“Clear blue.”
“Good.” Back to Kirsten. “Anything else on the targets?”
Recovering, Kirsten nods. “Still headed this way. I was able to do some triangulation. They’re about five miles out now, give or take a few hundred feet. They’ve picked up two passengers. One regular droid, one human.”
“Anything from the other groups?”
“I’m picking up two other definites. Both smaller than the one we’re tracking now. Maybe twenty or thirty in each party, mostly regular droids and a few humans here and there. Nothing more specific than that.”
“How far out?”
“Ten, maybe fifteen miles. Both headed east-southeast, toward Ellsworth. At the rate they’re traveling, they’ll probably join up about six miles east of here.”
Koda nods, intuition satisfied. “I know the place.” She spares them both a pointed glance. “Ready to haul out?”
Kirsten straightens. “Where are we going? And where did you go?”
“Left a few surprises for our friends,” Koda replies, grinning.
“Surprises?”
“Land mines.” Kirsten’s exclamation is forestalled by an upraised hand. “Anti-tank mines. Any humans in the group will pass over them without a problem. These little gifts are for the military droids.”
Kirsten looks unconvinced.
“We either get them now, away from innocent lives, or we’ll have to deal with them later when there’s no choice in the matter.”
Looking down at her feet, Kirsten nods. The image of the two men she’s killed flashes in front of her and she finds herself clenching jaws and fists to keep it pushed down, far down out of sight and mind and thought.
Sensing Kirsten’s inner turmoil, Koda takes a step closer. “You alright?” The gaze that meets hers is clear and direct, but she can see the fight within and again it calls to her. “Is there something I can….”
“No,” Kirsten interrupts, back in full control. “It’s nothing.” Her shoulders square and set. “I’m ready to move out when you are.”
“Let’s go then.”
*
“Ouch! God…damnit!”
From her point position, Koda easily hears Kirsten’s pained cry and hurries back to investigate. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Cramp,” Kirsten bites out, snatching off a glove with her teeth and reaching down to work frozen fingers into an equally frozen knot of muscle in her calf. “Damn snowshoes. Should have left them to the rabbits, where they belong.”
“Hang on, hang on.” Tossing her weapon to Manny, Koda gets down on one knee and gently displaces Kirsten’s stiff, digging fingers. “Take some deep slow breaths. In and out. In and out.”
“I already know how to breathe,” Kirsten snaps. “Been doing it since I was a baby.”
“Just do it,” Koda orders, working her fingers into the thick straps of knotted muscle.
Startled by Koda’s uncharacteristic display of temper, Kirsten complies. Under the onslaught of Dakota’s skilled hands, the cramp gradually loosens.
Only to seize up again, hard enough to cause her leg to buckle. Saved from an ignominious topple onto her backside by Koda’s strong arm, she tenses, then relaxes as she finds herself half carried-half dragged a few steps back to where a flat-topped rock juts out from its bed of snow. With a soft grunt of pain, she lowers herself onto the rock, not protesting as her boot is removed and her triply socked foot is grabbed and manipulated until her toes point almost toward her chest. This eases the tension on her calf somewhat, and when Dakota’s fingers return to the knotted muscle, it begins to loosen in a way that Kirsten knows will be lasting.
As the cramp starts to relax, the rest of her does as well, as the stress and the hours without sleep begin to catch up with her. Her chin dips and her eyes find themselves gazing at the very top of Koda’s uncovered head. The moonlight brings out the bluish highlights in her deep black hair and Kirsten, to her private horror, watches as her own hand lifts from its place on her lap and reaches out to brush gently against the shining mass. It is just the briefest of touches, but it lingers sweetly in some deep part of her that isn’t hotly debating between crawling beneath the very rock she’s sitting on and—the current frontrunner—running as fast and as far as she can and not stopping until she reaches, say, Outer Mongolia.
Manny notices and quickly looks away, suspecting that he’s unintentionally intruding on a very private moment.
As quickly as it’s come upon her, the panic fades away at the sight of arresting blue eyes and a sweetly crooked smile that now fills her field of vision. There is no judgment to be seen in Koda’s striking features. Only kindness, compassion, and caring. “Better now?” Koda asks, her voice low and soft.
Kirsten clears her throat, suddenly aware of its dryness. “Yes.” She swallows. “Much. Thank you.”
“Anytime.” A canteen is thrust into Kirsten’s hands. “Here. Drink this. You’re dehydrated.”
“You mean it wasn’t the snowshoes?”
“A little of both, maybe,” Dakota concedes, slipping the heavy boot back over Kirsten’s foot, fastening it securely, then rising to her full height. “Take a little more. Yeah, that’s it. We’ve still got a few hours ahead of us, if you think you’re up to it.”
With a nod, Kirsten hands back the canteen and gets back up on legs that are steady and blessedly pain free. “I’m up to it. Let’s get going.”
With an amused glance at her cousin, Koda starts out after the fully recovered and determined young woman striding ahead.
Manny just rolls his eyes and follows along.
*
A chill wind, heavy with the scent of snow, cuts sharply through the small grove of trees. The winter-bare limbs rattle like the bones of a hundred skeletons in a hundred closets. At the sound, Dakota looks up from her task of planting the last of the anti-tank mines. The sky is thick with turbulent clouds, angry in a way she knows all too well.
Manny follows her glance upward, wincing. “Shit. Base said no weather tonight.”
“Probably fucked up those satellites too,” Koda grunts, turning back to her work.
“I’m guessing this is a bad thing,” Kirsten remarks, walking over from her spot a few yards away.
“Depends on your definition of ‘bad’,” Dakota deadpans, not looking up from her precise placing of the mine beneath the snow.
The barest glint of a smirk sharpens Kirsten’s eyes. “Would you like the Mirriam-Webster-Turner version, or would you be content with the Oxford Condensed Unabridged?”
Manny’s slow motion head turn is the stuff of old-time silent movie classics and Kirsten enjoys every second of it. She’s not exactly sure why she derives such pleasure from getting this brash young pilot’s goat. Perhaps it’s her way of telling him that she will be accepted on her own terms. Why she desires acceptance from a man who is, for all intents and purposes, a stranger is another question she doesn’t have an answer for.
Deer in the headlights, she thinks, raising an eyebrow and daring him to respond. And he looks as if he’s going to, right up until the time that both his military training and the realization of exactly who she is conspire to ambush him. His snappy comeback dies on his lips, and he turns away, pretending to study the roiling sky.
Perfectly aware of the little drama taking place mere feet away, Koda takes her time placing the last mine. Rising, she casually dusts her gloves off on her thighs, then gives Kirsten a deliberately pointed look before clapping her cousin on the back. “Alright, flyboy. Time to make tracks.”
“Bless you,” Manny half whispers before looking through the copse of trees directly ahead. “Uh oh.”
Koda looks up just in time to see the heavy squall move toward them with the speed of an oncoming train. “Shit.” She glances over her shoulder. “Kirsten, grab my pack. Don’t let go no matter what, understand?”
“Whiteout!” Manny shouts just as the storm descends, bathing them in a world of blinding, pure white.