High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,83

lips quirked. “Very fine.”

They stood side by side for a long moment, not speaking, and as the wind died down a little, Hana heard a faint sound of water falling.

She pushed away from the rock, working her way around it and then through a crack she had to go sideways to fit through. At the back, right against the mountain face, she found a small trickle of water running down sheer gray stone. Where it touched the rock, the gray sparkled with a silver glitter, and she drained the last of her bottle before she held it against the thin stream until it was full.

When she worked her way back, she found Iver trying to follow her and she shook her head. “Too narrow.” She took his bottle to fill.

It was the first water they'd passed since they'd left the valley and the river that ran through it, and she had started to worry about it.

Their route had taken them straight up the pass and deep into the Spikes, so the part of the valley where the camp lay was no longer visible. As she walked back to Iver, who was standing at the edge of the path looking down, she could only see the open sweep of the valley as it widened in the direction of Permeo.

Iver's sky lane.

“Look.” Iver pointed and she gasped in awe.

The shadow fold had begun.

The speed of it shocked her--the way the darkness traveled across the ground, eating it up. As the sun dipped below the mountains, the world below her turned to night.

“We may still be in the light now, but we won't be for long.” Iver shielded his eyes against the oblique rays of the sun and stared at the gloomy world below them.

“We should set up camp here. There's water, at least, and if we move a little further along the path, there may be shelter against the wind.”

He was about to answer her when they both heard the scream of engines.

Iver pulled her away from the edge, and they both crouched beside one of the boulders on the path.

A Dynastra shot overhead, flying low through the pass, between the mountains, and then disappeared.

“Jake's friends with a second Dynastra, coming to the rescue?” Hana had a feeling it was. The only other option was the Faldine military. She didn't know what measures they'd be taking right now to find Iver.

“Bret has taken the engine back now, so if that is Jake's people, they can't just load it up.” Despite his words, Iver sounded grim.

Whatever reprieve they'd had had come to an end. They had to get to Touka City and mobilize the VSC forces, or they would lose something they never even knew they had.

They woke early, filling their bottles and setting out before dawn even broke.

Hana shook off the stiffness of a night on hard ground cheerfully. There had been compensations for sharing a small tent on a mountain path with Iver.

He was walking in front of her, and she grinned at his back.

Her upgrade had somehow gotten into the spirit of the occasion as they'd made love.

She hadn't had a relationship with anyone since her crash, and she knew she had never come that hard or that long before. Not even when they had made love outside the camp the day Iver got captured.

“Maybe I'm just that good,” Iver told her with a smirk.

Maybe.

She grinned again.

The sound of a Dynastra overhead cut off her feeling of amusement, though, and stopped her in her tracks.

She dropped to the ground and rolled under the closest bush, and Iver crouched up against a rock.

The Dynastra circled, moving overhead in a tight pattern.

It passed them, working its way deeper into the mountains, and eventually they both got to their feet, watching it circle.

“It's looking for us.” She was dismayed. She'd hoped they were no longer considered worth the effort.

“I can only think of two reasons why, and both might be in play.” Iver looked in the direction the Dynastra had gone. “One, the VSC Special Forces has locked down any exits from the planet, so they need me back to use as a hostage, and two, Bret and his people still have control of the camp.”

“Which means Jake and Craven want to stop us getting to Touka, to give themselves time to take it back from Bret.” Hana brushed dust off her pants. “What do they think flying over us is going to do, though? It's not as if they can land. They'd