Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) (20 page)

“Now to land this thing.” She
glanced at the control pad to slow the speed to 10 kph. When she looked back
up, a tree branch hit her windshield. The craft spun sideways, hit another
tree, flipped over and over and then rammed backward into something hard. Anya
flew forward in her seat. Only the harness kept her from tumbling out. She hung
upside down.

A tremendous cracking sound rent
the air. Anya only had time to cover her head before a pine crashed across her
windshield. The ship shuddered, and then was still.

Anya opened her eyes. She was
alive. The ship’s hull appeared to be intact. But the instrument panel was
black.

Joshua.

Anya hit her harness release
button and fell onto her hands and knees. She punched the door emergency
release handle, and by some miracle, with her help, the buckled door actually
slid halfway open. She crawled outside. Near as she could tell, the rear end of
the airbird had butted into the cliff, and a tree lay on top of it. It was a
wonder the bird hadn’t exploded. It was a miracle she wasn’t injured or the
bird crushed. Or maybe she was critically injured and didn’t feel it yet, and
was operating on adrenaline.

But at least she could move and
think. Anya pulled out her laser, set it to kill, and burrowed under the fallen
tree’s branches for the open forest.

*  *  *  *  *

The men were closer. Joshua forced
himself to run, although he did more falling and crawling than actual running.
He swore in fury. He did not want to die like a blind animal, running like a
coward from his enemies. Unable to fight.

He ran into another tree. He saw
stars…in both eyes now. His head swam. Grogginess threatened to steal his mind.

“Damn it, no.” He lurched on,
forcing his legs to move.

“Joshua!”

He shook his head. Knife-like pain
stabbed into his skull.

“Joshua, it’s Anya.” The voice was
very near.

Had it come to this? His hand went
to his head. “You’re not real.”

“I am. Come with me. I’ll bring
you to safety.” A gentle hand took his.

His brain felt fuzzy, but the
voice sounded like Anya’s. Joshua was unable to resist. He followed the
apparition called Anya. If he was about to enter heaven, he didn’t mind. If he
could be with Anya, maybe death wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps he could go in
peace.

*  *  *  *  *

Anya could not believe that she
had found Joshua so fast. God must be smiling down upon them both. She breathed
an incredulous prayer of thanks and tugged Joshua through the forest,
half-blinded by the thick, driving snow flurries. He stumbled behind her,
tripping more than once. Something must be terribly wrong with him, but she
didn’t have time to figure out what, for the distant snap of branches indicated
the enemy soldiers were closing in. They needed to hide, and the only safe
place was in the aircraft. Once inside, her thermal tarp could hide their body
heat from the airbirds swarming overhead.

Of course, right now they were
leaving a broken path that a child could follow. Their only helps were that it
was nighttime, and snowing hard. Hopefully, tracking in the dark was not the
sharpest skill of the enemy airmen. All the same, she’d need to cover their
tracks as best she could.

“Down,” she said urgently. “Crawl.
Grab my foot and follow me.”

Severely injured as he no doubt
was, Joshua gamely gripped her foot and slithered with her under the tree
branches to the door of the airbird. She helped him inside, and then, after a
whisper for him to wait, she grabbed a broken branch and wiggled back under the
tree. She swept snow onto their tracks and smoothed them as best she could.
Gusts of wind battered snowflakes against her cheeks, and added another tender
layer of protection to their path. Five meters of tracks were thinly covered.
It would have to do. A muffled expletive drifted to her ears. The airmen were almost
upon her. Anya quickly returned to Joshua inside the airbird.

At least with the aircraft upside
down and the seats hanging from the ceiling, there was plenty of room for
Joshua to lie down. Anya pulled the door just short of clicking closed, careful
to make as little sound as possible. The enemy airmen were fewer than twenty
meters distant now. She scooted next to Joshua and pulled her tarp over them
both.

Joshua smelled of dirt and
pine…and blood. But he was alive. His warm breaths touched her cheek, and she
felt like weeping from gratitude. Now, if only Onred’s men wouldn’t find them.

Joshua’s rough, gloved hand
touched her face. “Are you real?” His voice sounded wondering.

Her fingers closed around his, and
unbearable tenderness ached through her. “I am,” she whispered. “Now hush, so
they don’t find us.”

Men’s voices came.

“He was here. Now he’s gone.”

Someone cursed.

“Can’t disappear into thin air.”

“Maybe one of his birds picked him
up.”

More expletives drifted through
the howling wind.

Anya barely dared to breathe.
Joshua lay very still, too. His breaths were deep, even, and regular. He had
fallen
asleep.
Fear crawled into Anya’s gut. Something must be terribly
wrong with him. Joshua would never fall asleep on duty.

She pulled off her gloves. Gently,
she touched his face, which was angled slightly toward her. His right side
seemed fine. She remembered the sharp blast of static, and then the silence
when his transmitter had gone dead. His transmitter was clipped to the left
side of his collar. The left side of his face was angled downward, toward the
floor. She pulled on her glove again, not wanting to wake him. Not with the enemy
so close.

But what was wrong with him? Had a
laser shot hit his head?

More fear pooled in the pit of
Anya’s stomach. Men’s boots audibly crunched through the snow, very close, now.
The tree covered the airbird, for which she was grateful. Had she hidden their
path well enough?

God help us.

“Report!”

Boots continued to scrunch through
the snow.

“Someone met him. We see two sets
of tracks, then they just disappear.”

“Roger. Matches our sensors. We
tracked two systems of body heat. Both are gone.” Another curse. “A bird must
have picked them up. Join the air fight. Let’s put the fear of God into these
bastards.”

“I don’t know…” A man’s rough
voice spoke. “I
feel
like they’re here. Somewhere close.”

Fear slammed into Anya’s heart.

“Give us five more minutes.”

“Roger.”

Anya bit the inside of her lip,
straining her ears to filter out the rising wind to hear the sounds the men
made.

“This tree…just came down. Fresh
break. See?”

“What’s on the other side?”

Anya closed her eyes and prayed
harder than she had ever done in her life.

“These branches poke like a
son-of-a…” A muffled expletive.

“Can’t see…”

A tinny voice said, “Report to
your ship. We need you in the air.
Now.
”

“Roger, Rivner.”

The footsteps and voices receded.
Anya drew a deep, shaky sigh of relief.

It was a miracle.
Thank you,
God.

All the same, Anya lay very still
for a long time, just to make sure that no one had lingered behind to try to
trap them. But except for the whistling wind, the forest was silent. Overhead,
airbirds streaked, splitting the air with muted shrieks, and spitting weaponry.
Eventually, she crawled over to securely shut the door. The bird was insulated,
and with the thermal tarp and their insulated snow wear, they shouldn’t freeze
to death. She wondered who was winning the air battle. No one had spoken in her
earpiece since Joshua’s transmitter had gone silent.

Awkwardly, she pulled the phone
from her pocket and switched to the text channel. A few messages, written in orange
light, glowed on the screen.

Where’s Joshua?

His transmitter is blocking the
voice channel.

Belar is dead. His ship is dust.

Fight to the death.

Anya realized that Joshua’s
transmitter must still be on, and broadcasting on the voice channel. She needed
to turn it off. The fighting men could communicate much easier by voice. Going
up on one elbow, her fingers slid up the lapel of Joshua’s jacket, searching
for the collar. The rectangular metal piece was still clipped in place, and
although it felt intact, it must be internally damaged. She lifted the edge.
Pulling off her glove with her teeth, her fingernail searched for the
permabattery. The round nodule slid into her palm, and her hand quickly fisted
to catch the precious piece. If it still worked, it could be a valuable
commodity later. After tucking it in her pocket, she pulled on her glove and
typed a message into the phone for Joshua’s men.

“Joshua alive. Transmitter off.
Send help when can.” After signing her digital signature code, she sent the
message.  Somehow, the tarp had slipped down to her shoulders. She pulled it
back up.

“Why are the seats on the ceiling?”
Joshua’s voice startled her.

He was awake again. She drew a
small breath of relief. “Crash landing. I flew here. Flying was okay, but the
landing wasn’t so great. I’d have done better without a whole forest in the
way.”

Joshua huffed out a quiet chuckle.
“You never…fail to surprise me.” Silence ticked by. “The men are gone. What happened?”

“They think an airbird picked you
up.”

Another moment elapsed. “I must
have passed out.”

Urgently, Anya whispered, “Where
are you injured? How badly are you hurt?”

“I’d rather not think about it.”
The tiniest grunt escaped his lips.

He was severely injured. She had
to find the medical kit, and a flashlight. She went up on her knees and crawled
the length of the craft, searching for her bag or the kit. She found one near
the nose, the other near the tail section. After dragging both to Joshua’s
feet, she sat up, tarp tented over her head, and clicked on a flashlight.

“What hurts worst?”

“My leg,” Joshua muttered.

Anya spotted the belt around his
thigh, and the blood darkening the fabric. Swiftly, she pulled the medical wand
from the kit, along with assorted other supplies. Then she carefully cut the
pant leg and snow wear above the tightly cinched belt, then carefully released
the buckle. The snow wear stuck to his leg. Swallowing back a sick pull of
nausea, she murmured, “This will hurt. I’m sorry.”

“Do it. Don’t worry.” Just like
him; always encouraging. Always trying to reassure her, even though pulling the
fabric from the wound would likely feel like she peeled the skin right off his
leg.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and
swiftly did what she had to do.

His only reaction was a swiftly
indrawn breath and the click of clenched teeth.

“It’s a big gash, and a deep
puncture wound.” She didn’t mention it was bleeding like the proverbial stuck
pig now, either. The quick flow of deep red scared her. It was too much, too
quick. He must have already lost a lot of blood. She set the wand to “cauterize,”
and set it on high. After one long, distressing minute, the blood flow ceased,
and the blood thickened to a thin skin over the wound. It would need to be
treated every fifteen minutes for the next hour for best healing. She found a
bit of thermal cloth in the kit and wrapped it around his leg to keep out the
biting cold.

“Now what?” she said.

“My shoulder hurts, but I don’t
think it’s bad.” His voice was fainter than she liked. It might be from the
pain, but more likely from blood loss. She pulled a flat, rectangular vital
meter from the kit and pressed it into the skin beneath his jaw. Joshua’s eyes
were shut, his skin tinged gray.

The vital meter said what she’d
thought. His blood pressure was low, and he’d lost over two liters of blood.
Thankfully, the medical kit carried a blood generator. The instructions were
written on the front. Touching the test strip to a bit of blood at Joshua’s
thigh, the machine read the blood composite and a green light indicated it was
ready. Anya punched in the volume needed, and swiftly stripped Joshua’s coat,
shirt and snow wear from one arm, and then attached the flat, rectangular generator
with the hard back and soft bag closest to his arm. The bottom half was black
plastic, and was supposed to be positioned in the crook of his elbow. Sensors
would find the vein and insert a fine needle. She attached it securely, then
hit the start button. Relief hit her when the green light indicated a vein had
been found. A hum indicated that the blood Joshua needed was beginning to be
manufactured.

She draped his clothes back over
his chest and zipped them all shut to keep his body heat inside.

She caught Joshua’s faint grin. “What?”