High Flyer (Verdant String)

by Michelle Diener

Iver sat down slowly, suddenly knowing why the two guards weren't back yet.

  Hana.

  Just the thought of her sent a thrill, a spike of emotion, through him, and he fought a shiver.

  Oniba shared a quick glance with Lancaster before he disappeared out the door, and something in the look they exchanged made Iver wonder if they were lovers.

  He leaned back against the wall and turned to Lancaster, waving his hand to encompass the runner. “Did you fly it here?”

  Lancaster was bent over a screen, and from the irritation in his expression and the way his finger was jabbing, Iver guessed the connection was cutting in and out. The joys of using tech on Faldine.

  Lancaster set the screen aside with a vicious thump. “Yes. I flew it here. The fewer people who know about this, the better.”

  “I recognize Nuness and Oniba. They work for you? For me?” He hadn't seen Oniba together with Lancaster, though, and wondered if their association was new, or if Lancaster had purposely hidden it.

  “They used to.” Lancaster shrugged. “They resigned from your employ a few months ago.”

  “To work for you in another capacity, I take it?” Iver shifted on the hard bench.

  “I get you want to work out what's going on here, Iver, but I don't have the time or the inclination to tell you. You trusted the wrong person, me, and now you and the VSC are screwed. Accept it and know that's just how it is.”

  Iver lifted an eyebrow. “The VSC is screwed? That's a pretty big statement. How are you going to bring down the whole system?”

  Lancaster lifted a shoulder. “Fine. The VSC's interests here are screwed. The rebels will rise again, and in the time it takes for the VSC to put them back in their place, some people who have offered me a good deal will take what they need from Faldine.”

  “And by the time we sort it all out, they'll be gone?” Iver wondered again what was hidden between Touka and Permeo.

  “Something like that.” Lancaster's smile was dry.

  “What could the Caruso possibly offer you that's enough to stir up war?” Iver wondered, as he made a guess on who Lancaster was helping. “And where could you even spend what they've promised you? The two breakaway planets are VSC vassals now.”

  “The Caruso--?” Lancaster shook his head in one quick, violent movement. “It doesn't--”

  Oniba stepped inside, his pant legs wet up to the knees. “Nuness is down. I've sent Linnel and Killian out to look for Lunn.”

  “Down, how?” Lancaster stood.

  “Dart in his back.” Oniba glanced at Iver with suspicious eyes.

  “You think Lunn did it?” Lancaster's question was sharp.

  Oniba tipped his head. “Who else?” He looked at Iver again. “Unless you think he's got someone out there.”

  Linnel stepped inside, crowding Oniba enough to force him to step aside. “We found Lunn, dart in his chest, dumped on the river bank. I told you Hana wasn't dead.” He flicked a look at Iver, and Iver had to fight back a smile.

  He cultivated a blank stare instead.

  “That true, boss?” Lancaster turned to him. “Is Hana out there?”

  “I told you, she died in the Sig.”

  “Sure she did.” Linnel shook his head.

  “You're frightened of her.” Iver said it slowly. “Why are you so frightened of her?”

  “Because she's not like the rest of us.” Linnel hissed his reply.

  Both Lancaster and Oniba looked at him strangely, as if suddenly aware they had someone unhinged in their midst.

  Iver's gaze clashed with Lancaster's, and he lifted an eyebrow.

  Lancaster turned away in disgust, but Iver could see he was a little rattled by Linnel's fear and obsession.

  Then Lancaster turned back, thoughtful. “You'd be more upset if Hana was dead.” He pointed a finger at Iver. “I should have realized it earlier. You've been hot for her since the moment I introduced you to her.” He tilted his head, as if to look at Iver from a different angle. “If she had really burned up in front of you, you wouldn't be this calm. You'd have tried to attack me.”

  “Maybe I got over her,” Iver said.

  Lancaster gave a snort. “No. I saw the looks. The times you sat up front in the Sig, when you usually sit at the back. Even last week you went to that diplomatic dinner and didn't take anyone with you. If you were over it, you would have.”

  He had him there. Lancaster was good at his job. That he was also a traitorous snake didn't negate that.

  Iver simply lifted his shoulders in a shrug. It could be interpreted any way Lancaster wanted to interpret it.

  “And even if you were over it,” Lancaster spoke slowly, “you'd still be a lot more upset I'd killed her than you are.” He jerked his head to the door. “Go get Lunn and Nuness in here, Linnel, and hunt Hana down. And hurry, we're losing time.”

  “She's probably taken Killian already.” Linnel looked out the Dynastra's doors into the darkness. “I haven't heard him since I stepped inside.”

  Lancaster stared at him for a moment. “Pull yourself together.” His bark was sharp and contemptuous. “She's a pilot, not special forces. She's been in a crash, spent the last day with no food or a comfortable place to sleep, and we outnumber her at least three to one.”

  “You're wrong.” Linnel drew himself up. “She's not . . . normal. She gets away with shit no one should. It's like the world doesn't touch her, and no one can fly like she does.”

  Lancaster's eyes narrowed. “Linnel, how did I miss that you're a crazy bastard?”

  “You were desperate for people who were happy to go back to the days of the war. It's been a bit too quiet since it was over.” Linnel lifted his shoulders. “But I'm not crazy. There's something wrong with her, not me.”

  Lancaster and Oniba shared a look, and Iver watched Linnel. He had the sincere, focused look of the obsessed.

  “What's your end game with Hana?” Iver asked him.

  Linnel looked over at him, face strangely, almost obscenely blank. “I want to expose her. Make her admit the truth.”

  “The truth about what?” The expression on Lancaster's face was one of distaste.

  Iver met his gaze. Sucks to be taken in by someone, doesn't it?

  “The truth that she's had some kind of enhancement. The military must have experimented on her.”

  “So after this extremely illegal enhancement procedure, they just let her leave the military?” Iver asked.

  Linnel shuffled. “I admit, that doesn't make sense, but she still goes to the base once a month. To check in.”

  “She volunteers as a mentor to the new trainees,” Lancaster said.

  Iver looked at him in surprise. He hadn't known that.

  “That's what they say.” Linnel must have heard how crazy that sounded, because he shook his head once, in annoyance. “Don't believe me, then. You'll see. She's out there, and she can't be killed.”

  “Can you hear yourself?” Oniba asked.

  Linnel curled his lip and shook his head, then stepped out into the darkness.

  The moment he was gone, Oniba turned an expressive face toward Lancaster.

  “I know.” Lancaster looked out into the darkness after him. “He's not just a loose end, he's a liability.”

  “This is the first time I've heard him talk crazy like that.” Oniba moved toward the door himself. “You going to be okay watching Sugotti on your own?”

  Lancaster grunted a yes, and Oniba stepped out in Linnel's wake.

  “So, it's just you and me, now. Is Hana out there?” Lancaster leveled the SAL in his hand at Iver as he moved back to the bench to pick up the screen he'd been working on before.

  Iver smiled. “More likely one of your guys decided to take out Nuness. He's enough of an asshole for it.”

  “And Lunn?” Lancaster's eyes narrowed. “Someone took him out, too.”

  Iver shrugged. “Maybe you hire a lot of crazy assholes. I know I hired at least one.”

  “Funny.” Lancaster drew
back his lips in a parody of a smile, then glanced down at the screen.

  Iver saw him scowl at it as if he didn't like what he saw. The expression was so petulant, Iver couldn't hold back the flare of rage.

  “So, you must have drugged me that night you tagged me in the back.” He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

  Stupid!

  Stupid to be baited into giving important information away.

  “I didn't want to do it, but you were getting closer to that sky lane trial, and you wouldn't consider another route, you just had to have it between Permeo and Touka.” Lancaster tapped at the screen with hard, irritated jabs.

  Iver lifted his shoulders. “You were subtle. I didn't even notice you were pushing for another route.”

  “I wasn't. I had someone else do it.” Lancaster shook his head. “But you always have to be right.” He bent his head over his screen, muttering curses beneath his breath. “Yes, we are fucking on our way. Just running the preflight checks.” He tapped harder, jabbing at the screen.

  Iver went very still. Lancaster wasn't talking to him, or even himself, he was muttering to whoever was communicating with him on the screen.

  And he was lying to them.

  But that seemed to be how Lancaster rolled.

  “The sky lane route isn't a matter of opinion.” Iver picked up the conversation as if he hadn't noticed anything. He cast his mind back to the meetings he'd had about the route. About who had tried to argue for a different site. Couldn't think of a single one. “Permeo and Touka are the two biggest cities. The sky lane has to be able to work between them. If it doesn't, I've been wasting my time here.”

  “Maybe it really is as simple as that.” Lancaster rubbed a hand over his short, military cut. “Doesn't matter. It can't go ahead.”

  “It's going to.” Iver looked out through the Dynastra's door, aware that it was very quiet out there. “Whether I'm dead or not. I sent all the plans to the VSC last night.”

  Lancaster looked up this time, the move jerky. “You didn't.”

  “I did. I even spoke to Carina personally. She sends her regards to you, by the way.”

  Lancaster closed his eyes. “I wish you hadn't done that.”

  “Sorry, I didn't realize you were planning to sell out the VSC in general and me in particular, or I'd have kept it to myself.” He realized he was breathing heavily, so enraged he could barely draw in enough air. “What the fuck are you doing, Lancaster? There's nowhere you can run, nowhere you can spend whatever funds the Caruso have promised you. What could you possibly gain from this?”

  “That's your problem, Iver. You think everyone follows the rules. There were times when I . . . didn't, and someone found out. Threatened to expose what I'd done, and I am not going to be imprisoned.” He shrugged, shuffled backward, and started up the engines. “It sort of spiraled from there. You take one step, and then another, and then before you realize it you are so far down the path, there's no going back.”

  “We're here, with you about to kill me and the war about to restart because you were blackmailed?” Iver stared at him, and Lancaster looked away.

  “Doesn't matter, I told you. It is what it is.” Lancaster glanced at his screen, and then looked out into the night. “Come on, slackers. We have to go.” When he turned, his SAL was steady on Iver. He moved to the doors and glanced out into the night, his foot tapping impatiently. Then he went still. “How did you find the tag?”

  That's why Iver had regretted saying anything about it. He knew if Lancaster thought about it for any amount of time, he'd realize there was a big hole in Iver's explanation.

  He bluffed it out. “When you came directly toward where I was hiding, I knew I had to be tagged. I remembered the camp trip straight away.”

  “But you got rid of the tag.” Lancaster leaned back against the bulkhead. “How did you get it out? I put it in the one place you would find it hard to even touch, let alone cut out.”

  Iver said nothing.

  “Shit, Hana is out there, isn't she?” He shoved the SAL toward Iver as if he wanted to fire it, and there was murder in his eyes. “Shit. We can't just go, we have to round her up, too.” He kicked out at the wall and the hand holding the SAL trembled.

  “This is--” Lancaster pressed his lips together in a tight line, trying to find control, and then, SAL still pointed at Iver, he moved to where two bags hung from hooks near the door and dug inside one, brought out some restraints.

  The end of the road was here, Iver realized. He had gotten as much information out of Lancaster as he was going to get.

  His hand closed around the damp towel someone had left on the bench beside him and he threw it at Lancaster's face. Then he launched himself forward, taking Lancaster down hard.

  He punched his former friend in the throat and flipped him over, ripping the restraints from his hands and jerking his arms back to slide them on.

  When he got to his feet, he stood over Lancaster for a moment, listening to his former friend's gasping attempts to breathe--breathing heavily himself.

  A scream of rage from outside galvanized him.

  He bent down and grabbed Lancaster's SAL, then jumped out the Dynastra's door.

  The shocking, blinding flicker of laz fire made him stumble as he landed on the ground.

  Who would be so stupid?

  It flickered again, not shooting straight toward where it was aimed, as it would on Arkhor, but leaping and dancing like freed lightning, splitting in two to go left and right.

  The light winked out, but Iver had seen Linnel outlined in the laz fire, facing away from Iver and the Dynastra.

  He had no problem shooting Linnel in the back.

  He fired his SAL and watched the ex-lieutenant fall forward.

  “Hana?”

  “Here.” She walked out of the darkness, the pack on her back, a SAL in her hand. “The others are down.”

  “Lancaster is tied up in the runner.” He held out an arm and after a moment of hesitation she closed the distance between them and he pulled her in close, kissed the top of her head. He felt suddenly weak. The idea of her out here alone, taking on Lancaster's thugs one by one, made him feel a little sick.

  She went still beneath him, and then she ran a soothing hand down his back. “I'm glad you're all right.”

  He tightened his grip for a moment and then turned, arm still around her, to look at Linnel. “We should kill that one,” he said. “He's not sane when it comes to you.”

  The fucker was mad. Using a laz? It was practically suicidal.

  Hana turned to look at Linnel, too. “I know.”

  “Do you know why?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “During the war, toward the end, we went out in a squadron of four Dynastras. My runner was the only one that came back. His lover was in one of the others--shot down. I don't think he's been right since then. He thinks there's some kind of conspiracy, although nothing about what he says makes any sense.”

  Some of it did, though.

  Iver remembered her fingers moving over him, looking for the tag.

  Now those same fingers suddenly curled into fists, grabbing handfuls of his jacket, and she looked up.

  “Something's coming,” she said, and there was that flat quality to her voice again.

  “What?” He tilted his head.

  “A runner.” She narrowed her eyes. “Coming in fast and high.”

  There was a flicker of light high above them, and then Hana pulled him down, face first into the dirt.

  He felt the low, hard whump of the SD3 hitting the Dynastra behind them to the core of his bones. He crawled over Hana's body to shield her as flaming pieces of Lancaster's runner fell around them. One sliced into the ground less than an arm's reach from him.

  He lifted himself into a crouch, arms on either side of Hana's back, and turned to look at the inferno.

  Lancaster had been in there.

  Hana nudged him and he stood, pulling her up with him.


  She looked up at the sky. “They're going.”

  “How do you know that?” He couldn't help the slightly accusing tone.

  She lifted a brow when she glanced over at him. “I've got good hearing.” Her expression dared him to make something of it. “I suggest we get moving before Lancaster's crew wake up. My guess is they won't be too happy when they do.”

  He gave a nod. “I think Lancaster foolishly told whoever he was working for that I didn't die in the original hit, and he was going to set something up to make it look like I'd died afterward.”

  “That would have been difficult to pull off with the caliber of investigators the VSC would have sent in.”

  Iver gave her a nod. “Guess it was easier to make Lancaster part of the tragedy, which means he wasn't as important as he thought he was.”

  “You get anything out of Lancaster about what's happening?” Hana adjusted the pack on her back, and he grabbed the back of it, tugging it off her shoulders.

  She went still, back turned to him, then shrugged it off and let him take it.

  “I got a few things out of him.”

  “So, can we go back in to headquarters?”

  He hesitated. “Someone else was involved. Probably more than one person. But with Lancaster gone, I'm not sure how they'll react.”

  “So what's the plan, other than getting to Touka?”

  “We contact Carina.”

  She looked over at him, face quizzical.

  “Admiral Carina Valerian. Head of the VSC fleet for the Faldine system.”

  “Oh, that Carina.” She gave him a dry look. “My former boss.”

  “Oh, yes, she would have been.” Iver grinned at her as he followed her across the river, jumping from rock to rock to reach the other side. “Guess you'll feel right at home, then.”

  Chapter 8

  Touka City shimmered up out of the haze, a handful of very tall buildings rising up in imitation of the Spikes behind them--although the soaring majesty and height of the mountains dwarfed them.

  Hana stood, feet braced, hands on her hips, and just drank it in for a moment.

  Of course, the buildings weren't just constructed as high as possible to mimic the mountains. Like her, VSC tech worked better when it was far from the magfields buried in the ground. Touka would not have been able to communicate with the rest of Faldine if it hadn't gone up.