It was the one card he could play that would break her heart, and he knew it. After all, she had never wanted to leave home—at least, not forever. “Marriage to Onred would have done the same thing.”
“You have no need to leave. I will protect you from Onred. You can marry whomever you wish.”
“No. I can’t.” Anya turned away before he saw the truth in her eyes. He was a perceptive man. It wouldn’t take a space scientist to see through the flimsy, self-protective layers to her heart.
Silence elapsed. “I won’t leave you here.”
Anya gathered up her things and pushed them into the black bag. “I’ll go with you under one condition.”
“What?” He sounded grim.
“Fly me to my uncle’s territory and leave me there.”
Joshua’s gaze flickered.
“No tricks,” she cautioned. “Or I’ll escape again. You can’t keep me a prisoner.”
Softly, he said, “Now I am your captor? Your guard?” Temper heated his eyes to tawny fire.
She stiffened, and lifted her chin. “Of course not. But I need freedom. I want to find out who I am, apart from you…and my family.”
“Apart from me.”
“You are no longer my protector, Joshua. Let me go.”
His fingers curled around her wrist, and he drew her close to him. “I will always be your protector,” he said through his teeth. “Accept that. Finally.”
“Let me go.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Please.”
His gaze remained locked with hers, but he did not release her.
A piercing shriek broke the silence. Then came a distant, guttural boom and a hissing whoosh, like the explosion of an air cannon. The ground shuddered.
“What was that?”
Both bolted into the night. Far to the north, low on the horizon, a bright yellow ball mushroomed, rimmed with crimson. Whatever it was, it had happened a great distance away.
Anya stared in shock. “What…”
“No. God almighty.” Joshua’s words sounded like a strangled prayer.
“What is it?” she cried out.
Surely it was too far away to be…
“Astana.”
The yellow mushroom roiled higher, billowing into an angry, orange-red cloud, rimmed with black, devouring its prey like a greedy, voracious monster.
CHAPTER SIX
“No.” It could not be Astana.
Anya staggered backward. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.
But Joshua’s very silence terrified her. He stood completely still, staring north, his features rigid.
“It can’t be!” Anya cried out.
“It is.” The horrible deadness in his voice made her gasp. Suddenly, she couldn’t catch her breath. It felt like all of the air had been sucked from her lungs.
“No,” she whispered, her voice tight and choking. “No!” Not Astana. It couldn’t be. And yet a descending, horrible certainty told her otherwise. No other city lay in that direction. What else could it be?
Joshua said nothing, his features as still as stone. But the bleak acknowledgement in his eyes struck to her very soul.
Something crumpled inside of her.
“No.” A high, keening wail left her throat, and Anya fell to her knees. It couldn’t be true! Her family. Marli, Damon, Elise, David… “No. No,” she screamed again. “Marli…”
Joshua’s arm clamped around her shoulders and held her tight. He was on his knees too, staring at the far horizon; at the inferno that had been their home. She wasn’t sure who held the other up.
Her home was gone, destroyed forever in one thermal fireball. At least it wasn’t nuclear. At least it wouldn’t wipe out all of Donetsk Territory. A hysterical sound rose in her throat, and she cried out gasping, incoherent belts of misery.
Thermal bombs were clean and precise, and the modern weapon of choice for mass destruction. They left no radiation, unlike the nuclear bombs which had destroyed the planet one thousand years ago, and had left it in a permanent ice age.
Astana was gone. Gone. She could not comprehend it. It could not be true.
“No.” She wept in gulping, uncontrollable sobs. Time became meaningless. Her throat felt raw and her jaw ached.
Slowly, after many long minutes, logical thoughts formed. She choked out, “Who could do such a thing?”
“Onred.”
“Why?” And then it hit her. “Because of me. It’s because of me they’re all dead!”
“Anya, no.”
“Yes. It’s because of me. Oh God, what have I done?” Weeping, she fell face first on the ground and screamed her inconsolable torment into the snow.
“Anya. Anya!” Joshua pulled her up.
Her wet face felt frozen. She didn’t care. She wanted to die right now. She wanted to be with them. “I should be there. Why them, and not me?” She could barely think.
Joshua’s arms went under her knees and he lifted her. She fought him. “Put me down. Put me down. That should be me.” She wept without ceasing. “Put me down! I need to go to them.”
“They’re dead.” Through her own torment, she heard his voice break. “Stop fighting. We’ve got to go inside. I have to think.”
Think? What good would thinking do? They were dead. All of her family was dead. Bitter, piercing wails tore through her as Joshua carried her inside the cave. He gently set her down against the wall, near the fire. Anya wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth, wretchedly weeping.
Joshua paced, his strides jerky. Anya pressed streaming eyes into her jacket sleeve. The world had ended. What else was there to live for, to fight for?
Onred had taken it all. Every vile curse word she had ever heard in her life spit from her mouth, damning Onred forever to hell. She didn’t feel better afterward, just more filthy. Guilty. It was all her fault. If she had just sacrificed herself, maybe peace would have come. It had been arrogant of her to try to achieve peace on her own. Who was she, anyway?
“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Anya.”
“It is.”
“A man who wants peace wouldn’t take the first opportunity to attack. You were right. We couldn’t trust him. He probably planned this all along. After he got you…” Joshua’s harsh words broke off, sounding strangled.
Anya wiped her face and took several deep breaths. “He’s won. Just like that, he’s won. The whole territory is his.”
“No, it is not,” he said with low intensity. “I am still alive, and so are you.”
“The other cities will be next.”
“No. He needs our greenhouses. Destroying Astana was symbolic. He destroyed our power base to send a message to the other cities.”
“They’ll surrender.”
“Not….” A crackle came from the gold, triangular patch on his collar.
“Alpha Victor; Tango Bravo. Copy?”
Joshua pressed the microscopic send button. “Go ahead, Tango Bravo.”
“Thank God!” Relief mingled with the panic in the young male voice. “I’m flying the northern border. Astana’s gone. Did you see?”
“Affirmative. Report.”
“Onred arrived at twenty hundred hours. I don’t know how he got through our defenses. I got a distress call from Control fifteen minutes ago. Onred’s shuttle left ten minutes later. Then Astana blew up.”
Joshua bit out an expletive. “Replay the distress call.”
Static crackled, and then a precise, clipped woman’s voice said, “They’re shooting in the halls. Onred’s men are armed. They’re sweeping the baron’s level. They’re…” hissing crackles popped. “They’re breaking in here.” For the first time, a small note of panic entered the woman’s voice. “What’s that?” She seemed to be listening to something else. “Report. They’ve kidnapped the Dubrovnyk children. I don’t know…” An explosion sounded, and the sound of running footsteps. A grunt. “No!” Then silence.
�
�Copy, Alpha Victor?” The young man’s voice shook.
“Retreat to Zebra Charlie Alpha,” Joshua barked. “All units report.”
“They’re tracking me!” Fear elevated Tango Bravo’s voice. “I’m taking evasive action. Get rid of your transponders, Alpha! Once you’re dead…”
Complete silence.
Joshua swore and stripped off his jacket and shirt. He wore thin snow wear beneath. He thrust one garment at Anya. “Cut out the transponder. We need to go. Now.”
With shaking hands, Anya flipped out her utility knife and hacked out the rectangular transponder from the back collar of Joshua’s shirt. For security reasons, the small device tracked his movements. She had already cut them out of her own clothing. As she did so, she wondered how Onred had breached Astana’s entire defense network. How else could the thermal have punched through their defense shield? And how could he track the pilots? To do it all, he must have gained access to Central Command and the military’s highly protected computer transponder codes. But how?
While Joshua yanked back on his shirt and jacket, Anya swiftly finished packing. She pulled out her heat reflecting tarp.
“Let’s go.” Joshua strode fast for the cave entrance.
“What about the fire? Should we put it out?”
“Leave it. They’ll think I’m hiding here.”
Anya followed him into the freezing night. Moonlight glinted off the white snow. Dark rocks looked like unfathomable black shadows.
Joshua said, “Onred’s men will be here soon.”
“What about your aircraft?”
“No time.”
Silently, Anya handed him one end of the tarp. Casting her a quick, approving glance, he took the end and pulled it over them both. Although the heat insulating tarp was large, they had to walk shoulder to shoulder. Joshua pulled her black bag from her hand.
She protested, “I can carry it.”
“Don’t argue.”
They walked fast over the frozen snow, heading uphill, deeper into the mountains.
Anya couldn’t seem to feel anything. Maybe she was in shock. She peered around the edge of the tarp at the glowing orange slice on the horizon. “Do you think they’re alive? Do you think Onred kidnapped my family?”
How could she feel any hope when all the other inhabitants of Astana were dead?
“Maybe. They could be insurance, in case they can’t kill me. Or you.”
“Hostages, you mean.”
Joshua didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Now a whole new set of worries tortured her. If her brothers and sisters were still alive, what would Onred do to them? Horrible images flooded her mind, making her feel sick.
“Maybe it would be better if they were dead,” she whispered. No. She couldn’t think like that. Anya didn’t dare cry, for it was so cold now that the liquid might freeze her eyelids together.
Joshua still didn’t answer. That scared her, for if he could reassure her, he would. That was his nature.
They both heard the whisper of approaching aircraft at the same time.
“Over there. Behind the rock,” Joshua said, and they swiftly knelt behind a huge rock topped with a deep cap of snow. Anya peered through a crack formed between the tarp and the rock.
Yellow lasers shot from the incoming aircraft. One flamed east, and a muffled explosion broke the quiet night. Joshua’s ship, no doubt.
Another aircraft shot at the mountain cave where they had been minutes before, and where Joshua’s transponders still lay on the floor.
Anya watched in silence. It seemed surreal. Onred had gained access to the military’s transponder codes. He had tracked Joshua to that cave. Onred had breached Astana’s high security military defense systems. But how had he done it? And when?
Another aircraft, close enough that Anya could see the black underbelly of Onred’s distinctive, v-shaped airbird, joined the first. Their mingled laser beams focused on the cave, and it collapsed in a thunder of rubble.
The two aircraft dipped to hover inches above the ground, while the remaining bird swooped over the terrain, undoubtedly seeking glimpses of heat or movement. Joshua slowly pulled the tarp down to the ground, forming a tent about them. They could not see the enemy, and hopefully the enemy could not detect them, either.
Boots scrunched in the snow. Anya’s heart beat faster when the heavy footsteps crunched closer. Beside her, Joshua crouched as solid and motionless as a stone. He gave no inclination of his intent until he whipped up the tarp and shot blue flame into the night. His laser was on stun. Less likely to be seen in the dark.
He darted out and the tarp fell in crisp, cool folds around her. Moments later, Joshua returned, pulling an inert man under the tarp. “I’m going to disable one of the aircraft. Cover me.” Before Anya could blink, he was gone.
Onred’s unconscious soldier breathed in muted whistles. It creeped her out, having him behind her, not knowing when he’d wake up. And Joshua. She pulled out her laser and crept around the corner of the rock, tracking his movements. Where was the other pilot? Each airbird carried one pilot, although the standard issue craft could carry up to four in a pinch.
She finally glimpsed Joshua’s cream jacket melding with the shadowed lumps of snow near the cave base.
What was he thinking? She had assumed they would hide until Onred’s men left. But passivity wasn’t in Joshua’s nature. Conquering was. Over the last ten years, seeing him only in civilized, diplomatic environments, she had forgotten the stories of his legendary—and often risky—heroics on the field of battle.
Both enemy airbirds continued to hover, engines softly whispering, above the snow. Red lights chased in circles around the lower edges. Orange lights from the console gleamed through the dark windows.
Joshua moved forward in a low crouch, laser at the ready.
Where was the enemy airman? Anya swiftly searched the landscape for movement, but saw nothing. Then she searched the sky for the remaining airbird, but it had faded into silence.
All at once, Anya guessed Joshua’s plan. He would disable one of Onred’s ships and steal the other. Once they’d ripped out the transponders, they could fly on blackout to her uncle’s territory. A terrific plan, of course. Only one man stood between death and freedom.
Anya edged out a little further, searching for Joshua’s target. Yellow light flashed toward Joshua. Anya pinpointed the source and fired. Blue light fizzed. Wrong setting. She kicked it up a notch, but before she could fire, Joshua shot and a dark shape fell.
Both of Onred’s men were down. They were free! When Joshua darted for the far ship, Anya grabbed her bag and tarp and ran for the nearest one. She could search for the transponders and rip them out.
“Anya, no!”
In surprise, she glanced at Joshua. His face was shadowed in the darkness, but his arm cut downward at a violent angle. Without thinking, she dove to the ground. Yellow flame seared her arm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Anya instinctively rolled into the snow, cooling the burning pain. Fiery lasers hissed above her, then stopped, leaving darkness.
Pain and fear seemed to freeze her thoughts. Who had won?
Joshua’s face appeared above her.
“Should have known,” she murmured. “You never fail.”
He swiftly carried her to the nearest aircraft.
The pain in her arm burned like crazy, but Anya managed to climb into the dimly lit aircraft on her own. “Don’t forget my bag…and the tarp.”
She took the seat behind the pilot’s chair and eyed the orange instrument panel. Finding and removing the transponders had been such a clean and simple goal a minute ago. Now her brain felt fuzzy. Where was Joshua?
A glance outside spotted her bag and tarp, still lying on the ground. Beyond them, a fallen man. His body was long and lean. He wasn’t the beefy man Joshua had first stunned and dragged behind the rock. The lean man who had shot her must have come from the third airbird.
Yellow light flickered from the direct
ion of the boulder. And then Anya understood. Joshua had returned to kill the first man. But why? He was no threat to them now.
Queasiness twisted in her stomach. She felt sick.
Joshua dashed across the frozen snow pack, scooped up the fallen bag and tarp and deposited both in the ship. Cold air and the metallic scent of snow billowed in with him. He slammed the door. With bare fingers, he ripped off the black instrument panel cover and jerked out wires. Metal pieces clattered to the floor. He grunted in satisfaction.
The engine whirred louder, and they shot up, dizzyingly fast, into the air. Anya’s stomach dropped with a sickening lurch.
Joshua pushed overhead buttons, and the next moment the airbird swirled right. Yellow fire spit. A sharp turn left, and more yellow fire lit the black landscape.
“You…blew up the birds?” Anya managed to keep her voice level. The truth was, the pain searing her arm choked her mind.
“No one will follow us. For a while.”
“Good.” Anya sat quietly, breathing shallowly, not wanting to draw attention to herself. They needed to escape this airspace, and fast. The craft’s antiradar field would help hide them from enemy radar, but nothing could disguise their movement. Satellites would pick it up within minutes.
An Altai voice spoke from the console, startling her. “Report, AirOpsOne.”
Tersely, Joshua muttered, “In pursuit.”
“We’re not tracking you. Blue and Nine are not responding. Report.”
“Damage. …Fading.” Joshua clicked off the microphone and pushed the throttle. The ship shot forward, and gravity pressed hard against Anya’s body, pushing her deep into the seat.
Silence ensued for long minutes.
“How long…do we have?” she got out.
“They’re busy, fighting resistance. We could have thirty minutes to an hour before they become suspicious. Don’t worry. We’re flying open aces. They won’t catch us.”
Anya didn’t need to ask what “open aces” meant. Obviously, it meant flying as fast as a demon escaping hell.
For the first time, she mustered the courage to look at her upper arm. The dim light filtering back from the instrument panel revealed that several inches were charred black. The wound didn’t appear deep, though. Was the black color her charred skin, or her snow wear, melted into her skin? Anya swallowed back bile and searched for the medical kit.
Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) Page 5
