Chapter 7
It was a mistake to pull Velda up close to him while they were both wet and naked. But then Ethan acknowledged that he’d been making plenty of mistakes where she was concerned since yesterday.
They hadn’t even spoken about what was between them, so he lifted his lips from hers and forced himself to drop his arms.
She stood in place for a moment, her gaze on his face. “You’re not going to go back to pretending you’re not interested in me, are you?”
“No, I think that ship pinched to the black at our lunch stop.” He’d known it, he just hadn’t worked out how to bring it up.
“It pinched to the black quite a long time before that,” she said, “but I grant you that today you really let the curtain fall.”
“When did you guess?” he asked.
“When you came to me about Wren and Ed.”
The wind suddenly rose, icy and sharp, and she handed him back his towel.
“I have my own,” she said when he tried to give it back, and they dried off quickly and dressed even more quickly.
When they were sitting around the fire he’d made, eating dinner and waiting for the pot to boil for jah, she gave a sudden sigh and wriggled until she was right next to him, shoulder touching shoulder.
“You said you were waiting for my contract to end. You didn’t want to get involved because I was your boss?”
“I thought it was the right thing to do,” he said. “To wait until you stepped down.”
“And what if I’d started seeing someone else before that happened?” she asked.
“I would have had to move up my schedule,” he admitted. “And hope it wasn’t too late.”
“I can’t say I blame you. I kept my distance because it would have been awkward if I’d let you know I was interested in you and you didn’t feel the same. Given you report to me.” She sent him a quick grin.
“We were both being cautious,” he said. “But in the last few days I’ve been almost constantly in your company and I slipped up.”
“You were so busy trying not to look at me, you missed me slipping up, too,” she told him. “It was pretty cute.”
“Cute?” he asked, politely, and she laughed, a warm, generous sound that wrapped around him.
Above them, a golden flare streaked across the sky, and both of them went quiet.
“It has to be the obs station,” Ethan said. “Too much debris is falling for anything else, unless it’s a battleship, and I really don’t think it is.”
“Agreed. Let’s hope they all got out.” Velda’s face was tipped upward as she watched the flare wink out.
Bits and pieces were still making entry into the atmosphere, like a giant hand was throwing glitter above them.
“It shouldn’t look so beautiful,” Velda said.
The water began to boil and Ethan leaned forward to take it off the fire. As he set it down, a twig snapped to their left.
He went absolutely still, listening. He turned to Velda, lifted a finger to his lips, and made a gesture for her to stay put.
Then he rose to his feet, checked he had his laz, and moved off into the darkness.
Velda watched the back of Ethan as he was swallowed up by the night.
She had heard the twig snap, too, but she’d assumed it was an animal.
Never assume, the military training instructor had drilled into the recruits—and her—last time she had participated. She should have remembered.
She turned back to the fire, and froze.
A man stood on the other side of it.
He was dressed in black, and he was pointing a laz at her.
Without saying a word, he jerked the laz up, indicating that she stand.
She glanced left in the direction Ethan had gone, but either this man had done something to him or there was more than one of them.
She guessed the latter.
She got slowly to her feet. “Who are you?”
He frowned and flicked his gaze quickly to the side.
If he was here to kill her, which she guessed he was, he would have no reason not to use his laz right now, before she could make some noise and alert Ethan.
So she bent forward, picked up the pot of just-boiled water, and threw it at him across the small fire pit in one smooth move.
She took him by surprise.
He screamed as the hot water hit him in the face, and she ran right, into the night.
There were plenty of bushes near the river and she ducked behind one and crouched down. It was too dark to see where she was going, and she would either hurt herself or make too much noise if she kept running.
Besides, Ethan was still out there, and she would never leave him behind.
The man she’d burned was swearing in a long, low, continuous monotone as he hunted for her, and she shivered.
She could not let him get his hands on her now. He would take delight in hurting her.
There was a shout which she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Away to the left, but she didn’t know if it came from across the river or closer to the camp.
The man hunting her stopped at the sound, hesitating, and then the shout came again and was cut off abruptly.
He began to swear again, but he was facing away from her, now, looking in the direction of the noise.
There was a sudden flare of light, and the unmistakable smell of a laz discharge.
“Velda?” Ethan’s voice was low.
She emerged from behind the bush and found him standing over the man who’d been hunting her, his laz loosely at his side.
He turned as she stepped out.
“There were two of them?” she asked.
He nodded. “What did you do to this one?”
“Threw the hot water at his face.” She reached him and looked down, saw the man’s skin was blistered and red.
“Did he hurt you?” Ethan turned fully toward her, studying her carefully.
“No. I worked out he was going to shoot, and threw the water at him and ran. He would have, though, if he’d found me.” She shivered again.
Ethan held out a hand, and she took it, let him lead her away from the man back toward the camp.
“I don’t know how long we have, but they are going to be awake in a few hours.” He stopped in front of the fire. “We need to strip them of their comms, take their identification, tie them up, and leave.”
“You think there’ll be more of them?” Velda asked.
“There are definitely more of them. Whether they planned to kill us or just stun us, how were they going to get our bodies or us out by themselves?” Ethan asked.
“They have transport coming for them, and given the search and rescue going on, the eyes on this location, I’m guessing that transport looks the same as our people’s. Might even be one of our people.”
She didn’t like it, but she had to admit it was the only logical conclusion to draw. So they had to truss their attackers up and go as quickly as possible. “Damn.”
He grinned at that, a quick flash of humor, and then he picked up the pot she’d thrown. “Next time I go looking for the origin of a strange noise, you hide first,” he said.
“Or I go with you,” she said.
“Or that,” he agreed. He pulled her close, his kiss quick and hard.
She stood, slightly stunned, when he drew back.
“Problem?” His voice deepened.
“No. No problem.” She reached out, pulled him closer, and kissed him back.
“Well, that’s fine then.” He sounded a little . . . bemused, and she smiled.
They packed quickly, and when they were done, Ethan returned to the two downed attackers and took their IDs and comms, and secured them with their own restraints.
As they walked away, she saw Ethan looking up at the sky, and did so herself. It was brilliant with stars, and with the near constant streak and sparkle of space debris burning up as it hit the atmosphere.
“I feel tense just looking at it.” Ethan sounded frustrated.
“I can just imagine what’s happening at headquarters,” Velda agreed, feeling her own stomach clench at the sight. “This is the first overt action against us, ever. Even during the Faladine War we got off lightly, with Arkhor being the main focus of the attacks.”
She was antsy with her need to move. The more she saw the space shower, the more she felt the urgency of getting back to headquarters.
“We’ll need to sleep at some point, but let’s get a good distance from the camp first,” Ethan said.
Because there would be people coming to get them, Velda thought. People in league with these men who had tried to kill or hurt them. It seemed unreal, but she had passed her attacker on their way out, and he was real enough.
When they were far enough away from the camp, Ethan threw the men’s comms units into the bush, and they kept going in the dark.
And all the while, the sky rained pieces of gold.