Dinosaurus Planet Survivors
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Dinosaur Planet #2
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Dinosaurus Planet Survivors». Краткое содержание книги:
CHAPTER NINE
Hands pulled urgently at Rianav and she groaned. An ache encompassed her whole body.
“Lemmalone.”
“Not when I have no choice but to retrieve you,” a familiar voice said. Hands now reached under her armpits, lifting her strangely unresisting body out of the pilot’s seat. “You’re in one piece. Just relax, Lieutenant.”
“Easy there, now,” another voice called, its tone of command undiminished by distance.
“You’re lighter than I’d thought,” the familiar voice murmured.
Rianav forced her eyes open and gasped. Blood seemed to be dripping from her face. The arms that lifted her were heavily corded. She started to struggle.
“Don’t,” Aygar ordered impatiently. “I’m under surveillance and I’ve no wish to be stunned again. You have nothing to fear from me. Or mine.” His tone was bitter, but as he eased her from the damaged cockpit, his hands did not abuse his advantage.
“Cut the chatter,” the other voice ordered. The voice came from below her. She couldn’t make out her surroundings. “Just lift her out. Nice and easy. Medic!”
“I’ll carry her down.” Aygar has lost none of his arrogance, she thought. She relaxed as she felt him descending a steep and uneven way.
Despite blurred vision, partly due to the blood which streamed down her nose, Rianav looked about her as Aygar scrambled down a rocky incline. The sled had crumpled, nose first, into the side of a cliff and wedged in. Another sturdy young man was extracting Portegin’s limp body from his side of the wrecked vehicle. On a much wider shelf about fifteen meters below were a pinnace and a cluster of uniformed personnel, some with drawn stunners, watching the rescue operation. Blinking to clear her eyes, Rianav looked beyond, to the vast plateau now inhabited by the immense squat bulk of a colony transport ship and the long sleekly dangerous form of a medium deep-space cruiser. As Rianav made out the designation, 218-ZD-43 on the stern fins, she experienced an unreasonable spurt of pure panic and clutched at Aygar’s shoulders.
“I told you. I won’t harm you. That bunch is just wailing for a chance to blast us out of existence.” Aygar’s bitterness was intense.
“Your transport shot us down.”
“You and your phony rescue mission. All the time your cruiser was tracking the transport!”
Rianav flinched from his anger, aware of contradictory, nonsensical and conflicting emotions. But the next moment Aygar had reached the ledge and she was removed from his arms. She started to protest as she saw him pushed to one side by armed personnel. Then a medic was busy checking the pupils of her eyes and someone else applied an antiseptic pack to her bleeding forehead. She felt a spray go in one arm, a powerful restorative to judge by the flood of energy that surged through her body.
“You’ll do,” the medic muttered and stepped back, signaling his assistant to help Rianav clean the worst of the blood from her skin. The Iretan flies were buzzing in a cloud, attracted by the smell of blood.
“Lieutenant Rianav,” and she turned to look at the officer who now confronted her. His race was totally unfamiliar to her. Even medium-size cruisers were not so huge that officers could remain unknown to one another. His expression was compounded of many elements: anticipation, curiosity, and a tinge of awe. “Commander Sassinak is waiting for your personal report.”
To gain a moment to collect herself, Rianav looked over to where Portegin was being examined. “Is he all right?”
“He’ll have a worse headache than you will, Lieutenant,” the medic replied cheerfully then pointed to the long gash across Portegin’s forehead. “Only a flesh wound. Here, you, let’s get him out of this stinking air and away from those blood-sucking insects.”
Aygar and his friend were summarily encouraged to lift Portegin and bring him into the pinnace.
“We used those two local lads to reach you,” the officer was saying in an apologetic tone as he escorted Rianav to the pinnace. “They said,” and he gave a skeptical snort, “they were on their way to rescue you anyhow.” He dropped his voice to a confidential tone as they entered the little ship. “We haven’t had a planetfall in months and we might have botched the climb. Couldn’t let that happen. Sorry you landed so hard. We saw that transport zap you and the commander only managed to get a tractor beam on you long enough to cushion the fall-All secure back there?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Rianav craned her head to see Portegin strapped into a seat, the medics on either side of him. Aygar and his companion were under the wary guard of four marines, two with drawn stunners.
“Why are those men under guard, Lieutenant?” Rianav asked as she fastened her seat belt.
“They’re mutineers. Your people filed a charge of mutiny, you know. First thing your commander told mine.”
There was something wrong with that statement but Rianav could not fathom what, beyond the obvious error that her commander and his must be the same.
The young lieutenant leaned toward her, his voice low. “The other elements of your group have all reported in, Rianav. Don’t worry about anything.” He turned aside to order the helmsman to take the pinnace back to the ZD-43. Then he grinned complacently at Rianav. “The heavyworlders’ transport never even knew we were on their tails. Sassiness’ a canny commander.”
As the little pinnace took off, Rianav placed trembling fingers against her temples. That knock on her head had done more than visible damage for she was being affected with selective amnesia. She knew that there was to be a colony ship but not that her cruiser was chasing it. She knew she served on the ZD-43 but she couldn’t recognize any of the men on the pinnace, or conjure up the name of her commanding officer.
“That transport was being trailed?” She’d been so sure that her cruiser was in orbit above the planet, had had no intention of landing, and that she was part of a rescue mission, answering a distress call.
“Ever since the transport crossed into our patrol sector. Ships the size of that baby are leeched the moment the keel is laid. Part of the Federation’s long-term plan to stop planet piracy. So the moment the leech activated our sensors, we checked Registry and knew we’d a live one.” The lieutenant’s grin broadened. “The transport was built in Voroshinsky, sold to Dopli-the Heavyworld planet in Signi Sector-and it was heading in a very suspicious direction, there being very few systems open for colonization out this side. So we pursued it with the leech keeping it on a leash for us.”
Rianav felt a gentle bump as the pinnace landed. Briskly the young lieutenant unfastened his seat belt and rose, ordering the medics to take Portegin to the sick bay, the marines to remove the prisoners and secure them in the settlement. He was turning, with more courtesy in his manner, to Rianav when the comunit on the pinnace console burbled a summons.
“Guarded message for Lieutenant Rianav, sir,” the helmsman announced, rising from his place and gesturing for Rianav to take his seat. Then he and the officer discreetly left the pinnace.
“Lieutenant Rianav here,” she said, depressing the screen toggle.
Its tiny picture revealed a face which Rianav did recognize: her medic.