“We have a situation that must be handled delicately.” The Commander’s eyes flashed from his monitor to the row of men standing before him. “And quickly. Two wingjets: one recon, one transport. Specialist Haan, you’ll fly Major Vidar. Galec, you’ll be Lieutenant Wolfe’s retriever. Lieutenant Talon will be gunner.”
Major Vidar as her gunner, again. Lovely.
“I’ve received intel that a soldier has escaped from a Safaran prison camp,” he continued. “He’s probably injured and most certainly being pursued.” The Commander ran a finger along one of the many scars that crisscrossed his neck. Aris glanced from his face to Major Vidar’s; they both wore matching unreadable expressions.
With a sigh, he continued. “We believe the soldier in question may be Dysis’s brother, Lieutenant Latza.”
Aris’s face lit up. She wanted to cheer. “That’s wonderful news! Sir,” she said, restraining herself with an effort. “Have you told Dysis yet? He’ll be so—”
The Commander held up a hand. “Specialist Latza will not be part of this mission.”
Aris looked at him in confusion. “But that’s why he came here, to find his brother . . .”
“We don’t have confirmation yet that Lieutenant Latza is the escaped soldier, and we know nothing of his condition. But if it is him, we must proceed with utmost caution. The Lieutenant is an important asset and, contrary to his brother’s beliefs, his recovery is a top priority of this sector. I can’t have Dysis on a mission this crucial and risk the possibility that his personal feelings could jeopardize our efforts. Do you understand?” He turned to Galec, who looked just as shell-shocked as Aris felt. “Specialists?”
Together they murmured, “Yes, sir.” Aris tried to keep her face blank, but already she was torn between excitement for Dysis and terror that something would go wrong. Without meaning to, she glanced at Lieutenant Daakon. His jaw was clenched, and a vein throbbed at his temple.
“You have one hour to eat and then I need you all on the landing pad. Aristos, wait until after dinner and then tell Dysis to come see me,” Commander Nyx said.
Before she could nod, Daakon stepped forward. “Commander, I’ve spoken with Specialist Latza about his brother before. With your permission, I’d like to be the one to tell him.”
Commander glanced from his monitor to Daakon. “Very well, Lieutenant. I’m certain I don’t need to remind you that it is paramount that Dysis understand he is not authorized for this mission. He will stay on point. You will impress on him the severity of punishment should he choose to disregard my order.”
Lieutenant Daakon nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Galec, Haan. You’re dismissed.”
As they left, Aris could hear the murmurs of Commander Nyx speaking with Major Vidar and the other officers. She glanced at Galec. “Not letting Dysis go on the mission . . . I don’t know. If it were my brother—”
“I wouldn’t want to go,” Galec said.
Her eyes widened. “But what if things went wrong? Wouldn’t you blame the others, wonder if the outcome would have been different if you’d been there?”
Galec shrugged. “I’d be devastated regardless. And you heard what the Commander said. This mission is bigger than Dysis. As much as I hate to say it, I do think his feelings would get in the way.”
“Still. Blighting hell.” Aris rubbed a hand over the back of her neck, across the nearly imperceptible hardness of her veil. “I suppose we shouldn’t say anything to him at dinner, but I don’t know if I can hide it.”
He smiled grimly. “You won’t have to. There are rumors already. That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier.”
“Wonderful.”
“Just get Otto talking. That heathen could distract anybody.”
•••
But Dysis didn’t appear for dinner. In fact, Aris didn’t see her until she went back to their room to collect her body armor. Her sectormate was sitting on her bed, alone, when Aris walked in.
Dysis didn’t look up.
“Did Lieutenant Daakon speak with you?” Aris asked, when it became clear Dysis wasn’t going to say anything.
Slowly, Dysis nodded. Voice hoarse, she murmured, “He said he wanted to be the one to tell me.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m not allowed on the mission. I’ve been ordered not to save my brother.” Her face twisted, teetering on the edge of emotion, but her voice remained flat, expressionless.
“I know. I’m so sorry.”
Aris took a step closer and pressed a hand on her sectormate’s shoulder.
Dysis raised her face, her brown eyes glassy. “You bring him back, Mosquito,” she said, the agony finally emerging, lining the edges of her words. “Whatever you have to do, you bring him back to me, you understand?”
Aris didn’t remind her that they weren’t even sure it was Jax. She didn’t explain how dangerous the mission was, how it wasn’t just up to her but to the entire team. She didn’t do anything but nod and squeeze Dysis’s shoulder once, hard, before leaving the room.
Chapter 44
“The villager saw the man, on foot, traveling east toward Bieza,” Major Vidar said into his comm, transmitting to Lieutenant Wolfe’s transport.
Aris listened as she steered the recon toward Hevensak, a small town near Atalanta’s border with Safara.
“Hasn’t Hevensak been evacuated?” she asked. “It’s so close to the border. Bieza is farther east, and it’s held by Safaran forces.”
“The man’s an old salt. He refused to comply with the evacuation order. Didn’t want to leave his farm. It’s not the first time he’s called in something suspicious, apparently.” Major Vidar glanced at her. In such close quarters, holding his gaze without blushing was a trial.
Quickly, she asked, “But—why didn’t the villager offer to help the soldier, sir?”
To her relief he turned forward again, and she did the same. “He didn’t know he was a soldier. He just saw an injured man in tattered clothing hiking under cover of darkness to the north of the village. The villager had the impression the man did not want to be seen. About two hours before the sighting, we got a hit on an old, unused emergency transmitter in the area. We think Lieutenant Latza—or whoever it is—activated that transmitter intentionally.”
Aris concentrated on the topographical map on the nav panel. She was constantly making small adjustments to their course; the night was blustery and damp, the wind buffeting them as they flew.
“Enemy threat?” Lieutenant Wolfe asked over the headset.
“We believe the missing person is being pursued. Enemy engagement probable,” Major Vidar replied.
Aris swallowed.
“Turning on thermal imaging,” she said as they passed over a village to the east of their destination. Between here and Hevensak ran some of the roughest country in Mittaka. The rolling land was pocked with crumbling ruins, deep ravines, and hills that had been carved into vertical drops millennia before. It was beautiful, but deadly all the same.
“Sir.” Aris gestured to the nav panel. Deep within a narrow ravine, the faint pink blob of a heat signature glowed. “Could that be Lieutenant Latza?”
Major Vidar nodded. Over the headset, he said, “Possible target located. At the bottom of the ravine. Proceed carefully.” He glanced closer at the monitor. “Wolfe, you see the wider stretch at the southern point?”
“Yes, sir,” Wolfe’s voice scratched over the line.
“Land there. We’ll head farther in, toward the target.”
Aris skimmed along the edge of the crevice. She spared a moment’s regret that it wasn’t a daytime mission—flying in close quarters was easier when she could see where she was going instead of relying on the nav. She descended farther, until the black around her changed, felt more solid.
Aris fought back a sudden wave of claustrophobia. She glanced at Major Vidar. “It feels a little close in here. Are you sure—”
The nav panel exploded into panicked beeping, jus
t as the night swelled with yellow light.
“Evade!” Major Vidar yelled, hands busy returning fire.
Aris pulled sharply on the controls, and the wingjet shot up out of the ravine. She flipped them sideways so they were hugging the edge of the cliff, giving Vidar a clear shot at the emplacement at the edge of the promontory. Another flash. She spun, narrowly avoiding the missile. How had the enemy’s heat sig not shown up on the nav? The pink blob they’d seen had been small, human-sized. Not large enough to indicate a wingjet.
“Wolfe, come in. We’re under fire. Status!” Major Vidar yelled into the crackle of the headset.
Aris sent them down into the ravine again, spiraling and swerving to avoid two more flashes.
Lieutenant Wolfe didn’t respond.
“Wolfe, Talon! Status!” Major Vidar’s voice was harsh. “Aristos, take us up, I want to give the sons of asses something to worry about.”
She pulled out of the dive and blasted into open sky, taking her cues from the insistent beeping of the nav panel. Her palms damp, she kept her elbows pinned to her sides so her arms wouldn’t shake.
The ominous silence on the headset lingered. “Sir, the transport . . .”
“Wolfe! Specialist Galec—one of you report immediately!” he yelled again.
Aris skimmed along the cliff a second time. Fire bloomed beneath them as Major Vidar’s missiles found their targets. But still the flashes continued.
“Lower now, Aristos. Beneath them.” His voice was tight, and instinctively she knew what he wanted to do. According to the map, the lip of the canyon protruded slightly, curving back into the hill. If they could destroy enough of the ledge, the whole thing would go.
Then a blast rocketed them sideways. They tumbled toward the canyon floor like a burst balloon.
“Aristos!” Major Vidar’s voice thundered over the whistling of air through a gash in the wingjet’s side.
Desperately she manipulated the pedals and levers. A screeching crash erupted around them. They’d grazed the side of the cliff. Her fingers slipped on the controls.
In a last-ditch effort to save them, she increased their speed, engaging the jets to propel them forward, while yanking as hard as she could on the controls.
“What the hell?” Vidar roared.
“The thrusters are out!” she shouted. “But if I can get her nose up—” Slowly, too slowly, the wingjet’s trajectory shifted. It wasn’t going to happen.
She slammed her feet on the pedals, arresting their forward movement as much as she could. Without the thrusters she couldn’t hover.
They were going to crash.
Aris did her best to slow them down and get the nose up, but in the end, they still went careening along the stream bed, plowing a gash through the mud-dark water. When one wing hit the cliff wall and they went spinning, a sudden jerk and crunch threw her back against her seat and into darkness.
Chapter 45
Aris awoke to a raging headache. Her fingers shook as she touched them to the tender spot at the base of her skull, just above her veil, from which the pain radiated. When she returned her hand to her lap, it was sticky with blood.
She tipped up her helmet, which had jammed itself over her forehead, blinked a couple of times, and made the hazy observation that she could still see. Night was just beginning to ease into dawn.
What happened? Some instinct cautioned her not to say the words aloud, not to draw attention to herself.
A small noise sounded to her right. She turned her head. The pounding at the base of her skull increased, and she shifted her shoulders in an attempt to lessen the pain.
Beside her, Major Vidar breathed shallowly, his eyes closed. A gash on his forehead, just below the rim of his helmet, sheeted blood.
Sickness roiled through her belly. “Sir?”
He didn’t respond.
She shifted again, carefully, to look out the hole of twisted metal and shattered glass that had once been the wingjet’s dome. The memory flashed again before her. The concussion of explosions as the night lit with fire. The screech of metal as they tore into the ravine wall. The coppery smell of blood. The wingjet was facing into the cliff wall; she couldn’t get a clear view of their location. She tapped on the nav screen, but it didn’t power on. No way to tell if or where their enemy lurked. Or call for reinforcements.
After taking a couple deep breaths, she wiped her shaking hands against her knees. A glance at Major Vidar told her he hadn’t moved but was still breathing.
“We’ve got to get someplace safe,” she whispered. She nudged Vidar’s arm. Nothing.
She reached out and yanked on the manual release for the dome. Praying that there were no Safaran soldiers waiting, weapons ready, she listened to the hiss as the remains of the shield slid back.
Cautiously, she twisted to look around. The wingjet had landed more or less on its belly. It listed slightly toward the shallow stream at the bottom of the canyon. Several yards away, its missing wing had pierced the muddy ground, stabbing into the air. A monument to destruction.
When she turned to look the other way, toward the north end of the ravine, she gasped.
Wolfe’s wingjet.
She glanced around once more, ears strained for footsteps or the skitter of rocks down the ravine wall. The steep red-clay cliffs would be difficult to navigate, but it was only a matter of time before those Safaran soldiers came looking for them.
Ignoring the pounding of her head, she scrambled out of her seat and stumbled onto land. Solagun at the ready, she made her way toward the transport.
“Lieutenant Wolfe? Galec?” she called as she approached the wingjet. The jet was on its side, wedged into the wall of the cliff. It was still smoking trails of wispy gray that twisted up into the lightening sky and burned her nose.
“Lieutenant Talon?” She slowed, her steps dragging. A bird cried far above, and the sudden noise made her jump. She stared up at the rim of the canyon, where the missiles had come from, but saw no movement.
With a deep breath, she wiped an edge of the cracked glass of the shield and looked inside the cabin.
Galec stared up at her with one perfect, lifeless eye. The rest of his face was gone.
Wolfe and Talon, slumped beside him, were just two blackened husks.
Aris turned away, stumbling, and fell to her knees. Hands down, she retched into the shallow, sun-warmed water that wended its way through the canyon.
She closed her eyes, heaving, sobbing, wishing she hadn’t looked, wishing she could go back, erase the last months of her life.
Erase everything.
“It’s not worth it, it was never worth it,” she mumbled, the vision of Galec’s demolished face static and endless in her mind.
The skitter of kicked pebbles caught her attention. She froze. Without taking a breath, she moved into a crouch and worked her way along the shadow of the wingjet. A moment later, two black-uniformed soldiers rounded its nose.
Before she had time to think, she was shooting, the solagun clenched in both hands.
The two soldiers went down without a word, their faces drawn into grimaces of surprise and pain.
Still she kept shooting, blind with horror and sick with rage.
Eventually the solagun ran out of power. She didn’t look at the soldiers, didn’t wait to see if more were coming.
Instead, she ran.
Chapter 46
When Aris reached the recon, Major Vidar was still unconscious. She watched his chest rise and fall for a long moment as she panted and tried not to pass out.
They were the only two still alive.
But just because she saw no sign of other Safaran soldiers didn’t mean they weren’t there. She needed someplace safer, away from the jet, but she wouldn’t be able to carry Major Vidar very far. She looked around, squinting in the glare of sunlight that had found its way to the base of the ravine. A few hundred yards away, she spotted a darker shadow along the canyon wall. A cave, maybe?
Aris s
crambled onto the wing next to Vidar and shook his shoulder, more roughly this time. “Major!” she yelled, voice hoarse and throat burning.
A soft, pained moan left his lips, but he didn’t open his eyes.
She yanked her pack and the aid kit from behind his seat and carried them to the darkness along the wall of the cliff. It was indeed a cave. It wasn’t tall—she had to duck to avoid hitting her head—but the narrow opening went deep into the hill. It wasn’t much of a hiding place, but it would have to do.
Aris stumbled back to the jet and shook Major Vidar again. Blood still flowed from the wound on his head; she couldn’t tell if he had any other injuries.
She stood back and looked at him, at his long arms and legs. He was so tall. How the blighting hell was she going to get him into the cave?
Taking a deep breath, she grabbed his arm and pulled until she could wedge her neck under his armpit. With a grunt she hauled him over her shoulder. When she stepped back along the wing to pull his legs free, his weight overbalanced her. She tried to keep her footing, tried to keep from falling, but he was too heavy, as inert as an enormous sack of donkey feed. His legs slid out of the jet and they both tumbled off the wing onto the muddy ground.
For a long time, Aris lay on her back, gasping. Major Vidar had fallen on her and knocked all the breath from her lungs.
With a groan, she sat up, head throbbing. Major Vidar lay on his side, half in the muddy water and half draped across her legs. His breathing was shallow. She worked her legs free and stood, knees shaking, to look down at him.
Now what?
It took longer than she could have imagined, but eventually, through a combination of dragging, rolling, and heaving, she got him to the mouth of the cave. They were both filthy, covered in sweat, blood, and the slime of the stream bed. She got him into the shade of the cave, where the air was cooler. He still hadn’t woken; she wouldn’t let herself entertain the thought that he might never wake.
Flopping beside his body, she drew off her helmet and let it fall to the ground. She knew she had to clean Vidar’s wound, inspect him for other injuries. But for a moment, she just breathed.
The Diatous Wars 1: Rebel Wing Page 20