before they began tying back their own hair. Soon enough, everyone with long enough hair had it tied back in some way.
Sarena shot a glance at the closed door of the broom closet. There were brooms and mops and other yucky things in there they were forced to use to clean their room every morning. They were going to need those brooms and mops soon. They weren't what she wanted, but they were what she and the other girls had.
Things began to fall in place for Sarena. The dorm guard. They had to get him in here, but not yet. It was a matter of timing and taking advantage of the confusion.
A shadow flew in from the night, becoming a big black bat holding a sword. Lee'thal. It slashed a guard and killed him. The woman with him began screaming hysterically, but the screams cut off abruptly as another bat grabbed her. Both of them were already lee'thal food.
More bats. More screams. The guards were the only ones armed. Stupid. The guards' weapons were slung on their backs. Also stupid. Boltfire began to cross the grounds as guards tumbled out of doorways.
Suddenly, her plan fell into place and she knew what to do. Whoever was doing the surveillance monitoring was probably as distracted as the staff outside. Time to go. "Get out the stuff in the broom closet," she said urgently. "Elise, bash that door with something. We need the guard in here."
One girl opened the broom closet then threw mops and brooms to Sarena and the bigger girls. Elise grabbed a chair and began slamming it against the dorm room door. It slid open almost immediately and the dorm guard stepped inside, his B-42 on his back and one of the shock sticks in his hand. He was looking to stop a fight between inmates, but the tip of the broomstick in Sarena's hands jabbed him in the solar plexus with all of the force in her body. As he began to fold forward, she jabbed again, this time for the throat. Tribal women didn't use hand weapons as a rule, but that didn't mean they didn't know how to use them. The guard was on the floor, strangling to death.
He was still writhing when Sarena dropped her broom and pulled the B-42 off his back. Now they had a gun. Time to get out.
"What about everyone else?" one of the other girls asked breathlessly.
Sarena looked at the door at the end of the hall. It led outside, but dormitory doors only opened in the presence of a guard and carrying the dying bastard to each room door was going to take a lot of time, maybe too much time. They had to have the outside door open, but she wasn't going open it first and leave it open while they dragged the guard from door to door. He might die first. An open door was an invitation to the lee'thal, too.
Besides, her idea might work for ten girls. It certainly wouldn't work for a hundred. Not to mention the girls in the other dorm buildings. "We can't help them yet," she replied to the question. "We've got to escape. Bring help. The rest of the girls are better protected in the dorm rooms than the guards and staff, anyhow."
She fervently hoped so.
Sarena looked grimly around her. "Somebody has to do it. Even if just one of us is left, somebody has to get free and get help.
/> "Understand?"
The other nine nodded in determined agreement. They were tribal. They understood reality.
Now to get out.
Sarena snapped a command. "Pick up that piece of crap on the floor. The front door's keyed to him. He's going to get us out before he dies.
"Once we're out," she continued, "we're going to the vehicle park and steal a carryall."
"They'll try to catch us, even if we get off the campus," one of the girls said. The words might have been discouraging, but her tone wasn't. She was simply stating a fact.
"In this confusion, it'll be a while," Sarena replied. "We're going to go like hell for as far and as fast as we can then figure out what to do next."
Everyone nodded agreement. Get free first. Work from there.
The writhing, gagging, slowly strangling guard was hefted up and carried to the door. It snapped open and the dying guard was dumped as they cautiously flowed out into a night filled with confusion, boltfire, and screams. The girls crept along the side of the dorm building in single file, carefully moving with Barrens trained alertness, staying close to the building wall and trying to use every available shadow.
They were just about to the corner of the building when Sarena heard a low rustling around the corner. Lee'thal. The damn bat's wings made that kind of noise when it walked. She held up a hand and everyone froze instantly. The rustling was louder. The bat was almost at the corner. She could shoot it, but she didn't want to attract attention, not yet.
Sarena pointed back down the line, designating three of the biggest girls. They silently moved up with her. The bat stalked carefully around the corner, but its attention was fixed on the lighted open area in the middle of the campus. All four of them jumped it.