Выбрать главу

Sunlight momentarily blinded her as she broke through the trees. With the river glistening below her, Dah’Te led the Talehons in an open-air sprint for the mountains.

The solar-rover rattled over the uneven terrain, dipped into a hollow space, and threatened to overturn.

Ronan risked a quick glance to the cargo bed.

Linse groaned but otherwise remained motionless.

Ronan had taken the precaution of using the rover’s cargo straps to help secure the injured Auilan for the harrowing ride down the mountainside. The rover had been so slow on the incline that he hadn’t fully considered the effects of a downward slope and momentum. The result was a significant increase in speed that would see them arriving in New Denver well ahead of the time he’d anticipated.

The rover bounced over a small rocky patch and skidded sideways into a log. He steered it through the skid and plowed forward.

They’d arrive all right, if his driving didn’t kill them first, he thought.

A couple near-collisions with trees, several hard bounces, and a miniature rockslide later, the ground leveled out, and Ronan began to see familiar signs. He found the trail over which he and Dah’Te had traveled the day before, and as the trees thinned the rover gained speed.

He burst from the treeline, frightening several colonists working a garden plot. He wove through the settlement, gradually reducing speed, until he reached the medical center. The rover stopped in a billowing cloud of dust.

Several men who were working on the construction of the center’s expansion called to him as he jumped from the rover.

“I’ve got an injured Auilan here,” he said, ignoring their questions about where he’d been. He unbuckled the cargo straps securing Linse. “Help me get him inside.”

No one moved, uncertainty evident on their faces.

“Now!”

Two men hurried forward, and under Ronan’s direction they carried Linse into the medical center.

Once they’d placed the youth in an exam room, Ronan started pulling supplies from cabinets and prepped a medical scanner.

“Hey, Doc,” one of the men said.

Annoyed, Ronan looked up from his scanner.

“Yesterday, didn’t you leave with that budgie girl? Ditty?”

He recognized the thin pink scar over the man’s brow. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Her name is Dah’Te.”

“Is she coming back?”

Hollowness threatened to steal his breath and cripple his mind. Glancing out the exam room’s window toward the mountains, he whispered, “I wish I knew.”

Dusk elongated and twisted the shadows outside the medical center into macabre caricatures of their original shapes. But Ronan only had eyes for the mountains as he sat on the center’s roof, feet dangling over the edge. The usual dread he felt of heights had been replaced by a new terror: the fear of an empty sky.

Dah’Te hadn’t returned. Worry screamed for him to search for her. Indecision froze him. He wanted to go back to the river, but he couldn’t leave Linse yet. Infection had already begun to set into the damaged wing. While Ronan had repaired the break and started an antibiotic regime, the treatment required supervision for the first twenty-four hours to avoid reinjuring the wing.

He sighed and closed his eyes.

Dah’Te waited for him in the darkness. The memory of seeing her in the river’s shallows haunted him.

Every breeze was like the ghost of her touch.

He opened his eyes, focusing once more on the mountains.

The dying sun’s light washed the snowcaps in pink, the treetops in gold, and illuminated a single darkly winged figure as it glided toward New Denver.

He stood, squinting to see the wing patterns. He tensed as it drew closer and banked to the right, heading straight for the medical center.

White-and-brown wings caught the final rays of the sun.

Ronan’s heart soared as Dah’Te landed on the roof in a sprint. She leapt into his arms, wrapping him in an Auilan double embrace, and kissing him as though they’d been parted for years instead of hours.

When he finally pulled back, breathless, his elation was tarnished by the obvious bruising on her neck and the shallow cut and bandages. He gently probed the cut on her neck. Anger choked his voice. “The Talehons?”

“I told you they were brutes.” She offered a wan smile. “But four brutes are no match for the entire Azein clan.”

He grinned. “You led them to your clan?”

She nodded.

His mirth was shortlived, as thoughts of how they had parted clouded his mind. “Dah’Te, I—”

She pressed a fingertip to his lips. “It doesn’t matter, Ronan. I’m here, just as I promised.”

He crushed her against him and kissed her. When they broke, he cupped her cheek and she leaned into it, closing her eyes.

Suddenly she gasped and tensed. “Linse! Is he—”

“He’s fine. Resting. I fixed the break. He had a minor infection that should clear up in a few days, but he’ll need to stay in New Denver until he’s well enough.”

Her wings stroked his back. “What will we do until then?”

Ronan tightened his hold on her waist. “I know a great little campsite by the river . . .”

Star Crossed

Cathy Clamp

One

“There’s a good chance you won’t survive this mission.” Navigator Rand Miflin heard the words and struggled not to roll his eyes or snort at Commander Berell.

He leaned back in a chair not meant for comfort. “When have I ever been expected to survive? The Stovians are out for blood.”

Berell gave a little shrug and stood up against the backdrop of curtains carefully drawn to conceal a ravaged landscape. There was no denying the truth, but it was still hard to look at. Rand continued. “Earth is the first ‘backward’ planet that ever returned fire against them. We pissed them off.”

And the emperor of the planet Stovia had responded with overwhelming force – wave after wave of troops and weapons that had turned every other conquered planet into a quivering mass of easily sold slaves. But Earthlings had learned far too quickly for the Great Leader’s taste, thanks to captured technology.

Earth was on the verge of winning. It had been nearly a full month since humans had seen diron blasts redden the atmosphere.

“True, but this is different,” Berell said. “The starfighter team taking on this job is going straight into the maw of the monster.”

Rand felt his heart speed up a little, and he leaned forward. He wasn’t sure if it was excitement or fear, but he’d lost the ability to separate the two reactions long ago. “You have my attention.”

Berell paced the length of his office, hands clasped behind his back. “We need a navigator who can . . . think on his feet, Miflin. Steer the ship through unknown obstacles in a foreign, hostile environment.” He paused for effect. “The ship will be striking a target in the center of Asort, the capital city of Stovia.”

“That . . . wow.” Rand tried to come up with a response that would let his dropped jaw do something useful. “That’s going to take one hell of a pilot.” Could he navigate it? Yeah, probably. But no pilot he’d ever met would be able to follow his instructions quick enough to keep them both from getting very dead, very fast.

Berell smiled. “I don’t think that will be a problem. If you accept the assignment, your pilot will be E.

L.Tyler.”

As if on cue, the door opened. The short, broad man who entered wore a full zero-g suit, including a laser and a bullet-scarred face shield that hid his features. The helmet alone spoke of firefights most pilots could only imagine. Rand felt a rush of fear flow through him. Captain El Tyler was a legend. And not just a run-of-the-mill hometown legend, but a freaking galactic legend. Everyone from schoolkids to five-star generals spoke of him in hushed, reverent tones, like those reserved for dead presidents on old paper money, hall-of-fame rock stars and five-time winners of the Super Bowl. He’d been the primary sty in the emperor’s eye for twenty-plus years. One-on-one starship dogfights, five to one, ten to one. He’d taken every job and had come back. Not always with a ship, and not always untouched, but never on his shield.