Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) (35 page)

The physical exertion had further
cleared Joshua’s mind, although his body ached like a son-of-a-gun. He ignored
it.

An arrow indicated that CR-9 was
located to the left, and down the next corridor. Joshua stopped just short of
the corner and pressed his back to the wall, laser at the ready. He shot a
quick glance down the passage and then ducked back. From memory alone, he fired
upon the two men guarding the door.

Fire flashed at his toes. Joshua
chanced another look. He’d missed both. One man ran toward him. The other
raised his hand to knock on the conference room door. Joshua shot him first,
and ducked back into his refuge spot. He sprayed the hall with laser fire.

All fell silent.

Joshua’s gut told him not to trust
the signal received by his brain. The remaining guard still lurked around the
corner. He waited for Joshua to show his face.

Joshua listened closely for
breaths or for stealthy boot steps. Nothing.

He refused to waste time playing
hide and seek with the guard. Swiftly, he sprayed the hall again. Hot pain
licked into his fingers, and he hurled the laser across the hall just before it
exploded with bright, popping “boom.” Bits of diamonite sprayed into his face.
He bit off a curse. His red fingers burned, but they still worked well enough
to rip the spare laser from his belt and spray the hall again.

A man grunted into his
transmitter, “Van Heisman…out.”

Joshua shot another glance into
the hall. The last moving guard, on his knees, swayed backwards. Joshua shot
the laser from his hand. The man collapsed, his face slack and white. Dead. Or
close enough.

Sprinting now in his urgency to
try to catch Onred off guard, Joshua finished the distance and shouldered hard
into the conference room. With swift, deadly accuracy, he shot the two men flanking
Gorno’s leader, and growled, “Hands in the air.”

Onred did not comply. Instead, he
smiled. “Van Heisman. At last. But the situation appears uneven. Are you scared
of a fair fight?”

Joshua carefully checked the
conference room for additional guards, and then kicked the door shut. He
smiled, showing his teeth. “Not at all. In fact, I welcome it.”

Onred grinned. “Good. First,
however, I would like to show you something. May I take out my phone?” The obsequious
question grated on Joshua’s nerves. It was a lie, just like every word that
left Onred’s mouth. However, much as Joshua longed to shoot the Altai leader
right now, killing him with his bare knuckles would prove much more satisfying.
Therefore, he would allow Onred this last game.

“Do it.” Joshua’s laser remained
trained on the Altai leader. Onred withdrew his phone and lifted it high. His
thumb hovered conspicuously over the “play” button.

Slowly, deliberately, Joshua
tucked the laser into his belt. If Onred tried to double-cross him, he could
easily kill him before the Altai leader drew his weapon.

Onred’s lips curled in disgust. “Fool.
Now your fate is sealed. One button push will end life as you know it.”

*  *  *  *  *

Heart in her throat, Anya whirled
to stare at Barnes. “Joshua’s gone. Where could he be?”

Had he escaped? What if Joshua had
stolen one of the guard’s shirts? What if he was the man who had fled the
holding cell area—the man Barnes’ men had shot? But a quick glance told her
that Joshua was not among the men lying on the floor or in the hall. Another,
far worse scenario entered her head. “Onred has him,” she gasped. “Come on! We’ve
got to find him.”

She darted past a startled Barnes
before he had the presence of mind to grab her. Out in the deserted hall, she
sprinted for the stairs and whipped out her phone. Where could Joshua be? Had
Onred broadcasted again on Alpha? Maybe that would give her a clue…

“Dubrovnyk!” Barnes bellowed. “Stop!”

Anya slammed through the stairwell
door, and on impulse, went down. The shuttle bay was on the third level. Maybe
that’s where Onred lurked. She had told him to meet her there. Maybe Joshua was
held captive there, too.

As she clattered down the stairs,
she accessed Alpha. No recent feeds to replay. A swift tune into housekeeping
net no return message from Michael. Was her family all right?

Footsteps thundered on the metal
stairs behind her, and Anya burst onto the third floor. She joined the flood of
women, children, and old people surging to the right. Schematics said the
shuttle bay was this way, too. Were all of these people planning to escape?

Where were Joshua and Onred? Gorno
was huge. What if she was wrong, and they weren’t in the shuttle bay? How would
she ever find them?

An idea occurred to her. She
slowed and ducked down a narrow hallway. Joshua still wore his transponder. A
tracking device was imbedded inside—and who knew how to track it? Michael.

Swiftly, she typed into the text
channel, “Michael. Need AV’s coordinates. Text me!” She sent it. Her digital
signature would verify that it was sent from her phone.

She bit her lip, waiting. What if
Michael was out of range? What if he was fighting Richert’s men? What if her
family…

Orange text rolled across the
screen. “Kids ok. AV these coord.” Three sets of numbers flashed, and she
swiftly input them into her computer’s GPS. Exact latitude, longitude, and
meters above the earth.

“Thanks,” she typed back.

“Waiting for you and AV,” was the
response.

Anya bit her lip in gratitude. “Will
text when safe. Out.”
If
they escaped.

Her small phone computer indicated
that Joshua was indeed on Gorno’s third level, and he was eighty-five meters
east. Schematics showed the shortest route to get to him.

Anya took off at a sprint and
barreled through the crush of people converging on the shuttle bay. No sign of
Barnes or his men. Good.

A right turn, and the hall became
narrower and emptier as she closed in on Joshua’s location. Was he truly Onred’s
prisoner? More practical matters entered her head. If he was, how could she
fight Onred’s men and free Joshua? Barnes had taken all of her weapons.

She slowed and tried the few door
handles she passed. All locked. According to her computer, the next turn in the
hall would bring her to Joshua. Ten meters remained. She pressed her back to
the wall just before the final corner. Without a laser, how could she possibly
save him? Maybe if she caused a distraction…

She peeked around the corner and
took in the closed doors and the two dead men. Joshua must have killed them.

Hope, for the first time, surged.
Maybe he wasn’t a prisoner. All the same, he could be fighting for his life
right now, inside one of those rooms. She had to find a weapon. Anything to
help him.

She checked her belt again. Barnes
had left nothing. Even though the hall felt colder by the minute, perspiration
sprang out beneath her armpits. This wasn’t a good idea. But what if Onred was
about to kill Joshua? Joshua might need her. Now might be her only chance to
save him.

The guards! They must have lasers…

Footsteps whispered behind her.
She twisted to look. A black clad man with grizzled hair lunged for her. Terror
flashed and she bolted sideways, but not quick enough. A thick arm clamped
around her neck. “Gotcha.”

Anya tried to lunge forward and
bend at the waist, intending to throw him over her shoulder. Unfortunately, his
other arm came around her chest with the force of a steel bar and lifted her
from the ground. The older man was strong.

In her mind’s eye, his face
flashed again, and in horror, Anya closed her eyes. It had taken a second, but
now she placed him from ancient news clips. Onred’s father. Jacan, the jackal.
The bestial man who had raised Onred and his brother, Cadmus.

A thick, rusty chuckle rumbled
from Jacan’s chest. “Onred will be glad to see you.”

*  *  *  *  *

“Your phone is not a laser,”
Joshua told Onred. “How will you kill me?”

Onred cackled and twitched the
phone back and forth in his fingers. The screen faced Joshua. “I don’t have to
kill you. Look.” He pressed the button.

Camera footage of an empty
elevator rolled. Joshua and Anya entered. After a few murmured words, Joshua
tucked the bomb into Anya’s belt, and then tugged her close to him. He kissed
her with scorching, clearly possessive intensity.

Onred’s eyes narrowed when Joshua
didn’t lunge for the phone, as he had obviously expected. “You’d give up your
power for that
girl?
”

Joshua felt no need to respond.

A complacent smirk curled Onred’s
lips. “If you don’t care, then I’ll publish it on Alpha.” He pushed the “send”
button before Joshua could blink.

It didn’t matter.

Joshua remained stationary,
calculating his game plan. Should he beat Onred bloody, and then kill him? Or
shoot him now? Even with reflexes slowed by injury, his military training was
so deeply ingrained that he could easily draw and shoot faster than Onred could
gain his weapon.

He remained still, watching Onred
like a lion his prey. He decided to allow Onred to make the first move. The
Altai leader would choose his own death.

Blackness hardened Onred’s eyes,
and fury tensed his muscles. “Idiot. You should
cower
to me,” he
screamed.

When he lunged, Joshua was ready.
He sidestepped, gripped Onred’s wrist and jerked him forward, using Onred’s momentum
against him.

Onred ducked into a roll and
landed on his feet. His lips curled back. “You are going to
die,
” he snarled.

Joshua smiled faintly. “After you.”

The Altai leader charged again for
Joshua. Onred’s shoulder hit him, spinning him sideways. Onred turned faster
than Joshua had expected. His shoulder hit Joshua squarely in the stomach, and
they both went down. The barrel-chested Altai leader was heavy, and he managed
to land one smashing fist into Joshua’s face before Joshua wrestled on top and
landed three blows in quick succession to Onred’s nose, jaw and throat. The
last made the Altai leader choke.

Onred punched hard into Joshua’s
sore belly. They grappled, punching and rolling…and Onred attempted to claw and
strangle. Pain roared in Joshua’s head. Although Onred was strong and
uninjured, and a formidable enemy, Joshua would accept no thoughts of defeat.

Onred’s fists pounded Joshua’s
body. The leader seemed to know just the spots where Joshua had already been
beaten and burned by the electrodes. Joshua shut out the pain and willed his
body to obey him. With one violent effort, he went up on one knee and drove his
fist with brutal force into Onred’s nose. The Altai leader fell backward. Blood
flowed like a thick, red river to his chin.

Taking savage advantage, Joshua’s
fists drove harder and faster, landing with sickening, cracking thuds. He
grunted, “This is for Anya…and Marli, Elise…Damon, David, Astana…” The
innocents lost in Astana ravaged his mind, and then strangely, superimposed
upon those faces was the image of his father with his lips curled back in the
mad snarl he’d always worn when he’d beaten Joshua and threatened his siblings;
and forced him to hurt the ones he loved most. “
…and
the kids you
murdered!
” This last fist punch landed on Onred’s jaw with every scrap of
power he possessed. Onred’s eyes rolled up into his head.

A door slammed open.

“Stop! Or I shoot the girl.”

A bit dazed, Joshua looked over
his shoulder. Jacan held Anya up on her tiptoes, his arm a vice about her
throat. A laser pressed into her temple.

Breathing heavily, Joshua muttered
in a ragged voice, “Release her.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Release her?

What was Joshua thinking? The man
held a laser to her head!

But Joshua remained unmoving, back
partially to them, shoulders heaving. On the floor, Onred stirred. “I
said,
”
Joshua said with slow menace, “release her.”

The Altai leader went up on one
elbow. Joshua’s gaze seemed fixed upon him.

A twisted grin split Onred’s lips.
“You’d do anything to save your precious Anya, wouldn’t you?” With a terrible
smile, he looked over Joshua’s head, straight into the eyes of his father. At
the same time, his hand whipped up, and a blade glinted. “Kill h…”

With unhesitating brutality,
Joshua plunged a knife deep into Onred’s throat. Almost faster than thought,
her protector withdrew it, pivoted on one heel, and the bloody blade shot
straight toward her.

Anya gasped and instinctively
ducked.

The man behind her screamed. His
thick arms loosened, and she sprang free to whirl on him. He lay motionless on
the floor, the knife imbedded to the hilt in his eye. She swallowed a violent
surge of nausea and turned to Joshua. After taking Onred’s phone from his dead
body, he slowly rose to his feet. Battered, bloody, and bruised, he stood
remarkably steady upon his feet.