OUTWORLD: Sun Dogs

OUTWORLD: Sun Dogs Part 12

The Husky started forward. "Roy, don't do this," Palmer yelled at him. "Everything these two have said is true! We have to do something."

"Sorry, Terri," Pedder said. "Captain's orders."

Palmer hung her head. "Then I'm sorry."

As the Husky passed by her, reaching for Jillian, Palmer delivered a left hook to the side of his head. He staggered away, reeling, and Palmer looked to Sorcha. "Go!" she bellowed, haring toward the Roobarb.

"Go, O'Riordan!" Jillian yelled, following her, and Sorcha took off after them.

Gallagher uttered something, but Sorcha didn't take notice of it until a low-impact rifle round hit the deck just in front of her. "They're firing at us!" she squealed.

No sooner had she said this than a sudden, sharp pain blossomed from her right arm, and she gasped, nearly dropping the charge.

"O'Riordan!" Jillian cried out to her from the bottom of the ramp.

"Team Leader, get aboard!" Sorcha cried back. "I'm coming!"

Jillian took a moment to address Blason, who was still crouched beside Nia. "Keep her medicated," Sorcha heard her saying before nearly colliding with her. They both struggled up the ramp with Palmer in front, and it closed behind them.

"Why is a security squad firing at us?" Sylvester asked frantically as they reached the cockpit. Faint ricochets could be heard from outside.

"Get us moving!" Jillian ordered him.

Sylvester sighed as he put the ship back into launch mode. "Might as well have not bothered leaving the service," he grumbled as the took the dropship out.

Knowing that they were safe for the moment, Sorcha took a look at what remained of the team. Boland was sat at the back of the bridge, checking his drill, and Travis was in one of the chairs. "Where's the Lynx?"

"Joel's in the equipment locker, fixing the heat plate things back onto the suits," Travis explained. "Says he's also reversing the polarity in the temperature units to make 'em cold again." He grinned. "Don't ask me, he's the engineer out of us four."

"Good thing Goodwin stocked up the dropship," Jillian remarked.

Sorcha nodded. "Yeah. We didn't get time to raid the equipment bay back on the Oxen Free."

Jillian laid her charge on the deck. Out the front viewport, Carolyn M6's shimmer was looking particularly cowed by the pervading shadow of the Dark Sun. "So, how are we deploying these charges, O'Riordan? You said we don't have much time."

"We don't," Sorcha said meekly. "But... I don't..." Her eyes caught sight of Jillian's auto-mapper, left in the co-pilot's chair. "Wait. I'm gonna need to look at the dispersal sequence on your auto-mapper."

Jillian picked it up. "Let's just see if I can get it back on standard mode... ah!" The mutt's face lit up as she apparently did just that. "Yup. Here it is." She passed the device to Sorcha.

Sorcha took the mapper and studied the dispersal sequence graphic. We don't have time, she reflected grimly. "We'll have to crush the range down a bit. Plant them fairly close together."

"Will that work?" Jillian asked her.

Sorcha stuck her tongue out the side of her muzzle as she studied the screen, checking the yield of each charge and how it would react with the others in the sequence. She plopped into the co-pilot's chair and began modifying the graphic. The first charge was already planted, of course, so that gave her options. She took one of the bomb symbols and dragged it closer to two of the other unplanted charges, making sure not to break the sequence. A little fiddling later, and she had it. "We plant the second charge where we were originally going to do so," she told the others. "Then we make for this crater-like area." She pointed to the area, some few hundred miles from the second charge. "The last two go there. The reaction should still occur and produce usable data." Amaterasu help me, she thought wryly. Universe at stake and I'm still thinking about my research.