To ears listening for the rumble of an approaching starship, the mudslide didn't immediately spark panic. It wasn't until the crack of trees and thudding of rocks joined the cacophony that Rene realized something was amiss. Cursing he ducked out of the escape pod and into the rain. The cold water soaking his torso shocked him momentarily until he remembered that he had taken off his armor but retained his helmet. 

"Stars," he breathed as he watched mud and rubble sluice down the hillside in a torrent, carrying trees and bushes along with it, bursting around rock outcroppings to ancient and sturdy to move like an incoming tide. Brownish spray raised from the muck like fog and the very hillside seemed to slump.

"Solae!" Rene shouted at the same instant that Bouradine shouted Bel'sian's name. The two criers differed in timbre but were filled with the same cocktail of panic and dread. Rene reacted faster than Bouradine also, breaking into a run towards the path Solae had taken to retrieve the Kalderi, his turn of speed carrying him the hundred or so meters in less than twenty seconds. He skidded to a halt before the rubble the slide had bought down however, hands balling into fists as icy dread tore through his guts.

"Solae!" he shouted again when a voice sounded in his ear.

"Mistress Solae has been injured," Mia reported. For once the computer had none of the playful seduction it normally effected, a fact which chilled Rene more than he could have imagined a few seconds ago. The slide was moving sluggishly now, the potential energy that geolgy had given it thousands of years ago spent in its moment of cataclysmic fury. 

"Injured, she is alive then?" Rene demanded, belatedly remembering the communications devices Solae had improvised. Rather than waiting for a reply he immediately cut into the commo circuit.

"Rosaria, Rosaria report," he demanded. Turning to look back in the direction of the Bonaventure. It was impossible to see anything through the rain so he flicked a switch on the side of his helmet and bought up a thermal view. Sure enough the six pencils of red heat which marked the Bonaventure's plasma jets could be seen edging their way across the open land between the foot of the forested ridge and the campsite.

"Mia direct Yarue to land between the campsite and the mudslide, close to my location as possible," he instructed. That lowered the odds for Savachev but soldiers did that for their political superiors all the time. He needed the ship close by if he were going to have any chance of helping Solae.

"Rene?" Rosaria's voice was tight with panic, edged with hysteria even across the distorted communications channel.

"Rosaria what happened," he demanded. It felt as though his heart was about to claw itself out of his chest so hard was it pounding. If he had still been wearing his armor, the stress readouts would have been rising towards panic, a response that the prospect of death in combat had never evinced from him.

"She saved me..." Rosaria mumbled, "she threw herself between us and the mud..." Rene resisted the urge to shout at the girl to pay attention. Even a veteran might be permitted a moment under these circumstances, and snaping her head off wasn't going to make the task of getting information any easier.

"Bel'sian!" Boradine shrieked, clutching at his head as he finally caught up to Rene. The merchant's eyes were wide and frantic and he seemed to be about to stride into the mud when Rene thrust out a hand, blocking his passage. Bouradine was older than Rene, more heavily built, but he lacked years of brutal training and genetic enhancement and the simple guesture stopped him dead.

"Bel'sian!" he roared again, tears starting from his eyes, and his face falling in an agonized mask that Rene himself must have worn a few moments before Mia reported that Solae was injured. Injured, but not dead.

"She is with us," Rosaria replied over the communicator, though Rene struggled to hear her over the shouts of the merchant.

"She is alive," Rene told Bouradine, only to be rewareded with a gabble of half formed sentence fragments which all added up to 'is she ok'. Rene held up a hand for Bouradine to be silent but the hysterical merchant was unable to restrain himself.

"Bouradine, shut up," Rene ordered without noticeable effect. Dasin looped out of the rain, scales glistening. The Syshin looked from Rene to Bouradine in askance.

"Dasin, take master Bouradine and get some emergency flares, mark a landing site for Yarue, Solae, Rosaria and Bel'sian are alive, I'm getting the details now," he ordered. The Syshin didn't hesitate, he grabbed the struggling merchant and hauled him back down the path, Bouradine resisted for several seconds before the notion that Bel'sian was alive and there was some concrete plan to rescue her seemed to catch hold and he turned and raced back the way he had come.

"Say again Rosaria," Rene said, able to turn his attention back to the conversation that had been going on while he dealt with Bouradine.

"We are trapped in an old mansion... stars... stars I think we are buried alive," she whined beginning to hyperventilate.

"Its ok Rosaria, I'll get you out, are Solae and Bel'sian alright?" he demanded, despite his words his tone made it clear that his concern for the Kalderi was a distant second to that of his golden haired paramour. Fortunately Rosaria was in too much of a state to notice.

"Get us out... right... how are you going to do that?" she asked, which, now that she mentioned it was a dammed good question. The rumble of the Bonaventure was growing louder, Rene looked back over his shoulder and saw not only the thrusters, still picked out in infrared, but also four emergency flares burning behind him.

"Mia, pinpoint the location of Solae's transmitter and display it on my helmet, create a wireframe of the hillside," he instructed. Instantly a red dot appeared below the wireframed hill, nearly ten meters beneath the surface a red dot blinked. Surprisingly glowing projections seemed to indicate a room of some kind and all three women. Obviously Mia's link was able to give her more useful information than Rene could have hoped. Ten meters meant millions of tons of dirt and rock, more than he could hope to move with what he had available on the Bonaventure. A half dozen plans entered his mind and were immediately rejected as unworkable. What was it his father had said, the solution to every problem is inherent in the problem itself? Well the problem was that the love of his life was buried underneath tons of mud and water. Water...

"Ok, I have a plan, Rosaria, carefully, and I do mean carefully do what you can to dig Solae free, I need the three of  you to huddle as tightly as you can in that corner you are in, I'll keep you updated," he advised. The roar of the Bonaventure's landing thruster ceased, having built to a roar which Rene's helmet had blocked out for him. Turning around he saw the ship settle unsteadily onto the ground. Bouradine and Dasin were already headed towards him, both looking worried and sick. He waved them back towards the ship.

"Bouradine, get Savachev aboard and into the medical computer, Dasin, help me get the fuel hoses unhooked."