Getting the hooks set on her suit to carry the crates full of animals was easy. Getting the humans and their apparently priceless luggage into the airsled took all her diplomacy. Stramlo refused to stand anywhere near where the animal crates had been. Po commandeered the jump seat, meaning Jhidelle had to cram herself up front between the vehicle’s wall and the hot and vibrating sensor column, and avoid Rylando’s elbow. When the doors opened, tall Pelvannor would be lucky if she didn’t pop out like a grav ball in play.
With a final sensor check, Taz rose slowly to standing height. “You are very, very good beasties,” she told her passengers. She raised the camera post so she could see behind her over the top of the smaller crate. After two practice steps and one adjustment, she pinged Rylando. “Mechanized autocab for rescue team Canis Gulo Felis is green-go. Lead on, illustrious Field Commander, sir.”
“Watch it,” he said with a growl, “or I’ll promote you to field commander.”
Taz chuckled. “Oh, no, sir! Anything but that, sir!”
With a reverberating whine, the airsled lifted sluggishly, then rotated and floated toward the shaft. She followed, trying to walk with a smooth gait.
The airsled floated into the shaft and started to rise. She gave it an extra few seconds, then extended her grab bars to the ladder and let them hold her weight while she stepped onto the closest rung.
Above her, the airsled’s lights illuminated the shaft. Her own lights let her see the wide doubled rungs as she climbed. Scanning each one briefly slowed her down, but she couldn’t afford carelessness. Counting her progress up the rungs helped her manage her impatience.
On her fourteenth step, her suit’s sensory interface reported rising vibrations coming from the rungs. Dust arose.
She swore and pinged Rylando. “Aftershock.”
“I’ll speed up top and come–”
A bone-rattling thump came from above. Falling dust and jagged pieces of heavy blue denscrete accompanied the second and third thumps.
Quelling the instinct to hunch her head and shoulders, she swung herself and her cargo sideways to make them as small a target as possible.
Above her, the airsled stalled. The hatch cover for the left coil turned an ominous pink.
More thumps. Moyo’s empty crate shifted, the strap straining. When it snapped, the crate fell off the airsled and smashed onto the lift below. Helplessly, Taz watched the coil’s hatch door turn lava red. The airsled tilted to one side and started to sink.
Chapter 6
Salamaray Citizen Activity Center, Perlarossa • GDAT 3242.334
“Hang on!” Rylando shouted as he braced himself against his standing frame and fought the controls. “I’m opening the side door. Dump everything you’re carrying, or we won’t make it to the top.”
In the display for his monitoring cameras, he saw Pelvannor use the grab bar to lever herself into a quasi-standing position.
More debris from the top of the shaft rained down. Tilting the airsled again failed to dislodge the heavy section of denscrete that clung to its roof. Alerts flashed and pinged about too much weight. The overheating coil wouldn’t last.
On the display, Pelvannor unslung her duffle bag and heaved it with amazing accuracy through the door opening opposite her. The airsled rose a bit. How much had that bag weighed?
Po, instantly outraged, called her the Mandarin equivalent of shit for brains.
Rylando righted the airsled and put every kilo of command he had into his voice. “Dump your luggage, now! We’ll get it later.” He opened the door next to Pelvannor wide enough to push things out.
Wide-eyed, Stramlo clutched his bag even tighter.
Po unhooked the web and stood. Instead of removing his backpack, he produced a beamer and aimed it at Jhidelle’s head. “You! Girl! Out!”
Rylando only had time to subvocalize the word “trouble” to Taz before Po’s gaze swung to Stramlo. “Pull her out and hand her to Pelvannor. She’s leaving, alive or dead.”
Astonishingly, Stramlo only hesitated a moment before doing as he was told. Not even Jhidelle’s expression of shocked betrayal stopped him.
Rylando sent the airsled as close as he dared to the service ladder wall. Kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner, he touched the control to start mirroring the audio and video feeds from all his tech. If Po killed them all, the recordings would help see justice done.
Pelvannor hooked one leg around a holdfast bar, then lifted Jhidelle like she weighed nothing and held her out to the ladder rungs.
Rylando watched his exterior camera display to make sure the girl grabbed on tight. A small brown shadow appeared on Jhidelle’s shoulder and jumped onto the airsled’s roof. Only Pelvannor could have seen it, and she was already turning back to face Po.
Rylando didn’t have time to think about it as the airsled began to rise again. With all the dust in the air, he couldn’t tell if the aftershock was over or not.
Po turned his beamer on Rylando. “You, Mr. Gee-sar man. Tell your partner everything’s good if she leaves us alone, then strip off your earwire and toss it to Pelvannor.” Po’s lip curled. “Get us free and you can chat all you want after we’re gone.”
Rylando reluctantly touched his earwire, spoke the required words out loud, then pulled it off. If he’d been smarter, he’d have been subvocalizing to Taz this whole time. He’d been so focused on the rescue and worrying about her and his team that he’d missed all the signs of trouble.
He tossed it awkwardly toward Pelvannor, who snatched it out of the air with blinding speed and tossed it to the back. It landed somewhere behind the stationary equipment lockers.
Po shook his head and spoke a sneering insult in Mandarin. Stramlo winced. Pelvannor’s expression didn’t change.
Only half the top scanners and none of the external comms survived the rain of rubble. Thankfully, the bottom camera eyes survived, allowing him to see Taz connect with Jhidelle and web the girl to the front of her mech suit.
Finally, the lift lobby came into view. He turned into the opening as soon as they cleared the floor height.
Debris on the floor began dancing. The lift opening visibly swayed and began to warp. In front of him, a blue section of denscrete crashed down to block the hallway exit.
Rylando spun the airsled right to avoid the sudden obstacle, only to find the other hallway already fully blocked from a cave-in.
The tortured left coil flatlined itself. The best he could do was ground the sled and hope the lobby ceiling held.
A tremendous, deafening crack made him hunch involuntarily. Mariposa clung to his shoulder with her sharp owl claws.
The airsled’s functioning camera eyes recorded the collapse of a huge block of denscrete that somehow wedged itself into the lift shaft like a cork, blocking the entire opening.
Po shoved Pelvannor aside and climbed out the still-open side door.
A moment later, he jumped back in, rage distorting his face. He pointed the beamer square at Rylando’s chest.
“Get us the fuck out of here right fucking now!”
Taz wished her mech suit had Jumper drugs to manage her spiking adrenaline and nausea. Above her, violence spiked strong enough to wake her sifter talent. The wobbling airsled nearly rammed the side wall, and suddenly, Jhidelle was left clinging to the service ladder.