High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,19
a brow when she glanced over at him. “I've got good hearing.” Her expression dared him to make something of it. “I suggest we get moving before Lancaster's crew wake up. My guess is they won't be too happy when they do.”
He gave a nod. “I think Lancaster foolishly told whoever he was working for that I didn't die in the original hit, and he was going to set something up to make it look like I'd died afterward.”
“That would have been difficult to pull off with the caliber of investigators the VSC would have sent in.”
Iver gave her a nod. “Guess it was easier to make Lancaster part of the tragedy, which means he wasn't as important as he thought he was.”
“You get anything out of Lancaster about what's happening?” Hana adjusted the pack on her back, and he grabbed the back of it, tugging it off her shoulders.
She went still, back turned to him, then shrugged it off and let him take it.
“I got a few things out of him.”
“So, can we go back in to headquarters?”
He hesitated. “Someone else was involved. Probably more than one person. But with Lancaster gone, I'm not sure how they'll react.”
“So what's the plan, other than getting to Touka?”
“We contact Carina.”
She looked over at him, face quizzical.
“Admiral Carina Valerian. Head of the VSC fleet for the Faldine system.”
“Oh, that Carina.” She gave him a dry look. “My former boss.”
“Oh, yes, she would have been.” Iver grinned at her as he followed her across the river, jumping from rock to rock to reach the other side. “Guess you'll feel right at home, then.”
Chapter 8
Touka City shimmered up out of the haze, a handful of very tall buildings rising up in imitation of the Spikes behind them--although the soaring majesty and height of the mountains dwarfed them.
Hana stood, feet braced, hands on her hips, and just drank it in for a moment.
Of course, the buildings weren't just constructed as high as possible to mimic the mountains. Like her, VSC tech worked better when it was far from the magfields buried in the ground. Touka would not have been able to communicate with the rest of Faldine if it hadn't gone up.
Her usual view of Touka was from the air, flying in with Iver. This ground-level perspective was wonderful; the city rising up out of the plains, the reflective silver and blue of the buildings a sharper, brighter pop of color in contrast to the soft grays and greens of the mountains behind them.
“You built Touka, didn't you?” She turned to Iver.
His jaw was even darker with stubble than it had been last night, his gray eyes watching her with such intensity she had to fight down a shiver. “I approved some of the plans.” At last he turned his gaze away, and it felt like she'd been given a reprieve.
“It's a sight.”
He nodded. “And Permeo has a different character, a charming contrast.”
She could hear the pride in his voice.
“Did you ever think you'd be head-of-planet?”
He gave a bark of laughter. “No. I'm a scientist and an engineer. I came to Faldine to help the VSC find the least invasive way to extract the minerals we needed, and somehow I ended up running the whole place when the war flared up.”
“Do you see yourself staying here?” She couldn't think of anywhere else she wanted to be, but she knew for a fact that was her upgrade talking.
Still, it was an exciting place to live. Full of possibilities.
It had been at least twenty years since Faldine had been discovered, but as it was originally colonized by smugglers, fleeing from the VSC after the crimes they committed during the Halatian disaster, the generally accepted rules for a new planetary discovery hadn't been followed.
The smugglers had stumbled on Faldine and used it as a hideaway, desperate to lay low while the VSC hunted them.
She knew for a fact they had been totally uncaring of the VSC's Do Not Disturb rule for precious livable planets that had no dominant higher sentient species.
When the VSC had caught up to the smugglers and the secret of Faldine's existence was out, the smugglers had tried to turn it into another breakaway planet like Garmen and Lassa.
Hana still thought the VSC was right to have answered that proposition with a hard no, even with the personal price she'd paid for that decision.
The war had only lasted three years--the smugglers turning rebels against the might of the VSC--but it had felt like a lifetime