Behind her, she heard a polite cough.
"Nomad, what are you doing here?"
"You forgot lunch. I brought you something to eat."
Joanna laughed. Her laughter, as always, was so raucous as to sound insulting to anyone not used to it. Nomad was definitely that, having been the butt of it so often that his day seemed off-center if Joanna did not laugh at him once. He would never have told her, but he believed his sarcasm and her scorn kept them both performing at peak efficiency. He could not prove it, of course, but he, unlike most techs or warriors, was a bit of a mystic. So long as no one caught him at it, the mysticism served him well.
"I am not very hungry."
"But you willeat."
"You are such a tyrant, Nomad. I can no longer stand you. Will you please tender me a request for transfer?"
"No. The galley here is not well-stocked, but I managed to get you some tinned meat and a salad. Salad is pretty tasty, made with some leaves from—"
"I hate knowing the origins of food. Just give it to me and go."
It was obvious Nomad had no intention of leaving. He stayed behind her, looking over her shoulder, making sure she ate. Joanna had been known to hide food rather than consume it, and he made it his job to see that did not happen.
Noticing that the meat had an orange tinge and the salad greens looked dirty, Joanna closed her eyes with each forkful she raised to her mouth. At no point in her career had she ever found any type of military ration to be more than minimally palatable.
She was grateful to put the meal aside when the gunnery officer announced that aerofighters had been detected. In a moment she saw them herself. Five of them were heading for her side of the DropShip, while others were attacking the other side and the rear.
Leveling her weapon, she squeezed the trigger. Streams of coherent light stretched out from her blister toward the closest aerofighter, but her aim was off and the beams dissipated at a point past the attackers. Behind her, Nomad's disappointed sigh was audible. She wanted to scream at him to get out, but there was no time. The nearest aircraft was zeroing in on her, making a beeline for her blister.
She went berserk, firing burst after burst, so many that she could not maintain a fix on the enemy. At her feet, monitors displayed specific positions and other data, but she was not used to DropShip equipment and preferred to rely on her own gifts for using weaponry.
The missile salvo that the aerofighter launched might have destroyed the gunnery blister and Joanna and Nomad along with it, but the DropShip pilot employed an evasive maneuver dictated by a computer examination of the aerofighter attack. As the ship tilted just enough, the missile struck below the blister. The hit rocked the ship, however, knocking Joanna back against the blister's rear wall.
"I knew I should have strapped myself in, Nomad. Nomad?"
Looking back, she saw that Nomad was peacefully unconscious against the hatchway. Damn! If she needed to make a quick exit, she would have to drag him out of the way.
She had no more time to worry about Nomad as an obstacle. The attack continued, and another aerofighter came within Joanna's sights. This time she steadied herself and squeezed off a short burst, then another. The shots hit the cockpit of the craft. She thought she saw its pilot rock backward, his gloved hands over his face before the craft veered out of control, its momentum sending it directly at the DropShip. Joanna kept firing, cursing with each pull of the trigger, knocking large chunks off the ship's armor.
For a moment it looked like the fighter might disintegrate before hitting the DropShip, but then Joanna saw the pilot, his hands now away from his bloody face, clutch the controls of his ship again. He was aiming the craft's nose directly at the DropShip—and straight for Joanna.
She kept shooting, and the fighter kept coming. When the laser suddenly overheated, she reached instinctively, flinging herself backward, against Nomad and the hatchway. The fighter seem to enlarge in front of the blister, but at the last minute, it disappeared.
Joanna had no chance to relax or be relieved, for the next moment the DropShip was rocked by the impact of the fighter's collision. When her head banged against a side wall, everything went black for a moment.
Joanna did not know how long she was out, but when she recovered, the DropShip was shaking with the impact of missile and laser fire. On the commline, the gunnery officer was screaming orders that went unheeded.
"Nomad! Nomad!"
He murmured a response and seemed to be struggling to open his eyes. "Wake up! I need you."
The words sounded strange in her mouth. Joanna had never said she needed anybody for anything.
She slapped his face, and Nomad's eyes sprang open. He shook his head.
"What happened?"
"You were knocked out, that is what happened. The ship is losing this dogfight, I can feel it. Listen to the gunnery officer. He is frantic. We have to get out of here, get to our people, our 'Mechs. We—"
More direct hits nearby. Any minute one good shot might make the blister fly off, leaving her and Nomad to be sucked out into the void as instant corpses.
"What . . . what should we do now?" Nomad said.
"First, get your behind off the floor so we can open the hatch. There is no point staying here. The gun is ruined and we have already almost been turned into debris once. We are going to the 'Mech bay. My orders to the command were to station themselves there, ready for an atmospheric drop if necessary."
The race through the DropShip to the 'Mech bay was not easy. Each direct hit knocked either Joanna or Nomad, and sometimes both, against walls or hurled them to the floor. Other ship personnel were hurled against them as dull blasts reverberated into the bowels of the ship. At one point, the ship's lighting failed for a minute and a half, and they had to grope around in the dark, feeling the sides of the walls, using the stumble-bars to propel themselves forward. Once Joanna glanced back and saw the unmistakable glow of a fire far down the corridor.
In the bay were the techs of the Trinary, working quickly and efficiently to prepare their charges for an atmospheric drop. A cocoon of ablative ceramic surrounded each of the Trinary's fifteen BattleMechs. As the 'Mech bay was in the center of the ship, it had taken very little damage. Even better, Joanna saw that the bay doors were still functioning.
Joanna ran to the bay-door controls and pushed the naval rating away from them. She slammed the override, and began the launch sequence that would fire her Trinary into the atmosphere of Glory.
She turned to rush to her BattleMech before it was ejected from the doomed DropShip, when a massive explosion knocked her and most of the others to the floor. The lights went out again and she felt debris falling around her.
She tried to get up, but was merely knocked down again. But this time it was not a piece of the ship that held her on the floor. It was a person.
"What is going on?" she said in a muffled voice.
"The ship is out of control," Nomad yelled. He was the one on top of her. He had placed his body over hers. The damn fool, he was protecting her. How stupid could he be?
She did not have time to explore the absurdity of Nomad's behavior as the DropShip seemed to disintegrate around, below, and above her. She passed out.