Shutdown (Glitch)

try contacting other Sectors, I said, “Fine.” I lifted it all with my telek and tugged it along behind me as I ran back to the entryway.
    “Careful!” the techer shouted. “There’s some very sensitive equipment, you can’t just—”
    “Shut up and get up the ladder.” Xona grabbed the boy and pushed him in front of her. He clutched two personal consoles to his chest and made his way awkwardly up the ladder. I sent the rest of his equipment up after him with my telek.
    “Go, Ginni,” I said. She, Xona, and I were the only ones left. “I’ll push my bed up after you so you don’t have to carry it.”
    “Hurry,” Xona said. “We don’t know if those Regs saw something before Zoe took them out. If they com’d in, more could be coming.”
    Ginni nodded and disappeared up the ladder. I sent the bed up after her. The wide rectangle barely fit through the circular hatch opening. Right as I edged it past the metal lip, a red burst above blinded me.
    The roof suddenly began caving in. Big chunks of concrete and red dirt rained down on our heads as the tunnel collapsed on top of us. I threw my telek upward to catch the rubble before it crushed us.
    Another transport must have arrived. I’d been so busy using my telek for other things, I hadn’t thought to check if any more were coming. Stupid .
    “Take my hand,” I yelled to Xona. She took it, and I gritted my teeth as I lifted us up off the ground with my telek. I pushed the rubble up what was left of the chute and we followed it out.
    Red dust swirled all around as I set us on the ground. Xona coughed and covered her face. Even though it was late afternoon, I could only barely see a spiral of electricity shooting out of the end of City’s fingertips through the thick cloud of dust. Rand stood beside her, his arms raised. I couldn’t see exactly what they were doing, but no more laser rounds fired down at us.
    Others crouched among the rocks. Someone was lying flat out on the ground, but I couldn’t make out who it was.
    I put my hand over my eyes and tried to look up. The transport was almost right on top of us now, a sleek round-edged triangle with three blazing propulsion modules on the bottom. It wasn’t quiet like the antigravity models Henk designed. It roared like an ancient monster over our heads.
    City’s electricity wove around the entire thing in an interlocking web. As the cloud of red dust billowed away, I could see part of the bottom was melting off. A huge hissing glob of metal dripped off and plunked to the ground right in front of us. I jumped backward.
    City yelled something at Rand, but I couldn’t hear it over the sound of the transport. I started reaching out with my telek to help them, but just as I did, the shadow around us became bigger. I looked up and saw the transport was dropping out of the sky. It looked graceful as it fell. Until it slammed into the earth with the rippling force of an earthquake.
    Everyone still standing was knocked off their feet by it.
    “Zoe!” Xona’s voice called out. We’d gotten separated when I dropped her hand and ran toward Rand and City.
    “I’m here, Xona!”
    “There’ll be Regs inside,” she called.
    Right. Of course there would be. Everything was happening so quickly, there was barely time to avert one crisis before another one rose up in its place.
    I cast my telek outwards. There were six Regs in this larger transport, half of them ripped out of their harnesses and collapsed on the floor from the crash. I hurriedly counted down their spines and snapped their necks at the C2 vertebrae right as a couple of them started to stir.
    “It’s clear,” I called. “Cole and the techer, get in one of the Reg transports and see if you can get us flying.”
    “Rand,” I turned to him, “start melting all these transports down, including what’s left of Henk’s jet. If we’re lucky, any more that come to investigate will think the two molten piles are their own transports and assume we got away in the jet. Hopefully it can buy us some time.”
    Rand rubbed his hands together, smiling. “My pleasure.”
    “Everybody else!” I shouted. “Gather up. We’re gonna take one of the Reg transports, and I’m not sure how much of the supplies will fit with us. Grab what you can carry.” There were only six Regs in each transport, and we needed to fit in seventeen people. Granted, one Reg was as big as two normal people, but still it would be a tight fit. “Xona, can you start