Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) (28 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Joshua, in truth,
had very few ideas about how to
get inside Gorno. As a pilot, he had often screamed into battle at Mach 1, with
all guns blazing. Sometimes as baron he flew by the seat of his pants, too.
Amazingly, it usually worked out. However, he preferred to have backup plans.
Not much chance of those now. Formulating a plan B, let alone a plan C, when
plan A seemed near impossible, was out of the question.

He slogged through the deep snow,
breaking an easier path for Anya, and trying to forget the kisses they had
shared. Those had been a mistake. Correction. The kisses in Tash had been his
first mistake. What had he been thinking? Their intimacy was a taste of what he’d
always longed for—the desire to love her. Now he would have to pay the price
for that joy, for it was getting harder and harder to keep his hands off of
her. Somehow, he had to find the strength to resist what his whole body and
soul had desperately craved for so long.

He forced his mind back to the battle
ahead.

It was amazing how easy it had
been to slip back into the role of military pilot. Fighting Onred’s birds had
felt good, as if he’d only taken a moment’s hiatus from battle, rather than
twelve years. Would it be so bad to lose his baronship, and be expelled from Donetsk to become a pilot—a civilian pilot—in another territory, in order to gain Anya as
his own?

His hungry mind again slipped
back, reliving their shared passion. Even his soul, which he had long ago
thought dead, had come alive, deeply longing for the love he felt in her arms.
He wanted a lifetime to love her. He wanted it with a fierce, almost
frightening intensity.

But that selfish course of action
would destroy her. She’d lose her home and her inheritance. The Dubrovnyks,
after two centuries of power, would lose all rights to rule in Donetsk Territory. He would not allow that to happen.

It may be a moot point, anyway. By
this time tomorrow, he could be dead. His mission, above all, was to protect
Anya and rescue her family. And defeat Onred. He burned for the opportunity to
kill that bastard with his bare hands. Then he could die a happy man.

Joshua glanced back at Anya. His
gut tightened. Maybe not. Damn it, but he was a selfish bastard. He suspected
she loved him. She’d almost told him twice, but he wouldn’t allow her to say
it. He couldn’t allow himself to believe it. And if he didn’t know for a fact
that she’d follow him on her own, he wouldn’t have allowed her to be here now.
Better to keep an eye on her, and keep her safe. He’d lay down his life to do
so.

Richert’s ideas had given him
hope. But if he couldn’t make things legal and right between himself and Anya,
so his passion for her would not destroy her…

Joshua gritted his jaw, and
struggled to ignore the pain ripping like claws through his soul. If he couldn’t…

To protect her, he’d have to find
the strength to walk away.

*  *  *  *  *

Anya and Joshua managed to skirt
the cliff face, but the topmost, rocky path down to the canyon floor, where
Gorno’s base was located, was slick in places, and treacherous. The flat,
silver dome of Gorno loomed around the next jut of the mountain.

The canyon toward which they
descended now was narrow—perhaps half a kilometer wide, if that—and deeply shadowed.
Higher mountains reared on the opposite side. In school, Anya had learned that
all of Onred’s territory was mountainous. No wonder he lusted for their open
land. Even worse, this valley appeared ill-suited for greenhouses. The sun
would be lucky to penetrate to the canyon floor for an hour each day. Where
did
Onred keep his greenhouses? Or did he import goods from the east? That would be
expensive.

The sun slid behind thick gray
clouds as they left behind the steep, rocky cliff face and cut into the
fragrant pine forest, trying to avoid Onred’s surveillance systems. So far,
Joshua’s computer had picked up the infrared detectors, and they had skirted
them successfully.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you
something,” Anya said. Her legs ached from plowing through the deep snow, but
she ignored the discomfort. “The lasers on Michael’s bird shot white fire.
Onred’s birds exploded on the first hit. Why?”

“Michael’s lasers are prototypes.
They’re ten times more lethal than ordinary lasers.”

Anya gasped. “
Ten
times?”

Joshua grunted an affirmation and
ducked under a pine branch. Keeping close to the trees helped hide their footprints
from scout airbirds. A few flew at intervals overhead, but no one appeared to
be looking for them. Yet.

“Why are prototype lasers on
Michael’s ship?”

“He tests all the prototypes.”

She thought about the DiaMoRCs,
and Astana’s other technological wonders. Slowly, she said, “ZCA is more than
your backup command center. Isn’t it?”

“Much more. And it’s classified.
Only my elite pilots know about ZCA. Birn and Ray know it exists, but not its location.
It has to stay that way, for security reasons.”

“I understand.”

Joshua stopped, so she drew level
with him. “Do you? Our enemies would kill for the information you know about
ZCA.”

“But they don’t know it exists.
Right?”

“Right.” He trudged forward again.

“Why don’t Ray or Birn know its
location? If something happens to you, who will tell them?”

“Michael. Or one of his officers,
depending on the situation. ZCA is on a need-to-know basis only.”

“How did you build it, then,
without anyone learning about it?”

“I selected military engineers and
soldiers who have become permanent residents of Tash. The caverns were already
there. Michael oversaw the construction. Piece by piece, we put it together.”

“So Richert doesn’t know it
exists, and neither does Onred.”

Joshua tossed a brief smile over
his shoulder. “
You
didn’t, did you?”

“No.” What other details about Donetsk did Joshua know? During the last few days she had come to learn so many things
about her territory—and about Joshua—that she had never known before. No doubt
many more mysteries remained. She wanted to learn them all, by Joshua’s side.
If only they could survive the hours ahead. If only they could save her family.

“Are we the only extraction team?”
she asked after a while.

“No. The others will parachute
down after dusk. My job is to deactivate security.”

“Then my job will be to find my
family.”

“We’ll look together.”

Anya did not reply. Splitting up
made more sense to her. Surely they’d find her family faster that way. But she
told herself to trust Joshua this time. He was the experienced soldier. If her
family could be rescued, Joshua would know best how to accomplish it.

Trees grew sparser and appeared
more spindly as they neared the canyon floor, as if the pine needles had been
eaten up by a wasting disease. Shadows lengthened and appeared to darken. Maybe
it was Anya’s imagination, but the closer they came to Gorno, the gloomier it
felt. The mountain was silent.

“It’s eerie,” she whispered to
Joshua. “Why is it so quiet?”

“I don’t know.”

They edged around the last
outcropping of mountain and froze.

Gorno’s foundation lay before them
on a snowy, frozen lake. Its few maintenance shacks appeared closed. No vehicles
or humans moved. Steel columns curved skyward, supporting the sky city. The
straight column in the center must be the security elevator. Dark red lights
under-circled the belly of Gorno, as if it were a giant flying saucer. She
whispered to Joshua, “It can’t
fly,
can it?”

“No.” With a frown, he pulled
specialty folding lenses from his pocket and surveyed the snowy lake scene.

“Well?” she whispered.

“It’s deserted.”

“Where is everyone?”

“I don’t know.” Joshua looked up. “I
see people moving through the windows.”

“But no one’s guarding the
foundation?”

Joshua pulled off the lenses. “My
computer is picking up cameras, infrared triggered lasers, and a low-grade
shield.”

“Like Michael’s shield?”

A smile ghosted Joshua’s lips. “Not
even close.”

Anya craned her neck back. Marli,
Elise, and David were prisoners up there. Somewhere. “How do we get inside? If
we cross that snow pack, we’ll be spotted.”

“We’ll circle around to the other
side. Those pine trees are closer to the support beams than we are here. Then
we’ll slip by the security system and climb inside.”

Her eyebrows raised. “So simple,”
she said in a deadpan tone. “And what do you mean, ‘climb inside’?”

Riding the elevator, of course,
would be out of the question. Even if they hacked through security, internal
cameras would broadcast their arrival.

“Gorno’s got step handles riveted
to its support beams. They’re for maintenance. Astana had them, too.”

An interesting fact that Anya had
forgotten. Of course, her father had lectured her and Elise all about Astana’s
safety systems—especially how to call for help, if stranded at the base of
Astana. He had never actually suggested climbing the ladders, however, if the
elevator was out of service. A daunting endeavor. Gorno must rise at least a
kilometer in the air. Normally, heights didn’t scare her—at least, not if she
had a parachute. Unfortunately, she hadn’t packed one today.

She swallowed. “Right. Let’s go.”

“First, check your laser charge. I’ve
got a few techy treats Michael wants us to share, too.” Joshua pulled off his
backpack and hunkered down in the black shade of a pine. The sun had already
slipped behind the western mountain, and arctic cold bit into Anya’s skin.

Her laser charge was fine.

“Motion sensor. Key code hacker.”
Joshua handed her the items, and she clipped them to her belt. “Flexible handcuffs.”
He gave her two sets.

These looked like loose, plastic
shoelaces. She had never seen anything like them before. “How do they work?”

“Stretch them once, and they’ll
instantly snap back into place. The stretch releases a solidifying enzyme, so
when they shrink around the wrists, they harden to the consistency of an
airbird’s skin.”

“Cool. Another one of ZCA’s
marvels?”

“An old one.” Joshua handed her a
pack of energy rations and a water flask. Munching, they headed north, to skirt
the lake. While few sparse pine trees populated the northern lakeshore, bare
branched, thick bushes were plentiful. It wasn’t hard to find a sheltered path
to the other side of the lake.

Joshua had not removed everything
from his pack. It still looked bulky. “What else did Michael give you?”

“Bombs.”

Now she wished she hadn’t asked.
Pete came to mind, and the way his mission had literally blown up in his face. “You
won’t set those off—not until you’re safe, will you?”

He didn’t answer.

A sick feeling arose. “
What
exactly is your mission, Joshua?”

“To disable security and rescue
your family.”

“And?”

“Permanently incapacitate Gorno.”

“What does that mean? Will you
blow up the whole city? You’d kill all of those people?” Horror mushroomed.
Most of the citizens of Gorno, like Astana, were innocents. Women, children,
the elderly. “You can’t!”

*  *  *  *  *

Joshua wasn’t surprised that Anya
would immediately jump to the conclusion that he was a cold-blooded monster. He
had killed the half-unconscious Altai man by the boulder, after Anya had been
shot in the Altai attack. She knew he’d been the clean up man for the military.
He had killed hundreds of people in his life, and he wasn’t proud of it. His
soul was blackened, perhaps permanently. But he had never killed an innocent.

Quietly, he reassured her, “I won’t.
Not if I can help it. I’ll plant the charges in their power generation room,
and in their computer and communication centers.”

Her look of horror faded. He
wanted to touch her pale skin and tell her that he didn’t want to hurt anyone,
ever again. But he was a soldier. War meant death. He would feed her no false
promises.

“Good.” Anya offered a tremulous
smile. Devotion shone in her eyes—and still, hero worship. One day, she would
learn that he was only a man, and not worthy of her. Not in the least. But he
couldn’t disabuse her fantasy now. Strong confidence in him meant belief in
herself, and in their mission. That confidence might provide them the razor
thin chance to succeed.

This time, he did allow himself to
gently stroke her soft cheek. “We’ll succeed, Anya.”

Her eyes glowed. Softly, she said,
“I know.”

Even though he was a realist, for
a moment Joshua almost believed it himself.