by Nic Plume
Strange. Landing lights were steady, not blinking, and they weren’t usually used during takeoff. This had purpose, and a mind behind it. She slowed to watch the pattern for a moment.
Long, short, long, short; break; short, short, long; longer break. Repeat.
It was Ground Forces’ code for ‘LZ hot. Will return.’
She smiled and hurried to catch up with the others.
The next door led back into a main hallway that ran perpendicular to the plaza. They’d entered another building and were finally moving away from the plaza, but inside the block or on its edge? To put distance between them and the Traverse fighters, they needed the latter. A few minutes later, they came across another skywalk, this time crossing a street. They had finally found a way to exit the block. Now, they needed to do it without the Traverse swarming below noticing them. Luckily, the floor of this skywalk wasn’t translucent like the one crossing the inner courtyard.
They hurried across and into the next block, and through three whole buildings before Tonee slowed his pace.
"We need to find a place to hole up," Kaydeen advised.
By now, Salayla and Mica were carrying most of Taylor's weight.
"Understood," Tonee replied. "But with the electronic locks on these doors, a break-in will announce our location."
"We could go up," Mica suggested. The teen was panting to catch his breath. "Away from the main traffic areas."
"That will work, as long as they don't want us too badly. But, if they put any kind of concerted effort into finding us, it won't take long to clear these hallways." Tonee shook his head. "These buildings are too clean-cut. Any alterations or breakage will be visible to the most cursory glance. We need something that’s out of the way and less conspicuous."
"Battle damage," Taylor said, "or back alleys."
"Back alleys won't work," Tonee shook his head, "at least not this close to the plaza. Traverse are probably swarming through them. But damaged buildings will work." He nodded. "Where looters might have been and rubble blocking access points doesn't look out of place."
"You want to go back to the plaza?" Mica asked.
"No. But there's been fighting in other areas of the city. We saw it from the mountain trail and the fields," Tonee looked at him. "You remember?"
Mica nodded.
"Were any of them close to here?"
Mica considered for a moment.
"Yeah. There was one column of smoke that I thought came from Tortiga, but then realized it was further east. It shouldn't be too far."
"Okay. Let's head that way. Once we find a place to hole up, we'll re-evaluate and come up with a plan to make contact. The RV unit probably called for backup, or at minimum reported the attack, so Command will be sending in units to clear the area. And hopefully, a QRF to find us."
"Command, this is Evac One. LZ Tortiga was overrun. Fifteen casualties—six critical, four serious, five minor. Two civilian casualties loaded but five others were cut off and escaped back to the city. Unconfirmed report that there are SF survivors among them. Request QRF and air support to return to the LZ. Standing by."
Dean perked up.
"Do we have IDs?" he asked the comm tech.
"Only for the first ten evacuees Evac One took on. Still waiting on the IDs of the two casualties to come through. Nothing on those last five."
"How about visuals?"
"Yes, sir, running through facial recognition now."
"Show me the visual."
The comm tech pushed a few keys. "Sir, on monitor five."
Dean moved over to get a better view. The video showed the group climbing down a series of balconies, but he couldn’t get a clear look at their faces.
"Can you enhance the video?" he asked the tech.
"Sir, that is the enhanced video."
Dean squinted at the screen. Five people, with one much larger than the others and another holding his ribs and being supported. But he couldn’t readily tell if two of them were female.
"Sir," the comm tech said. "The IDs of the two civilian casualties just came through."
"And?"
"They’re TRM evacuees that were no-shows for their scheduled pickup three days ago."
"Names?"
"Nitus Falk and Leer Vaktavian."
"What’s their status?" Dean steeled himself for the answer. Besides supplying the teens’ names, Aksel had also given Dean their ages and some of their background.
"Falk was DOA," the tech supplied, "and Vaktavian is in critical condition."
DOA: Dead On Arrival.
The boy was fifteen years old. Dean closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. And the only reason he was still groundside was to help four people he believed were our SF.
Richards looked back at the comm tech. "Activate the QRF. Send them to Evac One’s location." He then activated his comm. "Evac One, this is Command. QRF on the way to your location. Stand by."
Debris from buildings and vehicles littered torn-up streets and run-down courtyards with smoke rising in columns or hanging in billowing, eye-burning masses. Collapsed buildings, or parts thereof, blocked thoroughfares and alleys, and the acrid stench of destruction permeated every corner. They’d found the area they’d been looking for.
It seemed deserted. Even the Traverse patrols the teammates had been forced to continually evade on their trek here had disappeared. Or maybe they’d finally outpaced them. It was time to find a place to hole up and catch their breaths.
The team hurried across a wide, debris-littered street when Taylor suddenly shoved Salayla from him. She stumbled and fell. At the same time, Taylor moved in the opposite direction, pushing into Mica. An instant later, the boom and whistle of fired projectiles filled the air, and dirt sprayed from slug impacts a few meters past the spot the three had occupied. Tonee and Kaydeen bolted forward across the rest of the street, and into the alley they’d been heading for.
Kaydeen skidded to a stop and scrambled back to the corner to get her bearings. Tonee did the same on the opposite wall of the alley. Salayla was lying behind the burned-out hulk of a ground vehicle, clutching her left thigh, while Taylor and Mica lay in the open with only knee-high pieces of fallen wall for cover.
Kaydeen dropped to her knees and scanned the street to get a bead on the ambushers. From the impacts pelting the debris around her friends, she estimated that there must be at least four or five shooters, but she had no angle on them. She scurried across the alley to Tonee, who was shooting steadily, and slid in front of his feet. Leading with her rifle, she scanned the buildings in the general direction of Tonee’s aim. The impacts from his shots helped narrow her search, and she finally glimpsed muzzle flashes coming from a hole in the second story of a building half a block away. But she couldn’t see the actual shooters.
Tonee’s shots bounced all over the area.
"Slow down, big guy. You’re not hitting anything."
"I know, but at least I keep forcing them to duck."
"Do you?"
"The rate of fire has slowed, hasn’t it?"
That was true, but it was still heavy enough to keep their friends pinned. Especially since they now had two injured. Salayla had released her leg but was favoring it. Taylor had rolled onto his stomach and was talking to Mica, who was positioning himself to get to his feet.
"What’s he doing?" Kaydeen wondered aloud, but then realized his intent. "Mica, no!" she called. "Stay down!"
The boy looked at her momentarily, then returned his gaze to Taylor and continued to push himself to his hands and knees. His back started to clear the debris.
A scream drew her attention to the ambushers.
"You got one?"
"Uh, no," Tonee replied. "Wasn’t me."
"Then, who?"
Impact sparks flashed from the ambushers’ hiding spot. Only metal bullets threw sparks like that, and none of the team’s guns used those. Kaydeen scanned the street in the opposite direction.
"Stay down, Mica!"
Sa
layla’s yell drew Kaydeen’s attention back to the street as Mica pushed into a crouch. With his hands still touching the ground, the boy scrambled toward Taylor. Taylor waved him off, his eyes widening and his head shaking as he also told the teen to stay down. Mica didn't listen.
"Shit," Tonee mumbled above her and intensified his fire against the ambushers.
Kaydeen did the same, pulling the trigger of her carbine as fast as it let her. She walked her shots all over the dark maw, hoping that it would be enough to protect Mica.
She spared a glance onto the street. Mica, eyes frozen wide open, lay in a pool of blood barely out of reach of Taylor's outstretched arm. Salayla hovered at the edge of her cover and was talking to Taylor. The man ignored her and continued to inch his way toward Mica. Salayla threw herself forward behind a low pile of debris and reached an arm across the last bit of open space to grab Taylor by the shoulder. Still the man ignored her. She shook him, tried to drag him back, but he refused to budge.
Kaydeen returned her attention to the ambushers.
Something tapped her shoulder.
"Cover me," Tonee said above her.
What? They had just lost Mica. Salayla and Taylor were still out there, and now he wanted to join them?
She paused to look up at him, but he was already stepping around her to sprint across the street.
"Shit." She immediately resumed her rapid-fire barrage.
The ambushers’ firing rate dropped, then seemed to stop, but she sure as hell didn't want to stop shooting to verify that impression. The third shooter had stopped, too. She hadn't seen any impact sparks for a while, now.
Salayla hobbled into her peripheral vision, using Tonee's rifle as crutch. A moment later, Tonee came in, dragging Taylor and Mica by their shirts.
He settled Mica onto the ground a few meters past Kaydeen and sat Taylor against the wall a couple of meters past that.
"They’ve stopped shooting," Kaydeen reported as Salayla took her position. "Not sure if that means they're dead or repositioning."
She rushed to Mica.
Taylor struggled to join her, but Tonee held him in place.
"Let her do her job."
Blood had spread across the boy's chest and shoulder, staining his shirt a dark reddish brown. The entrance wound was at the base of his neck, right inside his collarbone. She couldn't tell if it had been a normal slug or one filled with plasma, but it didn't matter. He wasn't breathing or moving. She touched her fingertips to the opposite side of his neck in search of a pulse. Nothing. She considered pulling out the scanner to make sure, but knew that wouldn’t change the result and would only cost them time they didn’t have right now.
She drew a heavy breath, slid the palm of her hand across his face to close the boy's empty, staring eyes, and shook her head.
"No." Taylor slumped against the wall.
Kaydeen moved back to Salayla and examined her leg wound.
"I should've stopped him," Taylor mumbled behind her.
"How?" Tonee replied. "You can't even walk."
"He was my responsibility." Taylor’s voice had fallen to a whisper.
"Clean shot through the thigh," Kaydeen told Salayla. "It will be painful and slow your movement, but it's not life-threatening."
Salayla nodded in acknowledgement. Kaydeen pulled a wound patch from her pack, enlarged the rip in Salayla's pants, and sealed the wound. "It still needs to be cleaned, but we can do that later. Right now, we need to move."
She offered a pain injection but wasn’t surprised when Salayla waved her off. She closed and shouldered her pack and then helped Salayla stand.
“We can’t—” Taylor’s voice broke. He closed his eyes and took a wavering breath before continuing in a monotone voice. “We can’t leave him.”
"He’s gone, Taylor," Tonee implored. "We'll come back to retrieve him. I promise. But right now, we've got to go."
He pulled Taylor onto his feet and settled him across his shoulders. Taylor groaned in pain but didn’t resist the movement. He hung limp, the last of his energy drained. Kaydeen wanted to touch him, console him. She had never seen him in such emotional pain.
Instead, she kept her distance and waited for the others to move so she could cover their retreat. Salayla took the lead, her limp still pronounced; but she soon grew used to the pain and found her stride.
Taylor groaned with each bouncing step. At least for the first few minutes, then he fell silent.
They made their way through alleys and buildings, taking as many turns as possible to lose their pursuers while avoiding other patrols swarming through the neighborhood.
24
Last Stand
"There’s an apartment in a partially-collapsed building not too far away," Tonee said in between huffs as he removed the debris camouflaging Kaydeen’s and Taylor’s hiding spot.
After laboriously putting the debris in place not long ago, he now had to move each piece again to allow Kaydeen and Taylor to escape the little alcove they’d been waiting in.
"The building looks pretty bad," Tonee added, "but will work for our purposes."
"It borders a plaza," Salayla said from behind him, "which might bring more traffic past the building. But the apartment is hidden and defensible."
"Plus, the plaza will make it easy to bring the evac in," Tonee added as he removed the last pieces blocking his access. "How’s he doing?" He nodded toward Taylor’s still form.
"He keeps going in and out of consciousness, but his vitals are finally stable."
"You administered another dose?" Salayla was leaning against a wall, her skin tone chalkier than when she and Tonee had left for their scouting trip. It was high time she got off that leg.
"A few minutes ago." Kaydeen nodded. "The last one."
"Is he movable?" Tonee knelt and laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Taylor stirred at the touch. "Took you long enough to return," he mumbled.
"You don’t even know how long we were gone," Tonee smiled.
"Long enough."
"If you say so," Tonee scoffed. "You ready to move on?"
"Sure. As long as you do the moving."
Tonee grinned. "Guess I can handle your skinny ass for a bit longer."
"Told you, you’d be carrying me." Taylor grinned in reply, though it looked more forced than Tonee’s.
Tonee handed his rifle to Kaydeen and then carefully lifted Taylor onto his shoulders.
"I’m not that fragile," Taylor mumbled.
"Could’ve fooled me." Tonee stood.
Salayla, whose limp was more pronounced than when she and Tonee had left, took the lead while Kaydeen fell back to bring up the rear. That was fine with her. It allowed her to keep an eye on her charges—the wounded, and the drained. Even Tonee’s step had lost vigor and span.
It took only five minutes to reach the plaza and the building Salayla and Tonee had picked to hole up in. The structure had major damage on two of its four walls. Its southern wall had collapsed into a compact pile five stories tall that blocked all access from that end and left the upper floors exposed to the elements. The northern wall had a hole punched into it that had turned a third of the bottom three floors into a pile of rubble burying the bottom floor. Nobody in their right mind would pick this teetering-looking ruin as a hiding hole. Yet, Salayla was heading straight for that makeshift ramp of debris to the second floor.
"You sure about this?" Kaydeen asked.
Tonee looked at her with a grin. "Exactly why we picked it."
"Won't do any good if it collapses on us."
"It's sturdy enough," he said.
"And he would know," Salayla said. "He climbed all over it."
"Okay. If you two say so." Maybe she should be more worried about her friends’ mental states than their bodies.
The rubble was tricky to navigate, but once on top, Kaydeen could see what had attracted her friends. Past the gaping hole of the collapsed center stairway, an intact wall and entrance into an apartm
ent beckoned. All they had to do was navigate the eight-meter-long by one-meter-wide sliver that was left of the hallway. Support struts stuck out of the jagged floor edge, promising that at least part of their path would hold their weight. Kaydeen leaned forward to look underneath for further support beams connecting the struts.
"I tested it." Tonee grinned at her. "It'll hold."
"And how exactly did you do that?"
"I walked across and jumped really hard every other step." He looked at her innocently. "How else would I test it?"
"Did you have at least a line to secure you?" Mental images of having to recover Tonee from below came to Kaydeen's mind.
Tonee's grin broadened. "A safety line? Who has time for that?"
Of course, they did. Kaydeen looked at Salayla for confirmation. Her friend shrugged. Or did they?
Tonee slid Taylor off his shoulders, handed his pack to Kaydeen, and then slid his arms under Taylor's knees and shoulders to carry him against his chest. With his human load hanging over the edge, Tonee proceeded to sidestep to the intact part of the hallway in front of the apartment door. Salayla followed him without hesitation. Kaydeen looked at Tonee's pack in her hand. Since she had Taylor's pack strapped to her chest and hers across her back, she would have to carry this one in her hands.
"Do I need to come back and hold your hand?" Tonee called.
"Oh, hell no," Kaydeen mumbled and started across.