High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,18

it out. “When you came directly toward where I was hiding, I knew I had to be tagged. I remembered the camp trip straight away.”

“But you got rid of the tag.” Lancaster leaned back against the bulkhead. “How did you get it out? I put it in the one place you would find it hard to even touch, let alone cut out.”

Iver said nothing.

“Shit, Hana is out there, isn't she?” He shoved the SAL toward Iver as if he wanted to fire it, and there was murder in his eyes. “Shit. We can't just go, we have to round her up, too.” He kicked out at the wall and the hand holding the SAL trembled.

“This is--” Lancaster pressed his lips together in a tight line, trying to find control, and then, SAL still pointed at Iver, he moved to where two bags hung from hooks near the door and dug inside one, brought out some restraints.

The end of the road was here, Iver realized. He had gotten as much information out of Lancaster as he was going to get.

His hand closed around the damp towel someone had left on the bench beside him and he threw it at Lancaster's face. Then he launched himself forward, taking Lancaster down hard.

He punched his former friend in the throat and flipped him over, ripping the restraints from his hands and jerking his arms back to slide them on.

When he got to his feet, he stood over Lancaster for a moment, listening to his former friend's gasping attempts to breathe--breathing heavily himself.

A scream of rage from outside galvanized him.

He bent down and grabbed Lancaster's SAL, then jumped out the Dynastra's door.

The shocking, blinding flicker of laz fire made him stumble as he landed on the ground.

Who would be so stupid?

It flickered again, not shooting straight toward where it was aimed, as it would on Arkhor, but leaping and dancing like freed lightning, splitting in two to go left and right.

The light winked out, but Iver had seen Linnel outlined in the laz fire, facing away from Iver and the Dynastra.

He had no problem shooting Linnel in the back.

He fired his SAL and watched the ex-lieutenant fall forward.

“Hana?”

“Here.” She walked out of the darkness, the pack on her back, a SAL in her hand. “The others are down.”

“Lancaster is tied up in the runner.” He held out an arm and after a moment of hesitation she closed the distance between them and he pulled her in close, kissed the top of her head. He felt suddenly weak. The idea of her out here alone, taking on Lancaster's thugs one by one, made him feel a little sick.

She went still beneath him, and then she ran a soothing hand down his back. “I'm glad you're all right.”

He tightened his grip for a moment and then turned, arm still around her, to look at Linnel. “We should kill that one,” he said. “He's not sane when it comes to you.”

The fucker was mad. Using a laz? It was practically suicidal.

Hana turned to look at Linnel, too. “I know.”

“Do you know why?”

She lifted a shoulder. “During the war, toward the end, we went out in a squadron of four Dynastras. My runner was the only one that came back. His lover was in one of the others--shot down. I don't think he's been right since then. He thinks there's some kind of conspiracy, although nothing about what he says makes any sense.”

Some of it did, though.

Iver remembered her fingers moving over him, looking for the tag.

Now those same fingers suddenly curled into fists, grabbing handfuls of his jacket, and she looked up.

“Something's coming,” she said, and there was that flat quality to her voice again.

“What?” He tilted his head.

“A runner.” She narrowed her eyes. “Coming in fast and high.”

There was a flicker of light high above them, and then Hana pulled him down, face first into the dirt.

He felt the low, hard whump of the SD3 hitting the Dynastra behind them to the core of his bones. He crawled over Hana's body to shield her as flaming pieces of Lancaster's runner fell around them. One sliced into the ground less than an arm's reach from him.

He lifted himself into a crouch, arms on either side of Hana's back, and turned to look at the inferno.

Lancaster had been in there.

Hana nudged him and he stood, pulling her up with him.

She looked up at the sky. “They're going.”

“How do you know that?” He couldn't help the slightly accusing tone.

She lifted