Chapter Two
When the elevator stopped, the doors had trouble opening, but they slid back enough that he was able to shove his bag into the gap. As he scooted forward to reposition his rifle's muzzle slightly beyond the doors, he quickly scanned outside to see where he was and who might be waiting for him.
He saw nothing in the poorly lighted area beyond the door. No one. Easing forward a bit, he peered as far as he dared to each side. He was in the lowest level of the Consulate; the vehicle storage area.
When he continued to see and hear nothing, he eased the bag forward and slid himself through the doors behind it. The doors immediately closed and the elevator began moving upward. Nowhere to retreat.
T'Mar cautiously stood up, looked around again, then picked up his bag and headed toward the line of flitters. He knew how to operate one of the big, boxy vehicles well enough to at least get the hell away from the building. The problem would be getting it out of the building.
The big door at the surface end of the ramp was closed, of course. Whether it would require human operation or not he didn't know. Ordinarily an incoming or outgoing flitter would identify itself and that would be enough, but with all the...
A harsh whisper came from his left.
"Stop right there. Put the rifle down. Set it on your bag."
T'Mar froze. As the adrenalin pumped hard through him, he considered...
"Don't," said the voice. "I can take your head off at this range."
A woman? He glanced left and saw her shadowy outline where she aimed at him over the cowling of a flitter, not fifty feet away. It was a shot that he felt he could have made easily, and he hadn't touched a rifle in two years. She'd have to be a very poor shot to miss.
"You're with the Consulate," he said. "So am I."
T'Mar lowered the rifle on his bag, then stood back up. The woman stepped from the shadows and approached him cautiously to within ten feet or so. She wore a military dress uniform and had Captain's bars on her collar and an energy rifle in her hands that was aimed at him. Except for the E-rifle, he noted, she was rather attractive.
"Name?" she asked.
"T'Mar-Sen. I work here. Emigrations and dispensary."
"Prove it. One hand only. The other stays up."
T'mar reached into his shirt pocket carefully for his Consulate ID tag and held it out to her.
"On the floor. Slide it over here."
He did so, kneeling to slide the tag to her. She stopped it with her foot. After kneeling to pick it up and checking his picture with his face, she slid it back to him and stood up, still covering him.
"How'd you get your hands on a guard's rifle?"
He told her in fair detail what had happened on the fourth floor. She nodded, gazed at him silently for another couple of moments, then let the muzzle of her rifle drop.
She said, "They jammed all communications and flooded the place with troops. That report sounded military. What rank were you and what did you do?"
"Sergeant-6. Medic, gunner, clerk, and ambulance driver. Who are you?"
"Captain L'Sil. Communications. What's left in that rifle?"
"Four rounds. Maybe five."
"We only carry those indoors. I have two of these E-rifles. The other one's in that flitter behind me. Can you pilot a flitter?"
"Yes."
"Good. You take one and I'll take one and maybe one of us will get to the docks."
T'Mar pointed at the garage entrance. The big blast doors were shut.
"What about those doors?"
"Blast doors are made to keep things out. If they won't open automatically, we'll send one of the flitters at them at full speed. They'll open."
She was about to say more, but a sound at the other end of the garage made her almost dive back behind a flitter. T'Mar grabbed his bag and rifle and followed her as quickly as possible.
They watched anxiously as someone emerged from the doorway, keeping low, and scooted behind a pillar. Seconds later, the figure quietly ran to the shelter of another pillar. After a short time, the figure moved to the next pillar in line.
Both T'Mar and L'Sil silently kept their rifles aimed at the figure as it grew closer.
"T'Mar," whispered L'Sil, "I've got him. You cover the door. Where there's one, there may be more. Hold your fire for the moment. They've rushed groups into everywhere else. These may be some of our people."
He nodded and covered the door. Sure enough, another dark figure slipped to the first pillar, then to the second, as the first figure continued forward. As the figure advanced again, he saw that she was a woman and tapped L'Sil's shoulder.
"The revolutionaries are religious fanatics. They don't have any female troops."
"I know," said L'Sil. She raised her voice slightly and said, "Hold it right there, please. Identify yourselves."
There was silence for a moment, then a soft chuckle.
"Please? You first," said the woman. "Who are you?"
"Captain L'Sil, Lady L'Tan. I recognize your voice."
"Then show yourself. Please."
L'Sil stepped out from behind the flitter, her rifle at port arms. From behind the pillar stepped the imposingly tall form of Lady L'Tan, Head of the Consulate. Her rifle was not at port arms until after she'd taken a good look at L'Sil.
"Good to see you, Captain. Who's your friend?"
T'mar said, "T'Mar-Sen, ma'am. I work in your dispensary."
L'Sil said, "He's ex-military, ma'am. Medic and gunner."
"Nobody's ex-military today, Captain. Glad you're both here. We'll need fifteen flitters linked to convoy. I have a hundred and fifty or so passengers with me."
She turned and waved behind her, then said, "Corporal L'Kes, bring them down here. Hurry."
The other figure stepped from behind her pillar and said, "Yes, ma'am," then headed back to the stairwell.
L'Sil said, "A hundred and fifty? That'll take at least twenty flitters, ma'am."
"Most of them are women and children, Captain. There'd have been more, but the bastards tossed grenades into the auditorium. Enough talk. Get the flitters linked and ready to go while we bring them down here."
L'Sil ran from flitter to flitter, keying them in sequence and accepting default convoy parameters. The flitters lifted, one by one, and lined up behind each other.
Moments later, the garage was filled with running children, herded along by their mothers and teachers, and half a dozen wounded men and women.
L'Tan said, "Everybody get on a flitter, sit down, and shut up! T'Mar! L'Sil! Put as many as possible on the flitters and start in the middle of the line. The two flitters on each end stay empty, and the third one from the front is my command flitter. At least one adult in each flitter. T'Mar and L'Sil, you're flying with me."
T'Mar yelled acknowledgment and waved, then set about packing people tightly into each flitter. L'Sil finished starting flitters and came back to help. As soon as everybody was aboard, L'Tan stepped over to start a non-convoy flitter and aimed it at the doors, then jumped aboard the command flitter with T'Mar and L'Sil.
L'Tan pointed at the lone flitter and yelled, "Everybody! We'll follow that flit out of here and head to the docks to board the Alliance. We should be in the air less than five minutes."
L'Tan stabbed the remote activation pad and the lone flitter headed past them for the blast doors under full power. She counted to two, then stabbed the pad again. Children and some of the adults screamed as the entire convoy launched forward and gathered speed as it streamed toward the tiny-seeming blast doors.
The first flitter slammed into the doors like a huge fist, jettisoning its engine module on impact and crumpling into a wad of metal as it shoved the left door completely out of its track and twisted the right door backward in a severe lean toward the outside.
The right door might have continued to lean if it had been blown inward, but there was nothing to brace it, and it fell flat only a split second before the lead flitter of the convoy passed over it.
Surprisingly, there was only sporadic fire from the ground as the convoy arched upward at half the speed of sound. L'Tan had expected much worse, and had expected to see other flitters above the Consulate to prevent flying escapes.
There were only three such flitters, and they were caught completely off-guard, losing valuable seconds as they maneuvered to chase the convoy.
L'Tan grinned at T'Mar and L'Sil.
"They thought they had the place bottled up and might have to chase down a couple of stragglers. Those are civilian flitters. They can't catch us, but knock 'em down anyway."
As L'Sil and T'Mar picked off the pilots of the Eiranian flitters, L'Tan tapped on her pad and one flitter from each end of the convoy unlinked to take up positions perhaps a mile to each side of the convoy.
T'Mar said, "The Alliance is probably under attack, too. What's she going to think of our convoy? We can't call them, L'Tan."
L'Tan picked up her rifle and set it to lowest power and widest dispersal.
"I can flash a distress code at them with this. Their Tactical people will see it on their boards. Have I missed anything?"
T'Mar shook his head. L'Sil said, "I hope not."
As they approached the half-mile wide ball that was the Alliance, they could see that she was, indeed, under attack. L'Tan set the convoy to circle at a distance and began flashing code with her rifle. After two orbits, she set the rifle down.
"They want to take the Alliance in one piece, but I think they're getting worried," she said, pointing at the flit's screen. "Three more flitters are inbound at thirty miles. Two armored vehicles are approaching from the city. Watch this."
She detailed one the side-following flitters to strike the armored vehicles. As it descended in a rather flat trajectory, it took a punishing amount of fire from below, but since its trajectory had already been set and its engines turned off, the armored vehicles might as well have been shooting at a huge falling rock.
The flitter - hampered not at all by ground fire - impacted on the lead armored vehicle at nearly twice the speed of sound. One gigantic blast and then a smaller one from the second armored vehicle obliterated the immediate area and deeply cratered the road to the docks.
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