Chapter 14

***Tom was almost halfway to his pick up point when the ground shook the second time.  His shuttle flipped three times and landed upside down wedged between two rocks.  And, still the ground shook.

***The Plons in the shelter and the guards in the shelter behind them felt a slightly stronger shake the second time.

***The group still on the edge of the mountain region wasn't so lucky.  A landslide rushed toward them.   Everyone ran for the makeshift cover, which was basically a shed they had erected.  Shyla was almost there when she lost her balance and fell.  Dirt and rocks pelted her.

"Shyla!"  Harry rushed back to help her and slid.  He hit his head on a rock and everything went black.

***B'Elanna's fingers flew over the controls.  The force field was holding.  If there weren't too many shakes of that intensity, it would hold the whole time.

***When the ground finally stopped shaking, Tom crawled slowly out of the shuttle.  He touched his lip and brought his fingers away dripping with blood.  "I must have bitten it," he said aloud.  He examined himself and found other minor scrapes and bruises but nothing seemed to be broken.  "I hope Harry and the others were as lucky as I was."  He tried to find a way to get the shuttle out, but gave up and started walking.  He had gone only a few meters when he met two guards going the opposite direction.

"You're one of the aliens," one guard said drawing his weapon.

Tom help up his hands.  "I'm trying to get to the people and Plons I left near the edge of the mountains," he said.

"Why did you leave them?" the guard asked.

"I took a group of your people in a shuttle to shelter and was coming back for the others.  When the ground shook, the shuttle flipped.  It's stuck between two rocks."

"Take us to this shelter," the guard commanded.

"Not without my friends."

***Harry awoke under the makeshift cover.  "Where's Shyla?" he asked sitting up quickly.  Too quickly.

"She didn't make it," a man said.  "We were able to drag you under here, but she was already buried."

"She could still be alive," he shrieked crawling out from under the cover and toward the direction he thought he saw Shyla fall.  He frantically dug through the debris not heeding the rock shards that cut into his hands and arms.  

The two men came out and started digging with him.

"What do we do now, mama?" one of the children asked.

"I don't know. "

"The alien, Tom will come back for us if he can," the other child said.  "He promised."

"There's a shuttle approaching," the other woman said excitedly.

Harry heard coughing on his left and quickly moved there to dig.  "Shyla?  Can you hear me?" 

"Harry?"  Her voice sounded weak.

"I'm coming."  He threw handfuls of dirt and rocks behind him.  One of the other men moved to help.  They each touched and arm and started to drag her out.  They helped her to her feet, and she clung to them as they stood to go back to the cover and the shuttle that was almost there.

That's when the third and strongest shake of all came.

A large rock flew from the mountain and knocked the man down. Blood spurted from his head and neck. 

Harry pushed Shyla down and slipped, landing on top of her.  She struggled to get out from under him as he struggled to protect her from flying rocks.  Their sweaty fingers slipped apart.

"Shyla!" he screamed, but she couldn't hear him.  She was being buried.

"Harry!" she screamed, but he couldn't hear her.  He too was being buried.

***B'Elanna adjusted numbers compensating for the beating the force field was taking.  It would hold, but if she took her eyes off the readouts for even a second,.the force field would lose cohesion.

***At last, the quake ceased.  Tom picked himself off the two children.  He had thrown himself over them when their mother had been hit with a rock and fell against the cover.  He had to drag the children out of the way quickly when the cover collapsed. 

"Is it over?" the little boy asked.

"Except for the aftershocks," a guard said from a daze.  The skin on one side of his face was hanging from his cheekbone from where a rock shard had sliced into him.

"We won't be here when the aftershocks hit.  Stay here," Tom ordered the children.  He stood and surveyed the scene.  He didn't see the other guard anywhere.  He was probably buried in the landslide along with the children's mother and one of the other men.  He didn't see Harry or Shyla anywhere.  He saw the shuttle.  It had been thrown against the mountainside.  From the outside, it didn't look too damaged.  "Are you able to walk?" he asked the guard.

"I think so."

"Go survey the damage to the shuttle. If it can still be driven, get the children into it and wait for me.  I'm going to see who else is alive."

He lifted one side of the collapsed shed and looked under it.  The falling shed had crushed the other woman's torso and legs.  Her neck had also been broken. Tom figured she had died instantly.  He dug around in the debris and pulled up the mother's lifeless body.  He left the shed and walked to where he thought he had seen Harry, Shyla and another man. 

"Harry.  Shyla."

"Tom," Harry said.

Tom uncovered Harry's head and shoulders.

"I can't move.  There's a rock on my legs.  I think one of them is broken."  He coughed and blood came out of his mouth.  "Look for Shyla."

"Harry,"

"Look for her!"

"I was going to suggest that I get the rock off of you so you can help me find her."  He helped Harry out.  One leg was definitely broken; the other was probably sprained.  There was a rock shard buried deep in his side.  "I'm going to get the shuttle."  He looked Harry in the eye and continued, "If we can't find her soon, Harry, we'll have to leave without her."

Harry dug and dug while Tom went to see about the shuttle. The damage was minimal, and he was able to hot-wire it into life.  The guard and the children were already aboard, so he got in and steered it over to where Harry was still digging.

"We don't have much time before the aftershocks," the guard said.

Tom opened his mouth to say he knew that when an aftershock hit.  The shuttle flipped; yet again, and the children screamed. 

Harry started to bounce on the debris, but Tom jumped out of the shuttle and braced himself against it while holding Harry as still as he could.

When the shaking stopped, Tom said, "Harry, we have to go."

"We can't just leave her here to die!"

"She might already be dead!"

"You don't know that."  Tears were streaming down Harry's dirty face.  "For all we know she could be alive and trying to dig her way up.  We have to help her!"

Tom looked into his friend's eyes.  He had to let Harry try one more time to find Shyla.  If he didn't, Harry would eventually forgive him, but Harry would never forgive himself. "It looks like some of the debris shifted a little in that aftershock.  Maybe it will make it easier to find her."
They surveyed the area. "There's an arm!" Harry shouted.  He broke free from Tom and crawled toward the arm.  Tom ran after him and reached the arm first.  Both men dug until they were able to pull Shyla's limp body out.

"I'm not getting a pulse," Tom said. "She's pretty badly beaten up. If the doc can save her, we have to get her to him fast."  He carried Shyla to the shuttle.  He set her down gently and helped the guard right the shuttle.  The children had more bruises and were very scared, but able to get on the shuttle by themselves.  "Can you two help keep this woman still as we ride?"  They nodded, and he laid Shyla on the floor between them.  He went back and lifted Harry into the shuttle.  Harry crawled behind the children and put Shyla's head in his lap.

Tom and the guard sat in the seats, and Tom drove away.