“Hana.” He knocked softly and called as loudly as he dared.
He heard the sound of movement beyond, and then the handle rattled.
“Iver?”
She didn't sound herself, and the tension in him ramped up with worry for her.
“Yes. Can you open the door?”
There was silence for a moment, and then he heard a thump, as if she'd hit the door with her fist. “No.”
Her tone was anguished. As if she had somehow failed.
“It's all right. I'll get you out. Stand back.”
The door had a mechanical lock, a DNA sniffer or electronic system probably wouldn't work here, so he would have to find something to lever it open, and he didn't think there was anything like that in the main room.
Besides, they didn't have time.
He kicked out, hitting the door just under the handle, and heard a crack as part of the door gave way.
He kicked again, and with a pop it opened.
In the muted glow of the handlight, he could see Hana leaning against a bed, her dark hair sticking to her damp forehead, face flushed, eyes too wide and glassy.
“You came.” She took a limping step toward him, and he closed the distance between them and held her close for a moment.
He could feel the heat of her fever.
“Any medication we should take with?”
She nodded and stepped out of his arms. He handed the light to her and moved back toward the broken door while she searched.
Kicking the door in had sounded over-loud to him, and he strained to hear any noise from the main room.
“Ready.” She was shoving medication into her pack, which they must have allowed her to keep with her.
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.
“Can you walk on your own?”
When she nodded, he took her pack and the light from her, and moved out into the passage.
She limped after him, holding onto the doorway for support.
He didn't miss the sound of her quick intake of breath as she followed him out into the reception area.
“Do you need me to carry you?” He moved back toward her, tried to scrutinize her face in the gloom.
“I'll tell you if I do. I promise.”
Her eyes glittered in the light, and she shivered.
He gave a reluctant nod, but if she could manage on her own, that would leave him free to fight if they were discovered.
He waited a moment beside the entrance, listening, and then looked at her.
“Not at my usual level of hearing,” she said, voice trembling a little.
He gave a nod, took another moment to listen, and then eased the door open.
The cool night air blew in, and he stepped out, holding the door for Hana.
“This way.” He headed toward the wall, waiting for Hana on the camp side and then lifting her over.
Her skin was hot to the touch and for a moment he wondered if he was doing the right thing taking her away from medical help.
“Did I tell you how happy I am to see you?” she whispered as he swung over to join her.
He pulled her closer, just for a single beat of time, brushing a kiss on her sweat-damp hair, and then swung their packs onto his shoulders. “I guessed.”
“Let's get as far from here as we can.” Her voice sounded a little stronger now, as if leaving the camp had lent her strength. She looked back, but there was nothing to see but darkness, and Iver didn't explain about the shield.
There'd be time for that later.
He took her hand and led her toward the river, deeper into the Spikes.
Hopefully, Tillis and Barre were long gone.
Chapter 20
Hana woke in Iver's arms again.
She could get used to this, although if she were honest, she'd prefer a soft bed inside four walls, rather than rocky ground under an overhang.
The sun was just rising, lighting the sky above them with pinks, oranges and reds--another type of shadow fold, a mirror of dusk the day before, although not quite as spectacular, with the sun coming from the opposite direction.
She moved her foot carefully, wriggling her toes, and felt a sharp pain run up her leg, but it wasn't as bad as it had been.
She was better now she was away from the camp. Much better.
The first gentle fizz in her blood happened as soon as Iver had lifted her over the wall. She'd felt her upgrade wake up, sluggish but thankfully still there, with every step she'd taken.
There was also the relief of having the deep, thrumming beat of the invisible engine fade behind her.
For a while there, lying in the medbay, she'd been terrified her upgrade had been permanently damaged.
She'd suddenly realized she did not want that.
After nearly two years, and plenty of anguish, she'd accepted her new self. She didn't want to lose it.
Right now, she wasn't anywhere near her peak--the magnetic fields here were too strong--but she never was anyway unless she was in Bero or flying high. She could live with the weak response she felt now. It was way better than the dead feeling she'd had before.
“You awake?” Iver nuzzled the top of her head.
“Just about.”
She lifted her hand and covered his own where it splayed just under her breasts. Squeezed.
“Thank you for getting me out of there.”
“You know I wouldn't leave you.” He drew her back against him and she tightened her grip on his hand.
“How did you get in?”
“Hitched a ride in the back of the lander right from the start.”
Hana drew in a quick breath. “Were you the one who took the supplies?”
“No. That was Barre. I was lucky to get in before you arrived.”
“The leader at the camp is angry about the theft. I think Barre is going to regret doing that.”
“Now that you're gone, they may decide I'm to blame.” Iver brushed a finger down her cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Did anyone see you at the camp?” She turned in his arms and looked up at him.
“They saw the back of me, carrying a box toward the accommodation huts. I don't know if they worked out later that I wasn't one of their crew, but they didn't at the time.”
“Don't you think they'll assume I escaped on my own?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I kicked the door in from the outside. And you weren't in a good state last night.”
He was right about that.
Iver had half-carried her after they got beyond the river. She'd run out of energy and couldn't go on.
“How close are we to the camp?” She rolled back onto her side, looking out at the view from the overhang.
They were on a hillside, and she could hear the river below, but from her position on the ground, she couldn't see it. She couldn't see the camp, either.
The valley below curved to the left, open and wide between the mountains, and she could see why Iver's surveyors had chosen it as the best route for the sky lane.
“We're close to the camp. Too close, but in the dark, with you still injured, we didn't have any choice about getting further away. If the camp wasn't shielded, we'd see it if we sat up.”
She narrowed her eyes, lifted up on an elbow, and looked out, but there was nowhere the camp could be that she could see. There was a rocky field to one side, and then the river, glittering gold where the sunlight managed to touch it, frothing white around the large rocks that were embedded in it.
“Where?”
He had risen up behind her, and he pointed over her shoulder, but when she followed his finger, all she saw was the rock-strewn field.
“What did you hear at the camp about the shield?”
“The shield?” She tried to think, but she hadn't been at her most focused while she'd been there. “They might have said something about it while Vras was dealing with my foot, but I wasn't paying much attention.”
“There's a shield around the camp. That wall tha
t I lifted you over, that's the shield boundary. When you're on the outside of it, you can't see the ruins, can't see the camp, can't see anything except some visual trickery that makes the area look like a stony field right up against the mountain.”
Hana turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Some kind of advanced tech?”
He nodded. “Or very old tech, something we haven't encountered before. There's a ramp they extend over the wall to let the lander in at the entrance. Once you're on the inside, you're invisible to the outside world.”
“And when you're on the inside of the wall, looking out? What do you see?”
“Everything as normal. Full visibility.”
She stared down the mountain at where the camp should be. “That's what they were trying to hide from the sky lane construction crews.”
Iver nodded. More sunlight had begun to angle through the Spikes, sweeping the valley floor, and when she lay back down and turned to him, the planes and lines of his face above her were etched in a golden glow.
“Anyone who discovers how this shielding works has a significant advantage, obviously for military purposes, but for illegal operations, as well. And if the rebels do want to start up the war again, imagine if they could hide their bases from view?”
“And smugglers could hide their ships.”
Iver turned to her. “And the Caruso could hide theirs. Or any mining operations they have in mind. That's what they were doing on Veltos, right under the nose of the VSC, and that was without any shielding.”
She nodded slowly. “If the Caruso are involved, this is why. They want this for themselves.”
“My guess is Lancaster had already given whoever he was dealing with enough to find the camp without his help, so they decided he was better dead than alive and being questioned by the VSC. If I'm right about that, the Caruso, or whoever his co-conspirators are, will be sending someone, or coming themselves, and soon, to take what Lancaster promised them.”
“Except . . .” Hana frowned. “Bret told me I needed to accept I wasn't going anywhere, because they weren't letting me go until they were finished at the camp. And when I asked when that would be, he didn't know. He said 'a while'.”
“You know what I keep thinking about with this shielding thing?” Iver was looking at one of Faldine's small moons when Hana turned to look at him. “I think about Cepi.”
“The Kalastoni moon they blew up less than a year ago?” Hana remembered that. Remembered there had been a lot of fuss about the mysterious gravity and atmosphere generator that had encased the tiny moon. Her eyes opened wide at the implication. “You think this shield is similar to the ancient tech on Cepi?”
Iver shrugged. “There's a ruin here. There was a ruin on Cepi. A ruin that wasn't built by anyone from the Verdant String, or our space-traveling ancestors. The ruins are way older than that. And while the shields aren't exactly the same--this one's an invisibility shield, the other was an environmental generator--there are similarities.”
She nodded. Rested her chin on her hands. “At the very least, knowing there was a physical engine to steal on Cepi might have inspired Bret to find out if there was a similar shield engine here.”
“And there were definitely smugglers involved in what happened on Cepi. Bret seems to have fought on the rebel side in the war, so it's possible he even knew some of the people who tried to steal the engine from Cepi.”
“You think one of them might have given him information to help him in what he's trying to do here?” she asked.
Iver shook his head. “Everyone involved in that attempted theft died on Cepi before the Kalastoni blew it up. They were killed by the people who'd employed them.”
“So maybe he just saw the parallels, like you.” She closed her eyes, let the heat of Iver's body beside her warm her through.
After a while, Iver sat up, and she joined him, leaning back against him in a way that reminded her of their positions hiding from Linnel after the missile had brought down her Sig.
It was peaceful, sitting in the gloom of the overhang, watching the sunlight slowly gild the mountains and valley in gold.
Iver leaned to the side and grabbed one of the packs, handed her some water and an instant meal.
She didn't realize how hungry she was until she had the spoon in her hand. It shook as she scooped the mixed fruit into her mouth.
She glanced at Iver, saw he was eating just as fast. She gave a wry smile. “I take back what I said about these the other night. They're not that bad.”
He grinned. “Yes, they are.”
“Okay. They are.” She drank her water and leaned back again, eyes half-closed. It was the most calm and safe she'd felt in days.
Iver picked up the pack again and brought out two sweet nut bars, and she took one with a quiet whoop of joy. She kissed his cheek before she opened hers and bit in.
When he didn't do the same, she turned her head to look at him, saw he was watching her with the kind of attention that had her cheeks flushing.
Then he leaned closer and covered her lips with his.
She groaned at the feel of his mouth against hers and twisted in his arms. He lifted her up onto his lap in a move that was so easy she didn't realize it had happened until she was straddling him.
She rocked against him where their bodies joined and it was his turn to groan into her mouth.
“Should we take a risk?” she whispered.
“It's probably not wise.” His hands slid under her shirt and jacket and kneaded her back. “And you're injured.”
Then his mouth moved down her neck and she tilted it, giving him access.
“Not that injured.” Guess she wasn't feeling all that wise and neither was he, because it seemed like moments later she was naked, back in Iver's lap, sliding down inch by delicious inch onto the hard length of him.
She arched back in his hold as they moved together, undulating in a smooth, slow dance that sped up when he latched on to the tip of her breast and sucked.
She shuddered as she came, held him when he did the same, and then sat quietly with her head on his shoulder, enclosed in the loop of his arms, and slowly got her breath back.
His fingers began a lazy, light stroke from the top of her spine, down to the small of her back, and she hummed in contentment.
The sound of shouting voices from down the valley drifted up on the gentle breeze, and for a moment she ignored them, shut them out.
“Guess they discovered you're missing.” Iver's grip on her hips tightened, and with a soft curse he lifted her off him.
She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his for a moment, and then forced herself to move.
She looked down the hill as she struggled back into her clothes, trying to work out where her searchers were headed.
“They must have decided to wait until it got light before coming to look for me.”
Iver was crouched beside her, both packs in hand, all their debris put away. He ran a finger down her neck as if he couldn't help touching her and she shivered.
“They're down by the river.” His voice was deeper than usual, a little rough.
“Hopefully that's just them being thorough. Maybe they'll think I headed for Touka City.”
Iver shrugged. “That would be helpful, but they won't want to go that way looking for you. Now they know the smugglers are watching for them, they won't want to give them a chance to follow them back to camp.”
“It's surprising the smugglers haven't found them before now.” She'd wondered about that. Brynja, Craven and their friends had looked like they'd been in the Spikes for a lot longer than Bret and his crew had been at the camp.
“My guess is the smugglers don't live in this valley usually. They probably saw the lander come through by chance, but were too far away to follow it. Maybe they saw it from afar a few times and tried to narrow down where it was going until they set up a watch for it.”
That would explain their unkempt appearance. If they were far from their
usual camp, making do while they waited for the lander to show up, they'd look a little rough.
“Come on, let's move. Hopefully they're just checking the river for obvious signs of you, but it doesn't hurt to take precautions.”
She looked over at him, frowning. “Where are we going?”
He pointed upward, to the ceiling of the overhang. “This is a large rock embedded in the hill. Up top there's been enough of a soil buildup that long grasses have gotten a foothold. It's a good place to hide and see out over the valley.”
He must have found that after he'd carried her up here last night.
She could barely remember getting much further than the river, and she gripped his wrist as he started moving.
“Thank you. I'd still be in that medbay without you.”
“And I'd be nothing but charred bone in a burned out Sig without you.” He held her gaze. “There's no tally here, Hana. I'll protect you, and rescue you, and have your back whenever you need it.”
She nodded, her throat too tight to answer, and then she followed him up the steep slope of the hill on one side of the overhang, and crawled next to him through the long grass to the edge of the flat piece of rock.
The view, as Iver had said, was excellent. If the camp wasn't shielded, they would be looking down on it, but as it was, all she could see was two women walking along the river bank, looking all around them.
“One of them is probably Grimms,” Hana said.
“She is.” Iver pointed to the one at the back, a tall woman with a tangle of dark hair pulled back from her face.
“I was supposed to share a hut with her tonight.” Hana watched Grimms kick a rock into the fast-moving water, and then put her hands on her hips.
She turned slowly, looking up the hill at where they lay hidden, and then toward the camp, and then up the valley.
A waterfall, just a thin ribbon of water far in the distance, fell from the juncture where two of the mountains met. It gleamed golden red in the morning light, as if molten.
Grimms called to her companion, and after what appeared to be the back-and-forth of conversation, they both turned and headed toward the camp.
“Well, well, well.” Hana saw the flash of movement a moment later, and focused on the spot on the other side of the river.
High Flyer (Verdant String) Page 14