The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [82]
He took a deep breath, glanced over at Kaavi, and flashed her a grin.
She responded.
"Okay, people," he said to the listening Verunan ships. "We're coming in for our landing. Gravity is tolerable, so we ought to be able to move pretty much as usual."
A sudden movement caught his eye. Below him, the wide, flat, sunken landing field beckoned. A short distance away was the building that, Paris knew, housed the slaves and the guards.
Other buildings, where the scientists and researchers did their work, dotted the barren landscape. They were functional, but little more, and in that respect mirrored the Akerian vessels; they were hardly more than large, metal domes.
But Paris cared more about what had caused that movement, and in another moment, it was repeated. He knew it. The guards were on to them and had taken up strategic defensive positions behind boulders and large mining equipment.
"Attention, Verunan fleet," he said, keeping his voice calm. "It looks like we've got ourselves a welcoming committee."
CHAPTER 16
"Be careful, Paris!" Kaavi implored. "Oh, how I wish I were going with you..." The last thing Paris saw before the shuttlecraft's airlock closed was her worried face. He tried to give her a reassuring grin but wasn't sure if he succeeded.
He double-checked his phaser rifle, then pulled out his tricorder. A few light touches, then the instrument clearly displayed where the guards were, where the Verunans were clustered, and where their would-be rescuers were.
Here goes nothing, Paris thought and stepped into the fray.
Red energy fire whizzed past him. He barely managed to duck in time, overcompensating for the heaviness of the suit, and stumbled. That misstep saved his life, as another shot blasted the rock where he had just stood. Paris whipped the phaser rifle into position and fired in the direction of the shots. But the guard who had attacked him, clad in a less-ornate version of Linneas's armor, slipped behind a boulder.
Paris's phaser blast impacted harmlessly.
Other shots were being fired. Paris risked a look around. The five Verunan ships had landed safely. Ten pilots were tumbling out; five stayed behind, one on each ship, to protect them. One Verunan, whom Paris did not immediately recognize, went down almost at once. His fellows seized him and hauled him back into the safety of his vessel.
He caught a glimpse of one of them through the faceplate. It was the oldest pilot among them--Miweni, if Paris recalled his name correctly.
He looked scared but determined. Paris imagined that the rest of the Verunans bore variations of the same expression.
Paris waved them forward, and they came, scurrying up as best they could on big long legs that were not used to moving in this dense gravity, carrying weapons they had never before fired at living, moving targets. But despite their understandable fear and inexperience, they were not about to let Paris--and through him, their imprisoned friends--down.
They moved in formation as they had rehearsed, and one of them even managed to get a square shot off a guard who popped up unexpectedly.
The guard lay where he fell, ignored by his fellows. Bitterly, Paris thought that that was the quintessential difference between Verunans and Akerians.
Counting quickly, Paris determined that there were four guards, one of which was down. But he was not here for a showdown. He was here to keep his group moving and to get to the prisoners.
When another blast came screaming past him, kicking up the lifeless dust of the dead planet not half a meter from his booted feet, Paris didn't return fire. Ahead of him, only a few meters away, was the bunker, and that was where his duty lay. He ran forward as fast as the envirosuit and the dense gravity of the planet would permit. Nine of the Verunans followed.
The door, a huge black slab of metal at the mouth of this utilitarian building, loomed ahead. Paris pulled out the tricorder and called up the entry code Harry Kim had