The hard right when they reached the bottom caught Iver by surprise, straining the straps holding the crates in place, dislodging everything that wasn't tied down.
Evasive maneuvers?
They drove on, the ground much smoother than before, and at least ten minutes passed before they slowed to a stop.
Iver lifted his restocked pack and stood in the far corner, out of sight, with a bulky but light box he'd chosen to blend in as someone unloading the supplies.
He heard a shout and then the low murmur of conversation, before the vehicle started moving again, much slower this time.
It rolled up a ramp and down the other side, then drove for longer than he was expecting, which told him the entry to the camp was a good distance from the camp itself.
Eventually the lander rocked to a stop, and he heard the driver's door open and then slam shut.
There was a conversation just beyond his ability to hear clearly, and then the passenger door was opened.
“Careful.” He recognized the driver's voice, and felt a prickle of fear run down his spine. The man sounded concerned.
Hana's foot had been badly hurt, but she'd seemed to be coping fine when she'd walked down the path to the lander.
She'd wanted him safe, though. Had wanted him to hide, and he could see her downplaying the pain to get him to comply.
Rescuing her might be a little more difficult than he thought, he realized. And the odds were already not ideal.
He'd spent a considerable part of the journey looking through the crates again, but he had yet to find a weapon.
They were obviously a lot harder to steal than food or clothing.
It made him feel like at least some parts of the system were working.
Not everyone they'd encountered who was part of this plot had had a weapon and there was no reason to assume it wasn't the same here.
They might even specifically not want the camp workers to have any. Just in case someone decided to take over from what the driver had called the top tier.
Or maybe he had it all wrong, and everyone here had a SAL in a hip holster.
He needed to stop speculating and get outside.
Find Hana and get out of here.
The doors to the back opened.
“I need to tell you something, Bret,” the driver said.
“Yeah?”
“We were robbed.” The driver's voice was loud enough that Iver could hear him clearly, and he thought there might have been a sudden quiet, all conversational buzz cut off.
“By whom?”
“Smugglers. They ambushed me in the valley. Set rocks across the road. Made it look like a rockfall. As soon as I stopped, they surrounded me.”
“That woman in the front have something to do with this?” Bret asked.
“Partly. I was negotiating my way out of it, trying to promise as little as possible while getting them to let me go, when they told me I had two stowaways who'd climbed out the back of the lander at the part of the road where you have to almost stop to get over the rocks, and that they were watching us.”
“And?” Bret didn't sound as dismissive as before.
“When they realized I didn't know about the two who'd been hiding in the back, they chased them down for me. They caught the woman in some kind of nasty metal trap. The man with her got away. While I was questioning the woman, one of the smugglers doubled back around, took what he could from the lander.”
“How do you know it was just him?”
“I don't, but he was the only one who wasn't with me when I was questioning the women.”
“So there could be more of them?”
“Could be.” The driver was standing right outside the door, now. “But if there were more of them, my guess is we would have lost even more stuff. I think he could only carry so much, and needed to hide it quickly. Either from me, or from his own friends, or both.”
Bret gave a snort. “So what did you promise them to get away?”
“That I'd let you know they wanted in on the action. Their parting shot was a threat that I could stop where they ambushed me and pass along any message you had for them. Because someone would be watching.”
“Shit.” Bret started moving away. “Who were they? Did you get names?”
The driver's answer was hard to hear as he moved away with the camp leader.
Iver picked up the box he'd chosen and carefully moved out from behind the crates, down the narrow pathway between the supplies, to the open doors.
There was no one that he could see in front of the lander, and he jumped down lightly and looked around.
Two men were ambling toward the lander from the left, coming out of what looked like a semi-permanent structure made of wood and plasti-cast. The driver and the man he'd called Bret were walking toward them. They stopped to talk and Iver turned away from them, grateful for the distraction.
He'd been holding the box up, using it to hide most of his face, but he lowered it slightly to better see what lay in the other direction and stumbled a little as he took in a massive ruin.
If he hadn't been so focused on the threat of being seen by the driver and his companion, he'd have noticed it immediately.
It rose up, four or five stories high, made of a dull gray material that looked metallic. The roofline was haphazard, as was the facade, as if five or six buildings of different heights and sizes had been joined together. All the buildings had a similar architectural style, but they looked like they should be set apart, rather than put together to form a single unit. Two of the roofs had collapsed, and one wall had a gaping hole in it.
A crescent of twelve windowless huts formed a semi-circle to one side of it, and guessing they were the camp accommodations, Iver headed toward them, still reeling at the sight of the ruin.
Faldine was a rare, habitable planet with no upper-level sentient life to claim it as theirs.
Even so, it should still be subject to a VSC Do Not Disturb order, but the smugglers had shot that to hell when they'd settled in, using Faldine as one of their hiding places while the VSC hunted them down after the Halatian disaster.
By the time the VSC had tracked them to Faldine, the damage had already been done. Every Do Not Disturb protocol had been smashed.
He'd come to Faldine specifically to make sure the smugglers and the VSC's impact on the planet was as low as possible, and still, he knew it had been changed irreversibly.
What he also knew, though, was every thou of ground on the planet had been mapped and nowhere--absolutely nowhere--did an ancient ruin appear.
A shout from behind him pulled him out of his shock, and he glanced around, keeping the move casual, keeping his pace steady.
One of the men he'd seen approaching the lander was hailing him, and he simply lifted an arm in a wave and vaguely indicated toward one of the huts.
When he reached the small dwelling he was headed for, he put the box down in front of the door and then moved around the side, keeping his pace steady until he was completely out of sight.
The man hadn't called again, so he still had a small window of time to hide.
Behind the huts was a low wall made of the same material as the ruin, and then beyond that stood an energy array that looked like it was harnessing power from a fast moving stream, the wind and the sun.
A cable ran from the array, over the wall, and disappeared into a power unit, in what had to be one of the most ancient tech solutions Iver had seen for a long time.
They were either making do with whatever they could find, or nothing else worked out here.
He wondered if they were sitting on an extra strong magnetic field.
He looked along the curve created by the layout of the huts, toward the ruin, and turned from it with regret.
Hana was here somewhere, and she was hurt and in danger.
He realized his hands were trembling, and he gripped the straps of his pack tighter to still them.
He'd caught a glimpse of a few people through
the crumbling wall of the ruin--so there were people inside it. Looting it, studying it, whatever it was they were doing, they had tried to kill him to prevent him from finding this place.
Whoever these people were, they hadn't declared their profession when they'd arrived on planet, and they would not be reputable experts.
He forced himself to let go of the fury he felt at the deception involved to hide this from him and his VSC superiors, and instead hunkered down to get a better view of the lander and the buildings on the other side of the camp.
There were actually three buildings, much larger than the huts, and all made of plasti-cast. He guessed they comprised the canteen, the common areas, as well as whatever management offices this operation needed.
The two men unloading the lander had been joined by two other people, and they were carrying crates to the middle of the three buildings.
There was no hover cart here, and they were carrying boxes by hand between them.
His suspicion about the high magnetic field seemed to be accurate.
No one seemed interested in coming after him, and from their body language and the way they were joking with each other as they carried the supplies, they didn't seem to be on alert.
Even when the lander had arrived at the camp's entry point, no one had looked in the back.
Things might change a bit since the smugglers had issued a challenge, but for now, their complacency made Iver's life a lot easier.
He needed to use the time wisely.
He hadn't been able to see where they'd taken Hana, and now that he was tucked behind the huts, he guessed she was on the other side of the large central space where the lander was parked, in one of the big communal buildings.
It would make sense their medbay was on that side.
Darkness came early in the Spikes. The steep sides of the mountains made it difficult for the sunlight to penetrate.
He would have to wait until the light was lost, and he could move about easier, without being seen.
Every moment he waited, he risked something happening to Hana, so he would keep watch, as well as he could.
He looked for a good spot to hunker down, turning to the low wall that seemed a strange barrier to erect. It was useless in terms of protection, unless he was missing something, and he wondered why someone would take the time and effort to put it up.
If he got on the other side of it, he could keep low, move around the ruins, and approach the three communal buildings from behind.
He made sure the hut behind him blocked him from view, and then jogged to the wall and vaulted over it.
He felt a strange sense of vertigo as he swung over, and he landed hard on the other side.
He peered over the wall to check he hadn't been seen and a chill ran over him, pinpricks of cold starting at the top of his scalp, running down his neck and along his arms.
The camp had disappeared.
There was nothing in front of him but rocky ground, with the sharp incline of a mountain in the near distance.
He put both hands on the top of what was now an invisible wall and jumped over it again.
The camp emerged from what seemed like hazy air on a hot day.
He didn't waste time staring. He jumped back again and then leaned against the wall in shock.
Nothing he knew about VSC tech came close to this, except perhaps pinching to the black.
This seemed to be a shield that rendered the area it surrounded completely invisible--not just to scans, but also to the naked eye. It distorted reality, not just making the ruin and the other structures disappear, along with the people, but making the mountain slope look closer, the ground in front of it rockier and harder to traverse.
No wonder the smugglers hadn't found the camp. They'd probably looked right at it and moved on.
And no wonder Lancaster and his friends had tried so hard to stop the progress of the sky lane.
It would have been almost impossible to hide this with the construction teams and surveyors moving all through the area.
As for the reason they were hiding it . . . Iver could understand the massive importance of this. A shield this effective?
The technological implications were staggering.
These people, Lancaster among them, had tried to keep this to themselves. To steal it. And it would be Iver's pleasure to ruin their plans.
Ruin them utterly.
Chapter 18
Hana had the sense they didn't know what to do with her.
There was no place in the camp to hold her prisoner, and she ended up in the infirmary with a nervy medic who kept looking at the man in charge, Bret, as if he couldn't quite believe what was happening.
“Her foot's a mess.” The medic glanced at her as soon as the words were out of his mouth and winced. “I mean . . .”
“Get to the point, Vras. What's the problem?” Bret was staring at her, and unlike the flustered Vras, he seemed to be taking her arrival in stride.
He looked at her with the calm, focused look of a predator sizing up its prey.
She hadn't felt like prey for a long time, but she wasn't herself at the moment.
She would be working on a way to get out of this, if only she didn't feel so weak. So drained.
Her upgrade could no longer make her a faster, sharper version of herself. Not only had it shut down, but something was affecting it. There was a pulse, like a heartbeat, somewhere outside this room and to the left.
It thrummed through her, each thump vibrating in her chest.
She just wanted it to stop, and yet, she didn't dare ask about it. No one else seemed in the least bit affected, and she had the very real sense the less she spoke right now, the better.
If she was lucky, the injury to her foot was causing some of this feeling of debilitation. She didn't want to believe that her current weakness was from having her upgrade neutralized. If this had been what she considered normal before the crash in the Spikes two years ago . . . No. She couldn't have been this weak.
This had to be the cumulative effect of the damage to her foot, the pain, and the lack of sleep and food, the multiple hits from the SAL tranquilizers. And that cursed thump, thump, thump from some machine outside.
The conversation swirled around her, and she was peripherally aware she'd zoned out.
She should be grateful, she supposed.
She'd wanted to come to the Spikes, find out more about what had happened to her, and while this current situation wasn't what she'd had in mind, the loss of her upgrade told her more than anything else could how far she'd drifted from what she'd been before.
Living a new life since her accident had given her exactly what she'd feared it had. A completely skewed view of what was normal.
No wonder Linnel had sensed something was off.
“What's going on in that head?”
Bret stepped closer to her bed and she snapped back to the present.
“Who are you?” His eyes were cold.
Her injured foot was stretched out in front of her and she was leaning back against some pillows. Her heart beat faster at her vulnerability.
She stared up at him. Said nothing.
“She's in pain. She fainted in the lander.” The driver was looking at Bret, looking like he regretted his decision to bring her here.
“What was it that did this?” Vras bent over her foot. “Looks like something bit her.”
“It was some kind of metal trap.” The driver shook his head. “They're living like animals out there.”
“The smugglers did this?” Vras had already given her an injection to stave off infection and he began bandaging her up.
“They're a problem,” Bret conceded. “Where are they camped?”
He seemed to be asking her.
She shrugged.
“She's not with them. She probably got in the lander in Touka City.” The driver made an impatient chop with his hand. “Why, I don't know. But the smugglers didn't know her, that I can promise.”
<
br /> “Can you?” Bret turned to look at him.
“Yes.” He was unequivocal. “You didn't see how they ran her down. How they dealt with her when they found her. One of them is totally off the rails. Tillis. I couldn't get away from him fast enough. He was talking about killing her, and I believed him. The others tried to cover for him, make it sound like Tillis was joking when they saw my reaction, but he wasn't.”
“And the one who robbed us?” Bret leaned back a little, arms crossed over his chest.
“I didn't interact with him at all. He was part of the team that ran her down, then he supposedly ran off after her friend, but he must have seen the opportunity to steal some supplies, so he doubled back. I never even spoke to him.”
“You did, though?” Bret turned to her.
Hana nodded. “Briefly.”
“And?”
She wondered why he thought she would be helpful, but Vras had done a good job on her foot, so she decided she owed them something. “He's feral. The woman who chased after me with him, Brynja, she's wary of him. Doesn't trust him.”
“Brynja?” Bret went still. “I know that name.”
“They said they were in the rebel corps. Some of them are still wearing parts of the uniform.” The driver, Fraen, narrowed his eyes. “They're not trustworthy.”
Bret gave a bark of laughter. “I know that.” It took a while for his chuckles to die away. “What I don't know is where you fit in.” His gaze was back on Hana's face, hard and mean.
“Boss, we got those parts we wanted.” A man stepped into the room, one of the two who'd carried her here when she'd arrived.
“Good.” Bret turned to the driver. “You did good, Fraen. I assume Banyon isn't happy with you?”
“He just about burst a blood vessel. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't come out here, scream at you, too.”
“Huh.” Bret tapped a finger to his lips. “He screamed at you? In public?”
Fraen tilted his head. “In an alley. We were the only ones there. But out in the open, yes.”
“Risky.”
Fraen nodded. “That's the only reason he reined it in in the end. We could hear people coming.”
“He's getting more and more excited. I suppose having the head-of-planet dead is causing him some grief.”
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