Survivors - Jean Lorrah [93]
Sdan left communications to Aurora, and joined in the fight to reclaim the castle. It was slow work, even with the aid of the security system, for once they had spread out it was necessary to check just who a life form reading was before attacking, lest they end up fighting themselves.
But finally the castle was secure. One tower and part of the upper floor were in ruins where the antigrav flyer had hit, but most of the huge old structure was still standing in the first faint gray of dawn.
Forty-three of Nalavia’s troops had managed to enter the castle. Sixteen of them were now dead-one by Rikan’s dagger at the opening of the fray-and the rest imprisoned in the kind of cells Data had suspected had to be here: ancient rooms dug out of the solid rock of the cliff, but now protected with force fields that would, indeed, hold even an android prisoner.
Barb was the only casualty among Adin’s gang, but seven of Rikan’s people had died fighting, and a number of others were too badly injured to continue.
Everyone else, though, gathered in the courtyard as daylight brightened and Rikan prepared to go into battle.
The warlord was resplendent in tough but lightweight body armor, carrying the helmet that bore his crest. His people cheered as he entered his waiting flyer-a vehicle also decorated with the symbols of his ancient lineage. There would be no doubt as to who was in that well-armed flyer … either to Rikan’s people, or to Nalavia’s.
The battle was on the other side of the chasm now, flyers and ground troops alike engaged in a struggle to the death.
But how could Rikan and Adin hope to win, Data wondered. Nalavia could throw fresh troops at them long after their own were exhausted.
Nothing he had seen in Adin’s armory was the kind of weapon that could destroy a city-not that such weapons were ever supposed to be in private hands, but he had no doubt at all that only moral scruples kept this strange band of mercenaries from building them.
So there was no way to defeat Nalavia by numbers; it had to be done with skill, cleverness, and the desperation of Rikan’s people fighting for their lives, homes, and families.
When Rikan had gone, Adin and Poet took one small, sleek fighting flyer, the Tellarites another, Sdan and Pris a third, and sailed off to escort him. Data turned to Tasha, who stood watching them leave with a look of yearning.
Of course-while she espoused Starfleet’s teaching that to be forced to fight was in itself a defeat, once battle was engaged it called to her blood. Data looked after the flyers sailing toward the battlefront. “There are no more vehicles.”
“There’s our shuttle,” said Tasha.
“It is not designed for fighting,” he reminded her. The craft was unarmed, and because it was built for deep-space voyaging one could not open the ports to shoot conventional weapons.
But then Data remembered, “There is the flyer I stole to get here. It is probably still where I hid it.”
Tasha looked at him in amused surprise. “You stole a flyer?”
“It was too far to walk,” he said honestly, and was once more puzzled when something he said in all seriousness caused a human to break into laughter.
But Tasha gave him no time to ponder the vagaries of humor. “Let’s go find it!” she said, but she ran back toward the castle instead of the road.
“Where are you-?”
“Weapons!”
The light phaser rifles they had been issued for searching the castle were indeed inappropriate for midair combat.
But the heavy-duty guns were just inside, cleaned and reloaded after the night’s activity. They each took one, and extra charges. No one questioned them as they set off on foot down the road.
Data could not ask Tasha to climb down the cliffside the way he had come up, so they had a long journey to the hidden flyer. It was almost two hours later that they finally soared across the chasm, toward a battle that showed no signs of slacking.
Tasha Yar let Data do the piloting, trusting his android senses to keep them from hitting trees, hills, or other flyers as they swung beneath one of the military craft so she could