Since the girl was webbed in, he didn’t bother closing the side door as he slowly raised the airsled up the shaft twelve meters, then eased it into the wide-open doors of the basement hallway. Simple hovering was easier on the coils than grounding and lift-off, so he floated in place a half meter off the floor.
Scans didn’t stress the coils, either, so he ran the full array. A series of at least twenty or thirty light-ringed doors lined the hallway, each with the company’s logo and a number, an impressive-looking lock, and a nearby wallcomp. Seen from this perspective, the building was a lot bigger than it had looked upstairs, and this was the short end of its L-shape.
Taz swung into Rylando’s holo camera view a moment later, as if she’d used anti-gravity to get to the hallway entrance. Her floodlights turned off as she walked to stand next to the airsled’s open door. All he could see out the door was her suit’s knees to her shoulders.
He turned to look at his passenger. “Which storage unit will your father be in? And do you know who’s with him?”
“I don’t know,” replied the girl, sounding miserable and worried.
In the sling on his chest, Otak abruptly turned around and stuck his head out toward the open door, nose quivering. Rylando lightly connected to the big rat’s thought stream. The reason for Otak’s alert was unsettling.
Turning back to the controls, he reached up to tap his earwire to tell Taz, then hesitated. Would she take him seriously, or would she be like most of the unit and their boss and call him deluded? He made himself touch his earwire and subvocalize anyway. “Otak’s nose says this corridor has traces of explosives. Likely Kem-X.”
Time stood still until she replied.
“Acknowledged. Give Otak an extra treat for me. I’ll do chem scans along with the rest so we can report it. Let’s free our targets and jet out.”
Relief gave him back his ability to breathe. “Good. Yes. Right.” Apparently, it also made him sound like a fluffhead.
He turned to take Otak back to his crate when movement caught his eye. Jhidelle’s big puffy coat was squirming. Extending his talent told him why.
Giving Jhidelle a raised eyebrow, he pointed to her middle. “Perhaps you should open your coat so your animals can get some fresh air.”
She froze, then shook her head. Finally, her expression fell, and she opened her coat. In a cleverly crafted vest with pouches, she carried two small animals. “Father doesn’t like them, but I couldn’t leave them behind.” She pointed to a red-furred face with ears twice as big. “This is Farenoso. He’s a Fennec fox.” She stroked the brown, large-eyed creature. “This is Tzima. She’s a kinkajou.”
He couldn’t very well fault her for something he would have done as a kid. Actually, considering the crates in the back and the rat nestled against his chest, something he still did. Which made him realize Jhidelle and he might have more in common than he thought. Reaching out to her pets confirmed his suspicion. She was an animal-affinity minder. In their minds, he felt her presence as a kind of extra energy.
While it was unlikely the girl had bad intentions, he kicked himself for not realizing the reason for his own team’s heightened interest in her. A higher-level talent could override his connection to his animals. He’d done his best to train them to resist and escape, but they could still be forced to do things against their will.
Taz swore. “I lost my connection to Hatya. How about you?”
Returning to the front console, he checked the readout. “I still have thin band. Considering how thick the denscrete is above us, I bet I’ll lose all comms when I go farther down the hallway and out of bounce range.”
Taz growled. “This is ridiculous. As soon as we get back, I’m upgrading my suit comms out of my own savings. GSAR Tech Sec will have to catch me.”
They wouldn’t. While the Tech Security division was notorious for confiscating unauthorized tech, it was also the most understaffed and under-funded division in GSAR.
“I’ll send Hatya a ping with our plans, with a status check in thirty.”
“Copy. I’ll scout for our target.” She snorted. “At least our earwires still work down here.” She took off with a distance-eating stride.
He sent the comms packet and nudged the airsled forward to follow.
Taz was already activating the first storage unit’s wallcomp by the time he caught up with her.
The overhead lighting flickered twice, then went out. The residual glow from light-ringed doors and the wallcomps died a moment later.
Their only illumination in the hallway came from the airsled and Taz’s suit.
5
Salamaray Citizen Activity Center, Perlarossa • GDAT 3242.334
Taz used to think being trapped in a cave two kilometers below ground was the worst rescue environment, but this basement was making her rethink that. She uttered a vile curse.
“Copy that,” replied Rylando dryly. “Otak is still alerting on explosives. Can’t think of many benign reasons they’d be here.”
“This day keeps getting better, doesn’t it?” Her scans confirmed three lifesigns behind door number 77.
Theoretically, the units should have egress provisions for sticky situations, but with this jinxed building, who knew?
She knocked three times on the heavy door with her fist. No answer, but she wasn’t sure she’d hear them through the thick door plates. Just as she was about to deploy her plasma cutter, the lights blinked on. The door and wallcomp lights glowed bright again.
Hurriedly, she retracted her helmet and used her teke to wake the wallcomp display. “Galactic Search and Rescue. Do you need assistance?”
After a long moment, a baritone voice answered. “Yes. Get us out of here immediately.” The accent was snooty and the tone sounded entitled.
Great. Her favorite kind of rescue target. “If the door has an emergency-exit bar or wheel, please try it now.” She kept her tone professional. “It might be on the door or in the frame.”
After several moments of silence, the voice was back. “It still doesn’t work.” Accusation accompanied the condescension.
Another, tenor-range voice added, “We’ve tried everything we can think of. The access biometrics aren’t working for anything, not even lights. We think the lock is jammed. Or corrupted. When the earthquake started, mine was the only door open, so we all sheltered in here. The door locked before we could stop it.”
“Okay. I’ll try something out here. Please watch the comps and locks and tell me if anything changes.” It sometimes helped stressed-out victims to give them something to do.
No way was she wire-jacking her suit into an untrusted wallcomp. She used her implant controller to ping the building’s AI. Miraculously, it responded and accepted her series of access override codes.
Twenty seconds later, the light-ring displayed rainbow colors and emitted a short, cheerful tune. The multi-layered door plates irised open.
She stepped back. “Please come out now while we still have power.”
A sharply pretty young man in tall boots and a stylish corporate kilt under a flowing, layered tunic exited first. A substantial utility pouch hung from his low-slung belt, and he wore a gray hard-shell backpack. His flawless white skin spoke of regular body-shop visits.
On his heels came an older-looking, more distinguished executive-type man wearing an expensive, notice-my-success grey suit and an equally expensive cross-slung, overstuffed messenger bag. His carefully waved bright yellow hair matched the hue of his padded collar and his boots. Someone should have told him to avoid that color altogether.
The third person stood half again as tall as either man and wore solid black that clung to chiseled muscles.
Prodded by instinct Taz had learned to listen to, she had her suit scan the open storage unit while she asked their names.
The young-looking, pretty man hesitated, then pointed to himself. “I am Bagutar Po.” His accent hinted at Mandarin as a primary language. He tilted his head toward the others. “She’s Pelvannor. I don
’t know him.”
The executive man smiled nervously. “I’m Xolor Stramlo. What are the odds that Mr. Po and his bodyguard would also be in the facility so early? Very lucky, ja?”
It wasn’t Taz’s business that both Po and Stramlo were mixing truth and lies, but it made her want to get out all the faster.
Pelvannor, who wore a heavy-looking utilitarian backpack, watched both men closely, with occasional assessing glances toward Taz and the now-grounded airsled. Her silver eyebrows and very short dusting of silver hair stood out against her cool brown skin. The bodyguard part was likely the truth, considering Taz’s sifter sense told her the woman was a ramper, a minder who could augment her body’s strength and speed using her talent.
Stramlo’s smile faded to a disapproving frown. “What’s that dog doing here?”
Moyo, wearing her official yellow and red GSAR harness and multi-pocketed utility vest, padded toward the men. She unexpectedly swerved and approached Pelvannor. The woman’s watchful expression didn’t change, but Taz saw the subtle outstretch of fingers toward the dog. Moyo saw it, too, and sidled closer.
Rylando appeared in the airsled’s open doorway. “She’s doing her job, checking for people who need help.” He used the determinedly patient tone he reserved for children throwing tantrums.
Taz struggled to keep a smile off her face.
Po sneered. “We’re fine, and will be leav…” His words trailed off as he looked down the hall. “What did you do to the lift?”
Blame-finders like Po weren’t worth arguing with. “Grounded. We can take you up in the airsled.”
“No.” Po turned and reseated the pack on his shoulders. “We’ll take the lift at the other end.”
“That whole end of the building is a no-go,” said Rylando. He pointed a thumb back to the open shaft. “You’re welcome to climb the service ladder if you don’t want to ride with us.” He held out his arm and keyed his percomp. “Just state your names again and tell us for the record you’re refusing our help, and we’ll be on our way.”
After a long moment, Po’s chin jutted out imperiously. “We will ride.” He waved limp fingers toward Stramlo. “Perhaps you should seal your storage unit.”
“My what?” Stramlo blinked. “Oh, yes, of course. Can’t be too careful these days.” He crossed to the wallcomp and entered two codes and a biometric. The door iris closed. “There. All set.” He slapped his hands together like he’d performed a difficult feat of manual labor.
Moyo trotted to the airsled and jumped in.
Rylando’s tone sounded in her earwire. “I need your help rearranging the crates.”
Taz didn’t like leaving her suit with strangers, but the sooner they got it done, the sooner they could leave. She retracted the armor and stepped down.
Stramlo glanced at the clock display on the wall, then frowned and raised his arm to look at the elegant bracelet-style percomp on his wrist. “The display is slow by seven minutes and nineteen seconds.”
Po rolled his eyes as she walked by.
As she approached the airsled, Taz heard Rylando tell his passenger to stand outside for a minute.
The girl stepped down, clutching her coat, shuffling away from the airsled. She peeked warily at the adults from around the edge of her hood.
Taz turned to look and caught surprise and consternation on Stramlo’s face. Po’s nostrils twitched and his jaw tightened.
Stramlo glanced uneasily toward Po, then focused his gaze on his daughter and swallowed. “Jhidelle. I was worried about you.”
A blind mole rat could have seen that he wasn’t in the least pleased to see her.
“Hallo, Vater.” Her subdued greeting to her father sounded very polite. A tiny ginger-colored head with ears big enough to fly with appeared between the lapels of her coat. “I’m sorry I disobeyed you.” Without taking her eyes off her father, she gently coaxed the little animal back inside her coat.
Taz grabbed the rail and swung up into the airsled, pretending she hadn’t sensed all the lies. Get the lifesigns out and move on.
Inside the airsled, Rylando was encouraging Shen into Moyo’s crate. “Even if I put all the animals in Moyo’s crate, and abandon the empties, it’s still not enough room for four humans.”
“I can carry the empty crates.” She touched her earwire and subvocalized her next words. “The adults are spiky. I don’t trust them. It’s not a happy family reunion.”
He touched his earlier. “Agreed, but we can’t leave them. Otak says the storage unit reeks of explosives. So do the adults, but that could be because they were in the storage unit for so long.”
She released Moyo’s large crate from its holdfasts and put it in the doorway. “How did Otak get close enough… Oh, I get it. You put him in Moyo’s saddlebags. Clever.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Not enough evidence to Section 79-A the adults. But I don’t want to leave the kid with them.”
“Yeah, they haven’t threatened our safety, and whatever twist they’ re perpetrating, law enforcement isn’t our job.” He stood with his hands on his hips, frowning at the crates as he spoke out loud. “Damnit. We’re going to have to make two trips.”
A solution occurred to her, but he probably wouldn’t go for it, since it meant being separated from his animals. “If you keep Mariposa and Otak with you, I could carry two crates with the rest of your team.” She pointed a thumb toward the door. “You fly our targets up. I’ll take the ladder.”
Instead of shutting her down, his eyes narrowed in thought. “They mass almost two hundred kilos with their crates. Can you handle that?”
“My suit can carry twice that. Size and weight distribution will be a problem, though. Could we put Moyo in Shen’s crate, and the rest in Lerox’s?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “They won’t like it, but they’ll put up with it if I reward them later.”
Warmed by his trust, she held four fingers over her heart. “Your team is safe with me.”
He stilled and met her eyes, his expression serious. “I know. You’re the best rescuer Unit 1051 has ever had.”
Taz’s heart skipped a beat. She turned away quickly before she did something stupid, like reach out to him. Desperate for distraction, she hoisted Moyo’s empty crate. “I can strap this to the airsled’s roof if we leave both sets of doors open a crack.” She didn’t dare look at him again until her stupid heart faced reality for once. His words were a frickin’ job performance review, not a declaration of passionate love.
“That would be good. Big crates are expensive.” His voice sounded matter of fact, so she must not have given her turmoil away.
It only took a couple of minutes to pull out one of the sled’s many straps and secure the sturdy crate to the roof. It made the airsled look like a frontier planet’s rural transport kludge, but it didn’t have to stay there for long.
Getting the hooks set on her suit to carry the crates full of animals was easy. Getting the humans and their apparently priceless luggage into the airsled took all her diplomatic skill.
Stramlo refused to stand anywhere near where the animal crates had been. Po commandeered the jump seat, meaning Jhidelle had to cram herself up front between the vehicle’s wall and the hot and vibrating sensor column, and avoid Rylando’s elbow. When the doors opened again, tall Pelvannor would be lucky if she didn’t pop out like a grav ball in play.
With a final sensor check, Taz rose slowly to standing height. “You are very good beasties,” she told her passengers. She raised her camera post so she could see behind her over the top of the smaller crate. After two practice steps and one adjustment, she pinged Rylando. “Mechanized autocab for rescue team Canis Gulo Felis is green-go. Lead on, illustrious Field Commander, sir.”
“Watch it,” he said with a growl, “or I’ll promote you to field commander, too.”
Taz chuckled. “Oh, no, sir! Anything but that, sir!”
With a reverberating whine, the airsled lifted sluggishly, then rotated and floated to
ward the shaft. She followed, trying to walk with a smooth gait.
The airsled floated into the shaft, then slowly rose. She gave it a few extra seconds, then extended her grab bars to the ladder and let them hold her weight while she stepped onto the closest rung.
Above her, the airsled’s lights illuminated the shaft. Her own lights let her see the wide doubled rungs as she climbed. Scanning each one briefly slowed her down, but she couldn’t afford carelessness. Counting her progress up the rungs helped her manage her impatience.
On her fourteenth step, her suit’s sensory interface reported rising vibrations coming from the rungs. Dust arose.
She swore and pinged Rylando. “Aftershock.”
“I’ll speed up top and come–”
A bone-rattling thump came from above. Falling dust and jagged pieces of heavy blue denscrete accompanied the second and third thumps.
Quelling the instinct to hunch her head and shoulders, she swung herself and her cargo sideways to make them as small a target as possible.
Above her, the airsled stalled. The hatch cover for the left coil turned an ominous pink.
More thumps. Moyo’s empty crate shifted, the strap straining. When it snapped, the crate fell off the airsled and smashed onto the lift below. Helplessly, Taz watched the coil’s hatch door turn lava red. The airsled tilted to one side and started to sink.
6
Salamaray Citizen Activity Center, Perlarossa • GDAT 3242.334
“Hang on!” Rylando shouted as he braced himself against his standing frame and fought the controls. “I’m opening the side door. Dump everything you’re carrying, or we won’t make it to the top.”
In the display for his monitoring cameras, he saw Pelvannor use the grab bar to lever herself, muscles bulging with effort, into a quasi-standing position.
More debris from the top of the shaft rained down. Tilting the airsled again failed to dislodge the heavy section of denscrete that clung to its roof. Alerts flashed and pinged about too much weight. The overheating coil wouldn’t last.
Galactic Search and Rescue: A Scifi Space Opera with Adventure, Romance, and Pets: A Central Galactic Concordance Novella Page 6
