A Starship Called Starsong

Chapter 68

Debris was still falling down from the rickety ceiling above although neither the rubble nor the dust managed to pass through the shield.

The shield suddenly stopped moving, forcing me to stop before I walked into it. Footsteps behind me caused me to look back. I tensed up as a guard tackled my shield, but instead of sending me flying like an ordinary shield would have, the guard looked like he had hit a solid wall as the shield anchored itself to the floor. He slumped down with a groan while holding his shoulder.

The well-dressed men were shouting in alarm and bellowing commands as they desperately tried to regain control of the situation. Some of the guards were ignoring them as they left the room at a run.

The shield rippled slightly as it centered itself around me once more. I quickly closed the last of the distance between Ronan and me. Cynthia was huddling close to Ronan to stay inside his shield. She looked relieved but was still quite nervous about our predicament. Our shields rippled strangely as they started to overlap, and surprisingly, they merged to form a larger shield.

Ronan was watching the remaining guards unhappily as I walked up beside him. I commented, "Good timing."

He glanced at me with a disbelieving look. "I fail to see how you can count this as good timing."

I snorted slightly. "I try to remain optimistic when I can and you arrived before they shot at us. How about we leave this party before the police come and break it up?"

Ronan held up what looked like an odd phaser. "I am in full agreement with that idea. Let's go."

He started swiftly walking towards a different door than the one we had come through, and I walked beside him while Cynthia hid behind us. Another guard charged towards us, and Ronan leveled the weapon at the guard before firing. It didn't surprise me that Ronan's shot had no problems passing through our shield even though it protected us from their phaser strikes.

The guard dropped to the floor unconscious. Another rumble had more debris raining down onto our shields. Most of the guards didn't trust the building to remain standing at this point and were fleeing. A look back showed that the well-dressed men were also scattering to various exits as they realized the same thing.

Cynthia stumbled over some of the wreckage in our path, and I reached back to grab her elbow to support her. She quickly recovered, and we swiftly headed towards the next door. I debated about pulling out my Guide, but decided to leave the attacks to Ronan since his weapons were more precise.

We cautiously entered the next room, but the few guards or fighters that were present lost what little interest they had in us as yet another boom shook the building.

'Sheesh! At least leave the building standing until we are outside!'

"That one wasn't us. One of your gracious hosts set off a small bomb just outside. There is some fighting, but this group was clearly not prepared to face off against Starship technology."

Considering few people even knew what Starship technology was capable of, the outcome of this was pretty much a foregone conclusion... My steps hesitated as I realized that I had no idea how many people were around or where they all were. 'Are we safer inside or outside?'

"With your shields, that question is invalid. The hired fighters aren't putting up much of a resistance, and the backup forces are not encountering any real difficulty."

We were most of the way across the room at this point. 'What backup forces?'

"You will see them in about five seconds."