by Leslie Chase
“Poor you,” she said, with a wicked sparkle in her eyes and an ever so insincere smile. “Imagine having to do more than a single day’s work every year. How do you cope?”
“It’s not as though this is my only job, woman,” I growled, and she laughed at my mock-anger. Love for her swelled in my heart and it was impossible to keep the glower on my face for more than a few seconds.
Draining my cup, I threw it into the rover’s recycler and turned to look towards the horizon. Megan snuggled in under my arm and for a moment we were still and happy.
“How am I not freezing?” Megan asked quietly. “I should be worrying about frostbite, not standing barefoot in the snow.”
“You’re my claimed mate,” I said. “My protection from the elements will stick with you now. A fringe benefit.”
“Huh.” Megan kicked the snow thoughtfully, then grinned. “Handy. Maybe you are worth keeping around.”
I glowered down at her again, winning a laugh from my mate, and shook my head. “You make light of something sacred, woman.”
“Yep,” she agreed happily. “If we can’t enjoy it, what’s the point, right? What are you gonna do about it, ‘punish’ me again?”
With that, she pulled free of my embrace, spinning through the snow towards the rover. The blanket billowed around her and I admired the view it gave me of her curvaceous body.
She made it two steps before slipping with a yelp. Without thinking about it I lunged, catching her before she hit the ground. Her breath caught as she looked up at me.
“Another advantage,” she said, her voice a whisper. Her hands slid up my arms, and I felt her heart race where our bodies pressed together. Her lips trembled, and I pulled her up towards me for a kiss.
Loud beeping from the rover shattered the moment and I muttered a curse. Doing my best to ignore it, I swept Megan into a kiss, but the noise wouldn’t stop, and she pushed me back with a frown.
“The battery’s charged enough to move,” she said, and I let her go, cursing the solar charger’s efficiency.
Being in a confined space with her and not grabbing her wouldn’t be easy, but we had to get moving. More scroogians would be here soon, checking on the missing patrols. We’d been lucky so far.
Megan pulled on her clothes in a hurry, tying the loose bits together haphazardly. I pulled on my pants too, in the hope that if we were dressed, we’d distract each other less.
Looking at my mate, I realized that hope was in vain. The colorful scraps of cloth did little to hide Megan’s curves, and they called to me. All her clothing did was make me want to tear it off.
Disgruntled, I threw myself into a seat, cramped in the space designed for a human. Megan pushed the throttle forward and we moved off, driving across the fresh snow left by last night’s storm.
“We’re leaving a clear trail,” she said nervously. “Anyone who comes looking won’t have any trouble finding us.”
A small display showed the terrain behind us and I gritted my teeth as I looked at the churned-up snow in our wake. Above us the sky was clear of clouds — no hope of a fresh snowfall to cover the tracks.
“We have a time limit then,” I said. “We shall simply have to reach the colony before the scroogians catch up with us.”
Megan pulled a face. “Now that we’re on our way, I’m not sure I like our odds. Are you certain it’s a good idea to head for Nicholasville? We’ll be taking the Christmas cheer straight into the scroogians’ hands.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. The odds weren’t exactly on my side. “But if I don’t deliver it today, I’ll fail my mission.”
“Isn’t that better that than giving it to the scroogians?” she asked. “They’ll seize it like they have everything else in the colony. Why even bother fighting them if you’re going to give them your cargo?”
I laughed, though her point was a fair one. “Firstly, I had to fight to protect you, beloved. No one who threatens you will survive the experience.”
Her breath caught again, and a faint blush spread over her cheeks before she turned away.
“Secondly,” I continued, “I will not fail Santa or your people. All we need to do is distribute the cheer to the humans and they will be safe from the scroogians.”
I tried to make that sound like a simple goal, though I knew it wouldn’t be. Megan’s worried silence showed that I hadn’t fooled her any more than I had myself.
“Fine,” my mate said finally, shoulders slumping as she gave in. “It’s not like I’ve come up with a better plan.”
I put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “We will make it work, beloved.”
Her breath caught at my words and a smile flashed on her face. The sight lit up my soul and I grinned back. Our situation might not be good, but we were together and that gave me strength.
“Could we double back and take the scroogians’ fliers?” Megan wondered, turning her mind back to practical problems with a visible effort. “They’re faster, and maybe no one would notice them flying in.”
I shook my head. “Genetic locks. Without a living scroogian at the controls they won’t do more than hover in place.”
“And you left us short of living scroogians,” Megan said, squeezing my hand. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“We shall simply have to fight our way in,” I said. “The scroogians are no match for me in combat, they have already lost fighters, and they are cowardly bullies. Do not worry.”
Megan pulled a face, but she didn’t argue. The rover drove on, taking us ever closer to the human colony and the fight that waited there.
The sun crawled across the sky as we made our way back across the ice field. Ahead the terrain changed, trees starting to show through the snow as we slipped between trees. I relaxed a little — now we’d only be visible from close by or overhead, so we had less to worry about.
Beside me, though, Megan’s tension grew until she practically vibrated. Eventually, as the sun passed the midday mark, I put my hand on hers and gently pushed the rover’s throttle back to neutral. The vehicle hummed to a stop.
“What’s wrong, beloved?” I asked. She laughed bitterly, turning to look out at the snow-covered trees. I gave her time to gather her thoughts.
“The closer we get to Nicholasville, the more certain I am that we’re driving to our deaths,” she said eventually. “You say we’ve got a chance, and maybe you can fight every scroogian on the planet. But it’s not just them, is it? They have a warship hovering overhead, and we have no weapons to deal with it. Its sensors will see us coming, right? And its guns will tear the rover apart. Or they’ll just teleport us aboard! I want you to succeed, Dhannar, believe me, but I don’t want us to die trying.”
My hands flexed, as though this were a problem I could tear apart. “That is fair. The warship is the greatest challenge. I have no choice, however.”
“No choice? You could just leave. We could just leave, head on out of here. Right? It would be rough, living with just the survival gear we have here, but we’d be together.”
“You are correct, my love,” I said slowly, turning her words over in my mind. There was nothing in it to argue with, but my mission pulled me forward. “I am sorry. I will not take you to your death. Take the survival gear and stay here, I will carry on alone. This mission is mine and I won’t risk your life on it.”
Megan whirled to face me, eyes red with tears. The sudden anger on her face was enough to drive me back, and for a moment I thought she might strike me.
“You idiot,” she snapped. “I’m not trying to save my life. I’m trying to save yours. If this mission means so much to you, you take the survival gear. Run. Get to safety, for my sake if not your own, and I’ll drive the rover home with your precious cargo.”
“I will not leave you,” I answered, taken aback by her fury. “Beloved, be reasonable.”
“You want me to be reasonable about this?” A bitter laugh. “Dhannar, you’re happy to go to your death, taking an unarmed rover agai
nst an alien warship, and you think I’m being unreasonable? If you insist on trying to make the delivery this way, I can do it as well as you can. Better.”
“Irrelevant. I won’t let you go into danger on your own, you know that.”
“Then you should know that I won’t let you race off alone either,” Megan said, crossing her arms. Tears welled in her eyes. “If you’re going, then fine. I’ll go too. But going in without a plan is stupid and it’ll get us both killed.”
I opened my mouth to retort, then closed it with a snap. My mate had a point, though I hated to acknowledge it. No plan I thought of dealt with the warship.
The thought of abandoning my mission scrabbled at the back of my mind. I’d never considered such a thing before — these deliveries were a sacred trust, and my oath bound me. I’d die before abandoning it. But would I let my mate die for the mission?
No. There had to be a better option. As I searched my mind for it, I realized I’d been going about this wrong.
“My love, you say you’d be better at this mission than me,” I said, forming my words slowly and trying to think rather that feel. The roiling emotions in my heart would not help either of us now. “Why? What would you do different?”
“I know the colony,” she said, sniffling and wiping tears from her face. “I can at least try to sneak in rather than just driving up to the gates and hoping no one sees us.”
“How would you do it, then?” I asked. Megan glared and I held up my hands. “No, love, I mean it. If you have a better plan, tell me now.”
I knew that expression, had seen it on other faces too often. Megan had an idea, not a plan, and was afraid to unpack it where someone else might laugh at her. My heart burned with anger for whoever had mocked her ideas, whoever had taught her to keep quiet rather than speak up.
She focused her gaze on the snowy trees outside, gathering her confidence. Silence stretched, and I let her take her time composing her words. Finally, she spoke.
“The river. It runs right next to Nicholasville, and it’s frozen over.” She sounded as though she was testing the idea as she spoke, growing more confident in it as she went. “This rover has every feature on the market, including the ridiculous ones — it’s fully submersible. If I drive us under the ice, it’ll hide us from heat scans, right? No one will see us coming. Then we burst out of the river and we’re right in the town.”
I frowned, swallowed my instinctive objections, forced myself to think it through. Dangerous, but perhaps safer than approaching in plain view. “That ought to work, as long as the rover holds out underwater. Does it have an air supply?”
Megan shook her head. “Only the air in the cabin. It can seal airtight, though, and we won’t be underwater for that long.”
Unless something goes wrong. I shuddered at the thought of Megan down there, trapped under ice and running out of oxygen.
“Unacceptably dangerous,” I said. To my surprise, Megan’s laugh sounded genuine.
“And just charging in is safer? Come on, Dhannar. I’ve seen you fight, and you kick ass, but against that warship?”
“The warship will still be there when you leave the river,” I pointed out. “Your plan would get us into town if it works, but that’s only the start.”
“I didn’t say it was a good plan,” she pointed out. “It’s better than yours, though. All we need is to figure out how to get the warship away long enough to make the delivery, right?”
“Both the ship and any scroogians on the ground. But aside from those minor problems, yes, your plan is an improvement on mine.”
We both laughed at that. Somehow facing the likelihood of doom made it easier. If our fate was sealed, we didn’t need to worry and could focus on enjoying our time together.
Megan’s hand closed on mine, squeezing. “I’m sorry I can’t help more.”
“You’ve done a lot,” I said. “And you are right. It is a better plan than mine, as much as I hate to admit it.”
I took a deep, unhappy breath. “There may be a way to make it work, though you won’t like it.”
11
Megan
The river had no name. Why bother when it was the only river we ever talked about? Maybe later colonists would laugh at our maps with The River on them, but for now it made sense.
Thinking about that distracted me from my crazy plan, and I needed all the distractions I could get. The ice creaked under the rover’s tires as I drove out onto it. My heart pounding, I edged the throttle forward.
Dhannar watched from the shore, unhappy. I saw it in his stance, the way he leaned forward as if to leap after me at any second. I bit my lip and waved, trying to look confident for his sake.
The ice cracked without warning and I shrieked, clutching at the wheel. Another, louder crack, and then the ice gave way. Knuckles white on the steering wheel, I shrieked as I plummeted into the dark water.
The river closed above the rover and I lost sight of Dhannar. At least he hadn’t heard my scream. If he had, he’d be diving into the icy river to drag me out of the rover — and that would be the end of the plan.
Wheels struck mud at the bottom of the river and I breathed again. The seals held, no water rushed into the cabin, I was fine. It wasn’t easy to believe it, but the plan was working. So far, anyway.
“Deep, slow breaths,” I said aloud over the deafening sound of my heartbeat. The oxygen trapped in the cabin with me was all I’d have until I surfaced again. Making it last was a matter of life and death.
Which meant no waiting around. I pushed the throttle again, felt the wheels spin in the mud then find traction. The rover moved slowly, clumsily, but it moved.
Beside me, the hologram map showed the path of the river and my location. Hopefully the conditions down here wouldn’t confuse the inertial guidance system, because it was my only way of navigating. The muddy, dark water gave no clue where I was, and turning on the headlights would give me away when I got closer to Nicholasville.
Dhannar and I had run the calculations over and over. There was enough air in the rover for me to breathe safely for at least four hours, and that gave him plenty of time for his part of the plan. It should give me time to reach Nicholasville too, but the rover wasn’t moving as fast as I’d hoped. I gave the throttle another nudge, carefully speeding up.
The hologram fuzzed and glitched, trying to keep track of my location, and I settled in for a long drive.
Nearly two hours passed under the river, and I wondered if I’d ever reach Nicholasville. Jackson’s super-rover turned out to be a bit of a letdown: its submersible mode didn’t live up to what the brochures promised.
The seals on the rover hadn’t held up, letting in constant drips around the doors. The air in the cabin grew damp and cold and stuffy, and every new drip made me wince, wondering if this time the seal would fail completely. Drowning in ice cold water sounded like an awful way to go.
I guess the people selling these things know most of their customers won’t actually use the features, I grumbled to myself. If I ever see Jackson again, I’ll teach him not to trust salesmen.
“Why did I have to do this alone?” I asked myself aloud. The answer was obvious — if Dhannar had come with me, the air would run out much faster. Plus, the plan needed him elsewhere.
None of that mattered now, though. I wanted him, wanted his comforting hand on mine, his words to encourage me, his touch to warm me. Just the thought of Dhannar left a hole in my heart where he ought to be.
This is a stupid plan, I thought, ignoring the fact that it was mine. We should have run away, found a nice cave or something, waited for the scroogians to leave. There’s got to be plenty of food to find out there.
Glancing behind me, I looked at the pair of crimson containers strapped to the rear seats. The smell of pine trees and mince pies still clung to them. It should have been comforting, but the responsibility weighed on me.
By midnight tonight they’d either be delivered to the colonists, or we’d have lost
the chance to save the colonists. Neither Dhannar nor I could abandon the colony while there was still something we could do to help the people trapped there. Even if that something was this stupid, ridiculous, near-suicidal plan.
The map hologram flashed, demanding my attention. I’d arrived at my destination. Or, at any rate, near it. Now I just had to hope that the next bit of the plan would work too.
I turned the rover towards the shore and cut the engine. We’d been conservative in our estimates, and thank god for that — getting into position took me almost three-quarters of an hour longer than we’d estimated. That still left a fifteen-minute wait before the next stage of the plan.
It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. Sitting there in the dark, water dripping around me, hoping that Dhannar’s part of the plan would go smoothly. Just thinking his name gave me a pang and I instinctively reached across to the seat where he should have been.
Will I ever get to hold him again? I couldn’t keep him out of my mind. Fighting it, I focused on remembering his smile, his eyes, his touch. The feel of his embrace. It didn’t help. My thoughts kept slipping to the future, to the things I hoped we’d do together. And as fun as those ideas were, they led me back to my fears that we’d already had our last kiss.
Thank god the trip had taken so much longer than expected: waiting a whole hour like that would have driven me insane.
At last my alarm went off. Whispering a little prayer, I pushed the throttle forward and let the rover build up speed. The motor whined as I demanded more power from it, and ahead of me the white wall of the iced-over surface got closer. Closer.
Crunch.
The impact threw me forward into my seatbelts with bruising force and the seals started to fail in earnest. What had been drips became trickles, threatened to become torrents. But the ice hadn’t given way.
