High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,81
flare.”
He leaned across and put a hand on her thigh. Squeezed.
She lifted a hand off the wheel for a moment to pat the top of his. “You would have done the same. You put your life on the line to stop Bret using you as a hostage to bring me in. I got away lightly compared to you.”
“There is no scorekeeping, remember?”
She spared a moment to glance at him, then went back to watching the path. “Let's just say we watch each other's backs.”
“I'm happy with that.”
The hint of a smile played across her lips. “Me, too. I--”
The way she bit off the sentence, the sudden tension in her body, had him looking ahead.
“Shit.”
There was a line of six people standing across the valley floor, rocks piled behind them as a barrier.
The way was blocked.
“Craven's people.” Hana thumped the steering wheel with a fist. “There are a lot more of them than we thought.”
“This must be their insurance, their way to make sure Bret couldn't escape.”
Hana skidded to a halt, then began turning the lander.
The smugglers started running toward them, but she worked with absolute calm, swinging the wheel, reversing, and then spinning them around to face back the way they'd come.
“We're trapped.” She blew a piece of hair away that had fallen over her eye.
He said nothing, his gaze ahead. “Bret's people are behind us, not Craven and Jake's. We're between two sets of enemies who won't work together. And we have a significant lead on Grimms and Baxter.”
“That's true.” She was looking out her window, to the right, as there was no place to turn left, the valley slope was too steep.
Suddenly, she swung the wheel, taking the lander off the path toward the stream, and he saw the place she was aiming for. The stream narrowed to a point where it would have been easy to jump from one side to the other, and she took the lander over it.
The whole vehicle shuddered as the wheels dipped into the water and then hit the rocks on the other side.
There was a scraping sound that put his teeth on edge, and then they were flying up the slope.
“This clear run isn't going to last.” Hana jerked her head toward the row of rocks ahead of them that had once reminded Iver of sentinels. Now they were a blockade, barring the way up the mountain side.
She turned before she reached them, heading up the valley, in the direction of Touka City, but there was no gap wide enough to fit the lander through, and no way of going over them. Eventually, she braked.
“We're going to deliver ourselves right back to them.”
They were almost back in line with Craven's people on the path below.
She put the lander in reverse and moved back, much more slowly this time, and the wheels popped and shuddered over the loose rocks.
Iver put a hand on her shoulder when they reached a point that was above a particularly sheer drop into the stream below.
She stopped. Looked from him to the drop.
She sighed. “It seems a waste, but yes. They won't be able to salvage the lander if it goes down there.”
“Before we send it down, let's make sure there's nothing useful in the back.” Iver jumped out and Hana joined him as he opened the back doors, but Bret had made sure the lander was completely unpacked. There was nothing left inside.
They still had their bags that they'd originally taken from it, though, so they weren't completely without supplies. Iver went to the front to grab them and Hana climbed into the lander and carefully swung the wheel so that its nose was pointing down.
She stopped when the back bumped against a rock and she couldn't reverse any more. She slid out the driver's side, leaned through the open door to release the brake, and jumped back.
The lander roared as it picked up speed down the incline, then went into free fall the rest of the way into the stream.
The impact sent a tremor through the ground and a few rocks and pebbles skittered underfoot and tumbled after it.
Iver moved forward and saw it had come to rest front first in the water.
He looked left, saw Craven's people reacting with shock as they took in what he and Hana had done.
“It's a pity.” Hana sighed and he slid a hand along her shoulder and gently threaded his fingers in her hair.
Satisfaction flared inside him at the sight of the only way out for his enemies