“I can.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be right there,” he said quietly as he guided her around the edge of the gates until they ended up in the midst of a group of helos. The sun was going down so they’d have some extra cover, and she supposed it wouldn’t be as easy to see the ground hurtling toward them faster than she wanted.
He spoke Sanctinese to the pilot, who indicated they get in as he flipped the switches and fired the blades up.
Andrei helped her into the chute and she him, each checking the fit, making sure the straps were strong and tight. The pilot told them over the mic that he’d been there since the day after the bombings, and he’d been making runs out to all the outlying areas where relief stations had been created.
As they flew over, Piper choked back tears and bile at the damage below. She’d never seen anything like it. In some places there was simply nothing there but piles and piles of bricks and dust where buildings once stood.
There had been war in the Known Universes. Small skirmishes between ’Verses and even between groups in the same ’Verse. There had been the last war with the Imperialists when the Federation Universes had pushed them back, taking all the Frontier that had been part of the Imperium. As a child she’d learned of the devastation then when the Imperialists had dropped null bombs, the kind that killed everyone and everything but left the buildings standing. And when it was clear they were losing ground, they set fires with chemicals that could not be extinguished, they’d used large-scale bombs called ’Verse killers that had leveled hundreds of miles of cities, towns, ocean, whatever.
But it hadn’t touched her life here. They’d escaped Earth for that reason. Had escaped war and famine, and though Asphodel hadn’t been perfect, she’d never worried about fire raining down on her home and friends.
This is what the Imperialists had brought them. And that was why they needed to be stopped.
The scene from horizon to horizon was a nightmare. The dust still smoldered in places. Underground fires, the pilot had explained.
“They hit schools and hospitals. Violated every single law of engagement. Then again, they did it last time, too. Just not this far in. No fucking honor, those Imperialists.” The pilot’s rage tautened his voice, adding to how ill she already felt. “Lyons sent troops. I like that part. But he has to man up and meet this force with force.”
Piper knew he had, but said nothing.
“T minus three minutes. I’ll drop you to the east of the ridge. There’s too much damage otherwise. There’s a relief camp about three clicks to the other side of the ridge, toward the lakes. If you get in trouble out there, and you might, because there’s no one else around, just hit your call button. It’s a public channel, and they can extract.”
She moved to the doorway, sliding it open and standing at the ready. Andrei was right behind her. He’d asked, though quietly so no one heard but her, if she wanted him to go first. She’d refused, wondering if there was anything in all the Known Universes he was afraid of.
It had to be done, and she’d do it. So when the pilot called out a go and gave a green light, she jumped, letting her body take over, knowing her muscles would remember what do to.
Landing hurt more than she remembered, but she managed not to break anything and to roll out of the way as she retracted the chute back into the pack. She reined in her fear and the swell of relief that she survived to jump from aircraft another day. One she hoped was far in the future.
Within moments the sound of the helo had faded, and Andrei had retracted his chute and had joined her.
“What do you see?” he asked quietly, pulling his own field glasses from his pack.
“Nothing much. We need to take readings to get a baseline. I see some camp lights about five clicks to the south and what looks to be a heat signature from a small group about four clicks the other way. Looks like it matches up with the data we had about who was out here.”
“How are you? Tired?”
“I slept on the transport. I’m good, and I know we need to get some ground covered before first light.”
He touched the side of her neck. “If you need to stop, give me a double tap.” He demonstrated, and it sounded in her ear where she’d tucked the receiver.
“Got it.”
“Let’s go then.” He led the way, and she followed.
Every hour or so she stopped to get readings. Vincenz had created a spectrum analyzer of some sort. It would show a spike in either the material that made the gel or the Liberiam or a rise in the electric pulse usually found near labs using processing equipment. They might get false positives, but that was easy enough to check and better than having nothing to help them narrow their search at all.
He stopped her at the edge of the canyon floor where it flowed out onto a plain that once held a small city. Now there was simply nothing but rubble.
“We’ll have to get through that open area up ahead. There’ll be no cover.”
“Moon is setting. Lead the way, and we should be able to clear it by the time the light begins to rise.”
“And then we need to find a place to strike a camp.”
She shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant, but boy oh boy, did it sound like a dream to be able to stop and get off her feet.
He saw right through her, of course, but said nothing more about it. Which she appreciated.
He paused, taking her hand. “This is going to be difficult.” He handed her a mask. “We have to wear them. Don’t go near any dead, all right? The ones not cleaned up and disposed of properly are high risk for contagion. They’re beyond our help now. Do you understand? We’re doing what we can for them this way. Just hold on to that.”
Running with a mask on? She took a deep breath and put it on, setting the regulator and engaging the tox and bacteria screens.
And they ran.
It had been hard; he hadn’t lied. From the distance it had looked like just rubble from buildings, but up close it was bodies and pieces of people as well as rubble. Everything broken. Everything destroyed. She pushed the gorge back, focusing on running and keeping from tripping over the bricks and the dead.
She’d always considered herself strong, jaded even. But those two hours they spent passing though the rubble of the city that had once marked the entrance into the back country had corrected that misperception. She wasn’t jaded. She was shaken and sweaty and trying not to gag or cry. Incredibly thankful for the mask, which blocked the stench, and for Andrei, who led her, keeping her focused and moving.
When they finally got not only free of the outer edges of the city but began to climb into the foothills beyond and into some cover, she wanted to fall to her knees, but she kept moving until Andrei finally held a hand up for them to stop.
He pulled the mask off. “Go on. It’s safe now. Let’s set camp here.”
There was a gulley. They couldn’t drink the water for fear of contamination, but there was a small rock overhang, and the switchback would give them excellent cover and also the high ground should anyone try to approach.
“I’ll set the alarms while you get the camp up.”
He gave her a long look, but then shrugged. “They’re in my pack. Do you know how to set them?”
She just looked at him before pulling the small proximity alarms from his pack. “I’ll be right back.”
Andrei listened to her through the mic system they both wore. Her breathing had calmed at last. Back in the city below, she’d been panting and not from exertion. The devastation had rocked back even the likes of him. He’d had years of training to get used to the dead, and it hadn’t been enough to stop his horror at what he’d seen.
He’d wanted to pick her up and put her face to his chest to shield her from it all. He had wished, every step of the way down there, that it had been Julian or Daniel who’d seen the damage and not her.
But now she moved with more stealth than he’d given her credit for, placing those alarms in pretty much the same places he’d have chosen. He smiled to himself as he got the shelter up. This high in the hills his breath misted as he moved. Chilly. They’d get some rest and get moving again.
Shelter up, he tossed the sleeping bags inside and pulled some food from his pack. They’d eat, he’d wrestle back his constant need for her and they’d sleep a while.
Her being in Phantom Corps had been a completely unexpected turn. Wilhelm had never surprised him so much. The man was
not
given to rash decisions of any sort. There were waiting lists years and years long to apply to the special teams.
But, as usual, Ellis had known what even Andrei hadn’t been overly sure of. Piper was a natural at this.
She was good at the job. Would get better as she trained. Daniel had asked him the prior day if he’d be interested in being her trainer. Normally, it wouldn’t be something he’d take on, but they worked well together as it was. They had that sort of intensity of unspoken communication it takes years to develop with a partner.
He had it with Daniel, but then again, they’d worked together for years. And he had it with Piper. She’d need others to help her, others who could help her develop skills that weren’t Andrei’s strengths.
Piper being Piper, she’d simply made a place in his life and had no plans to give it up. He should encourage her otherwise, and they’d need to have that discussion at some point that wasn’t wrought with urgency and disaster. But he liked her there with him.
She came back to him, wiping her hands on the front of her pants, which were probably dirtier than her hands. Wisely, he kept that part to himself, tossing her the pack of special cloths he carried with him.
“You’re the finest man in all of creation.” She eased onto a nearby rock with a groan and began to clean up with the cloth.
He handed her a food packet.
She looked at it and laughed. “Haven’t seen one of these since my days in the corps.”
“Still tastes like the bottom of a boot, but it’s got all the stuff you need to keep working and thinking.”
“It feels so good to sit down, I don’t think I have the energy to care what it tastes like just now.” She tore into the package and began to eat, sipping her water from time to time.
“We can kip for three hours, maybe four. Then we’ll continue east. Unless or until we get readings that take us in another direction, I think the areas like this one, with so much destruction all around, relatively deserted and still close to the private portal in the valley, are our best bet.”
“I didn’t see much when I set the alarms. Used the heat scope, no human life within sight. Some small birds though, so there’s hope. Life finds a way, I guess.”
She crawled into the shelter and toed her boots off. “I don’t want to sleep if you’re not with me.”
He heartily agreed with that point, following her, settling in the bag along with her. She snuggled into him, and within moments, they’d both dropped to sleep.
Chapter 18
H
er muscles had stopped aching about two hours into the hike after they’d broken camp. She was grateful for the way she’d had to be so physical before, because she sure as seven hells couldn’t have kept up with Andrei if she hadn’t.
He was a machine. He caught everything. His awareness was nearly superhuman. She watched him carefully, learning. His patience with her endless questions seemed limitless. He answered in detail, often opting to show her how to do something instead of telling.
They’d been inching through a culvert, both of them unsettled, making small progress for the last hour. There was something not entirely right in the air. They’d stopped a few times already because of her feeling and found nothing.
But the air was wrong. Different than it had been before. She double tapped the mic, pausing to pull the analyzer from a pocket.
He turned, pausing to grab his water and drink, keeping an eye on the area as she took the data.
A spike.
“Andrei,” she whispered, and he turned, focus totally on her. And then he was there, hand on her arm, looking down at the screen.
“Motherfucker.”
She nodded. The screen had lit from traces of the off-gases frequently used in processing minerals.
“Enough that this isn’t an echo of what was done before the bombings,” she muttered as she pulled up the map of industrial sites pre-existing the attack.
He kissed her, hard and fast, leaving her head spinning. “You got some gut on you, my beautiful criminal.”
She grinned, and then the sickness came back. “I could still be wrong. We need to get closer to see just what we’ve got.”
“Let’s get in closer, get some more documentation. We’ll need an extraction. And most likely some backup.”
He forwarded the data back to Mirage, and they headed toward the source of the readings.
The air was close, humid, clinging to Piper’s face as they crept through the undergrowth, checking the readings periodically to keep their direction true. Another click, and the reader pinged with more data. Liberiam.