Koban (40 page)

“Ray watch your side of the ship, eight wolfbats are trying to
sneak up on us from behind the hull. Step away from the crowd and get ready to pull
the trigger if you get a clear shot. We might get a chance test those things and
see if they work.”

Just then, there was a tremendous crash below the ship, and debris
ricocheted off the bottom of the ramp and the jacks. Several people, startled by
the sudden noise and vibration, screamed and ducked. They looked relieved when they
realized what had happened.

The lower part of engine number two had just fallen, as the work
inside the ship cut it free. That part of the plan was apparently going well, but
Mirikami hadn’t heard a warning from them.

“Sorry Captain,” he heard Jorl’sn say in his ear. “That lower
unit pulled free sooner than we expected under this gravity. I was going to warn
you before cutting the last supports. Is everyone OK?”

“Fine Roni, we have a lot going on, I’ll get back to you.”

As he said that, wolfbats flashed out from below the ship, three
to each side, climbing with furious wing beats. In a bit of good luck, the falling
thruster control nozzle and plasma chamber had accidentally disrupted an attack
that had been intended to go below the ship and come out within the crowd of people
near the ramp, or possibly hit those coming down. If anyone at the top fell they
could knock another half dozen people down. A two hundred pound man weighed three
hundred now, and everyone was already tired from holding that extra weight up for
the last couple of days.

If not for the Pep and Oxy pills, a lot of the older or out of
shape people might be wheezing and sitting on the ground before reaching the dome.

The flyers quickly regrouped over the top of the ship, where
they circled. However, Mirikami only saw six. Where were the other two?

He had his answer a moment later when a woman’s scream came from
the opposite side of the ramp. Noreen was hurrying that way, but Mirikami couldn’t
see the woman so the ramp must be blocking his view.

Noreen’s Sonic sounded, and two wolfbats quickly darted away,
clearly in a rush of wildly flapping wings, twisting and turning their heads like
a dog shaking off water.

“The Sonics work on these damned bats Tet,” He heard Noreen yell
with satisfaction. Then her tone changed. “I have a lady with some serious bleeding
from her throat, face and arm bites. We need one of our medics with a smart bandage.
I think she’ll be OK if we control the bleeding.”

Leading the woman back around the side of the ramp, several people
took over tending to the woman, and Noreen walked over to Mirikami.

She glanced briefly up at the circling animals. “The poor woman’s
probably going to be deaf for the next half hour from the Sonic. She said she was
after a bar of metal that flew off the engine to use as a club.”

“I wish we had more than three of these Sonics if it hurts the
bats.” Mirikami replied. “Hell I wish we had more guns of any kind.”

Chack, about a third of the way back to the dome, with a load
of exhausted older scientist, shouted another warning. “Heads up, they’re diving!”

The six wolfbats had quit circling, and suddenly folded wings
and dove towards the hauler’s pallet as if it were a food platter. Chack had his
Jazzer aimed through one of the small holes in the protective cage, but he wasn’t
close enough to the pallet for it to have maximum effect and his aim was limited
by the cage. The six wolfbats were going to swarm over a half dozen worn out elderly
men and women.

When they were no more than fifty feet up, they were literally
six teal streaks in a deadly dive. Suddenly a translucent gray mist blossomed in
front of them. Their momentum took them into the leading edge of the pale mist,
when it exploded in a whoosh of red and yellow flame.

Six flaming and screeching pieces of flapping shrapnel scattered
out of the fireball. The flames died quickly, radiating heat painful on bare skin
below them, but gone in seconds. Four of the wolfbats dropped to the tarmac, writhing
in agony, and snapping at their own burning fur. One fell close enough to nip a
woman on her calf, but it wasn’t a determined attack, and it seemed to be blind.

The two flyers that had been trailing slightly in the massed
dive used their fast reactions to avoid full immersion in the fireball. They managed
to fly erratically away, trailing smoke from singed fur.

“Yes,” Dillon shouted, pumping his left fist up and down several
times. “The damned thing worked!”

A stunned quiet lasted a few seconds, until everyone realized
that the fireball had been made by one of them. For a horrifying moment, those that
didn’t know what Dillon was carrying had thought the little horrors had turned into
miniature fire breathing dragons.

Hot and tired as they were, another ragged cheer rang out. Several
people called out to ask Dillon what he had done, what were those tanks?

He was delighted to tell them about the three homemade flamethrowers
the two machinists had cobbled together. One tank held a flammable thin gel that
could be sprayed using compressed air from the other tank, pushed through the hoses
and out a hand held nozzle. It made a thin stream that squirted thirty to forty
feet, spreading as it went. When set on fire it was supposed to make a steady jet
of sticky flame.

In theory, the spark igniter on the end of the nozzle should
have lit the gel, but a laser set with a short focal length was a backup ignition
source. Dillon had needed the backup laser, because the jet of material had completely
ignored the spark system and had atomized into a ball of droplets and vapor. The
delay actually seemed to have worked to their advantage. The gel had formed a more
dispersed cloud than intended before it caught fire, and had enveloped the wolfbats
in a large ball of scorching heat and flame.

The people that had been reluctant to get down the ramp were
more willing to try it now, and there were over a hundred people off the ship. At
least twenty or thirty had passed under the shadow of the dome’s overhang, and the
rest were strung out along the path that went around the nose of the Krall shuttle.

It had been nearly a half hour of screw-ups and terror, but with
the armed escorts to guard them, and the medical triage using the haulers and their
pallets to move the injured, they all felt safer.

Scorpion skeeters could still be seen hovering off to the sides,
looking for an opportunity to strike. Jake reported the other groups of wolfbats
had arrived in the area, but now the evacuee’s knew they could be repelled. The
bats circled high above them.

People continued to trudge across the tarmac to the dome. After
another five minutes, Jorl’sn called to warn that her team’s lower engine unit was
ready to drop. A warning was shouted around, followed shortly by another thunderous
crash, with bits of debris hitting the ramp bottom.

Ricco was back from his first trip to the portico under the dome,
and said several others of the captives had finally arrived. They were helping to
carry injured or weak people inside. However, they were afraid to come very far
outside, saying the wolfbats often hid in ambush behind or under the trucks. He
had brought Rigson’s Jazzer back, and Mirikami directed him to give it to Noreen.

 “Before you make another trip back to the dome Ricco, I need
you to start dragging the engine pieces from under there. Don’t go under the ship
yet, but play out the winch cable with enough slack that we can connect it quickly
when we can get under there safely.”

“Link me to Chief Haveram.” He told Jake.

“Chief, how is your team doing?”

“Captain,” he was huffing as he talked. “We are a bit behind
the other teams, but we will drop the lower unit in another five or six minutes.
Willfem and her team are well on their way to cut loose the midsection of their
engine, but the scrap is still in the way. Are we going get those cleared soon,
Sir?”

“That’s being arranged, but we were waiting for your first piece
to drop. I don’t want anyone hurt by falling parts. But if we hadn’t been using
haulers for ambulance service, we could have been ready sooner.”

“So I heard, Sir. We lost someone?”

“Yes, two men. A flying sort of bug stung one man when he was
at the top of the ramp. The previous captives here call them scorpion skeeters.
The man fell, and gravity did the rest as he rolled down the ramp and broke his
neck. Another man died from multiple stings, but the damned things landed on him
and were sucking blood.” Mirikami felt an involuntary shudder.

“We’ve other falling injuries, stings, and bites; with some pretty
serious damage from those things they called wolfbats. Those ugly bastards weigh
about twenty to twenty five pounds, and really do remind you of a blue or green
Earth bat. They are unbelievably fast, and extremely vicious. They seem to a lot
stronger and smarter than you’d expect. However, we can brief all of you this stuff
later, before your crews have to cross to the dome. I’ll tell Ricco to standby for
the next drop.”

Five minutes later, after a warning, the third engine’s lower
unit crashed to the tarmac. Ricco dashed to the first unit that had fallen, attached
the cable securely, and started the task of trying to pull it away. It was too heavy
for one hauler to drag with a steady pull, but with repeated jerks, it moved several
feet at a time. It was tricky to avoid the landing jacks and pass between them,
so he had to tug at different angles to do that.

Finally, Ricco used his Link to call Chack for help, who said
he was halfway back from the dome. The haulers working together easily drug all
three lower units several hundred feet from the ship. They were now over an hour
into the engine removal and evacuation.

Maggi called down to the Captain from the top of the ramp. “We
have just over three hundred down, Tet, but I thought we’d be half done by now.”

“I did too Maggi,” he called up from the chair he’d had brought
down for him. He was starting to wear out doing so much walking and running around
in the heat and gravity. Everyone needed exercise and conditioning to handle this
planet. It could have been worse, if they hadn’t started acclimatizing the ship
days earlier, and without the Pep and Oxy pills. He was on his second dose.

 “If we are still moving people and Parkoda returns,” he pointed
out, “that might force him to allow us more time to finish pulling the engines.
We need to keep this ship in one piece.”

“Hey, that gives me an idea. Let me ask our friend if he can
figure out how far that shuttle had to travel to their meeting.” Knowing Jake was
always listening, he stated his question aloud.

“When Parkoda’s shuttle left, did you see where it was going,
and can you estimate how long it might take to travel there and return? Put Maggi
in the Link.”

A half dozen nearby people, just stepping off the ramp, glanced
at him after hearing the question, displaying curiosity. He was tired, but it wasn’t
smart to be careless with this precious Link.

“Sir, the shuttle departed towards a larger compound that I observed
from orbit, which is the only one in the direction they took. It is located on the
south west coast of this continent two thousand six hundred forty four miles from
here. Before they flew over the horizon, the shuttle had reached a constant velocity
that I can use in my estimate. If they did not lift to suborbital altitudes, something
that shuttle is capable of doing, and then I estimate they would take between two
and one half hours and three hours for a round trip. Any time spent at the destination
would increase that time.”

Looking around, he turned his face away from the people shuffling
away, and murmured in a low voice. “So, we have three hours at a minimum, perhaps
four hours.” Mirikami pondered, lip tugged as usual. “We will surely have everyone
off by then, and only the engine crews might be onboard if they hit any snags. I
think we can finish.”

“Well,” Maggi offered a caveat, “we are going to have to rest
some of our hardest working people before then Tet. I’m about to collapse in this
gravity and heat, even sitting up here in my own chair, with a little of the ships’
cool air reaching me. I swapped out my five volunteers up here and let them get
inside for cool air and drinks, and all we did was stand and boss people around.

“Our folks inside and your three remaining Stewards, have mostly
been sitting in cool comfort waiting their turn on the lifts or stairs. Your Stewards
out here have walked to and from the dome several times now. It isn’t very far,
but the gravity, heat, and stress makes that strenuous.”

She offered another observation. “Those damned bugs stay close
for any careless person they can sting. The bats are up there too, I can see them
circling. The ones we killed are still lying on the tarmac, so that display might
be keeping them at bay. But passive isn’t how the Krall said they normally act.
I’m worried they will overcome whatever fear is keeping them away.”

“You’re right, Maggi. Keep the people coming at a steady pace,
and I’ll send some of mine back for a rest, and bring out the fresher people. Do
you think any of the passengers could handle a Jazzer?”

“They handle complex scientific equipment, so yes. It’s their
steadiness under pressure I question. But if their lives will be on the line in
a few days anyway, the sooner they learn the better.”

Mirikami agreed. He called Noreen and explained what they needed
to do, and told her to take a break, and to tell Dillon and his flamethrower squad
to sit in the shade of three tarps that had been raised for them.

Their soft suits might also need new power packs soon in this
heat. People coming down the ramp could bring fresh packs. He had decided the escalator
might have been useful after all, just to get back up into the ship.

“Jake, deploy the passenger ramp. Activate it for two way use
when deployed.” A tall hatch opened about fifty feet up the ship’s side. A longer
steeper personnel escalator started extending down, forty-five degrees around the
side from the cargo ramp. He didn’t plan to use it except for crew, and he could
coordinate that use with the engine work to avoid debris.