Dax frowned. “Return hail?”
“No sir.”
Dax glanced at Lena and then looked at Rodriguez again. “I’m not in the mood for guessing. What was it?”
Rodriguez flushed. “Don’t know, sir. S. That’s all.”
Dax stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Abruptly, his eyes widened and he whirled to look at the blank screen. “Screen on!”
A flash of light filled the room. A few seconds later the ship began to shudder.
“My god! We’ve been hit!” Rodriguez exclaimed staring at the screen in disbelief. “The base is gone!”
Pushing himself from his seat, Dax moved to stand closer to the screen, scanning the scene of destruction. “There!” he growled, pointing to a spec in the distance. “Bogey at ten o’clock. Take that son-of-a-bitch out!”
“There’s another one--at three.”
Turning, Dax stared at Lena for a moment and finally strode towards her. Grabbing her arm, he hauled her out of the seat she’d only taken moments before. “Go back to my cabin, now!”
Lena stared at him fearfully. “Why?”
“Because it’s safer, closer to the pods. If the evacuation alarm sounds, don’t hesitate. Go straight down to second level and get into one of the pods.”
He must have seen her reluctance to leave in her expression. His face hardened. “I need to be here. You don’t.”
“Captain!”
Lena nodded even as he turned away, not because she wanted to go, but because she felt much safer near Dax, even if he thought she’d be safer in the cabin. She didn’t want to distract him, though, not when he needed to focus his entire attention on the ships attacking the base.
The trip down the tube was scary as hell. The ship shuddered, bucked, began to weave and sway, nearly throwing her off the ladder several times. She was shaking like a leaf by the time she reached the level for the crew quarters. The ship had begun to shift so violently and abruptly from side to side, she felt like a drunk trying to make her way down the corridor, stumbling into first one wall and then the other. Relieved when she reached the cabin at last, she looked around for the safest spot and finally moved to the desk chair. Swiveling it into its upright position, she locked it down and looked around for a safety harness. Dax had loosened them, she discovered, and flung them out of his way for comfort.
The jolting and jouncing grew progressively worse until she had to clench her teeth together to keep from biting her tongue. She realized after a few moments that she could hear air screaming around the ship, explosions in the distance, and then several close enough that the whole ship quaked.
Dizziness assailed her as the ship tilted sharply to one side and then abruptly rolled. She let out a squeak of fright, squeezing her eyes more tightly shut. Something either slammed into the ship, or exploded so close by the effect was nearly the same. The noise was nearly deafening. The ship did an abrupt freefall that almost made Lena lose what was in her stomach. The lights went out. Blue and yellow lights flickered on a few seconds later and alarms all over the ship began screaming deafeningly. The freefall ended so suddenly that she thought for several moments that the ship had slammed into the earth.
She was clawing at the restraints to escape when it dawned on her that there’d been no evacuation alarm.
Drawing in a shuddering breath, she listened to see if she could hear running feet, shouting, anything that might tell her if the ship was going down.
It was still airborne. She knew that from the bouncing jolts that kept rattling her bones.
The alarms were shut off after a few moments and the lights came back on.
Hardly daring to breathe, Lena tensed for another hard jolt that never came. The ship seemed to glide smoothly for several moments and then she heard more sounds that she didn’t recognize that totally terrified her, whirrs and clicks and moving metal.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when Dax’s voice abruptly bellowed from the com unit. “All hands, suit up!”
Was that the evacuation order?
He hadn’t said evacuate, and besides, that sort of announcement was usually made by a voice from the computer. Hearing a bustle of activity, she unfastened the restraints and rushed to the door.
As it opened, she saw men and women piling out of the crew quarters, fully armed and armored and racing toward the tube.
After staring at them for several moments, she finally realized that Dax was launching a ground assault--or expecting one.
* * * *
It wasn’t as difficult to find the off loading level as it might have been. Lena merely waited until the soldiers had moved out and followed them.
