“Can you tell if there are still people in the building?” Alisa asked him. Maybe she should have asked that before sending her men in.
“There are,” Abelardus said. “Some are trapped in a room right under us. They’re terrified.”
Alisa grimaced. That gave her another reason to prefer that the
Nomad
not fall through the roof.
“One leaped out the window, risking broken bones. There are a few pockets of people on the lower floors too. I don’t have any idea where that office is or if your victim is in there.”
“Starseers can’t read plaques on walls?”
“Not unless they’re in a telepathic link with a person and seeing the plaques through their eyes.”
Alisa tapped the console next to the comm buttons, tempted to ask Leonidas to share his helmet feed, but a beep from the sensor panel distracted her.
“Two shuttles are heading toward the campus,” Yumi said.
“Medical shuttles or armed military shuttles?”
“Ah, one seems to be medical—it’s veering off to land next to a flattened building on the outer edge of the campus. The other one does appear to be military. At the least, it has weapons. It’s heading in this direction.”
“Wonderful.” Alisa settled lower in her seat, as if that might keep her ship from being noticed.
The roof groaned under them again. Her thought of taking off and flying around until the men were done returned, but now wasn’t the time to go for a cruise. She was sure the military shuttle had come to help with rescues, but if it spotted the
Nomad,
it might be distracted from its primary mission.
“Captain,” Mica said over the comm, “I’ve got all these alerts going off in engineering about the lack of stability in the ground underneath us.”
“That’s because it’s a roof, not the ground.”
“An unstable roof?”
Alisa eyed the plumes of smoke rising up from all sides and the hole that was growing where the flames had already eaten through the roof on the opposite end. “Slightly unstable, yes. The good news is that all the smoke coming out of the windows below us may keep that military shuttle from noticing us.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Captain,” Yumi said. “Its sensors will tell them of our presence, the same way our sensors are telling us about them.”
“I know, but maybe they’re more focused on their task than on us. I was being optimistic.”
Mica groaned.
“More alerts?” Alisa asked.
“No, that was my response to your optimism.”
“Ah.”
The silver oblong shape of the military shuttle came into view through the smoke, the craft banking in a lazy circle. Banking and heading toward the building where the
Nomad
perched.
Alisa hit the button to close the cargo hatch, then toggled the comm on again. “Leonidas? We have visitors. We may have to take a quick trip and pick you up later.”
His channel came on, and the sound of fire crackling and wood snapping came over it before he spoke.
“We checked the office, Alisa,” he said, his voice quiet.
“And?” She hoped he wouldn’t tell her that the doctor was there but dead.
“It’s empty. We’re looking around on the floor. We’ve freed several trapped people so far.”
“That’s good,” Alisa said, while she winced inside. Maybe the doctor had made it outside already. Or maybe she hadn’t come to work today.
“If you’re leaving, we’ll usher the survivors outside,” Leonidas said. Survivors. Did that imply that they had passed people who
hadn’t
survived? “So far, those capable of it have been more inclined to run in that direction than listen to us.”
“Might have something to do with your scary red armor,” Beck put in. “Not sure they’re running outside so much as they’re fleeing the cyborg.”
“Whatever gets them out of the burning building,” Leonidas said, his voice cooling a degree.
“The energy signature of that shuttle is increasing,” Yumi said. “Their weapons are—”
“I see it,” Alisa said, slapping the button to raise the shields. “We’ll be back shortly, Leonidas.”
Alisa grabbed the thruster controls, forcing herself to ask for only a fraction of their lift power instead of having them roar to maximum. She didn’t know if Leonidas had yet freed the people Abelardus said were in the room under the
Nomad
, and she did not want to drop the ceiling on their heads.
The military shuttle fired two e-cannon blasts. Not yet clear of the roof, Alisa was forced to let the
Nomad
take the beating. Fortunately, the shuttle did not have the powerful weapons of larger ships. Even so, the dead-on strike took the shield power down a notch.
The smoke billowing from the building intensified, shrouding the
Nomad
as it flew upward, and the sky disappeared from view. A thunderous snap came from below, and the portion of the roof where they had landed collapsed. Flames poured through the gap, writhing and twisting as they leaped.
“Damn it,” Alisa snarled as she turned their ship away, twisting in an evasive maneuver. They avoided the second round of e-cannon blasts, but that did nothing for the people in that building. “Leonidas—Abelardus said there were people under us on the top floor, and the roof just collapsed. Can you check on them? Please?”
“Yes,” he said.
There wasn’t time for a longer conversation. The shuttle streaked through the smoke, jumping on the
Nomad’s
tail.
Doubting she could outrun the craft, Alisa stayed low and steered through the buildings and wreckage of the campus, searching for a way to lose their pursuer. The shuttle fired relentlessly, not seeming to care that it was doing damage to the surroundings whenever it missed. Alisa worried that those blasts would slam into buildings with people still in them. But that did not keep her from using those structures as cover as she weaved between them. She hated the idea of innocents being hurt in the chase, but what was the alternative? To surrender? To sit there and let the shuttle hammer on her shields until the attacks got through?
“Captain,” came Alejandro’s disgruntled voice over the comm. “My patient isn’t doing well after being exposed to that gas, and I’m attempting to stabilize him.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Alisa said, too busy flying to worry about the implications of Durant needing “stabilizing.”
“If you could keep the ship steady, it would be appreciated.”
“I’ll put it down as a goal for the day.” Alisa shook her head. “Don’t you love the joys of evasive maneuvers in full gravity?” she asked no one in particular as she swept around a copse of trees in a small park in the middle of campus. The lush grass and oaks were oddly undisturbed in the aftermath of the earthquake and all the chaos going on around them.
With the shuttle right behind, Alisa flew the
Nomad
in circles around the copse, hoping she could entice the other pilot to get too close, to smash into a tree. Unfortunately, the shuttle was small and maneuverable, more maneuverable than the
Nomad
.
“What’s new?” she muttered. “Three suns, he’s so close that he could lick our butts.”
“No doubt a tasty treat,” Abelardus said.
“No chance of you befuddling his mind, eh?” she asked.
“Into believing our butts aren’t tasty treats?”
“Yumi, smack him, please.” Alisa grimaced as the shuttle fired again, e-cannon blasts slamming into the back of the
Nomad
. “No, wait. Take a closer look at that shuttle instead. Do they have shields up?” She noticed that the craft was flying impossibly close to those trees, closer than it should have been able to with an energy buffer around the hull.
“I’m not reading anything, Captain.”
“They’re probably putting all the power into their weapons, since they can tell that
we
don’t have weapons.”
An idea percolated through Alisa’s brain as she took one more swoop around the park, this time, rolling sideways and diving between two trees. Something toppled with a clank somewhere in the back of the ship. Chickens squawked uproariously. A curse came from sickbay.
Alisa ignored it all, envisioning her plan and working to implement it. The shuttle was close.
Very
close. She had eighty percent shield power, despite several hits. She could afford to take a little more of a beating, providing there was time to recharge the shields later.
As the
Nomad
neared the end of the copse, with trees all around and a picnic table underneath, Alisa hit reverse on the thrusters, abruptly throwing them to full power. The ship seemed to lurch backward, even though it was merely braking hard.
More curses came from within the ship, from both Mica and Alejandro, as Alisa was thrown against her harness. Abelardus, who hadn’t been in a seat, went tumbling to the deck beside her. With her gaze locked to the rear camera display, Alisa barely noticed.
The shuttle tried to pull up, but it was too close. Its belly slammed into the
Nomad’s
rear shields, and it was flung away like a ball bouncing off a brick wall. The pilot couldn’t regain control quickly enough, and the craft slammed into a tree. The ancient oak won the battle, remaining standing as the hull of the shuttle crumpled.
With no forward momentum, the
Nomad
struck the ground, smashing the picnic table. Their shields protected them. The picnic table fared less well.
“Will someone give the captain a dictionary with the word
steady
highlighted?” Alejandro asked, a groan mingling with the words.
“Sorry, Doctor,” Alisa said.
She took them back up into the air again, hoping the shuttle would be out of the fight. But it was determined to get them. It wobbled into the air again. She hoped the crew hadn’t thought to call for reinforcements yet.
“If you do something like that again,” Abelardus said, easing up into the co-pilot’s seat, “I’ll try to make him jerk his hand, turn it into a harder crash.”
“I doubt he’s going to hug my ass again after that,” Alisa said.
“He might not be able to resist your allure.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” She shot him a meaningful look as she steered away from the trees. She would have to set things up differently to fool the pilot again.
“Alisa?” Leonidas spoke over the comm. “We got those people out.”
“Good. Thank you.”
Alisa couldn’t bring herself to ask if they were all alive. She didn’t need another reason to feel guilty. What she needed was to find a way to put this shuttle out of commission.
The ground shuddered beneath the
Nomad
, another aftershock coursing through the city. Plumes of smoke came from a long, squat building up ahead. One of its walls had collapsed, the roof slumping to the ground on that side. Alisa headed toward it while trying to think of something clever to do to their follower. The shuttle was on their tail again, not as close this time.
“Mica?” Alisa asked over the comm. “Can you make me some smoke? Smoke that billows artfully from one of our thruster housings?”
“I’d be shocked if smoke wasn’t billowing now,” Mica grumbled.
“Let me know when you have it ready.”
Alisa swept around the corner of the squat building, spotting people climbing out broken windows on the back side. One of them looked toward the freighter and waved furiously, wanting help.
“Wish we could give it to you,” Alisa whispered.
The shuttle zipped around the corner, right behind them. It wobbled slightly as it straightened out. Maybe the damage it had taken from the tree was affecting its maneuverability. She hoped so.
“Smoke’s ready,” Mica said.
A few seconds later, the shuttle’s e-cannons fired, blasts striking the
Nomad’s
shields.
“Good timing,” Alisa said. “Let it flow, Mica.”
She dropped the shields, as if that last strike had depleted their power and done real damage. Alisa threw the
Nomad
into a spin as they banked around the building again, the shuttle disappearing from sight behind them. Abruptly, she reversed the thrusters again while raising the shields.
The shuttle accelerated around the corner of the building, the pilot no doubt thinking its wounded prey was within grasp.
“Abelardus,” Alisa said, as the shuttle veered to the side to avoid the unexpectedly halted freighter in its path.
This time, it wouldn’t have crashed into them, but Abelardus must have done what he said he would do. The shuttle veered too hard and crashed into the wall of the building, smashing through two side-by-side windows. The front ten feet of the craft disappeared as it lodged in the structure, bricks tumbling to the ground all around it.
“He’s not getting out of that position anytime soon,” Abelardus said, sounding proud of himself.
“Let’s hope he didn’t call for reinforcements,” Alisa said, feeling significantly less proud. “Or if he did, let’s hope they’re too busy to come. Shouldn’t these people be focused on rescues right now and not chasing down falsely accused criminals?”
“You’re falsely accused, Captain?” Yumi asked.
“At the least, I’m… misunderstood.”
“I believe that was on Billy the Kid’s tombstone, back on Old Earth,” Mica said.
Alisa’s fingers danced across the controls as she started to take them up into the air again, but dozens of people were running out of the squat building toward them. Some limped, and some carried others. Still more just waved frantically. Alisa couldn’t hear their words, but she had no trouble deciphering the cries for help. She did not want to set down here, not so close to that Alliance military shuttle, but who else was going to take these people to the hospital?
Sighing, she inched the
Nomad
forward and landed on a patch of lawn, the only spot that wasn’t damaged, filled with rubble, or filled with people. But several potted trees lined the area, along with a picnic table. She managed to avoid the trees, but one of the picnic benches at the table was flattened. Oh, well. Better than a person.
“Abelardus,” she said, “if any Alliance soldiers run this way with weapons in their hands, I’d appreciate it if you used your prodigious mind powers to fling those weapons onto the roof.”
“I’ll keep them back.” Abelardus hopped to his feet and strode out of NavCom.