Anya sprinted outside. Moonlight glittered on the snow. To her left, dark Tien Shan spruce soared skyward. To the south rose the sheer bulk of the Tien Shan mountain range. She pulled on her face mask and slogged uphill, following the deep, snowy path she and Joshua had broken earlier. The hill seemed steeper than when she’d run down it. Her heart hammered. Sharp, cold air prickled her laboring lungs as she churned through the heavy, knee deep snow. Ignoring the painful burn in her muscles and the arctic air searing her lungs, she pressed on.
Long minutes later, panting heavily, she crested the rise. Ahead lay the quiet, moonlit clearing where the stolen Altai airbird awaited.
She had to hurry. Joshua was in danger. She felt it. Heart thundering so loud and so hard she feared it might explode, she plowed through the last two hundred meters. Snow flakes drifted from the dark, overcast sky. Gasping, she punched the door release and tumbled inside the cold aircraft.
Anya settled into the pilot’s seat. The Altai control panel was a little different than the manual’s example, but it took only a moment to find the two buttons to start the aircraft. The bird hummed to life, and warm air whispered from the vents.
Encouraged, she ripped off her facemask and murmured, “Please God, let there be an autopilot program.”
But the series of keystrokes that should have pulled up the autopilot program did not work. She tried again, with no better luck. For the first time, panic gathered in the pit of her stomach.
Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how heavily she had counted upon the autopilot program. What had she been she thinking? Could she really fly an airbird by herself? What if she couldn’t get it into the air? What if she crashed into a tree and killed herself? Who was she, to think she could fly a sophisticated military craft the first time out?
“Oh, God, help me,” she mumbled. Anya closed her eyes, picturing the pilot’s manual in her mind. A photographic memory would be helpful about now, but the best she could remember were fuzzy pictures. She had, however, taken care to memorize the start sequence.
First, she located the navigation bar and punched in the coordinates for Astana. When she got closer to Astana, she’d adjust her course for Joshua’s alternate location. Hopefully he’d broadcast it.
Next, the altitude. When Anya punched in “two hundred meters,” the bird shot skyward, spinning so fast she tumbled out of her seat. Her heart pounded. She was airborne! A glance out the window proved she hovered, spinning like a top, far above the black forest. It was disorienting.
“Whoa,” she murmured, and with difficulty clambered back into the seat and clipped on her safety belt. Cautiously, she engaged the navigation button. The spin jerked to a stop and the bird’s nose quivered northward.
“Thank goodness,” she whispered, and punched “10” into the speed throttle indicator. The ship crept forward. Encouraged, she increased the throttle to one hundred. A bit of gravitational push signaled success. A sea of treetops rippled by below.
A glance at her watch proved fifteen minutes remained until Joshua met Onred. No time to piddle around at one hundred kilometers per hour.
“Let’s see how fast you can go,” she murmured, and pushed the lever forward. Several Gs of force pressed her back against the seat. Not fast enough. She opened the throttle to Mach 1. The instant acceleration slammed hard gravitational force, like a heavy hand, against her body. A faint scream whistled outside, and fine vibrations shook the bird’s hull.
Exhilaration and fear charged Anya’s pulse. At least she’d arrive at her destination in a hurry. And then what? Should she land?
Land.
Anya slapped a hand to her forehead and groaned. “I am such an idiot! I am going to die.”
“I hope not,” said a hoarse voice.
Anya gasped, and cast a quick glance about the tiny cabin, seeking the source of the voice. It hadn’t come from the tiny earbud in her ear. Joshua’s forces were flying on silent. “Hello?”
“Hit the video screen, foolish girl,” the voice snapped. “Left button above the throttle.”
When she pushed the tiny black button, Richert’s testy face stared back at her. How had Tarim’s baron accessed Onred’s communications system?
An inspired touch to an adjacent button opened up a wide, black radar screen. Orange blobs bobbed on the horizon. They must be Onred’s forces, waiting for Joshua at Astana. She didn’t see Joshua’s birds, but they were probably flying with radar jamming on. Obviously, Onred, in his arrogance, didn’t feel the need to jam radar. Or perhaps some of his birds flew invisibly. Likely.
“Well?” Richert snapped. “Why are you ignoring me? Aren’t you curious why I’m on Onred’s video feed?”
“Because you’re in cahoots with him?”
Richert scowled. “You’d be dead if I were.”
“So why are you spying on me?”
“Where’s Joshua?”
Anya eyed Richert with suspicion. What were his motives? Clearly, he’d compromised the bird’s security system. He had probably thought she and Joshua would fly this bird to meet with Joshua’s secret forces. Probably the whole cabin was bugged with microphones and tiny video cameras. Richert couldn’t, however, hear her tiny earpiece linked into Michael’s phone. So, how much should she tell him?
Anya didn’t trust Richert any further than she could proverbially throw him. At the same time, he had pledged to help them fight Onred. In the interest of their temporary truce, how much should she say?
It wouldn’t hurt to tell him what he probably already knew.
“He’s about to meet Onred.” She checked her watch. “In ten minutes.”
“Why isn’t he flying your airbird?”
Anya bit her lip. “He locked me up so I couldn’t meet Onred. As soon as he left, I took this bird. I’m following him.”
“Where’d he get the new craft?”
Richert didn’t know about Zebra Charlie Alpha. So she’d better think up a plausible story, and fast. “He met some old friends. They’re helping him out.”
“Didn’t see him leave Tash.”
“Probably jamming radar signals. Do you see me?”
“Only on the monitor.” Richert sounded surly. “I’m trying to help you, girl. Stop treating me like the enemy. Tell me the full truth.”
“The truth is, Joshua’s going to meet Onred. He’s got a crazy, hair-brained scheme that’s going to get him killed.”
“Find that hard to believe.”
“What do you want, Richert?” Anya’s patience frazzled to nothing. “I’ve got to figure out how to fly so I don’t kill myself. I don’t have time to talk to you.”
“You don’t know how to fly?” Richert’s cackle blasted, reverberating through the tiny cabin. “You are a damn fool. Or a brave one. Haven’t decided which.”
“What do you want?” Anya repeated through her teeth.
“I want to help.”
“How?” she asked with thinly disguised impatience.
“Are you tied into Joshua’s communications network?”
“Yes.” She hoped.
“I’m on blackout here. Can’t hear anything unless Onred blasts the Alpha. They’ve gone and switched up all their networks. Tell me what Joshua says, word for word.”
Anya supposed it wouldn’t hurt to pass along general facts. Although she’d certainly censor any ZCA sensitive information. “Okay. Now, if you’ll be quiet…”
“I’ll teach you to fly.”
“What?”
“It’s been awhile, but I’m the best pilot ever flown the skies.”
“And the most modest, too.”
Richert unexpectedly smiled. “You’ve got a mouth on you that’s nothing like your mother’s.”
Anya rolled her eyes, refusing to accept that as a compliment. “Fine. Tell me how to land. I’m afraid I’ll kill myself.”
Richert gave terse instructions on landing and then more complicated lessons on interpreting radar. Thanks to his insights, she speedily read
the satellite atmospheric images and learned that the thickening flurries outside heralded the arrival of a severe snowstorm. Great. Another difficulty to navigate. He had instructed her to pull up a third screen to monitor sound wave disturbances—and thereby track radar cloaked ships—when Joshua’s first, terse words spit through the tiny ear piece. Anya’s heart jerked with quick relief. He was alive. And she was following the right network.
“Richert, I just heard from Joshua.”
“Repeat everything he says. Leave nothing out.”
Anya would not repeat Joshua’s code words to their old enemy. But as soon as he said something intelligible, she would. “Wait,” she told Richert.
Soon, it was obvious Joshua had set his transmitter on permanent broadcast. And moments later she gasped when the bloodcurdling order came to kill Joshua.
“Repeat, girl!” Richert snapped.
Anya repeated the ensuing conversation as best she could, and felt supreme relief when Joshua was dragged—obviously still alive—into the enemy aircraft. When Joshua gave the new coordinates, she punched them into her navigation system, and was relieved to see she was only seven minutes distant from the location. Should she tell Richert the coordinates? But what if he took the opportunity to shoot down Joshua’s forces? On the other hand, what if he joined them in fighting against Onred?
She didn’t know what to do. Clouds of snowflakes drove into the windshield, and a faint shudder indicated that the storm winds had arrived.
A few moments later, Belar’s words wiped all thoughts of the storm and Joshua’s coordinates out of her head. “Our mission is complete, Onred. You can blow up Omsk.”
Anya swiftly repeated the message to Richert. “They’re going to blow up Omsk!”
But Richert’s screen had gone blank. He was gone.
“Enjoy hell,” Joshua said, and then sharp static hissed into her ear.
Joshua! What had happened?
Anya zoomed in the radar to magnify the birds swarming upon each other ahead. A faint orange dot separated from the pack and plummeted toward earth. What was that? Or who was it?
A sick feeling in Anya’s gut made her fingers fly to disengage the navigational autopilot. Gripping the hand controls with trembling fingers, she flew toward the spot where the figure had plummeted. It couldn’t be Joshua. It just couldn’t be. She couldn’t be too late.
He couldn’t be dead.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Pain and blackness engulfed Joshua, and a light, filmy weight covered his face. Michael’s capsule had worked. The parachute had triggered. It was the only coherent thought that registered through his fog of pain.
Sizzling sounds rent the air. What were they?
Airbirds fighting? Lasers searching the ground—for him?
Joshua opened his eyes. Or had they been open before? He saw only pitch black. Unless he had fallen in a pit, it shouldn’t be so dark. These facts gradually seeped into his sluggish mind. His left cheekbone hurt like crazy. So did his right shoulder and knee.
Mind still moving with frustrating slowness, Joshua took inventory of his injuries. His hands were free. The impact must have snapped open his shackles. He flexed each of his limbs. Everything worked.
Something spit and sizzled nearby. It smelled like a burning tree. Onred’s lasers had set it on fire. Birds were looking for him. Smothered by this large parachute, it would take only moments to find him.
Joshua clawed the filmy fabric from his face. His shoulder felt like a ball of fire. He ignored it. Fresh, cold air bit into his skin; it was the only indication he was free. The gossamer parachute had not blocked out the light.
He was blind.
Joshua sat up, shoving the chute off the rest of his body. Turning on his good knee, he awkwardly climbed to his feet. His head swam and his brain pulsed in agony. Softly, he swore. He lurched forward. A tree scraped the right side of his face and slammed into his hurt shoulder. Joshua swore again and hung onto the tree, trying to orient himself. Trying to clear his foggy mind and figure out what was going on around him.
He appeared to have landed in a forest. The solar wind of a multitude of flying aircraft ruffled his hair. Snowflakes brushed his cheeks, too. When he concentrated, he also heard the faint whoosh of the swooping aircraft’s engines. Laser fire spit and sizzled off a target overhead.
He had to put distance between himself and the parachute. It would give Belar’s men a bull’s eye to start searching for him. Joshua left the safety of the pine tree and shuffled forward, arms outstretched. His toe stubbed a rock, but he managed to regain his balance before falling.
Air sheeted off an oncoming aircraft. Faint orange entered his right field of vision, and something sizzled. His chute?
For safety’s sake, he needed to hide in the forest, but he couldn’t see the trees. Frustration mounted, but Joshua ignored the temptation to sink into self-pity. He was alive. He would survive.
Joshua increased his pace, falling more than once, and taking comfort when rough tree bark rammed into his searching hands.
Orange flares grew brighter in his right eye. Those brief flashes also illuminated large, black shadows. Trees. He sought the dark, formless shapes, knowing they were his only, fleeting protection. Belar’s men probably tracked his body heat. It was only a matter of time before they found him. He wished he had Anya’s heat reflecting tarp.
Anya. The warm thoughts of being in her arms beat away the cold and despair. He imagined a warm fire, and going to her. “Anya,” he murmured. He needed to sit and rest. His brain felt fuzzier, and the cold threatened to take over his mind. Combined with shock and unknown injuries, it tempted him to slow down. To rest and take comfort in warm dreams. “Anya,” he whispered again.
Behind him, a tree branch splintered. Joshua ordered his sluggish legs to run, and managed a half-jog before he rammed into another tree. He hung onto it, telling himself to wait for another flash so he could see where to go next. The truth was, his energy was ebbing, and fast. He must have an open wound. He must be losing blood.
Joshua ran his hands down his arms and legs, and then stopped below his right thigh. It hurt like the devil beneath his frost stiffened pants and snow wear. Fingers clumsy, he pulled off his belt and cinched it hard above the wound. That should stop the worst of it.
Overhead, brighter orange lit the sky. Joshua pushed on, heading deeper into the forest. The whoosh and spit of laser fire hit the tree behind him. A pine ignited into a towering inferno, pushing Joshua’s dim field of vision out a few more meters. The ground appeared fairly level. Dark forest loomed ahead. He ran.
He needed a snow bank to burrow inside, to hide his telltale body heat.
Men’s shouts reached his ears. Joshua increased his pace and ordered his lethargic mind to assess the situation. It wasn’t hard to reach a conclusion. With airbirds overhead, tracking his heat source and relaying his coordinates to the men on the ground, he didn’t stand a chance. He would be lucky to survive another five minutes.
* * * * *
Anya’s ship flew into the middle of a brilliant, violently explosive air battle before she realized what had happened.
Slow down, Anya.
She cut the throttle to 100 kph, and the abrupt loss of speed felt like hitting a wall. Laser fire spit across her craft’s nose. Was it Donetski fire? She was flying Onred’s airbird. Stormy wind gusts buffeted the bird.
She needed to land. Joshua was down there, just ahead somewhere, according to the radar sighting of the parachuting figure. It had to be him. She felt it in her gut. An airbird shot by her starboard side, and laser fire spattered at her. Panic hit, and she nosed downward at a steep angle. The fire passed over her, but the tree tops rushed closer at an alarming rate. She pulled the nose up, leveling the craft. Her heart felt like it might beat right out of her chest.
“Oh, God help me,” she murmured. Anya had never prayed so much in her life as she had in the last twelve hours. Was God listening to her?
Joshua should
be just ahead. She’d touched a trace on his falling figure—if it had been him—shortly after she’d spotted it. Thank goodness, Richert had taught her how.
Now she flew under most of the pecking, spitting airbirds. A few, however, flew just above the treetops, shooting fire to the earth—toward the location where Joshua must have fallen.
An airbird bearing Altai’s distinctive red lights suddenly cruised alongside her, as if trying to look in her windows. It gave her the creeps. She had no idea what the pilot might be trying to communicate to her. Richert’s men must have disconnected it from Altai’s main communication channels when they’d tampered with the bird.
She needed to land.
Onred’s airbird veered left and joined a pack of others hovering above the forest floor, and creeping forward bits at a time.
They were tracking Joshua.
She had to get in front of them and land. The best place would be somewhere just ahead of where Joshua might be running. The only trouble was, a jagged cliff loomed directly ahead, bordered by tall, thick spruce.
Anya remembered the tunnel in ZCA’s hangar. Surely these pines were no closer together than that tunnel. Or maybe they were, but she didn’t want to think about it. She had to land now. She had to rescue Joshua before Onred’s men killed him.
Reducing her speed to 50 kph, she cut down, speeding through the forest. She swerved between trees, cutting left and right in jerky swoops around half fallen trees. Radar helped. Her eyes frantically searched for a moving shape on the screen. Joshua should be somewhere to her left. There! A hundred meters north, a man-shaped blob moved. Another hundred meters south, three figures converged on the first man. She dodged another tree.
“Now to land this thing.” She glanced at the control pad to slow the speed to 10 kph. When she looked back up, a tree branch hit her windshield. The craft spun sideways, hit another tree, flipped over and over and then rammed backward into something hard. Anya flew forward in her seat. Only the harness kept her from tumbling out. She hung upside down.
Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) Page 13
