Torus City
Alpha Centauri IV

It was like herding cats.

Every time they led a group of survivors to the path towards the staging area, three or four would inevitably come back, looking for loved ones or going home to grab something super important. Never mind that the fires on the north side had spread close enough already to drop the occasional hot coal on one's head. That didn't seem to scare anyone at all.

The team, Feral, Chang and Olson, simply walked up and down each street, turning to step down each connecting street partway, listening and watching for survivors. Occasionally, this meant entering homes and apartment buildings to search out anyone who might have decided to wait out the disaster at home. Not many had done so but it was still disturbing. Some required a firm hand to redirect to the staging area and some flatly refused to go.

These obstinate few lived in stone houses with slate roof tiles and didn't think house fires to either side would affect them. Never mind the extraordinary heat and smoke inhalation. There was little to be done with these few and it served the team no little amount of frustration.

There had been five of them so far and they were as good as dead. No amount of reasoning could get through to them and it broke their hearts to have to leave to search for other more willing survivors.

Some had the opposite idea. These were more than willing to evacuate but not without several large bags and bundles of goods and treasures. These surely wouldn't be allowed to carry so much on the transports. Pointing out that all that gear would just weigh them down and slow them while the fires approached closer and closer did nothing either. They were bound and determined to take as much with them as they could possibly carry.

They thought at first that they had come across the worst example of this when they encountered a cart, drawn by a horse-like creature, piled high with paintings, clay pots full of jewelry, gold and silver urns and ewers, and much more.

Two men were exiting a house with pots full of goods, while a third guarded the cart with a civilian plasma rifle.

When Feral spotted the crowbar one man carried, it occurred to her that all of that loot couldn't possibly come from one small house.

They were dealing with looters.

At least there was something here they could handle. The local LEO's had given them zip ties for this very reason.

The men stared, clearly waiting for them to walk on by before they commenced looting again. Feral approached them then, with Chang and Olson in tow.

"Just what is going on here?" Asha asked.

The man with the rifle shouldered it before answering.

"None of your business," he said. "Piss off."

"You're looting." Asha said, "That's illegal."

The man noticed their uniforms then.

"Aren't you Starfleet? He asked. "You're the reason the city got bombed in the first place."

"I'm also the reason you three are going to jail." Feral said. "Drop that rifle. And you two step away from the cart."

"Look," Said the second man, holding a pot of jewelry and gold coins. "We're not hurting anyone, and all this stuff would burn up in the fires anyway. Why not just let us go? We can cut you in on the operation."

"That doesn't work for me." Feral said. "Get to your knees and place your hands behind your head."

The man with the rifle tensed and Asha could tell he was about to make his move. By the time he had raised his rifle a few centimeters, she had already drawn and fired. The man hit the cobblestones like a sack of potatoes.

The other two men took this as their sign to skedaddle, dropping their pots and running wildly down the street. But Chang and Olson were ready, and they'd trained with the MACO. They hit their targets on the run, dropping them to the sidewalk.

Faced with what to do with three unconscious looters, they decided to cuff them and toss them onto the cart. They intended to escort the treasure to the LEO's at the staging area anyway so why not make it bundle.

Judging from the tack, the horse-like creature was to be led by hand rather than ridden or controlled from the cart. Feral took control of the beast as she'd grown up on a cattle ranch and had the most experience with herd animals. The animal was easily led and didn't startle, even when hot coals touched her back, causing her to shudder and whine.

They came across an elderly man sitting on a stoop only a block away. Short and frail, with only a meager bag of goods to his name, he'd been hoping against hope that a local LED would drive by and pick him up. His knees, the man said, weren't what they used to be and there was no way he could evacuate on his own.

The team allowed him to ride in the cart and the creature didn't seem to mind the sleight added weight. The elderly man proved to be a religious man of some measure. When the looters awoke and started complaining about being cuffed, he silenced them quickly, lecturing them severely on their thievery.

By the time they approached the end of the final street in their sector, the heat had risen to uncomfortable levels and two houses had already begun to catch fire. Up ahead they spotted what would undoubtedly delay them further from exiting the sector and escaping the disaster themselves. A throng of about twenty people worked a section of rubble where a wall had collapsed onto the street, frantically digging rubble and heavy stone out of the way.

One of the men ran over as soon as he spotted them.

"Help!" He exclaimed. "You've got to help us."

Feral pulled the bridle a bit, encouraging the beast to hold up and bringing the cart to a stop.

"What's going on?" She asked. "How can we help?"

"We have people trapped under a collapsed wall. We're trying to dig them out, but it will take hours and we don't have that kind of time."

"I think we can handle that." Feral said. "Olson, let's see what that fancy engineering scanner of yours can do. Chang, you guard the prisoners."

Feral and Olson walked over the patch of rubble and refuse. Olson began walking the scene immediately with his scanner while muffled voices called out for help somewhere deep within. In moments he had a detailed three-dimensional view of the rubble patch and everything beneath it down to twenty meters.

Olson stood and pointed down at a particular area.

"If we cut a two-meter hole here," he said. "We can get to them without risking a collapse."

Feral trusted Olson's engineering skills, so she worked with him to cut the hole with their phase pistols. It took some time to cut through what turned about to be nearly a meter of solid stone, but they managed it. With a loud scrape and crash the stone fell and slid down into the deep, dark pocket in the rubble.

Getting the survivors out proved exhausting, as each had to be pulled up a forty-five-degree incline in order to exit the hole. All that remained was to escort the odd twenty-five or so people to the staging area.

Once they arrived at last, they found two of the huge transport ships waiting for them, with many of the survivors they sent ahead most recently already boarding. Rex joined them then, as he was not the pilot of either of the remaining vessels. Suvok joined much later as he had to check over this last round of survivors. The cart and the three looters were turned to the law enforcement officers. Ther elderly man was hoisted down so that he could walk to rest of the way.

Now all together at last, the team boarded the Starfleet shuttle up to the space station, feeling in their bones that they had done their fair share.

It was from the pilot that they learned the Challenger had come under attack.