Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) (30 page)

“I already looped the feed,” he
said absently, squatting by a hydraulic lift machine.

“Can that machine help us?”

“Look overhead.

“A trapdoor.” It was at least four
meters overhead; unreachable from their standpoint.

“It might open up into a
maintenance room.” He whipped off the tarp. “We’ll ride up together, back to
back. Be ready to fire when I spring the door.”

With a great grunt, Joshua shoved
the machine. It slid a few centimeters. Anya joined him. She wasn’t sure how
much she helped, but within a minute the heavy machine was positioned under the
trapdoor. Joshua offered her a hand onto the small platform. “Ready?”

When she nodded, he kicked the
machine into gear. With a quiet whine, they rose toward the steel and Tek-Lite
crisscrossed underbelly of Gorno.  Joshua’s toe tap stopped their ascent. He
pulled the key code hacker from his belt and inserted it into the trapdoor’s
key slot. In a moment, it flashed green and he plucked it back out. As the
trapdoor slowly tilted open, the hydraulic lift grunted into gear. Light
streamed down. A bad sign.

“Hey!” A man’s head appeared.

Joshua fired.

The enemy soldier crumpled out of
sight. Enemy laser fire shot down, narrowly missing Anya’s arm. Behind her,
Joshua fired again.

Their heads swiftly cleared the
trapdoor. Laser ready, Anya surveyed the room. It appeared to be the security
room. In the far corner, a man at the console reached for his weapon. She
fired. A burn mark scorched his uniform, but his weapon snapped up, steady in his
hands. Laser fire spit over her shoulder, and the man crumpled.

Tersely, Joshua said, “Out. We’re
clear.”

Anya scrambled out. Three dead
bodies littered the small room.

“We’ve got to be fast,” Joshua
muttered. “They probably tripped the alarm.” He stripped off a dead man’s
uniform shirt and yanked it over his own. Anya did the same, and when Joshua
clipped his transmitter to his underlying snow wear, she followed suit.

She reflected that it was a good
thing they had worn black pants. Combined with the stolen shirts, they would be
able to blend into Altai’s military personnel.

“Hide our coats in the closet,”
Joshua ordered. “If we make it back here, we’ll need them.” He flipped through
the security guard’s keycards. “Good,” he grunted, and stuffed them in his
pocket.

While Joshua swiftly ripped a
board from the computer console and inserted a bomb inside, Anya elected to
swipe a key set from a dead man, too. It gave her the creeps to touch his still
warm body.

Seconds later, Joshua popped the
panel back in place. He’d stuffed the remaining bombs inside his shirt, giving
him a paunchy look. Anya didn’t like the idea of the bombs being so close to
his skin. For all intents and purposes, he was a walking suicide bomber, and
she didn’t like the thought. Especially since she knew Joshua would sacrifice
his life if he believed it would save thousands of Donetski lives.

Surely, it would never come to
that.

“When will the bomb go off?” she
whispered.

“I’ll detonate it with the first
attack. It’s a small electrical bomb, hooked only into the computer system. It
should leave the room intact for our escape, if Michael can’t get to us.”

So, Joshua intended to retreat
down the ladder as a last resort. Maybe if they made it back here safely with
Marli and the others, Anya would be more grateful than frightened by that
prospect.

Boots pounded in the hallway, and
Joshua pressed his back to the wall, laser steady in his hand. Onred’s men knew
they had broken into Gorno. The war had begun.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Lights flickered
in the security room, and Anya’s
gaze found Joshua’s. “Were those the first attacks?”

He nodded. Laser at the ready, he
held very still, muscular shoulders bunched, prepared to fire.

The door banged open. Joshua shot
the first two men who barged through, then he turned into the doorway and shot
two more. Anya winged another. Joshua’s grunt signaled he’d been hit, but then
he was out, moving down the hall before she could ask if he was all right. He
shot the man she had winged, and ran down the hall.

Voices sounded behind them, and
Joshua turned and fired. Anya did the same, but wasn’t as sure of her success.
Another man crumpled. An elevator opened, and Joshua shot the military woman
who stepped out. Anya gasped, but followed him in. The door silently slid shut.

“Schematics show communications
and main security are on the fourth floor. We’ll go there next. Command Central
is on the sixth.” Joshua fingered his small computer, and an explosion rocked
the elevator. “First bomb a success,” he said grimly. “Disabling Command
Central is key, if all else fails. We’ve got to get our troops in.”

“Give me a bomb. I’ll help you.”

His gaze held hers for a long
moment.

“Don’t you trust me?” she asked in
exasperation. “I can plant a bomb just as well as you can.”

“I trust you.” He swiftly
unbuttoned his shirt. “I’ll give you one, just in case we’re separated.”

“You mean in case something
happens to you.” Joshua would never voluntarily leave her.

He did not answer, but unstrapped
a thin metal box, perhaps three centimeters by four, from his chest. Wires with
clips dangled like spider’s legs from two ends. He lifted her shirt and
unclipped a loop on her utility belt. The belt tugged forward on her hips as he
snapped the box securely in place. Odd flutters tickled her belly as his
businesslike fingers tucked black plastic gloves in beside the bomb. “Use the
gloves,” he instructed. “Strip the wires to the main computer. Then attach the
clips. See, the top of the box is a timer. It’s set for five minutes.”

Anya looked down. His strong,
tanned fingers still gripped her belt, as if he had every right to touch her
and adjust any article of clothing he wished. Her heart beat harder. She
struggled to focus on the digital display.

“The white button increases the
time,” he said. “Black decreases. Red starts the timer. Understand?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him,
feeling vulnerable. His brown eyes were hard, as if readying for battle, and
yet when they met hers, an odd look softened them. A silent heartbeat passed.
Slowly, he tugged her forward and he kissed her. The scorching, possessive
intensity made her tremble. “Follow my lead,” he murmured.

Unable to speak, she nodded, and
the elevator doors slid open.

Lights flickered in the hall they
entered. People swiftly walked by, ignoring them. Their stolen uniforms were
doing the trick.

Anya followed Joshua’s swift
footsteps down the corridor and then left, down a narrower one. Double doors
inscribed with “Communications Center” ended the hallway. A swipe of the key
code access card, and the light flashed green.

Joshua shouldered inside as if he
belonged there. He shot the security man at the desk. Still moving fast, he
strode into a room covered with floor-to-ceiling computer screens. Half a dozen
people manned work stations. Three stood up. Surprise registered when they
spotted Anya and Joshua.

“Hey,” exclaimed a bespectacled
man, fumbling with the laser at his belt.

A burly guard in the corner
whipped out his laser, but it was too late. Joshua shot him, and then the first
man.

Lasers fired toward them, and
Joshua ducked behind the wall. Anya knelt behind the dead guard’s desk and shot
around it.

Two men rushed the desk. Her laser
caught one in the chest. Fire sizzled by her hair and burned into her scalp.
Anya aimed for the next man’s head, and he cried out and sprawled on the floor.
Fear didn’t even register in Anya, nor did squeamishness at killing another
human being. Just survival.

“Security! Code red. Get up here!
Two…” A gurgle ended another man’s frantic call for help.

Joshua said, “Cover me,” and edged
into the room, weapon steady. Everyone lay dead.

Anya followed him, feeling sick,
keeping an eye on the door they had come in, and searching for another avenue
of escape. How many people had they just killed? An exit across the room caught
her eye, and she sprinted to it while Joshua ripped off a computer console and
clipped in a bomb.

It was a stairwell. Clanging boots
pounded upstairs, growing louder by the second. Thinking quickly, Anya ran up
one short flight, and then crouched down, just around the corner. A pair of men
appeared, backs to her, heading for the door to the communications room. At
close range, even with her mediocre laser skills, it was easy to pick off the
first man. The second man whirled on her. He got a piece of her sleeve, and
pain burned into her arm. Ignoring it, she blasted laser fire into his chest.
He tumbled down the stairs. Silence descended in the stairwell. Anya peered
around the corner. No more men. She had been lucky; the element of surprise had
given her the advantage. A quick glance at her arm assured her it was only a
shallow wound. In fact, it barely hurt. Maybe because of the adrenaline
charging through her.

She slipped back into the
communications room. “The stairs are clear. Hurry.”

Joshua didn’t answer. All she
could see were his shoulders, hunched over the computer. “There.” He snapped
the console back in place.

Feet sounded in the hallway, and
men barreled through the front door.

Anya fired,
bursting laser flashes for stronger impact. The first man went down, but the
second man ducked and swiveled to shoot Joshua. Joshua disappeared behind the
consoles.

Yellow fire spit at Anya and she
gasped, realizing she was the only one in plain view.

More feet pounded up the stairs
behind her, so she whirled back upstairs and crouched out of sight, like she’d
done before. With a cold-blooded efficiency, that on some unspeakable level
frightened her, she shot in quick succession all three men barreling up the
stairs.

Her hands shook when she lowered
the weapon. How many men had she just killed? And where was Joshua?

She peered into the room again and
aimed for a flash of black hair and a moving piece of uniform. A muffled curse
told her she’d made a hit.

And then more men poured into the
room, ten, fifteen… Anya lost count. She winged several, but they flooded the
room like a tidal wave. Joshua!

Where was he? And then a black
clad soldier jerked Joshua upright, laser pressed into his temple.

Anya gasped. Joshua’s dark eyes
locked with hers. His message was clear.
Run. Take Command Central
.
Gorno’s shield must be deactivated, and their computers destroyed, or the
rescue mission would fail.

She gazed at him for a long,
agonizing moment. She couldn’t leave him.

And yet his black expression
seared the word, “
Go.
”

“Get her!”

Anya whirled and sprinted up the
stairs.

Men pounded after her. She burst
out into the fifth floor hallway and wildly looked left and right. Where to go?

A short distance left, a hall
branched to the right. She ran for it. It led to an inner corridor, faced by
dozens of doors. Frantically, she tried each one as she passed.

Finally, one opened and she burst
inside.

A tall, white-haired girl unfolded
herself from a round cushion in the middle of the floor and turned to face her.

Emelie! Onred’s daughter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A swift, terrible
idea
entered Anya’s mind. Laser held steadily between her
two hands, she advanced into the room. “Hands up where I can see them.”

The willowy girl raised them above
her head. No expression marked the smooth, oval face.

Anya searched in her belt for the
flexible handcuffs. While pulling them free, she darted behind Emelie, yanked
the girl’s hands down, and secured them behind her back. “To the chair,” she
ordered. For good measure, she pulled the straight-backed chair to the center
of the room, fastened Emelie’s legs to it, and tied her hands to the ladder
back.

Emelie said nothing, which seemed
odd. Anya’s breaths came fast, as she tried to get a grip on her emotions,
which threatened to explode.
Joshua.
And her family. How would she ever
free them now? This girl had to be the key. But how could she use Emelie to her
best advantage?

The television screen beeped
across the room. What did it mean? Emelie continued to watch Anya, her face a
blank mask. It disturbed her.

On a hunch, Anya pulled the phone
she’d been given for the mission from her belt and opened Alpha channel. She
didn’t dare turn on Emelie’s television screen, for fear it had a camera
imbedded for a return broadcast.