Survival Tactics

To the Limit

"Oh shit!" Sorensen's head snapped up. "They must have detected the phaser fire! Get the shuttle ready!"

"I'm not so sure we should split up," she said acidly.

"Look we—" And then the conversation became moot as ugly red disruptor bolts lashed out from between the cargo containers and ripped holes in the shuttle's hull. Keyla saw green coolant and greyish plasma leak from the nacelles.

Sorensen returned fire, quick well-aimed shots intended to hold back the indistinct figures in combat armor.

"You gotta go! There are atmospheric hoppers on the other side of the platform." He pointed the direction, and Keyla saw beyond a wall of cargo containers about a hundred meters away, three hunched atmospheric vehicles parked in a row. "I'll hold them off, go!"

Keyla bolted over to Burnham's side, ignored the air sizzling around her with disruptor fire, and pulled the injured woman's around her shoulders. "On your feet, Specialist Burnham." She grabbed Burnham's dropped Type-2 phaser, then stood, pushing with her knees, dragging Burnham's body with her. The woman grunted in pain. "You can do this."

"Keyla, I'll slow you down..."

"Come on, Lorca will have my ass if I don't come home with you. And not in a good way."

"Do you have a filter?"

"Step with your functioning leg. We can do this, come on!"

Together they hobbled--an ungainly lurching movement, but a quick one—into the maze of cargo containers with the sound of furious combat behind them. Keyla spared a look back, and saw Sorensen kneeling behind the nose of the shuttle trading fire with a half dozen Noviani security personnel.

Keyla half-supported, half-dragged Burnham through the cargo crates to the open, flat landing platform and the hoppers, then stopped short. A team of five Noviani security guards were filing in from the opposite side of the platform. She tried to curse, but a crackling disruptor bolt flashed past her and burned a chunk out of the nearest cargo container. She ducked back into the safety of the containers and let Burnham drop.

"Sorry, but I have to take care of this."

"Keyla..."

But she'd already ducked out from behind the cover of the containers.

When they installed the hardware, Keyla Detmer's whole life changed. Some for the worse—the scars, the loss of her hair, a new eye that was the wrong color—but some for the better.

Her hand-eye coordination, for example.

Interfacing with a computer, her optical/motor interaction increased 388% by Corbin's latest estimation, and that helped when it came to things like shooting.

The last time she requalified on the phaser course, the Small Arms Training Unit didn't have a scale high enough to score her.

The Novianis never stood a chance.

Five precise shots in slightly over a second, and they were all stunned into submission. Keyla slid back behind cover and reached out to Burnham. "Come on. Almost there."

"What was that?"

"I'm good with a phaser. Come on."

Together they lurched into the small craft. Burnham fell into the co-pilot' seat like a sack of rocks. Keyla surveyed the controls, felt a surge of satisfaction that this craft was a bog-standard atmospheric transport. She could fly this. Damn thing even had control sticks (like any proper craft should! she thought).

"Here we go," she keyed the anti-gravs and worked the sticks, getting used to the pitch and yaw. The ship wobbled some. She had surprisingly sensitive controls.

"Look!" Burnham said, slightly out-of-breath and pointing. Keyla saw the landing pad falling away, the view expanding, and Sorensen still fighting his doomed holding action by the now-burning shuttle. Figures moved in. There was a flash, and the whole shuttle erupted into plasma flame like a burning geyser.

Keyla looked away. She didn't need to think about another bad ending. Michael looked away too, pulling out her communicator and fiddling with the controls in front of her.

"I'm going to try and link my communicator with the ship's comm system. Maybe it'll boost it through the atmosphere."

"Sounds good," Keyla threw a look over at the injured woman. Her leg looked simply ghastly, and Burnham's hands were shaking. She'd go into shock soon—she had to in order to live—and Keyla saw the window for their survival closing fast.

"There's a thermal blanket lashed to the wall," Keyla pointed. "Why don't you pull it over you. You're losing heat with that injury."

"Right," Burnham answered sluggishly. She was blacking out. Keyla grabbed the oxygen mask from beside the pilot's seat and affixed it over Burnham's nose and mouth, felt it seal to her skin. "What are you doing?" her voice was muffled and mumbled.

"The only thing that can guarantee the signal gets out," Keyla answered, then angled the ship upwards and gunned the engines. The hopper rose like rocket, punching through the thick cover of poisonous clouds and layers of dust until they all fell away like a silk robe off a nude body, and Keyla saw stars out the cockpit windows.

The heat dissipated almost instantly, and Keyla began to shudder, her breath steaming in the rapidly-thinning air. Burnham didn't speak, just stared at her intensely, imploringly Take the ship back down! Don't do this!

Keyla held her gaze until her body tingled and the darkness took her.