High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,68
camp?”
“I can.”
She would be stronger as soon as they were over the wall, but she was very aware someone might just decide it was worth their while to track the two of them down--whether Bret or Craven won this round she'd set up.
She would love to have been able to steal the lander, but that wasn't going to happen now.
Craven and his people had taken the information she'd left them and run with it.
“What did you do?” Iver's breath was short, as if every lungful hurt.
“Left a message for the smugglers on the road out of the valley. Told them to watch the river this morning and follow the person entering the camp, and I warned them everyone has SALs.”
“A distraction for our escape.” He narrowed his eyes. “How could you be sure they would notice the message in time?”
Hana shrugged. “I used one of the emergency flares in the pack and left the message beside it. It was the best I could do with what I had.”
She stopped at the low wall at the back of the huts and scanned the area for any smugglers that might be coming in the back way.
Iver came to a stop beside her and did a sweep of his own. “Looks clear.”
“Yes.”
Sudden shouting erupted behind them, and spurred on by it, she jumped over the wall, then turned to help Iver.
Iver was easing himself over when he stopped, his gaze snapping to a spot beyond her shoulder.
Hana closed her eyes, blew out a breath. “Who?”
“One of Bret's,” Iver murmured. “Baxter.”
Hana turned, found a SAL pointed at her face. The man holding it was the scientist from yesterday who'd returned from the TellTale launch site with Iver and the others.
“What's going on in the camp?” Baxter asked.
“Bret and the others are fighting the smugglers,” Hana answered.
“What did you have to do with that?”
“Nothing. It's possible the smugglers followed me or saw me coming in to camp, but I couldn't do anything about that. Iver and I saw the fight and thought it might be a good time to go our own way.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Baxter indicated with the SAL, and with a sigh Hana swung back over the wall.
As soon as she was on the other side, she fell to her knees and had to breathe carefully to prevent herself throwing up.
“What's wrong with her?” Baxter toed her ribs with a boot.
“She's got an infection in her foot from a trap the smugglers set in the valley. She's feverish.”
Baxter grunted and Hana tried to get to her feet. She didn't like the vulnerable feeling she had of being on the ground, and she didn't want Iver to have to bend down and help her up.
It would be agony for him.
She was too late. He knelt beside her, put an arm around her shoulders.
“That's got to hurt,” she said, turning her face to his. She rested her cheek against his neck, suddenly aware that sweat had combined with dirt from her walk through the valley last night to leave her face streaked with the fine black dust of the Spikes, and that she'd needed a shower for the last two days.
He gave a choked laugh, turned his head and kissed the side of her temple. “I'll live.”
They stood together, each supporting the other, so they were leaning against each other when they finally straightened up.
“It wouldn't exactly have been difficult to run the two of you down,” Baxter said.
Hana ignored him and rested her head for a moment on Iver's shoulder.
She really had never felt this bad.
“What have we here?” The man who stepped around the hut was the stranger amongst the group of smugglers, the man Hana suspected was working for whoever was trying to steal the engine from Bret.
“Who the hell are you?” Baxter demanded, moving his SAL from Hana and Iver to the new threat.
The stranger aimed and they both shot each other at the same time, although only Baxter went down.
The man looked down at Bret's crumpled form, and plucked the SAL dart out of his shirt.
“Body armor.” Iver sounded approving.
The man looked at him, a slow perusal. “You're Iver Sugotti.”
Iver shrugged.
The man narrowed his eyes. “I think you need to come with me.”
Chapter 23
Hana was not well.
Iver was worried about the gray cast to her skin, and the perspiration that beaded on her forehead and at her hairline.
That he knew the reason for it didn't seem to help.
He probably didn't look that well himself, he acknowledged. His ribs were