High Flyer (Verdant String)

by Michelle Diener

  The gang was all there.

  The driver winced at the sight of the trap. “That's . . .” Words failed him. He looked at the smugglers in a side-long glance that spoke of disgust.

  “You try living out here without access to the perks of a VSC city, and you'd be setting traps, too.” One of the men who'd blocked the lander narrowed his eyes at the driver's reaction. It was the one with the whining voice.

  “Your choice to live out here.” The driver stood a little apart from them. “The VSC doesn't discriminate on the citizenship dividend, and since the war ended, they've actively encouraged everyone to join Faldine society as equals.”

  Brynja spat. “What choice is that? Bow to the empire? Take their blood money? No thank you.”

  “Here.” Lia tossed Brynja a small metal lever and she caught it automatically, looked at it, and then stepped close to Hana.

  “This will hurt.” She crouched down beside the trap, and then hesitated. Looked up. “Well, hurt more than it already does.”

  She stared at Hana for a beat, and Hana guessed she was looking for signs of pain in Hana's face.

  Maybe she wasn't showing enough.

  She kept her face blank. Inappropriate behavior would give her away. Had given her away, somehow, to Linnel.

  To cover herself, Hana closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

  With a sudden creak of unoiled metal, the two serrated jaws fell open, and a wave of pain had Hana turning away to vomit.

  She bit back a cry.

  Iver would come running if she made too much noise, she was sure of it.

  “Stoic little thing, isn't she?” The man who seemed to be the leader of the group shuffled closer. Hana remembered he'd told the driver his name was Craven.

  She was bent at the waist, her body turned away from him, and she felt the hot spike of anger lodged in her chest cool to something more dangerous than simple temper at his words.

  “Where's your friend?” The driver asked her.

  She straightened, digging in a pocket for a tissue, and carefully wiped her mouth. “Gone.”

  Her foot throbbed, but the pain had receded. Her upgrade going back to work.

  She hadn't had many injuries since her accident, but she'd bounced back suspiciously quickly when she had been hurt. She'd also noticed small childhood scars on her legs and arms were fading and a few of the smallest ones were gone completely.

  She shrugged off her pack and found a small rock to sit down on.

  “Hey!” The whiner exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

  “I'm hardly going anywhere.” Hana suffused as much disdain in her voice as she could. “I don't want an infection.”

  She lifted out the medkit Iver had put in the pack for her, and then carefully eased her boot off.

  When she peeled off her sock, the driver sucked in a breath.

  It did look bad. But it would look much better soon, so she wanted them to see it at its worst, for them to underestimate her mobility and her pain level.

  She'd take any advantage she could.

  She used a steri-wipe and then ran a small wand over the deep gouges in her skin. She pulled out a clean sock and carefully worked it on.

  When she'd finished gingerly putting her boot back on, she lifted her head to find them all staring at her.

  “What?”

  “Very stoic.” Craven nodded. “Military?”

  Hana stared at him blankly. A yes would make her most definitely this man's enemy. The smugglers had been part of the rebel corps. There would be no quarter given if she admitted to fighting for the VSC.

  The silence extended.

  “Stoic and silent.”

  “We going to kill her, or what?” the whiner asked.

  The driver rounded on him. “Kill her? Are you being serious?”

  “Now, now.” Craven glanced at the whiner, and gave a tiny shake of his head. “Tillis here was just messing around.”

  The driver gave a disbelieving laugh. “Like that's better?”

  “You'll have to excuse us,” Lia said. “We've gone a little feral out here. No social niceties, you understand.”

  Brynja turned her head and stared at her, and the smile Lia gave her was more of a grimace.

  “Where's Barre?” Tillis asked.

  “He went after the other one,” Brynja waved up the hillside.

  The driver turned to look, and then shifted, as if he was eager to leave. “What were you doing in my lander?”

  Hana shook her head and leaned back against the boulder behind her. She closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. She didn't have the energy to make up a story, and nothing she said would be believed anyway.

  “I can't wait around here. They're expecting me at camp. If you get the other one, all good. You can let me know you have him when I come back this way. I'll take this one with me now.” The driver stood between Hana and the others, as if worried they wouldn't let him take her.

  Hana didn't smile, but she wanted to.

  Tillis had frightened the driver. The talk of murder had shocked him and he was truly outraged by the trap.

  This one wasn't as cold-blooded as Vannie and Simon, or even Banyon.

  It was hard to find good sociopaths these days.

  “Just to get it straight, you want us to find the other one?” Craven asked.

  “I'm not saying go out of your way. But if you do find him, I know they'll want to question him at the camp, so you can leave a message and we'll reach out to you.” The driver spoke carefully.

  “And if we don't find him? Are we still invited?” Craven leaned back a little, arms crossed over his chest.

  The driver had been walking a fine line since he realized he wasn't going to get away without some give and take, and he lifted his shoulders. “I told you, I'm not top of the chain. I'll tell them what you've said, and I'll leave their answer where you stopped my lander. But if you have the one who got away, that would certainly facilitate your welcome.”

  Craven gave a slow nod. “Stopping at the same place we put the stones across the road is a good place to leave a message. Someone will be watching.”

  The driver's mouth tightened.

  Hana couldn't blame him. Craven was not-so-subtly letting him know that the route in and out of the camp was being watched, and that if things turned sour, there could be more ambushes.

  He gave a sharp nod, and then took her pack.

  “Can you walk?”

  Hana pushed herself slowly to her feet and tried to put a little weight on her foot. She sucked in a breath. “Is there something I can use as a walking stick?”

  Lia turned and disappeared into the bushes, came back with a short stick that was better than nothing. Hana took it with a murmur of thanks.

  “We'll be seeing you soon,” Craven said. There was a hint of amusement in his voice, as if he was aware that he'd played a strong hand against the driver.

  “Looking forward to it.” The driver's smile was as fake as his jocular tone.

  He indicated that she go first, and Hana gave a nod, took one last look at the smugglers standing in a semi-circle around them, and then limped away.

  She hoped that Iver had been close enough to hear what had been said.

  She was about to find out about the camp first hand.

  Chapter 17

  "Sit up front." The driver, who'd introduced himself as Fraen, opened the passenger door, and Hana clambered up awkwardly, hauling herself into the seat using her arms.

  She kept the stick Lia had given her tucked against her side. Fraen said nothing about it, and she wondered if he understood it could be a weapon.

  Maybe he did, because he clamped restraints on her.

  Unfortunately for him, they were standard VSC restraints with electronic locks.

  She settled in, trying to work out what her plan of escape would be.

  She couldn't walk right now, not on her foot in its current state, but she didn't need to if she took the lander by force.


  The driver closed her door and then moved around the front of the vehicle. He looked angry, and she understood why when he lifted a large rock and tossed it to the side. He kicked out a few times at smaller rocks also in the way, and finally got into the driver's seat.

  He was breathing hard, and there was a sheen of sweat on his face.

  "Those fuckers will pay for this." He started up the engine.

  "They seemed to think they'd got one over on you," Hana said.

  "Let them keep thinking that." With a sneer, Fraen maneuvered the lander around the last remaining rocks and then picked up a bit of speed.

  "You're not worried they'll follow you to wherever you're going?"

  He gave her a quick look, mouth open as if to say something, and then shut it with a snap.

  Interesting.

  The smugglers who'd stopped him were definitely deeply embedded in this part of the Spikes. Their clothing and general state of dishevelment told a story of living rough for a while, but however well they were ensconced in this valley, they hadn't found the camp.

  And they had clearly been looking.

  Which meant it was extremely difficult to find.

  “Do you think they ambushed you to steal your supplies?” she asked. It occurred to her that that might have been the real reason for the ambush. “They look like they're living pretty close to the bone.”

  With a low, vicious curse, Fraen smacked the steering wheel, then checked the dash display.

  They had left the smugglers behind, and there didn't seem to be anyone around.

  He braked, hard, and jumped out, disappearing around the back. Hana heard the rear doors open.

  She leaned over to the display. Touched it to see if she could short it out.

  Her upgrade had been working on her foot, but the further they'd driven from the ambush spot, the more sluggish the repairs had felt.

  The magfield was strong here.

  As it was through most of the Spikes.

  Her runner had come down here during the war, had crashed, because of exactly this reason.

  This was not a place that was kind to tech of any kind and she had long believed her upgrade to be tech of the most sophisticated kind imaginable.

  It was struggling.

  She felt a surge in her fingertips, but while the screen went fuzzy for a few seconds, it did not die.

  She leaned back in her seat as Fraen came storming back.

  “Assholes! They took a couple of boxes.” He hit the wheel with an open palm, even harder than before. “Must have done it when they led me up to where they'd caught you.”

  Hana said nothing. There was nothing he could have done to stop them. Not on his own. And as she had some of his stuff herself resting inside the pack balancing against her left leg, she couldn't really criticize.

  “Did you see how many more of them there were?” Fraen's eyes were narrowed when he looked at her.

  She shook her head. “Just the three who stopped you and the three who ran after me. So either there were more of them I couldn't see who stole your supplies, or that one who supposedly went after my friend doubled back to do it.”

  The driver paused, tapped a finger to his lips. “You're right, he was out of sight the whole time.”

  “If he did, he did it without the others knowing. Brynja thought he was on a fool's errand, but she seemed to genuinely think he was chasing my friend down.”

  The driver started the lander moving again. “It would explain why so little was taken. If it was one person, there is only so much they could carry.”

  “Especially if they were also hiding it from their own people.” Hana looked down at the restraints on her wrists, and wondered for the first time if her upgrade was capable of getting them off her.

  The valley floor fell away suddenly, the lander's gears grinding down to accommodate the sudden change in angle.

  She couldn't see the ground in front of them, the slope was so steep, but she could see the vista ahead.

  The valley flattened up ahead, forming a wide plain that curved and wound its way through the heart of the Spikes, almost like a road dividing the Spikes into two.

  She had seen this from the air, she remembered, but it didn't look so wide and smooth from above. She could see why Iver and his people had thought it would be the perfect route for the sky lane.

  The lander reached the bottom and instead of driving straight ahead, the driver made a hard right, turning toward what looked like a side valley, wedged between two of the high, pointed mountains that gave the range its name.

  They had traveled for ten minutes or so when she felt her skin prickle, and her energy begin to sap. She went still, her breathing labored, her limbs useless, alone in her body as she hadn't been in nearly two years.

  She slumped to the side, her head hitting the window with a thunk.

  “You in pain from your foot?” The driver glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the path ahead. “We're almost at the camp.”

  “Yes.” She forced the word out between clenched teeth.

  “I've never seen anything like that trap. It was disgusting. What kind of people would leave something like that out in the open?”

  She made a sound, and he must have taken it for assent, because he kept going, fingers tapping the screen on the dash in front of him.

  Was he signaling that he was coming in?

  She could barely put the thought together.

  She thought she'd already be free by now.

  That she would be able to get back to Iver.

  And here she was . . . caught.

  She was on her own in a way she hadn't been for a long time. It was a revelation.

  She'd come to depend on her new self. Her upgrade.

  Linnel would get his wish if he met up with her now.

  She was no longer impossible to kill.

  Iver came out of his hiding place the moment he realized Barre had no intention of looking for him.

  He watched as the smuggler glanced over his shoulder a few times in the direction of Hana and the others as he worked his way back toward the lander, making sure to keep out of sight.

  Interesting twist.

  He wondered what Barre was up to. Whatever it was, it was to Iver's benefit.

  He moved silently, getting close to Hana again, so he could hear every word spoken.

  When the driver insisted she come back to the lander with him, he took a parallel path to Barre, just in case the smuggler decided to come back the same way he'd gone down.

  He reached the vehicle much quicker than Hana and the driver, to find Barre unloading things from the back.

  Stealing.

  Well, well.

  He hefted his own, stolen pack. He and Hana didn't have much room to point fingers, although they'd taken only what they needed.

  Barre had a big pile of items at his feet, and it looked like he was being discerning about what he was taking.

  Still, if he didn't leave soon, Iver wouldn't be able to stow away inside the back again.

  Time to hurry him along.

  Iver crouched behind one of the boulders and found a stone that fitted in his hand. He aimed at another boulder near where Hana and the driver would be coming out and threw the stone as hard as he could toward it.

  The loud crack of rock on rock had Barre freezing in place. He closed the doors quietly and then gathered up what he had.

  As he moved away, heading toward the bushes and rocks on the other side of the valley, a few items dropped and Iver could hear him swear as he bent to pick them up.

  He didn't wait for Barre to get out of sight.

  He didn't have time for that.

  He ran to the lander, slid inside again, and moved right to the back, to the little nook he and Hana had hidden in before.

  It was only a few minutes later that he heard a low conversation between Hana and the driver. The vehicle creaked as Hana got in the passenger seat, and he relaxed a little when the tone between he
r and the driver seemed calm and non-confrontational.

  It took longer than he thought it would to get going, but then he remembered there were still rocks rolled in the way.

  The driver must be moving them himself.

  It gave him time to change out of his clothes and pull on the items he'd taken earlier from the crates. He'd added them to his pack as a clean set of clothes to change into, but if he was going to get out of this lander without being noticed and rescue Hana, it would help to look like everyone else in the camp.

  Depending on how many were at the camp, of course.

  If there were only a few, then he would stand out, no matter what he was wearing.

  As he pulled them on, he noticed the clothing belonged to the Faldine security services.

  Someone was stealing uniforms, or misappropriating them.

  Iver tamped down a flare of anger at the thought.

  This was his planet, damn it, and someone was corrupting it.

  It would be his pleasure to get to the bottom of it.

  He'd just finished getting his boots back on when the lander started to move, slowly at first and then gaining speed.

  Suddenly, the driver slammed on brakes. The lander slid a little to the side, came to a stop and then rocked as the driver threw himself out of his seat. Iver could hear his stamping footsteps as he came around to the back.

  He was sure he hadn't given himself away.

  He would have to trust this was something else.

  The doors opened, flooding even Iver's hiding place with light.

  “Shit.” The driver must have seen immediate signs of Barre's theft. “Shit.” It sounded as if he was kicking the rear tires.

  He didn't step inside the back of the lander. Instead, he slammed the doors with another curse, and Iver leaned back in relief as he heard him storm back to the front.

  They moved off again, a jerky hop of a start that told Iver the driver still wasn't in full control of his temper. They gained more and more speed as they went, and then the whole vehicle tipped forward, as if flying down a steep hill.