High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,92

suddenly, and the sound of a runner landing on the river bank beside them engulfed them.

“Excuse me.” Hana stood herself.

Iver looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

“I've got something I need to sort out.” She smiled, or tried to, but from the look on Iver's face, she did not succeed. Then she walked past him to the back, to where Special Forces had ripped a hole in her runner, jumped the short distance to the bank and headed straight for a second gen Sig that was settling into landing position. She admired it as she stalked toward it. She'd been secretly hoping Iver would invest in one of these babies for the last six months.

Two Special Forces soldiers appeared as the door opened.

She smiled. She had a few things to say.

Chapter 31

“What's the penalty for friendly fire due to incompetence?” She thought she kept her voice pretty calm as she called the question, even though she was raging inside.

They shot at Iver. They could have killed him. And they brought down her runner. Her runner!

They destroyed it.

Far in the back of her mind, some stray thought tried to question her strength of feeling over the runner itself, because she'd flown it for what amounted to all of five minutes, but something deeper told her no. She had spent hours in that runner. It was hers!

The man she was headed for dropped lightly to the ground as a modified exit ramp lowered at the back, and Special Forces soldiers streamed out.

She noticed in some part of her brain that their weapons were mostly pointed at her.

“Excuse me?” He looked at her like she was crazy.

“I hope you have skills beyond the armed forces, or you'll be living on the citizen dividend and twiddling your thumbs for the rest of your life after this fuck up.” She openly sneered at him, and pointed behind her at the runner.

“Fuck up?” The man laughed.

Iver had followed her out and was walking toward her, and she gestured to him.

“You just shot down the head-of-planet. I don't know about you, but in my experience, that's at the very least grounds for a job-reevaluation.”

The asshole obviously recognized Iver, because his eyes widened.

“We hailed you,” he said to her, all humor leeched from his face. “You didn't respond.”

“Because I was flying an antique that didn't have the tech to pick up your hail. I had no idea you were even there.” She put her hands on her hips. “What happened to coming round to try face-to-face comms when your hail failed? That can't just be Themis military standard practice. Then you'd have seen the head-of-planet, and not shot him out of the fucking sky!” She realized her voice had risen and she drew in a deep breath to get herself under control.

At that moment, a woman appeared in the doorway, and dropped down beside the man.

“Oh.” Hana drew in a deep breath and tilted her head to look at her. “You're in charge. Do you go around shooting unprovoked often?”

The woman looked at her, and then her gaze slid over her shoulder to Iver. “Planetary Commander,” she said, voice tight.

“Captain Donaldson.” Iver rested a warm hand on Hana's shoulder as he reached her. “You tried to kill my pilot and me.”

She thought he was calm, and then she felt the tension in his hand where it held her, almost like a lifeline.

“In fact, if Hana wasn't the pilot she is, you would have killed us.”

“Not only that,” Hana was far from finished here, “you let the enemy go. They flew away, and you helped them by shooting us. Are you in league with them? Is this a takeover?”

Donaldson took an actual step back. “The Dynastra that flew away was Faldine military.”

“Obviously not, as they were trying to shoot us down, and as you seem to know, one of us is the head-of-planet.”

“They had the codes.” The man she'd accosted first spoke up. “When we came into range, they gave the Faldine military codes and claimed they had exchanged fire with you and their weapons systems were down.”

“So you happily did their dirty work for them, while they lit out. Well done.”

“Who did the person you spoke to identify themselves as?” Iver's hand was rubbing her shoulder now, trying to soothe her.

“A Lieutenant Linnel.” The woman shook her head. “We were played, and we fell for it. I am genuinely sorry we shot you down, and very relieved you're both uninjured.”

Hana realized she wasn't ready to hear an apology right