Survivors - Jean Lorrah [91]
The six on the ramparts lay on their stomachs, protected from anything approaching from below. They hoped to shoot down flyers before they could get above the castle.
A troop carrier suddenly emerged from a cloud of flyers, guns blasting outward as from its bottom armored troopers dropped onto the lower ramparts!
“We are outnumbered,” Data said, although he never ceased firing, taking down two troopers even as he spoke.
“Not once the locals are mobilized!” Barb told him, disposing of three more with equal efficiency.
Adin tapped his badge. “Sound retreat! Make your way back inside till-“
“Dare!” Barb yelled.
Adin rolled onto his back just in time to put his shots next to Barb’s in a silent antigrav flyer that had circled while they were busy with the troop carrier. It sailed in over them, weapons blasting.
All six guns fired at the looming shadow-it spit sparks, but kept coming!
“Run!” Barb shouted.
They had destroyed the craft’s steering controls.
Data could see the panicked face of the pilot through the windscreen as the flyer sailed out of control, on a collision course with the castle ramparts!
The Tellarites scrambled for the narrow stairs. Data reached for Tasha, who did not argue, but let him toss her after them, executing a perfect running landing at the top of the stairwell.
Data turned back just as Adin dropped his gun and grasped Barb around the waist, hauling her bodily out of the line of fire of the craft’s port gunner, still firing impassively on his way to death.
Beneath the sound of those guns, though—
Data whirled, firing at another flyer on a strafing run at the three people left on the ramparts!
He jumped aside then, turning in midair, and dived for the other two in a flying tackle, to knock them out of the line of death patterning across the rooftop.
Hitting Adin with his full weight, he knocked the breath from the man-but there was no time for finesse. Adin’s fall took Barb down. She rolled and came up shooting—
As the crippled flyer hit, behind her.
The world exploded. Data heaved the half-conscious Adin toward the stairs and turned for Barb—
She was propelled into his arms, her life’s blood splattering him as debris from the flyer tore her to shreds.
The ramparts were collapsing as the dead flyer settled.
Data turned, found Adin struggling to his knees, Tasha climbing out of the stairwell to help him.
“Tasha! Get back!” Data shouted, letting Barb’s body fall and grasping Adin by the arm as he ran for the stairs, forcing the man to turn with him. He shoved him toward Tasha, who hauled him by the other arm as the three of them fled down the narrow, winding stairs, the noise of the exploding flyer pursuing them.
The stairs shook. Dust and debris poured down on them. The two humans were coughing and choking by the time they emerged into a stone corridor. Tuuk and Gerva were waiting. “Where’s Barb?” asked Gerva.
“Dead,” said Tasha. “Hurry-the roofs collapsing!”
The retreat signal ringing in their ears, they found more stairs leading down-with five of Nalavia’s armored troopers at the bottom. Only the Tellarites were armed, but they needed no help. Weapons designed to pierce a flyer’s hull sliced as easily through the troopers’ armor as through bread. They also, incidentally, destroyed a heavy wooden table behind the troopers and made a rather large hole in the wall. Fortunately, no structural supports were harmed.
Data and Tasha followed the Tellarites, for the Starfleet personnel did not know the designated retreat area for Rikan’s castle. Darryl Adin said nothing, merely moved with Tasha, leaving Data to bring up the rear.
In the strategy room, though, Adin went straight to the viewscreen, where Aurora was studying the schematic. “Report,” he said.
Pris came in from another direction, took one look at Data, and blanched. “You’re hurt!”
He looked down, and saw the green-gold of his uniform stained with the burgundy of human blood. “No,” he said, and remembered that Adin’s people were at least as close to one another as the Enterprise bridge crew.