by George Olney
A lee'thal was a flying predator, so its bones were light although its muscles were strong. When the other three grabbed its sword arm and big wings, Sarena grabbed the head and jerked. The crunch-snap of the bat's neck told her it was dead. One of the girls picked up the bat's light alloy three foot sword and now someone besides Sarena was armed.
They picked up several more swords the same way as they approached the vehicle park, dodging in and out of shadow. A couple of pistols from dead staff were also recovered. They found what was left of a dead guard outside the vehicle park dispatch shack. His B-42 was added to their weapons and Sarena blessed the fact the School never expected an attack.
She dashed inside and grabbed every vehicle key fob she could find then led the run for the carryalls. There were a few tense moments once they reached the first of the big six wheeled load carriers. Sarena jumped into the driver's seat and frantically punched the start button on one fob after another. When the carryall motor caught, she threw the rest on the cabin floor. Something else to slow down pursuit. The girl with the other B-42 climbed into the big bench seat with her while the others scrambled into the high walled load bed.
"Everybody loaded?" she yelled.
"Yes. Go!"
Sarena took a deep breath, grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and shoved the throttle to the floor with her foot, headed through the confusion and straight for the gate. They clipped several bodies on the way. Bats or School personnel; it didn't matter. They were going nearly full speed when they hit the gates.
Sarena felt the big vehicle jerk as bolts hit the back of the carryall. Then they were out into the night. "Anybody get hit?" she yelled back.
"No! Just drive! Fast!"
Sarena drove fast. They were on some kind of track out into the Barrens. She wasn't sure where it led, but they were on their way.
Chapter 14
Frenchy sighed to herself as she once again surveyed the wrecked cruiser in the early morning light. It was resting on the tan soil at enough of an angle that she could see the holes in its belly. If Maev hadn't flipped it on its side just as the missile's warhead detonated, those holes would be in the passenger windscreen and in the four of them. As it was, the engine and a lot of equipment were shot, including the communicator.
Especially the communicator. Make that plural. Yarmout's portable, the one recovered by Nos, used to be in one of the storage compartments that now had a large hole in it. Everything in that compartment was either trashed or missing, thrown out by the hit. The portable was among the missing items and hadn't been found during the dawn search the four of them had made. They were down and had no way to tell anyone about it. Worse, the spot where they'd crashed was miles away from where they'd been hit. With nothing but anti-gravs and erratic control systems, they'd drifted quite a lot after the missile strike. Frenchy wasn't going to complain, they were down alive and in one piece, but anyone trying to find them would be looking in the wrong place for a while to come.
At least the nuclear motor's heavy shielding had protected it so they weren't radioactive dust on the wind. And thank God the intruder repelling screen was still functional. Without it, last night would have been sleepless rather than merely tense, because anything at all could have gotten at them. That would have meant a fight, or fights, Frenchy really didn't want at the moment.
"How bad is it, babe?" Dallas asked from behind her.
"Could be worse, I suppose," Frenchy said with an audible sigh. "It's like one of those shipwrecks back home, where the real wreck is on the bottom miles from where it should be and the search takes forever. I don't think this one will take forever, because Grae is going to be on it hot and heavy. The problem is that unless the Hold happened to have us directly on a screen, all they have is our signal trace and that cut off when we were hit."
She pointed out into the Barrens. "Way to hell and gone out there. No way they could find this wreck at night and Grae knows it. Since our engine's down, our heat signature isn't that much different from a lot of other things out here. The engine's shielding is completely effective on heat and radiation. One of the bits the Arm Academy taught me was that finding something on the ground that's non-radiating requires shadows, meaning daylight. IR and visual are the two easiest ways to find something. Without really significant IR, that means looking for the wreck's shadow. So somebody probably left at dawn to start looking. Grae's leading the search if he isn't getting a crew together to try to recover the girls. Still, they ought to find us by this afternoon sometime.... Maybe."
"Face it, babe," Dallas said with a matching sigh. "We're stuck for a while. Do these things have a Black Box like airplanes do back on Earth? They could find us right away with that."
Nos was with her, also studying the cruiser. Maev was in the cabin, trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. So far, a whole lot more didn't work than did. "Not that I know of, babe," Frenchy replied. "They're so reliable that I guess nobody's thought of it."
Nos piped up. "Mom, what's a black box?"
Mom. Not Mama. Again, Frenchy figured she'd heard the Mama word for the last time. "Honey," the word brought a minor frown to Nos's face, "they're a device we had on air transports back home. They recorded all flight data and automatically sent out a location signal in case of a crash."
"But I read where every vehicle has one of those!'
"Not us, Nos," Maev said as she climbed out of the wrecked sled. "That was one of the first things I checked last night. A warhead fragment took out ours. Along with most of our other onboard equipment. We're pretty much limited to what we have on us, the repellent field, and the cruiser's detect and scan system. At least we'll be able to see if anyone is coming and the water container is more or less in one piece. There are a few little leaks, but nothing major. Water should last for a few more days. Long enough for a search party to find us. They'll start where our carrier beam went off line and work out from there. We just have to settle in and wait."
"Meanwhile, the slavers have those girls." Frenchy's face was grim and tight. "We're going to get them back and somebody's going to regret hell out of the fact."
There was a ding from the sled's cabin. Maev ducked back in to check and called, "Vehicle coming! Looks like a ground carryall."
"Okay, folks," Frenchy said firmly, "Battle stations until we know who it is."
"Spread out away from the wreck," Dallas said, reaching over her shoulder for her bopper. "They'll be focused on that and it ought to keep their attention until we know who it is. Babe, make sure you have your gun on tight choke. If we have to start shooting, we don't want to let them get too close."
Frenchy stared at her for a moment. Dallas was making perfect sense, now that she thought about it, but her friend's instructions were so much like something Grae would say that it floored her for few seconds. Then she remembered. Marine training. Okay, that might work in this screwed up mess. For sure, neither Maev nor she were soldiers with a soldier's training. Dallas had been one once. "Okay, babe. Sounds like you know what you're doing better than I do."
She swung to the boy. "Nos, you come with me. You can use that pistol if I tell you, but not until. Got it?"
Nos got big eyed for a moment. She could see him swallow slightly. "Yes, Mom."
As they took up a position prone behind some bush about a hundred yards distant, Frenchy found herself hoping Nos didn't have to use the gun. She didn't want her little boy to have to kill anyone or anything. Yet. She was too realistic to hope he never had to kill, not on Lycanth.
She looked for the approaching carryall. It looked like it wasn't really headed directly for them; more off at an angle. It was going to miss the crash site by a good margin.
That was when she woke up and realized she had a way to tell if the people in the carryall were on the side of the angels or not. She concentrated. She didn't even notice when Nos turned to her and got a concerned expression as the remote look on her face registered.
"Mom."
"It's okay, son. These aren't the bad guys. In fact..."
Frenchy leaped to her feet. "Maev! We have to get their attention! Those are girls! And they need help as much as we do!"
Maev didn't question anything. She was experienced with Frenchy's mental powers. Instead, she dashed for the wreck and dived into it, emerging with a foot long tube in one hand. She held it high and suddenly, the high end of the tube began to strobe a bright red flash, easily visible from a great distance.
Frenchy nodded. Galactic equivalent of a flare. Now to hope the girls saw it. Suddenly, there was no doubt in her mind. The girls in the carryall were going to see the flare and come to them. She was so confident she got out of position and walked towards the wreck, followed by a badly confused Nos. Dallas joined them at the cruiser a moment later and all four watched the carryall turn in their direction.
Of all of them - even Frenchy - Maev knew what was happening. She'd seen Frenchy do it before. Somehow, Frenchy could just make things happen if she wanted to hard enough.
The carryall stopped at Frenchy's group and the driver's door opened. A dark haired tribal girl about fifteen or so hopped down from the cab, wearing an outlandish getup Frenchy had never seen anywhere in Galactic society - and she'd seen some outlandish clothing. The girl was followed by another jumping out of the passenger's cabin wearing the same outfit and carrying a bolt gun that Frenchy, had she known, would have called a "bullpup assault rifle" back on Earth. Others, dressed in the same style and the same age range or a little younger, piled off the back of the load bed. A few of them had swords, for Heaven's sake! The first girl's shout told Frenchy that her belief was once again correct. "I told you guys these folks were okay!" she yelled.
In the manner of teenage girls the universe over, diverse questions and complaints then ensued.
"Who are you guys?"
"What happened to you?"
"We were captured by slavers!"
"We just escaped from some slaver's prison. Or maybe a school. A really bad school."
"Can you help us?"
More such questions and complaints spilled out, every one of them finally capped by the driver. "They took away our vid-texes and our miso and made us wear these things!!!"
That sentence finished in a near wail.
The "things" in question were a short bolero jacket, T shirt, and a pair of pantaloons that looked a little like classical harem girls' pants made out of parachute cloth. Everything was a really disgusting shade of orange.
The driver peeled off her bolero jacket, threw it on the ground then started to reach for her T shirt. The rest of the girls began to follow her example.
Frenchy was horribly certain all of the girls were going to strip bare in preference to wearing that horrid, horrid prison uniform and she was dithering, trying to figure out what to do - and do it now. Nos was watching with great interest. The tribes didn't care much about nudity, but Nos was here and Nos was her little boy. She had to stop the teenage strip tease but her brain was frozen by the girls' complaints and actions. What to do?! What the hell could she do?!
Aunt Dallas stepped into the breach. Because of the way she grew up, Frenchy knew almost nothing of girls in their early teens and how they thought. Dallas, on the other hand, had a far more normal upbringing. Ergo, she brought the whole early-teen emotional storm to a screeching halt.
"Ladies, stop that," she said loudly and firmly. "Put your clothes back on."
The voice of Older Female Authority stopped the girls. They froze, holding whatever piece of clothing was in their hands, and looked at Dallas, who smiled at them gently. "I know they're horrible," Dallas continued, "but you know you're not old enough to wander around nude yet. It's against Custom and you all know that."
The mention of Custom, that utterly rigid and inarguable control of tribal actions, made the girls sheepishly start reaching for things to put on, not take off. Dallas nodded approvingly. "Don't worry ladies, we'll get you back to the Hold and get you into leathers as soon as we can."
By now, Frenchy knew what was happening, even if she wasn't totally sure why. Mentally, she blessed Dallas's solidly grounded persona. She had an inspiration and decided it was time to add to the Older Female Authority around here. "Dallas is right, ladies. You can't just strip. Besides, we have a lot to do yet and it's going to take that carryall to get us out of here. That load bed is probably very gross to ride in and I'm sure none of you want to get more gunk on you than you can avoid."
In ten teenage girl minds, things immediately went from outrage to yuck. The uniforms were better than (literally) nothing.
Dallas, seeing the girls settle down, added, "Don't worry, we'll get you to the Hold. Then we'll burn your prison uniforms."
Cheers.
Mild disappointment from Nos, carefully hidden.
He wouldn't mind if the girls stripped. In fact he was looking forward to it, since they were only a little older than himself, therefore more realistically attainable than someone like Justa, who was normally bare. Justa was really old. Almost Mom's age. However, as the only man in the entire group, he had an image to maintain. He wished he was wearing Yarmout's big sword. Well, he wished he was big enough to wear Yarmout's big sword. One or two of those girls might just get interested in him then. Right now, if he put it on, he'd look like the sword was wearing him. Not good for the Male Image.
Maev, meanwhile, had gotten into the carryall's cabin. She climbed out and walked over to the group, her face worried. "Who drove this thing?" she asked at large.
"Me," Sarena answered. "I wasn't too sure what I was doing, but I figured if we got in and went as fast and as far as we could, we'd find help sooner or later."
As an Enforcer having experience with a desperate escape or two in her time, Maev wasn't about to criticize. "Did you notice the fuel readout?"
She got the answer everyone was halfway expecting.
"Which one was that?"
Maev shook her head. "Never mind. Let's just say we haven't got enough fuel to get to the Yellow Knife Freehold, but we need to be on the way as soon as we can. There's a transponder in there that's probably sending a directional signal back to the slavers."
On the one hand, Frenchy realized the urgency of Maev's statement. On the other, she realized she'd never wondered about what kind of fuel vehicles out here among the stars used. Some kind of gasoline or such, she'd assumed. "What kind of fuel are we talking about, Maev?"
Maev knew Frenchy and Dallas weren't from Galactic civilization. "Ground vehicles don't use nuclear propulsion like sleds or other air transport. We use a synthesized compound that's highly explosive, but normally only under very restricted circumstances, like in an engine cylinder"
She pointed to a big tank running between the two back axles on the carryall's side facing them. The tank had several big holes in it showing extensive burn marks around the edges, obviously from bolt fire. "That tank was already empty or it would have exploded when it was hit."
Maev turned to Sarena. "They shot at you as you were leaving, right?"
Sarena, as pale faced as the other girls at how close she'd come to being blown sky high, nodded silently. "Well, the tank on the other side wasn't full, either," Maev continued. "You must have grabbed one that wasn't fueled up. Thankfully, empty tanks are automatically vented. The vapor's just as dangerous, so it needs to be dispersed as a safety measure. Sloppy to park a vehicle without fueling it, but it saved your lives. It also means we can't get anywhere we need to go, but still we have to get further away from the slaver base and fort up someplace until help comes to us."
"Okay," Frenchy said firmly, "that definitely means we load up and get the hell out of here. Maev, can you drive this thing?"
"Yes," Maev replied, "but I don't want to. I want to try to convert the transponder to broadcast our identifying signal. The slavers will be able to pick up the signal, but that's about the only way I can think of that somebody else - the right somebody else - will be able to find us."
"I've driven big trucks in the Marines," Dallas volunteered. "I'll take a shot at it, if you'll just show me the controls and gauges and such."
Frenchy was a bit surprised at Dallas's revelation, but didn't let it show. Besides, Marines could do anything. Everyone knew that. She went over and looked at the big bench seat in the carryall cab. "Looks big enough for four if we squeeze. Dallas, Maev, me and -" she pointed at Sarena, "you grab your gun and come with us up front. You can tell us what happened while Dallas drives and Maev works, honey."
She addressed the group at large. "Start loading anything we can salvage from the cruiser. We need to be moving as fast as we can."
How true that was became obvious about ten activity filled minutes later when the scanner in the cruiser dinged. Frenchy was closest and dived for the cruiser cabin. She stuck her head out a minute later and yelled, "Everybody! Speed up the loading! Hell, forget the loading! We've got to run as fast as we can!"
"What's up, babe?" Dallas called back.
"Three more carryalls just came into sensor range. Looks like they're from the slaver base."
"How close are they?" Maev yelled from inside the carryall cab.
Frenchy ducked back into the cruiser and emerged a few seconds later. "My best guess is that they're about three hours behind at the speed they're making."
Frenchy jumped out of the cabin and started walking towards the carryall. "Everyone into the load bed except the girl I asked to join us." She pointed to Sarena. "What's your name, honey?"
"Sarena," the girl said.
"Okay," Frenchy replied. "Everyone up and let's get the hell out of here fast!"
After a few moments of quick schooling on the carryall's controls, Dallas started it up and they were on their way. The ride was bumpy at first, as Dallas figured out how to drive the big vehicle over the rough ground. "Maev," she said absently, her eyes on the uneven terrain ahead, "I know when you go faster you use more fuel and I want to go as fast as we can. How far do you think we can get on what we have?"