With less then one minute until the base was destroyed, Nate had to not only carry Asu, but also guide James away from walls, and keep Barb's arm set so the nanobots he injected could knit the bone enough to keep it from breaking again. All in all they made good time, with 14 seconds left on the timer they made it back to the Barf Mobile. By 8 seconds they were all in, and by 3 Nate had turned it around and gunned the engine. It leapt forward with a roar like a 747 taking off and the amount of air they caught on the first bump made it possible for the concussioned James to ask, "Why are we at LAX?"
Warning lights came on as he turned at 300 mph and the base exploded, letting a small fireball loose after them. The fireball over took them, but the hull took the heat without Nate even having to activate the emergency force fields to keep the heat out. From the gages it got to about 150 above spec, which was good because it was only rated for 125 above. As he slowed down he also considered how much Starfleet would give for a new ground-based vehicle like this.
They reached the base about 5 minutes later, and the med techs instantly carted the other three off to sickbay, leaving Nate and Scott alone in the now ruined theater.
"I told you to be on the Unity Scott," Nate said.
"We saw an explosion on the scale of the small anti-matter type and decided that it was ok to stand down."
"Alright, but I've got a new job for you."
"What?"
"While inside the base I hacked their computer with one of my AIs and saw that they were stealing basic cable for the entire base; so I want to you coordinate a search for stolen utilities, water, electricity, TV, phone, internet, anything. I want this world wide."
"Nate, you know as well as I do the situation in the middle and far east, if we do this it'll just be another bullet you give them to fire back at the US."
"Let me worry about politics, and remind them that we're not attached to the US government beyond the fact that we're citizens."
"Still…I would feel better if we had someone from over there in the UDD."
"Well, China said no flat out, and the recruiting stations in Israel and Saudi Arabia aren't pulling any numbers."
"I thought we had one in Iraq and Iran"
"Both bombed out in the middle of the night, apparently they have just enough balls to destroy UDD property and not kill us. Must be scared of me."
"Well, that's one perk to being here. Made up for by the long hours though." He yawned to show that he was on his 16th hour of overtime in two days.
"Organize the search, then we'll talk about increasing overtime pay Scott."
"Yes sir," he said, giving a salute that was neither wanted nor required.