“We’ll circle around to the other side. Those pine trees are closer to the support beams than we are here. Then we’ll slip by the security system and climb inside.”
Her eyebrows raised. “So simple,” she said in a deadpan tone. “And what do you mean, ‘climb inside’?”
Riding the elevator, of course, would be out of the question. Even if they hacked through security, internal cameras would broadcast their arrival.
“Gorno’s got step handles riveted to its support beams. They’re for maintenance. Astana had them, too.”
An interesting fact that Anya had forgotten. Of course, her father had lectured her and Elise all about Astana’s safety systems—especially how to call for help, if stranded at the base of Astana. He had never actually suggested climbing the ladders, however, if the elevator was out of service. A daunting endeavor. Gorno must rise at least a kilometer in the air. Normally, heights didn’t scare her—at least, not if she had a parachute. Unfortunately, she hadn’t packed one today.
She swallowed. “Right. Let’s go.”
“First, check your laser charge. I’ve got a few techy treats Michael wants us to share, too.” Joshua pulled off his backpack and hunkered down in the black shade of a pine. The sun had already slipped behind the western mountain, and arctic cold bit into Anya’s skin.
Her laser charge was fine.
“Motion sensor. Key code hacker.” Joshua handed her the items, and she clipped them to her belt. “Flexible handcuffs.” He gave her two sets.
These looked like loose, plastic shoelaces. She had never seen anything like them before. “How do they work?”
“Stretch them once, and they’ll instantly snap back into place. The stretch releases a solidifying enzyme, so when they shrink around the wrists, they harden to the consistency of an airbird’s skin.”
“Cool. Another one of ZCA’s marvels?”
“An old one.” Joshua handed her a pack of energy rations and a water flask. Munching, they headed north, to skirt the lake. While few sparse pine trees populated the northern lakeshore, bare branched, thick bushes were plentiful. It wasn’t hard to find a sheltered path to the other side of the lake.
Joshua had not removed everything from his pack. It still looked bulky. “What else did Michael give you?”
“Bombs.”
Now she wished she hadn’t asked. Pete came to mind, and the way his mission had literally blown up in his face. “You won’t set those off—not until you’re safe, will you?”
He didn’t answer.
A sick feeling arose. “What exactly is your mission, Joshua?”
“To disable security and rescue your family.”
“And?”
“Permanently incapacitate Gorno.”
“What does that mean? Will you blow up the whole city? You’d kill all of those people?” Horror mushroomed. Most of the citizens of Gorno, like Astana, were innocents. Women, children, the elderly. “You can’t!”
* * * * *
Joshua wasn’t surprised that Anya would immediately jump to the conclusion that he was a cold-blooded monster. He had killed the half-unconscious Altai man by the boulder, after Anya had been shot in the Altai attack. She knew he’d been the clean up man for the military. He had killed hundreds of people in his life, and he wasn’t proud of it. His soul was blackened, perhaps permanently. But he had never killed an innocent.
Quietly, he reassured her, “I won’t. Not if I can help it. I’ll plant the charges in their power generation room, and in their computer and communication centers.”
Her look of horror faded. He wanted to touch her pale skin and tell her that he didn’t want to hurt anyone, ever again. But he was a soldier. War meant death. He would feed her no false promises.
“Good.” Anya offered a tremulous smile. Devotion shone in her eyes—and still, hero worship. One day, she would learn that he was only a man, and not worthy of her. Not in the least. But he couldn’t disabuse her fantasy now. Strong confidence in him meant belief in herself, and in their mission. That confidence might provide them the razor thin chance to succeed.
This time, he did allow himself to gently stroke her soft cheek. “We’ll succeed, Anya.”
Her eyes glowed. Softly, she said, “I know.”
Even though he was a realist, for a moment Joshua almost believed it himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Anya and Joshua crouched in the bushes. The maintenance shacks were ten meters distant. According to Joshua’s computer, a low intensity shield encircled Gorno’s foundation, including the Tek-Lite diamonite maintenance structures, which were made of a special blend of silicon and steel. Rodent and rabbit corpses lay scattered on the ground, clearly marking the energy field’s invisible, electrical line.
It was so quiet. No one seemed to be about, which seemed strange to Anya. And yet, if everything in Gorno was running smoothly, why would crews sit in the cold maintenance shacks?
“Maybe it’s a holiday,” she whispered.
He grunted. “They know something’s going to happen, so they’ve hunkered into their city to wait.”
“Where are their military hangars?”
“To the north. Richert’s men will attack there first.”
“Maybe we should wait until dusk to break in. It’s only another hour. The air battle would camouflage our entry.”
“We’ll wait thirty more minutes. That’ll give us half an hour to get up the ladder. I’d like to time our break-in to Gorno with the first attack.”
With a nod, Anya fell silent.
“Stay here. I’ll find the source of that energy shield.” Computer in hand, Joshua crouch-walked south.
Anya stared up at Gorno’s giant, curving steel stalks. What would it be like to climb so high? What obstacles would they meet at the top? How could they possibly break into Gorno?
Her thoughts returned to more imminent problems. How would they breach the deadly energy shield? A stiff, dead rabbit lay nearby, its spine unnaturally arched; a testament that it had died in terrible pain. Even if they did manage to breach the shield, how could they climb up the steel beams without being detected? Surely cameras swept every centimeter of this foundation. Not to mention the hidden lasers primed to fire when infrared sensors were triggered.
Joshua returned. His faint smile lifted her spirits. “I accessed their wireless network.”
“What do you mean?” Anya peered over his shoulder. A multitude of pictures edged his computer’s main screen.
“Each of these,” he tapped the pictures, “are cameras. I can copy the feed, then send a subroutine to each camera, looping the new feed. The cameras will only ‘see’ what I send them. They won’t see us at all.”
“Great. But what about the infrared sensors and the shield?”
“I’ve mapped out a path around and under the sensors. It’s logged into my computer’s grid, and locked in by GPS. The computer will help us each step of the way. The shield is more tricky. I’ll need to disable it for a few seconds. That will probably trigger an alarm.”
Any alarm sent to Gorno would likely send down droves of soldiers. Especially if they were on tenterhooks already, waiting for an attack. There had to be another way.
Her gaze returned to the poor, dead rabbit. She said, “Instead of turning off the shield, could we break through it somehow? Or would it kill us?”
“Full strength would kill us. Why?”
“I know breaking through would probably trigger an alarm, too. But the Altai may not find that alarm suspicious. Rabbits hit the shield all the time. Maybe we could trick the cameras when they check. We could send a feed of two new dead rabbits. Security might believe they tried to break through, instead of humans.”
“Good idea.” His fingers flew over the screen. “I could reduce the shield’s power. We’d get a shock, but survive. The fluctuation might be noticed, but I’d program it to occur at the same time we dive through. I’ll program the new feed for the rabbits to start the same inst
ant. If Onred’s men rewind the footage, we might be in trouble. Those rabbits will appear out of nowhere. But it’s a chance worth taking.”
Anya was pleased that her idea would help the mission.
“I’ve set up all the new feeds,” Joshua muttered. “Now I’ll start them. Then we’ll need to move the rabbits.”
Anya didn’t want to touch one of the cold stiffened corpses, but she gamely picked up a grotesquely twisted rabbit by one of its frozen paws while Joshua retrieved another. Consulting his computer, he headed north again, toward the base of Gorno.
“We’ll need to toss them in,” he said, “because I don’t want our footprints to show up on the new camera feed. And we’ll need to be careful. The rabbits can’t hit the shield, or security will wonder why they don’t immediately see the cause on their monitors. I’m already feeding an old loop so they don’t spot us. The new feed will take a minute to make.”
“You can have the honors.” Anya surrendered her rabbit to Joshua, who tossed it with gentle grace toward the invisible shield. A faint sparkle shimmered, but that was it. His next toss was better. The two rabbits lay side by side.
“Now I’ll make the new feed…” Long moments passed. “Done. …Wait a minute.” Joshua swiftly pulled his phone from his pocket. “A text from Michael,” he reported. “Onred’s transmitting on Alpha.”
Anya crowded closer to see.
Onred’s hated face filled the screen. “Your double-cross has born fruit, Anya. Your sisters and brother have been tortured. They will be executed in two hours. It will be broadcast on Alpha.” The scene switched to reveal her three siblings sitting hunched close together, clothes soaking wet, and shoulders shaking with cold. The camera zoomed in on Marli’s bruised, tear slick face. Anya gasped aloud. Marli was shorn bald. All of her beautiful blond curls were gone. Elise’s white head looked as smooth as an egg, too. Multiple bruises darkened their faces. David still possessed his hair, but his eyes were swollen shut, and his face was a bloody mess.
Anya gasped aloud. “Marli,” she choked out. “Elise! David. Joshua.”
He pulled her hard into his arms and she buried her face in his shoulder, trying to muffle her sobs, for fear Gorno’s sensors would hear her. All the same, she trembled uncontrollably, and soft, mewling sounds tore into Joshua’s shoulder. Wordlessly, he held her tighter, his jaw pressed into the side of her head.
Long minutes passed before Anya could control her grief. She pulled back, sniffing softly. Joshua pressed a soft napkin from lunch into her hand, and she blotted her face. Chin trembling, she looked at him.
The hot, savage fire in Joshua’s eyes comforted her. Onred would pay for his crimes. Joshua would see to it. They both would see to it.
“Ready?” His voice was level, but the underlying steel and determination strengthened and steadied her like nothing else could. “We’ll need to go through together.”
Anya’s hand curled around his strong one. “Yes.” She was ready to rescue her sisters and brother. At last, cold fury trembled through her. She would rescue her family. And if she saw Onred, she would kill him herself.
She glanced skyward. God help us.
* * * * *
At a dead run, Joshua and Anya punched through the shield, arms and shoulders first. White hot current licked through Anya’s pores. Pain sizzled. A high-pitched buzz filled her brain, and then she was down, cheek squishing into soft snow.
“Come on.” Joshua urged her up, and she staggered after him, zigzagging and then ducking and sliding under invisible infrared sensors, plowing toward the steel pillars. The shock didn’t seem to have affected Joshua at all. Anya’s head vaguely ached. Worse, her thoughts swam like floating, disconnected electrical fragments.
Joshua directed her hand onto a u-shaped rod, which was riveted onto one of Gorno’s steel pillars. His fingers curled over hers, securing them in place. “Are you all right?”
When her disoriented gaze met his, Joshua’s eyes narrowed. “Take a breath.”
She obeyed. Slowly, her disjointed thoughts fused. “I feel funny. Like my hair is standing on end.”
He smiled faintly. “It’s not. Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine.” She hoped.
“You go first. I’ll follow, in case you need help.”
He didn’t believe that she was fine. Maybe that was for the best.
Rung by rung, Anya slowly climbed the pillar. The Alpha video of her beaten, abused family ran over and over through her head, torturing her. What exactly had Onred done to them? Was he torturing them again, even now? Tears blurred her eyes, but she blinked them back. She couldn’t think about it. Not now. Marli, Elise, and David would live for two more hours. She and Joshua needed to quickly get inside Gorno and rescue them.
She focused on the long, endless climb. Half a meter separated each metal step. As they climbed higher, the steps curved with the steel beam so they climbed on top of the supporting pillar, rather than hanging below it. After the first ten steps, she refused to look down. Looking up wasn’t much better. Gorno looked as distant as the moon.
“You okay?” Joshua asked, when she paused for the third time.
“Fine.” Her thoughts had settled, but the jumpy, shaky feeling in her muscles had not improved. Worry and nerves might explain them better than the lingering aftereffects from the shield’s shock, however.
“No one’s investigated the rabbits. That’s a good sign.”
“So far, so good,” she agreed, and with determination continued her upward climb.
It occurred to her that their progress seemed too easy. Were they being watched? What if Onred’s men waited for them at the top, ready to shoot them, or push them a kilometer to their deaths?
With difficulty, Anya pushed those morbid thoughts from her mind.
It grew darker in slow increments. Gorno seemed much larger now. Anya estimated they had climbed halfway. Her hands and arms ached from clenching the steel steps so tightly. Just the thought of looking down made her hands sweat inside her gloves. It dawned on her that Joshua’s fake camera feeds would transmit daylight pictures, even though night drew in about them. She mentioned this to him now, as a way to divert her mind from worrying about her family or falling half a kilometer to her death.
“You’re right. But security lights just came on at the base.” Anya didn’t dare look to see. She trusted Joshua on this point. “Even so, the lighting will be wrong. I’m hoping the air fight will distract them.”
They had better get up to Gorno fast, then, before the security personnel noticed something amiss, she reasoned. However, it was difficult to increase her speed, for they were climbing over one of the steeper arcs right now. A slip to the right or left, and she’d plunge to her death.
It was hard to avoid looking down while crawling on top of the curving beam. Anya focused on the half meter wide, silver pillar, and refused to look elsewhere. Closing her mind to all distractions, she focused only upon climbing.
Dusk was deepening into night when Joshua said, “We’re almost there.”
She looked up. The gigantic base of Gorno, perhaps four hundred meters wide, loomed over them. They had been climbing in its black shadow for the past few minutes. Her wrists and fingers ached with fatigue. She hoped they wouldn’t have to escape down this ladder with her family.
“The attack should start soon.”
Anya glanced up through the deepening blackness, lit only by Gorno’s dark red underbelly lights, trying to see where the ladder ended. A pale, spider thin catwalk appeared to branch from the pillar and lead to a landing platform. Were guards awaiting their arrival? Unfortunately, the way the pillar curved, their backs would be to the platform as they approached the top.
She paused, balanced precariously on the step, and fumbled for her laser, clipped to her belt.
Joshua said, “I’ve got us covered. Keep climbing.”
Trembling more than she liked, Anya gladly abandoned the balancing act and gripped the smooth steel ste
p again.
Thirty meters remained… Now ten. Anya craned a glance over her shoulder. The landing platform looked deserted. She caught a glimpse of an elevator door.
The catwalk appeared at eye level. Thank goodness, it had a railing.
It took a good dose of courage to release the safe ladder and reach for the catwalk’s railing. Gripping the rail with all of her strength, she took that first, scary step over the ribbon of open space. Heart pounding and arms shaking, she stepped onto the solid, corrugated latticework of the catwalk. Within moments, she reached the deserted platform. Success. One step closer to rescuing her family from Onred’s murderous hands.
Tarp covered equipment loomed in the far corners of the landing. Joshua flipped up the corners, assessing the contents beneath.
“Anything useful?” she whispered. Her gaze darted about, searching for cameras. She spotted two above the elevator door. “Joshua!”
“I already looped the feed,” he said absently, squatting by a hydraulic lift machine.
“Can that machine help us?”
“Look overhead.
“A trapdoor.” It was at least four meters overhead; unreachable from their standpoint.
“It might open up into a maintenance room.” He whipped off the tarp. “We’ll ride up together, back to back. Be ready to fire when I spring the door.”
With a great grunt, Joshua shoved the machine. It slid a few centimeters. Anya joined him. She wasn’t sure how much she helped, but within a minute the heavy machine was positioned under the trapdoor. Joshua offered her a hand onto the small platform. “Ready?”
When she nodded, he kicked the machine into gear. With a quiet whine, they rose toward the steel and Tek-Lite crisscrossed underbelly of Gorno. Joshua’s toe tap stopped their ascent. He pulled the key code hacker from his belt and inserted it into the trapdoor’s key slot. In a moment, it flashed green and he plucked it back out. As the trapdoor slowly tilted open, the hydraulic lift grunted into gear. Light streamed down. A bad sign.
Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) Page 20
