Shalia's Diary Omnibus

by Tracy St. John

  I looked around, my eyes starting to adjust. A little light was beaming in from a square in the wall several yards distant. I could make out that the space between ceiling and roof was barely high enough for me to crawl. Damn, it was tight in there.

  I heard grunting and swearing behind me, and Candy’s head and shoulders shoved through the opening I’d come in from. Her butt stuck too, and she squealed when the pushing hands beneath her popped her through.

  “This way,” I called. Without waiting, I scuttled for the square of light.

  “Damn, this isn’t an attic,” Candy complained. “It’s barely a crawl space. I can’t see. I can’t hardly move. What kind of stupid idiot builds a space so small and worthless?”

  “Come on,” I said, crawling as fast as I could go. I smacked my head against the ceiling and spewed expletives. It hurt like hell, but I kept moving.

  I heard more voices rising, but I noted how the surface beneath my hands was warming as I neared the far wall. I could smell smoke. I thought the fire might be right beneath, and it scared me. We didn’t have much time to escape.

  “Hurry!” I yelled at the others.

  I made it to the bit of light and discovered it was an access point to the outside. The cover had fallen off of it at some point, perhaps in a storm. The hatch was lying on the floor next to the opening, its remaining hinge twisted. Thank you, Mother Nature, for knocking the hell out of this building at some point in the past.

  I poked my head outside. The ground was several feet down, making me feel almost dizzyingly high despite this being only a one-floor building. Worse still, there were windows below on either side. Their glass panes had burst out, and black smoke boiled through the openings. I recognized I was on the far side of the big building.

  “We’ve got to move!” I yelled at the others who had escaped the storage room. “This place is going up!”

  Mom, Dad, and Weln are in there, with dozens of others, my mind whispered.

  I didn’t think anymore at that point. In a sudden fit of desperate hurry, I crouched at the edge of the window and jumped.

  I didn’t land so well. My ankle rolled beneath me, sending out a flare of pain. I yelped, but I couldn’t spare a second to nurse the injury. The crackle of fire was loud in my ears.

  “Holy shit!” Candy said from overhead. Her eyes were huge when I looked up at her.

  “I’m running for help,” I yelled. “You and the rest get out of there!”

  Without waiting for an answer, I ran towards the front. As soon as I rounded the corner, I ran into a wall of heat so intense I screamed from burning pain. I thought my hair might ignite. I stumbled back, cringing from the blistering heat. My face felt sunburned, but I couldn’t worry about such stupid stuff.

  Running in a wide arc, I made it out far enough that I could see the front of the Medical building. The side I’d escaped from was an absolute inferno. Damn it, the place was lighting up fast. I wondered if the facility’s fire retardant system had been disabled.

  I turned, hoping to find help of some sort on its way. The blaze roared behind me, but I heard a constant barrage of blaster fire not too far at a distance. The occasional explosion shook the ground. There would be no help where fighting was happening.

  The Academy’s firefighting facility, with shuttles filled with flame retardant and men who could battle the conflagration, was half a mile off. Help could be here in seconds if they knew to come and had available personnel. As fast as the fire was spreading in Medical, I doubted I could get to them in time to save Mom and the others.

  “Shalia!” Candy ran up to me, her nose and chin smudged, tears rolling down her cheeks. Four other women who had been locked up with us were with her. “What do we do?”

  I stared at Medical. The front entrance was clear of fire, though I could see plenty of smoke through the glass doors. The storage room was on the right side of the building, away from the main part of the blaze still. A desperate idea occurred to me.

  “Run to the fire facility!” I yelled to be heard over the fire’s bellow and another earth-rocking explosion. “Get help over here as fast as possible!”

  “What about you?” Candy yelled back.

  “I have an idea. Don’t stand there talking to me, go!” I gave her a push.

  Miracle of miracles, she took off running, screaming for help as she went. The other women went with her, screaming as well. Hell, I wanted to scream too, but I needed all the air I could keep in my lungs.

  I ran for Medical, hoping I wouldn’t be too late. The automatic doors opened for me, sending a burst of heat against my body. Fortunately, it wasn’t the same blast I’d felt at the corner of the building. The fire was coming in my direction, but it hadn’t gotten that close yet.

  I started hacking from the smoke right off the bat, but I’d figured on that. Fortunately, there was a ladies’ room down the hall leading to the storage room. I ran into a patient’s room, snatched the pillowcase off the pillow, and raced into the restroom. Feeling every second flying by, I wet the pillowcase and tied it around my mouth and nose.

  Then I returned to the hall. I could hear the roar of the fire approaching, but I didn’t look in that direction. Instead, I ran as fast as I could for the storage room I’d quit so recently, my eyes stinging from the haze of smoke that surrounded me.

  The sight waiting for me almost made my knees give out. Next to the door was a service conduit. It held all the electronics that powered the opening and locking mechanism. It had been savaged. Chopped up, in fact, like somebody had gone at it with a meat cleaver. It was inoperable. Matt and his asshole friends had been damned determined no one would escape the room alive.

  I wasn’t going to get in there without something to tear out the door itself. Since I’d spent more than my fair share of time in the building, I knew about the fire emergency kit near the main entrance. Hell, I would have run past it in my rush to rescue Mom and the rest. It had an axe, which I had never thought made any sense. After all, the doors in the building were all metal. Who could hack through a metal door?

  It came to me that the walls weren’t metal, however. In fact, the doors slid into pockets within the walls. Only two thin bits of sheetrock and supporting beams stood between me and those imprisoned in the room. Dad and the others could punch through the sheetrock, but the thick supports and metal door mechanisms would pose an obstacle. Maybe chopping the supports clear would give them enough room to escape?

  That’s what the axe was for. I needed to chop through the wall.

  I considered yelling to those inside to start on the sheetrock and maybe even try their luck with the supporting beams, but that would allow smoke to come in sooner rather than later. I decided to wait and keep the storage room’s air as clear as possible until I could do those trapped inside some real good. I turned and ran back.

  The smoke was growing thicker. I didn’t notice that the glass case that held a fire extinguisher and axe had been broken into until I was right on it. The axe and fire extinguisher were both gone, and the hose had been hacked free from the old system that probably didn’t work anymore anyway. It occurred to me that the axe was what the shitheads had used on the storeroom door’s mechanism. I bet they kept it too.

  There was another kit closer to the room Mom had been kept in, but that was on the other side of the building where the fire was raging at its worst. The smoke from that direction was black and boiling and thick. No doubt the area was engulfed with flames, but damn it, Mom, Dad, and Weln, and a lot of other people, would die. I went in.

  I had to walk with my hand sliding across the wall because I couldn’t see. Pretty soon I was crouching lower, trying to get under the worst of the smoke. It got hotter with every step, and I started coughing in earnest. The air hitting my lungs wasn’t only thick, it seared my throat. My eyes ran constantly, and I shut them. They couldn’t pierce the smoke, so I wasn’t losing anything.

  I counted off doorways as I passed them, remembering Mom’s room w
as the sixth one in, and the panel with the building’s second axe was after another door beyond that. I could hear crackling flames along with the deeper roar of the inferno as I went. I expected to walk into a wall of fire at any moment. I hacked and choked on the acrid air.

  Door six. Mom’s room. One more to go. Sweat from the heat of the fire poured off me. It was stifling, and I couldn’t breathe anymore. The world rocked beneath me. I knew then I would die. I had the crazy urge to lie down and give up. My head buzzed and ached. I wasn’t going to make it.

  Door seven. Almost there. I searched the wall with my hands, feeling how hot the surface was. The wall was lumpy, as if it was blistering from the heat. I scrabbled frantically over it, desperate to find the glass panel. My skin felt scorched, and I imagined the flames were all around me, licking at my flesh as I moved down the wall. I choked on fumes and teetered on the verge of collapse.

  I came to the next door. I froze, horror filling me. I’d found no emergency fire kit. I must have miscounted the doors. I’d fucked up and I would die, taking my mother and others I loved with me.

  I sank to the floor. This was it. Despair was a black cloud that took the last of my strength. I’d failed. My only consolation was that it was for the final time.

  Something crashed. It was probably part of the building falling down. At any rate, it startled me. With that sudden flash of fear, adrenaline hit. The stubborn part of me shouted, find another way to help the others!

  I struggled to my feet and began feeling back along the hall. The wall was definitely buckling. I could feel the bulges beneath my palm as I stumbled forward. And then there was smoothness, a section of wall that felt like glass that burnt my fingertips...

  The fire kit. I’d found the fucking panel that I’d somehow missed before.

  I felt desperately for the opening latch, my eyes slitting open in an effort to see. Nothing greeted my gaze but black. The pain from the smoke was tremendous, so I was forced to remain blind as I searched for access.

  I found the indentation and seized it, yanking the panel door open. An instant later, I had the axe handle in my hands. I wrenched it free.

  It was heavy, and my strength failed. My knees buckled, and the world tilted hard. I was on the verge of passing out, the lack of oxygen doing its damage.

  Damn you Shalia, no! I forced myself to start moving again. I’d won the means to save those who meant the most to me, and I wasn’t going weak at that point.

  The following minutes–or maybe they were only seconds–stretched like hours. It was a nightmare of darkness and the taste of smoke filling my nose and mouth. There were endless, hellish moments in which I was sure I had somehow gotten turned around, that I was heading into fire instead of escaping it. The roar of the fire beat on my ears until I wanted to scream. My chest burned and strained with the lack of air and constant intake of smoke.

  At last the wall I used to guide me along disappeared. I chanced opening my eyes again, and I was in the foyer of the building again. The smoke was dense here too, but I could make out the shapes of the main desk and some of the chairs. Heavily filtered light came from one side, which meant that was where the glass doors were.

  Coughing so hard I nearly threw up, I lurched across the expanse into the next hallway. The smoke continued to thin as I forced myself to hurry. It was with incredible relief that I saw the door to the storage room. I’d made it.

  I thought about calling to those trapped within, but I had so little strength. I couldn’t pull any air into my lungs, which felt as if they’d become balls of fire within my chest. I needed all I had left to chop into the wall.

  I hefted the axe to my shoulder, bracing my legs wide. They wouldn’t hold me up much longer. I didn’t try to aim. I just swung as best I could. The axe hit the wall on the right side of the door, throwing a few splinters into the air. I kept chopping like a half-assed Paul Bunyan while I could, which wasn’t very long. Weak as I was, barely managing to stay on my feet, I was able to cut a hole through the two layers of sheetrock with a few chops. I even cut halfway through a thick wooden support before I gave out.

  Then I couldn’t do anymore. The smoke thickened again. My fingers went numb, and the buzzing in my head was so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. My sight had narrowed to a pinpoint. I was done.

  I staggered up to the wall, the roar of the fire filling my ears. With the very end of my strength, I shoved the axe’s handle through the hole. They’d have to finish the rescue by doing it themselves. The last I remember was the sensation of falling and trying to say, “Timber.”

  The next moment I can bring to memory was hacking violently. My body made the desperate attempt to cough up a lung or two. My chest was in agony. Breathing was the most incredibly hard and painful thing to do, though air was being blown down my mouth. As I hacked, the person giving me mouth-to-mouth moved back. It was Dad. He was bawling his eyes out. Weln was by him, crouched over me with tears tracking down his cheeks.

  “Stay with us, my daughter,” Dad begged.

  I couldn’t respond. I was too busy, choking in the effort to get oxygen. We were outside Medical, though with the two men crowded over me, I couldn’t have told you where I ended up. I also couldn’t hear if the fighting continued. All I could hear was me, coughing and wheezing desperately.

  Dad and Weln were safe. I hoped that meant Mom was safe too.

  Weln looked up, taking his eyes off me. “The emergency shuttle is here.”

  “Go,” ordered Dad. “Grab the oxygen and whatever will help her.”

  Weln disappeared, but the world was going dark for me again. I heard Dad call my name from far away, but I couldn’t answer him. That was all I knew for a long time.

  When I woke again, which was yesterday, the attack on the Academy was over. I’d been unconscious for most of it, which doesn’t hurt my feelings one bit.

  Most of the Earther prisoners being taken to the Galactic Council were killed in the assault. Ironically enough, it was the attacking Earthers who did the slaying. The force concentrated its efforts on hitting the landing pad where the transport set down. They shot at anything that moved, including our own people. More prisoners would have died, except the Kalquorian guards defended them to the best of their abilities. Can you imagine? The guards fought to keep people who hated them safe.

  Two members of the Pageant Trio lived to tell the tale. Fran, the perfectly coiffed honey blonde, was killed in the initial onslaught. I can’t find it in my heart to feel she got what was coming to her, though she participated in the abduction of my mother several weeks ago. Too many people have died for me to appreciate any sense of retribution. Even hearing how Matt King died after catching a blaster shot in his lying mouth leaves me feeling tired and defeated.

  It turned out he and many other Earthers inside the Academy were working with the Earthers outside who had been attacking us these past weeks. They were determined to kill the Kalquorians here. Also targeted were those who didn’t want to fight against the Kalquorians. People who were deemed traitors were at the top of the list. You know who was their number one pick: me. And here I thought I’d never be the popular girl.

  Mom is fine. She was treated for some smoke inhalation, but other than that, she wasn’t badly affected in the physical sense. Mentally...well, she was already on the downward track, and her doctors feared the long-term effects of what had happened would make her worse. They went ahead and put her in stasis. She’ll remain frozen until they do what they can for her on Kalquor. I hate not being able to see her, but I have to put my selfish needs aside. I’ll do whatever I have to make her better, so I’m Mom-less for over nine months.

  Smoke did a number on my windpipe and lungs. Dad says he can’t imagine how I stayed conscious for as long as I did, considering how little oxygen was getting into me. I’d stopped breathing by the time they chopped through the wall with the axe I’d shoved through. He keeps telling me how close it was, how he was sure he’d lose me. I tell you, the saddest th
ing I’ve ever seen is that big, strong Kalquorian cry. It makes me cry too, because Nayun cares about me so much. I really do have a father after so many years.

  I’m recovering slower than I should because Medical burned to the ground. The Atlanta rescue site has been sending supplies and help to us, but the Academy is barely set up for medical care of any sort. I’m laid up in an office building that they’re working hard to transform into another hospital facility. Unfortunately, we’re in a ‘making do with what we have’ situation. There’s even talk of shutting the Academy rescue effort down and moving the whole shebang to Atlanta. A lot of important buildings here were firebombed by the attackers, leaving them as toasty as our old medical building. Worse still, a lot of Kalquorians died with the Earthers. There’s plenty here to work with, but most of the rescue effort from Kalquor and the Galactic Council is months in the future. With too few people to run what’s left, getting the Academy operating efficiently again will be a chore.