The Red King - Michael A. Martin [99]
“Get T’Lirin out immediately,” he shouted. He’d be damned if he was going to leave any of his team behind.
Norellis yelled into the companel in front of him. “T’Lirin! Are you ready? T’Lirin?”
All that came back was static.
Waen turned back from the pilot seat. “Sir, sensors show there’s been a cave-in. We’ve lost our transporter lock.”
Keru’s heart sank. No. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose anyone . He’d made that promise to himself when he’d agreed to take the job as Titan’s chief of security. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, his coma visions of despair and bloodwine assailed him.
Waen shouted again from the cockpit, and Keru heard the sound of hope in her voice. “I’m showing life signs, Commander. And they’re on the move.”
“Is there any way to get them out?” Keru asked, pushing the administering hands of Nurse Kershu aside and moving forward through the frightened crowd toward the cockpit’s copilot seat.
“No, sir,” Waen said. “But I think they’re headed for an opening over there.” She pointed to the forward window, toward another opening in the butte wall.
A moment later, movement was visible just inside the dark egress. Keru turned back toward Norellis.
“Kent, beam over anyone who exits the caves. Energize the moment you have a lock.”
As he turned back toward the screens, Keru heard a cacophonous sound, louder than anything he’d yet heard. A moment later, something massive collided with the face of the butte, near the entrance the team had used previously. Rocks and dust scattered from the impact’s epicenter, stone shrapnel banging against the shuttle’s hull.
Waen turned toward him. “Commander, we’re being hit by lunar debris, and it’s only getting worse. We have to go now!”
“Not without T’Lirin,” Keru said. He turned back toward the rear of the shuttle, just in time to watch another quartet of disoriented refugees materialize.
“There she is,” Waen said, pointing. Through the dust-clotted air, Keru saw T’Lirin, her uniform torn and dirty. She was carrying a small Neyel child, and was standing near the lip of the cave.
“Lock onto them now!” Keru yelled back to Norellis.
“Transporter’s down,” Norellis shouted. “I can’t get a lock!”
No! Eyes wide with horror, Keru looked at the screen, saw T’Lirin holding the Neyel child close to her chest, her image swimming in the heated air.
Keru was about to order Waen to take them in as close as possible to T’Lirin when something struck the shuttle, nearly hard enough to turn it over. Keru felt himself fly up out of the seat, and came crashing down against one of the consoles.
He heard screams, and saw flashes of light and showers of sparks and moving bodies, even as he rolled off the control panels and onto the shuttlecraft’s unyielding deck.
A blue hand helped him up. “Sir,” Waen yelled. “If we don’t leave now, everyone we came to save will die.”
Keru looked up at the screens, staring transfixed at the image of T’Lirin. Her face was a mask of utter calm, of acceptance. She raised one hand toward the Ellington, her fingers paired and parted into the shape of a V.
The shuttle shook again. “Sir!” Waen shouted.
“Raise shields,” Keru snarled, his eyes brimming with tears. “Get us out of here, fast.” But he forced himself to watch the consequences of his choice as T’Lirin and her charge dwindled from sight on the surface of the dying planet.
VANGUARD
Davin ran, and she knew she was running for her life.
Stay out of the lights, she told herself, avoiding the huge, mirrored structures that brought external sunlight into this place. She could hear crowds in the distance, could see some of them in the far distance on the opposite side of the place if she looked straight up.
But when she cried for help, no one came to her aid.
She had to assume they were still chasing her. There were four of them when she had last looked over her shoulder, but she was no longer sure there weren’t more. All she knew was that she couldn’t afford to turn to look again, lest they gain on her. Keeping her tail pointed straight behind her, she kept running, hoping she could find a