Servant of the Siphen

Part 7

The last projectile was still gaining on the shuttle, and as Erica attempted to fire she noticed that the weapon panels were flashing red. She shot an alarmed look at Caroline. "Rear weapons unresponsive!"

"They must have been damaged by one of the explosions. I'm going to flip the shuttle and transfer control to forward weapons. You won't have much time so don't hesitate. Ready?"

Erica steeled herself, fingers poised over the controls. "Ready."

The shuttle abruptly lurched as if it had been kicked by an invisible boot, turning end over front so that the they were pointing straight at the oncoming projectile.

Erica fired the weapons and obliterated it.

For several seconds she saw nothing but the white of the explosion and heard a ringing in her ears from the concussive force. Then as her eyes adjusted she saw the blue sky out of the cockpit.

She dimly heard an alarm.

Glancing to the side she saw Caroline clutching the flight controls, deep in concentration, her words indistinct through the din.

Erica could feel that they were falling, and gripped her seatrests in panic as she realised that the last blast had knocked out their flight controls.

Tegan stopped and listened as Caroline's voice came in over the crackling comm. "Trueman to Brown, we're going in, I repeat, we're going in."

"What does that mean?" Isamura asked.

"It means they're going to crash. I'm tracking their location and likely trajectory," Tegan explained, examining the readout on her scanner. "All right, it looks like they'll go down near here," she said, indicating a region beyond the caves where the shuttle had been attacked.

Isamura studied the image on the scanner. "Then we should try to use the cover of trees and avoid the caves. We are no good to them if we fall foul of the same ambush."

"All right. Everyone else, fall in on our left and watch for my signals. As we pass the caves I don't want to give our position away with chatter."

Inside the crashed shuttle, Caroline regained consciousness and opened her eyes to find Erica kneeling at her side and applying pressure to her head.

"Erica?"

"We're in one piece, it looks like. A few panels came loose, I think you caught a glancing blow from one."

"Ouch." Caroline winced and put a hand to her head, her fingers brushing against the gauze pad. "It stings a bit."

"I washed it and applied antiseptic. You'll be fine, don't worry."

"That's good to hear." Caroline rested her hand on Erica's giving it a gentle squeeze. "What about you, are you hurt?"

"Little sore from my seat straps. Other than that, I'm fine." Erica removed the gauze pad from Caroline's head and examined the wound. Satisfied that the bleeding had stopped for now, she tore open the wrapper on a sticky plaster and planted it neatly on the cut.

"Well, let's see where we've crashed," Caroline said. "Give me a hand up?"

Erica graciously helped Caroline to her feet, and they peered out the front of the cockpit. They seemed to be in some sort of a tunnel, light filtering in faintly from the other end.

"Well that's helpful. We're in a big hole. Let's check the rear hatch."

They ventured into the rear section and opened the hatch. Unfortunately, it only opened a little bit.  It seemed that the shuttle was lodged against the back of the tunnel, and they were greeted by roots and compacted dirt tumbling in.