“Acknowledged,” Ar’alani said, ignoring the comment. “Might as well take a closer look.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ar’alani gazed out the viewport, stifling a yawn. Not that she didn’t sympathize with Wutroow’s boredom. They’d spent the past two weeks running a search pattern of the area the Magys had suggested was the one the alien Battle Dreadnought had been guarding. So far they’d turned up four decent-sized cities, three of them in ruins and the fourth mostly so; twenty-two industrial centers with roughly the same percent of destruction; five mines, all of them apparently deserted; and any number of small towns, villages, and farming homesteads.
The good news was that, despite the widespread devastation across Sunrise, there were definitely survivors. The search party had spotted only dribs and drabs, mostly people working the fields who weren’t able to get under cover fast enough. But the shuttle’s heat sensors had painted a different picture, a view of a society slowly but definitely coming back from the carnage. Much of it was underground or otherwise hidden—not unlike Csilla itself, Ar’alani noted—but it was coming back nonetheless.
If all the Magys cared about was that there were indeed survivors, that ought to be enough evidence to convince her to bring her refugees back to Sunrise. But if there were other criteria—quality of life, probability of long-term survival, or some critical numerical threshold she was looking for—she might still decide to go with the death-by-Beyond choice.
But at least now Ar’alani had data with which to argue the point.
“My mistake, Admiral,” Yopring corrected. “It’s not a town, but a mine, nestled up against the side of the mountains.”
“Anything moving?” Ar’alani asked.
“This one … actually, yes,” Yopring said. “In fact … whoa. It’s active, all right. There are dozens of workers down there. Maybe even hundreds.”
“Well, that’s a good marker of civilization,” Wutroow commented. “Most people don’t waste effort running mines until everyone’s got food and shelter.”
“If that’s the case, this place must be swimming in borjory sauce,” Yopring said. “I see people, some long buildings—probably communal barracks—tracks for mine carts, a landing area big enough for—damn!”
“What is it?” Ar’alani demanded. Silence. “Biclian?” she snapped.
“On it, Admiral,” the sensor officer said, peering at his displays. Out of the corner of her eye, Ar’alani saw Wutroow leave her spot beside the command chair and hurry toward the currently uncrewed weapons console. “Tracking two skycars south of Yopring’s position—”
“Sorry, ma’am.” Yopring’s voice came back, sounding a little breathless. “I was just startled, that’s all. Two skycars popped up out of nowhere, and I had to dodge to get around them—”
“Watch it—they’re on your tail,” Biclian warned.
“Four more coming in from the north and west,” Wutroow added, sliding into the weapons seat. “Looks like they’re trying to cut you off.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Yopring said. “I don’t see them yet.”
“You will in about a minute,” Wutroow said, keying the overhead view up onto the tactical. “Admiral?”
“I’m on it,” Ar’alani said, frowning at the display. The two skycars from the south had forced the Chiss shuttle away from the mine and now appeared to be trying to drive it toward the other four.
“Offhand, I’d say the miners don’t like company,” Yopring said calmly. “Orders, Admiral?”
“Hold your course,” Ar’alani said. “Let them think they’re winning. Biclian, pull up the shuttle’s telemetry, see if the skycars look space-capable.”
“They’re certainly big enough to be,” Biclian said. “They’re also heavily armored. And I’m pretty sure I see a pair of lasers racked under the altitude stubs.”
Ar’alani grimaced. Armored and armed. Terrific.
And with the whole depth of Sunrise’s atmosphere between the skycars and the Vigilant, she doubted even her spectrum lasers could punch through that much air with enough left over to take out armored skycraft. Certainly not fast enough to keep them from nailing Yopring first.
They would just have to try something else.
“All right, Yopring, here’s what you do,” she said, pulling up a copy of the tactical on her questis and tapping a spot. “Hold course to the point I’ve marked. Wutroow, when he arrives, you’ll fire a full-bore laser salvo into these two spots.” She tapped two more marks. “You think you can hit them simultaneously?”
“No problem, ma’am,” Wutroow said. “Ah. Nice.”
“Yopring?” Ar’alani asked.
“Got it, ma’am,” he said. “Up?”
Ar’alani looked at the racing skycars. If they were combat-trained, and quick enough … “No,” she said. Behind her, the bridge hatch slid open and Oeskym hurried in, making for the weapons console. Ar’alani caught his eye and waved him back. Wutroow was already in position, and there was no time for them to swap out. “Not up, but down and sideways. Then up, but only when you judge it to be safe. Ready?”
“Ready, ma’am.”
“Wutroow?”
“Ready, ma’am.”
“Stand by.” Ar’alani watched the tactical, focusing on the shuttle and counting down the seconds … “Three, two, one.”
And as Yopring reached the spot between the two converging rivers that Ar’alani had marked, the Vigilant’s lasers flashed out, burning through and roiling the atmosphere as they blazed into the flowing water on both sides of the shuttle.
The sudden energy discharge sent massive clouds of steam and condensing water vapor billowing into the air. Ar’alani held her breath …
Whoever was commanding the skycars was indeed trained and quick. The obscuring clouds were the perfect opportunity for the intruder to claw for the safety of the sky, as Yopring himself had suggested as his next move. Even as the Vigilant continued firing into the water, all six skycars pitched sharply upward in an attempt to intercept the shuttle’s presumed escape vector and take him down.
But Yopring wasn’t there. Instead, as per Ar’alani’s order, he’d dropped the shuttle to treetop level, spun a hard ninety-degree yaw turn to his left, and raced off across the landscape.
He was a good three kilometers away before the skycars reached the top of the cloud and realized he’d slipped their encirclement. By the time they were dropping back toward the ground Yopring was on the ascent, driving toward space as fast as the shuttle’s thrusters could take him.
For a moment Ar’alani thought the skycars would continue the chase. But they made only a halfhearted attempt at a fresh pursuit before breaking off. The shuttle was now too far away for a quick catch, and the higher they went into the thinning atmosphere the better the chance that the Vigilant’s lasers could take them with a single shot each. They would have to be content with chasing the intruder away.
In that, at least, they’d succeeded. The Vigilant didn’t have the ground-force capability to go back down with enough warriors and firepower to challenge the mining complex’s security. Whatever was down there would have to wait until another day.
“Nicely done, Admiral,” Wutroow said as she handed the weapons station back to Oeskym. “What now?”
“We got what we came for, Senior Captain,” Ar’alani told her. “We know there are survivors, lots of them, and that the society is starting to grow back from the ashes.”