Earth Girl (12 page)

Dig Site Command was reeling off sensor positions. I coded them into four sensor spikes. Our sled had lurched off the clearway across a mound of rubble, and the other five bobbed along in our wake. We were heading directly towards the towers, and I was deeply relieved when Playdon stopped the sled. We were still probably within the fallout zone if one of the other towers fell, but we would stand a chance.

‘Team 1 go to your working sleds,’ said Playdon. ‘Everyone else get on the transport sleds and stay there. I’ve got the sleds on the flattest, safest looking area I can find in working range of the casualties, but remember this isn’t a clearway. Even the transport sleds are in a hazard zone. Jarra, get your lifeline beam locked on, and set up the sensor net. Watch your step out there. That rubble is highly unstable.’

I activated my hover belt, and went across to Fian on the tag support sled. Once my lifeline beam was locked on, I swooped out across a jagged landscape of rubble, carrying my armful of sensor spikes. There were huge twisted lengths of rusted metal, tangles of wire, and fragments of concrete scattered in all sizes from pebbles up to blocks as large as our base dome. Dust was still thick in the air and I was thankful that my impact suit saved me from having to breathe it in.

The first sensor spike bleeped as I reached my correct position, and I thrust it downwards to activate it. Sensor spikes two and three were easy too, but the last one was a problem because a huge block of concrete was in the way.

‘Our closest position for sensor 4 is about four metres above optimal,’ I reported.

‘Compensating for that,’ said Playdon. ‘Go for it.’

I gained some height to reach the top of the concrete block, and activated the sensor. ‘How’s that looking?’

‘In the green,’ said Playdon. He switched from team circuit to the emergency channel. ‘This is Asgard 6. We have sensor net in place and I can see ten suit signals. They’re buried deep, and they’re scattered across a large area, so we need to start shifting rubble. We don’t have time to wait for Earth 19.’

Dig Site Command acknowledged that, and Playdon swapped back to team circuit. ‘Back to the sensor sled now, Jarra. I want you and Dalmora monitoring the sensors. I’ll be tag leading. I’ll help you get a good understanding of the sensor images of the site before I start work, then I’ll need you both watching out for developing dangers. That rubble’s newly fallen and still settling, so keep a look out for underground cavities opening up, power storage units, chemicals, anything strange suddenly showing up. If you think I’m tagging anything that could cause a landslide then you warn me. Amalie and Krath are on heavy lift sleds as usual. Fian you’re on my lifeline.’

I was heading back to the sensor sled as ordered, but I had to challenge this. ‘With respect, sir,’ I interrupted, ‘the sensors need a lot more experience than either Dalmora or I have. We’ve got unstable rubble and people buried down there. We need you watching sensors and guiding the team. I should be tagging the rubble.’

‘It’s true that I’d be better on the sensors,’ said Playdon, ‘but it’s going to be dangerous down there. It’s my responsibility to take the risks not yours. You’re sure about this, Jarra?’

Sure? Not really. I was terrified that I’d mess things up and get the Cassandra 2 team killed, but I knew I was far more likely to make mistakes on sensors than on tagging. I reached the sensor sled, and the chaotic images on the displays were enough to convince me I was right. I could see some patterns that had to be rubble sliding, but I didn’t have a clue what others were. ‘I’m sure, sir.’

‘Right,’ Playdon said. ‘Jarra is tag leader. Fian, you’re on her lifeline. If you see any rubble moving round her, or anything you don’t like, don’t wait or ask questions, pull her up!’

‘Yes, sir,’ Fian answered, clearly catching the Military response off me.

‘Jarra, set your comms to default to broadcast on emergency channel.’ Playdon handed me the tag gun. ‘Take a look at the sensors before you start. Ignore everything but the buried suit signals and major landmarks.’

I took a look at the screen. The locations of the buried members of the Cassandra team were marked by green dots. I tried to memorize their positions relative to a massive chunk of concrete that was nearby. There were two groups of three, and four solo dots. One of the solos must have had a very narrow escape from being crushed by that concrete. Impact suits could take a lot but they had their limits.

‘Ready,’ I said, and floated out over the rubble.

There’s an old children’s game, dating from pre-history. You have a heap of sticks and you have to pull a stick out of the middle without making the others move. Being tag leader was rather like that. I had to tag rubble that could be moved by the lift teams without making other lumps fall. With unstable heaps like this, there could be a major landslide if I got it wrong. There were people down in that rubble who could be killed by my mistakes, but would run out of time if I did nothing. No pressure. No pressure at all.

Before I did anything, I gave myself a couple of minutes to float over the site and work out where to start. Then I took it easy, tagging a few isolated rocks that were unlikely to affect any others. There were occasional random rubble collapses happening in some areas, and I wanted to let things settle down as much as possible before I did anything drastic.

I swooped back out of the way. ‘Lifts go! I want the rubble moved over towards sensor 3. You can drop it into that dip.’

It was weirdly embarrassing hearing myself on the emergency circuit. I could imagine the Earth 19 team listening in and hoping like chaos that I didn’t do anything terminally stupid before they arrived to help. I was betting their team leader was biting her tongue to stop herself from ordering us just to wait and do nothing. I’d have really liked to do that, but the Cassandra team were buried deep and they were scattered across my work site. The Earth team would only have about forty minutes after they arrived. However expert they were, that wasn’t enough time to dig everyone out.

Amalie and Krath started locking lift beams onto my tag markers and shifting lumps of concrete out of the way. The first two lumps moved painfully slowly, the lift operators clearly nervous, but the next few went faster.

That was the easy ones out of the way. Now it got tricky. I’d decided to work across from a hollow in the rubble, clearing a horizontal section across the top of the buried people. It’s always safer to keep a level work site, and especially in a situation like this. The buried impact suits were already stressed to their limit. A landslide on top of them could be fatal.

Once I had my area nicely levelled, I could gradually work my way down, layer by layer. I tagged two more lots of rubble and the lift teams moved them away. I was tagging a third when Playdon’s voice stopped me.

‘Jarra, I could be wrong but that big rock worries me. The one next to it is just as big, and they’re leaning against each other with a cavity underneath. If you move one, then the other will fall.’

I took another look at it, and the equally large lump next to it. ‘We need to shift it. Can we take the two as twins?’

‘We can try. Amalie and Krath, you’ll need to lock on to a tag each but don’t move them until I give you the word.’

I tagged the second rock and moved back well out of the way.

‘Amalie, Krath, you have them locked?’ asked Playdon.

‘Yes,’ said Amalie.

‘Locked,’ said Krath.

‘I’ll count you down to moving them. Three, two, one, go!’ said Playdon.

The two rocks soared upwards in beautiful unison.

‘Nice job!’ I moved back to take a look at things. Now I could see the cavity Playdon had warned me about, a massive hole going deep into the rubble. Nearly as deep as the trapped people, but naturally not in the right place to help that much. If anything it made things worse, since everything around it was unstable.

I tagged more lumps of concrete and got them shifted out of the way. ‘There’s a huge metal girder right across where the people are. I’m trying to get it cleared so we can shift it,’ I told my listeners on the emergency channel. ‘Oh chaos!’ The words slipped out as I floated round the other side and got a better view.

‘Problem Jarra?’ asked Playdon.

‘There’s a huge tangle of old wires anchoring it to some of this concrete. We can’t shift that lot in one, so I’ll need to laser them through.’

Playdon switched to our team circuit. ‘Jarra, can you use a laser gun or should I come and do it?’

Good question. I’d never used a laser gun but I’d watched someone do it. ‘I think I can do it. It’ll be faster if I do. I’ll come and collect it.’

‘All right.’ Playdon sounded nervous. ‘Be very careful. The beam can cut through anything, including right through your impact suit.’

‘Yes sir,’ I said, grimly. ‘I’ll try not to cut myself in half.’

I tagged a few more rocks at the other side of the area, and left Amalie and Krath to lift those while I collected the laser gun. Playdon showed me the controls and the safety mechanism, and then I headed back to the girder before I carefully set the safety to off and tried triggering the beam. It shone out with a misleadingly pretty glitter effect. I gave it an experimental waft in the direction of the wires and it cut through them without a blink, and sliced deep into the metal girder as well. I gulped a bit, and finished cutting the girder loose. Then I made very sure I set the safety catch back on the laser gun before attaching the evil little thing to my belt. I might need it again.

‘You remembered to put the safety catch on, Jarra?’ Playdon asked anxiously. He was on the team circuit again, clearly not wanting to let the rest of the world know just how clueless we were.

‘Most definitely on, sir.’

‘Good.’

We shifted the rest of the rubble out from around the big girder, and then I tagged both ends of that and moved back. Amalie and Krath each locked beams on to a tag, and Playdon gave them the countdown to lift it in unison. The huge length of metal lifted smoothly up into the air, then suddenly pivoted and went flying sideways. I felt myself being yanked upwards just as the end of the girder crashed down towards me.

‘What went wrong?’ wailed Krath on the team circuit.

‘Jarra! You all right?’ Playdon shouted across the emergency channel.

I couldn’t move my left arm where the girder had caught it. I couldn’t move it … I couldn’t move it … Then the impact material of my suit stopped being rigid. I could wave my left arm again and stopped panicking. ‘I’m fine. It only caught my arm for a moment. Thanks Fian. Nice save. I’ll just check what happened.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Krath. ‘I don’t know what went wrong.’

I did. The end of the girder with Krath’s tag mark had broken off. I had an uncomfortable feeling that was partly my own nardle fault. I’d just accidentally cut part of the way through that beam. I made a mental note not to be so dumb in future. ‘Not your fault, Krath. The girder broke. It’s fallen clear of the area, so we can carry on working on the other stuff. Drag net next please.’

I retreated while Amalie and Krath dragged the minor rubble out of the area. We shifted another layer of big rocks, and then had another drag net to tidy up the smaller debris. That all went smoothly, which was a good thing because my nerves needed some recovery time.

The calm voice of authority came across the emergency channel. ‘This is Dig Site Command. Asgard 6, can we have a progress report please?’

‘The site is levelled, and we’ve cleared two layers of rubble across the key area,’ said Playdon. ‘We’re just over halfway down.’

‘Earth 19, how long before you reach the site?’ asked Dig Site Command.

‘This is Earth 19. We will be with them in about twenty minutes. Nice progress, Asgard 6.’

I tagged more boulders. Amalie and Krath shifted more boulders. Fian yanked me up out of the way of a slight landslide. We cleared out another layer of minor rubbish. It was all going quite beautifully, and I was just about to start tagging the big stuff again when Playdon yelped urgently on the emergency channel.

‘I’ve got an amber light. Suit failing!’

‘Which one? Where?’ I’d guessed the answer, and was moving there even before Playdon yelled co-ordinates at me. The solo suit nearest that huge hunk of concrete. I could picture it. That suit must have been caught when the concrete fell and bounced aside. It had absorbed the impact but been weakened in the process. Now it was failing. Under the rubble, a suit was failing, and when it failed someone was going to die!

Nuke it! We were so close! I wasn’t going to let this happen! I was tagging rocks like a mad thing. Forget keeping my site nice and level, right now I needed to dig a hole down to that suit as fast as possible. ‘Amalie, Krath, lift rocks! As fast as you can! No time to be fancy, just throw them over in the direction of sensor 3.’

‘Jarra, you should move out of the way,’ said Amalie on our team channel.

‘Just lift the furthest tags from me. If I have to, I’ll dodge, and Fian can yank me out. Someone’s dying down there.’

I could hear screams. My over active imagination of course. Dig Site Command had the trapped team on a separate comms channel, so someone could keep chatting encouragingly to them without distracting the rescuers. There might be real screams on that channel as the wearer of the suit below me started to feel the weight of the rocks on top of them, but I couldn’t hear them.

‘You’re close!’ said Playdon.

He was right. As the next two rocks swung out of the hole we were digging, I could see a gleam of an impact suit.

‘Amber light is flickering red,’ said Playdon.

That meant we had perhaps a minute. ‘Fian, I’m going down!’ I yelled as I broke all the rules and jumped right down the hole. My hover belt cut out for a moment, then back in again, breaking my fall enough to avoid the impact suit locking up. The sides of the hole were already starting to collapse, showering me with lumps of concrete, as I tagged the impact suit arm sticking out from the rubble. ‘Fian pull me out! Amalie lock tag and lift hard!’

I flew up in the air, and a black and golden professional impact suit followed me up. We’d probably just broken someone’s arm, but it might have saved their life. Amalie swung the suit carefully over to land it on the clearway.