High Flyer (Verdant String)
Page 17
The guard cursed, loosening his grip, and she stood, bent at the waist, feeling light-headed.
“Come on.” The guard grabbed her again, but he let her set the pace.
A door opened as they got close to one of the huts, and Iver stepped into the doorway, face tight, his movements stiff.
“You're hurt.” Well, she knew that already, had seen Bret kicking him while he lay unconscious on the ground, but the lines of strain around his mouth had her heart beating double-time in panic.
“I'm okay.” His voice was a croak, and he cleared his throat. “I wish you hadn't come.”
She stopped in front of him and gently ran a finger down the bruise on his cheek. “You would have.” She didn't need to say any more than that.
He went still, then gave a nod and stepped back inside.
Hana followed him in, leaving the door open behind her.
The big guard stood in the doorway, blocking the light, although there were sky lights in the roof overhead, illuminating the space in lieu of windows. He held out his hand.
“Oh, the pack.” She handed it over reluctantly and he set it on the ground and crouched down to go through it, pulling out each item and placing it on the floor.
“Stay in the hut,” he said when he was done. He left everything on the ground and walked away empty-handed.
“What's his name?” Hana asked, leaning against the doorjamb to watch him go.
“Kyle.” Iver joined her, moving carefully, and she turned to him, worry pressing hard on her chest.
“They aren't going to lock us in?”
Iver shook his head. “The huts are the usual VSC military temp accommodation with standard electronic locks. They don't work here. None of the doors lock, and they don't seem to have any restraints of any kind, so they're counting on our injuries to keep us tethered to camp.”
She nodded, distracted by the way he favored his side, and reached for the hem of his shirt to have a look.
“I'm all right.” He caught her hand in his instead, gave it a squeeze. “Just my ribs.”
She'd had broken ribs before, from a particularly bad crash in the war, so she knew how much they hurt. She bent down, looking for the medication from her pack to ease his pain and help with healing.
“What about you?” Iver put a hand on her shoulder. “You're so pale. You look worse than you did yesterday. Save the medication for your foot.”
She shook her head as she rose up with what she needed for his side. “My foot's fine.” She inclined her head toward the ruin, visible through the open doorway. “That's what's making me feel bad.”
He frowned at her. “The ruin?”
She leaned closer to him, put her lips near his ear. “What's under it. The engine.”
He pulled back, eyes wide, although he kept his arm in a hard band around her waist, anchoring her to him. “You can hear it?”
“I can't hear it, but I can feel it.” She swallowed audibly and touched her fingers to his chest, drummed out the timing. “It reaches right in and makes me sick.”
“How?” He caught her fingers in his.
“The same way I could feel where that tracker was in your back. The same way I can hear runners coming from miles away. The same way I can fly like I'm one with the machine.” She turned her face away from his, unable to look at him. “Because I am one with the machine.”
“Whatever you're thinking, whatever you believe about yourself, don't make the mistake of thinking for a moment it's going to change how I feel about you, Hana.” Iver grabbed her chin between his fingers and tipped her face up to his. “I already knew some of what you've just told me and it didn't stop me for a second.”
She gave a nod and then tried to eke out a smile. “We should probably have talked about this yesterday morning, uh, before things got a little heated between us.
“We're talking about it now.”
She heard the implacability in his voice, and shot him a genuine grin. “Understood. No straying from the topic.” She gave a Themis military salute and then lifted his shirt, juggling the medical supplies in one hand.
He kept his gaze on her and she sighed.
“It's hard to talk about because I don't fully understand it myself. That's why I was planning to spend a couple of days in the Spikes. I was going to look for answers, seeing as this is where I changed.” She admired his chest as he finally shrugged out of his shirt, and then got down to applying the cooling gel to his ribs.
He closed his eyes in relief. “How? When?”
“During the war, I crash-landed in the Spikes. I went down deeper than where we are now. I was piloting a Dynastra, flying out to fetch a team of soldiers retreating from their position, and I was the only one onboard. There was a sudden storm, one of those ones that just blow up out of nowhere in the Spikes, and I had to veer off course. I hit a dead zone. I'd had to fly lower than usual because of the storm, and I flew straight into it. I fought to get the engines started again, but I got caught in a downdraft and went down like a stone.” She applied the wrap band to Iver's chest as she spoke, and as soon as the two ends were joined together it expanded and then settled across his ribs.
He took what she guessed was his first deep breath since yesterday.
“I don't think I've ever heard of anyone encountering a dead zone at that altitude.” He tilted his head toward the ruin. “It wasn't . . .?”
She leaned back against the doorjamb and crossed one ankle over the other, closed her eyes and tipped back her head, enjoying the sun warming her eyelids and cheeks. “Maybe. It's crossed my mind a few times since I arrived here.”
“It would explain how your engines cut out, even above the mountain tops.” Iver pulled his shirt back on. “What happened next?”
“At the time, I thought I was dead. I remember the crash, remember seeing the Dynastra was on fire, and I crawled out of it.” She finally lifted her gaze to his. “And then, I don't remember. I sometimes think there was a necklace of silver beads. That it was wrapped around my wrist, across my palm, like I'd grabbed it up off the ground as I was crawling away. The next thing I remember, I was awake, the Dynastra was still burning, but I was feeling better, and I got up and started walking. A rescue team found me a couple of hours later.”
“The military never went back to find your runner?”
She shook her head. “I told them it was burned out. I was the only one onboard and I was safe. They had better things to do than risk another runner looking for a useless Dynastra in a dead zone.”
He gave a nod. “And after that?”
“After that, I knew I was different. There was something inside me. I thought I was going mad some of the time. But I was also faster, healed quicker, heard better.” She paused. “But the magfields on Faldine affect my performance. Flying--that's where I shine. High up, I'm at my best. Until I got a job working for you, and moved to Bero. Then I was at my best at home and at work.”
He tilted his head. “Is that why you applied for the job?”
“No.” She sighed. “I was bored with my old job. I needed more excitement, and I thought working for the head-of-planet would give me that. I didn't realize Bero was as free of magnetic interference as your headquarters. It was a wonderful bonus.”
“You could have left Faldine. Got away from the magnetic fields altogether. And there are places where the VSC military would have given you a lot of interesting things to do.”
She gave a nod. “Special Forces offered me a job a couple of times. But I couldn't leave Faldine until I worked out what had happened to me. This is where I got my upgrade, and I didn't want to go until I'd figured it out.”
“Your upgrade?” His eyebrows rose up.
She ducked her head and laughed. Shrugged. “That's how I think of it. In the beginning, it was separate to me. I had to force it to do what I wanted, not what it thought I should do. But now, after nearly two years, it's mostly part of me. Integrated.”
“You're thinking some kind of nanotech?”
“You never told anyone?”
She huffed out a laugh. “No.”
“And if you do manage to find out where you went down. Find some clue to what happened to you? Would you ask for help in working it out?”
She studied him. He was holding tightly to his control.
“You think I should?”
It was his turn to shrug, but it was a little too casual. “I understand why you didn't.”
“But?”
He sighed. “But nothing. It's your decision. I probably would have said something, and then regretted it for the poking and prodding that would have followed. But you might consider that the nanotech itself might have tried to influence you into keeping quiet.”
“No.” On this, she was completely sure. “Its imperative is my safety and well-being. There were times I was almost out of my mind with worry about what was happening to me, what it was doing to me. And I could sense it urging me to get checked out.”
“Its priority is you?” He blinked. “You feel that?”
“It's the one thing I'm absolutely sure of.”
“So if it is nanotech of some kind, it was developed to help its host. That's its sole purpose.”
“Yes.”
“I'm on the Scientific Council, and I can tell you that nanotech has been discussed many times. It's helpful in fulfilling a task programmed into it, repairing cells, or bone. But it has a limited lifespan, and it has a limited function. What you're talking about is nanotech that has been waiting possibly hundreds or even thousands of years in the open, that had the intelligence to find you when you landed near it, and then the ability to integrate with you, a being for which it couldn't have been designed, and that it retained and still does retain, two years later, the mission to keep you alive and well at all costs.”
“I have wondered if I really am a being for which it wasn't designed.” She threw out her most outrageous theory.
Might as well.
Iver frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I will need to find the place where I crashed again. It's a dead zone, so if I crashed there, maybe someone else crashed there, too, long before me. Maybe someone looking to settle on Faldine, which is relatively close to the other planets of the Verdant String. Who's to say the VSC planets are the only ones settled by our common ancestors? They had success settling the Verdant String, but what if they had some failures as well? What if Faldine was one of those failures?”
Iver stared at her. “You think your nanotech has integrated so well with you because it was designed for our ancestors who settled the Verdant String planets?”
“Yes.”
“But then we'd know about it, wouldn't we? At least some of us would have that nanotech in us.”
Hana shrugged. “It's just a theory, but when I think it, it feels . . . right. As if my upgrade is agreeing with me. That's why I want to find the place I crashed. See what evidence I can find.”
Iver blew out a breath. “I want to be with you when you do.”
She grimaced. “First we have to escape Bret's clutches.” She brought an arm around her middle, breathed in and out as she hugged herself tight.
“It's getting worse?”
She shook her head. “Not worse, it just isn't very pleasant.”
“And your foot?”
She wriggled it. “It's fine. I stayed out of the camp as long as I could to give it time to heal.”
“You're saying the magnetic fields are strongest inside the camp?”
“Either that, or the shield somehow affects my upgrade in a very similar way to high magfield interference.”
Iver looked over at the ruins thoughtfully. “Maybe I can sow a little discord here with that information.”
Hana nodded. “I've also taken some steps to make things difficult.”
Iver looked over at her. “What did you--?”
The sound of shouting cut off what he was about to ask, and they both stepped out of the hut to see what was happening.
Although Hana had a good idea.
She'd orchestrated it, after all.
A group of people approached the camp from the river.
Craven, Brynja, Barre and Tillis. The fifth person was a man who, unlike the rest of the smugglers, looked like a serious soldier. His uniform was pristine, and clearly not cobbled together.
So, maybe not a member of the group.
Maybe whoever was circling Faldine in a nearspace capable ship, waiting for the TellTale, had decided to imbed someone in with the smugglers.
They were shouting, and Tillis was hitting a flat metal sheet with a metal spoon as they approached.
“What the fuck?” Bret had come out of a hut a few doors down from them. “You led them here. You must have.” He turned slightly and pointed a finger at Hana.
“All I did was come to camp as you insisted. If they were watching the camp and followed me, that's not on me, that's on you.” She leaned against the hut wall and stared Bret down, unable to help the shiver that went through her.
His eyes were dead.
Bret turned away, but Hana noticed the flush on his cheeks.
He had made a mistake, and there was no way for him to shift blame. He had been the only one throwing orders around yesterday and issuing ultimatums.
“She's right. You didn't think it through, did you?” Grimms limped out of a hut, and put a hand on her hip, watching the approaching group. She was holding a SAL. She flicked a look at Bret and then started limping toward the wall.
Two guards jogged down the side of the wall, one from the direction of the camp's entrance, one from behind the ruin.
Kyle had stepped out of the hut right next to Iver's soon after Grimms and he gave them a hard look before he walked over to join her.
“That looks like all they've got in terms of defense,” Iver's voice was quiet.
It wasn't a lot.
There had been others yesterday, but Hana recalled how many had been carried back to camp on a stretcher, and guessed this was the best Bret could do.
The camp leader pulled a SAL from the back of his pants and walked toward the other four. “Shoot them.”
Grimms glanced back at him. “Why are they making a noise.” She kept her voice low. “This could be a diversion. Others could be coming over the wall on the other side.”
Bret conceded her point with a nod. “We still shoot them. Tie them up. Then go shoot their friends.”
She shared a glance with Kyle, then nodded.
Bret stepped between them, right up to the wall, lifted his SAL and shot Brynja in the chest.
She went down after a few steps, and as the others opened fire, those on either side of Brynja crumpled to the ground.
“Now what?” Kyle asked.
“Now we drag them over here and tie them up.”
Hana glanced at Iver. Tilted her head to indicate the back of the hut.
“You're up to something,” Iver whispered as they edged their way around the back.
She nodded. “Do you think you can walk out of camp?”
“I can.”
She would be stronger as soon as they were over the wall, but she was very aware someone might just decide it was worth their while to track the two of them down--whether Bret or Craven won this round she'd set up.
She would love to have been able to steal the lander, but that wasn't going to happen now.
Craven and his people had taken the information she'd left them and run with it.
“What did you do?” Iver's breath was short, as if every lungful hurt.
“Left a message for the smugglers on the road out of the valley. Told them to watch the river this morning and follow the person entering the camp, and I warned them everyone has SALs.”
“A distraction for our escape.” He narrowed his eyes. “How could you be sure they would notice the message in time?”
Hana shrugged. “I used one of the emergency flares in the pack and left the message beside it. It was the best I could do with what I had.”
She stopped at the low wall at the back of the huts and scanned the area for any smugglers that might be coming in the back way.
Iver came to a stop beside her and did a sweep of his own. “Looks clear.”
“Yes.”
Sudden shouting erupted behind them, and spurred on by it, she jumped over the wall, then turned to help Iver.
Iver was easing himself over when he stopped, his gaze snapping to a spot beyond her shoulder.
Hana closed her eyes, blew out a breath. “Who?”
“One of Bret's,” Iver murmured. “Baxter.”
Hana turned, found a SAL pointed at her face. The man holding it was the scientist from yesterday who'd returned from the TellTale launch site with Iver and the others.
“What's going on in the camp?” Baxter asked.
“Bret and the others are fighting the smugglers,” Hana answered.
“What did you have to do with that?”
“Nothing. It's possible the smugglers followed me or saw me coming in to camp, but I couldn't do anything about that. Iver and I saw the fight and thought it might be a good time to go our own way.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Baxter indicated with the SAL, and with a sigh Hana swung back over the wall.
As soon as she was on the other side, she fell to her knees and had to breathe carefully to prevent herself throwing up.
“What's wrong with her?” Baxter toed her ribs with a boot.
“She's got an infection in her foot from a trap the smugglers set in the valley. She's feverish.”
Baxter grunted and Hana tried to get to her feet. She didn't like the vulnerable feeling she had of being on the ground, and she didn't want Iver to have to bend down and help her up.
It would be agony for him.
She was too late. He knelt beside her, put an arm around her shoulders.
“That's got to hurt,” she said, turning her face to his. She rested her cheek against his neck, suddenly aware that sweat had combined with dirt from her walk through the valley last night to leave her face streaked with the fine black dust of the Spikes, and that she'd needed a shower for the last two days.