Winter in Paradise (2 page)

The elders damn him—and every
Diviner
in the universe. How was she supposed to be equal to a man with precognitive abilities? She couldn’t best him—which made her inferior by nature. A decade ago, Diviners were a scant one per cent of the population. Now, they had tripled in numbers. Still a minority, but the sudden explosion had caused speculation that they were the next step in evolution. His kind frightened many…frightened her. She should have recognized the clues when they first met. He finished her sentences, showed up at her quarters when she needed him most, and knew when to stay away. At first, she taken that to mean they were compatible. Too late, she realized the truth. She was in love with him. Which meant she had to go after him.

Kelly pulled on her enviro-suit, then wrapped the flaps around her wrists, ankles, neck and face. The suit automatically merged at the seams and hugged her like a second skin. The readouts on the suit’s cuff under her wrist came alive and showed a full charge and active navigation/location. The bio-station was already clicking down from 100% to 0%, based on telemetry. She glanced at Grayson’s display. Once a suit moved out of range, the computer extrapolated its location.

She programmed his vector into her suit. Two seconds later, estimated coordinates scrolled across the screen. Just as she suspected, he had taken the disruptor to The Rock Pile, an acre of exposed rock spires three miles west by northwest.

He meant to activate the disruptor far away from base so that she wouldn’t be destroyed when the Kirsovals fired on the signal. Grayson, however, would be killed instantly. Which meant he’d never planned on returning. The flashing red may have read 0%, but that didn’t mean with absolute certainty he was frozen solid out there. She intended to drag him back, then bring him up on charges of insubordination—after she’d fucked him beyond reason. She would ride him hard, punish him for disobeying and, most important, for scaring the life out of her.

Kelly threw on her white fur coat, boots, goggles, and mittens, then stuffed his furs into her backpack. She left the cavern behind and jogged along the passageway to the exit. Once she left the cave, the going would be slow in the ice storm that raged outside. The floor gave a sudden quake. She halted and counted down the seconds. A low boom was followed by an explosion that she estimated to be about three miles away. The Rock Pile. She started forward again.

I’m coming for you, Grayson, and I’m going to kick your ass.

Byron was a fool and a patriot. The quantum disruptor was the best
deceptive
device the Provisional Army had developed. When energized, it simulated the subspace signature of a Battle Killer, the most fearsome and expensive weapon in the known galaxy. A real Battle Killer would fill the space of their cave and then some. How likely was it that the Kirsoval armada would believe that a Battle Killer was located on the surface, in the open? Grayson had decided to take the chance they would believe that. Gooseflesh raced down her arms. Maybe it wasn’t the chance she thought it was. Maybe he
knew
exactly how they would react. He was, after all, a
Diviner
.

Up ahead, the electronic shield closing the mouth of the cave shimmered as wind driven ice sizzled on the interface. The wind beyond roiled in the opening. Kelly checked her readouts. Only ten minutes had passed since she’d woken and needed him. Now he was out there and needed her.

“Shields down,” she ordered.

The wind’s roar split the air around her. Kelly raised her hood and plunged into the howl.

Chapter Two

Plush furs, big mittens, and fuzzy boots weren’t what Kelly signed up for when she’d joined the Provisional Army. Wind cut dry and cold though her furs and hood. Staggering against the force of the blast, she saw no tracks—as expected. Thankfully, footprints weren’t needed. She would follow Grayson’s nav-track as far as it lasted. She bent into the wind and trudged forward.

It had taken only thirty minutes to realize he had moved faster than her, likely because she fought the additional wind resistance of her furs. She hoped that was the reason he had worn only his skin-tight enviro-suit. That would mean he hadn’t intended to die out here as she’d first thought, but would activate the disruptor, then return to base before his suit depleted and she awoke.

But he’d miscalculated. At his rate of travel to where his signal dropped off the grid, it was clear he wouldn’t make the round trip. He had obviously come to the same conclusion. Rather that sticking to the valleys, his path had become straighter, over rises and between ice-cliffs. She had turned on her goggles’ heat vision earlier, hoping to meet him on his way back home, but everything—ground, air, and sky—was a uniform cold. If he suffered from hypothermia, he could already have lost his way and be miles off course.

Between gusts, she called his name. She scanned for heat and walked and scanned and shouted. On a planet of five million, only she and Grayson occupied this two-hundred mile square of frozen wasteland in Onyx’s western hemisphere.

Hopelessness settled deeper with every unanswered shout. Several times, she had seen a warm object materialize only to rush forward and find it had been an illusion. Another figure took form up ahead. Kelly trudged forward, expecting to find her imagination had conjured another illusion. The apparition grew. She put the targeting graticule on the form and the temperature readout jumped. The heat was real. She pulled her weapon.

The form resolved into a man, huddled under an ice overhang. She sprinted the last few feet, throwing off her backpack the instant before her arms closed around him. He tumbled over, unmoving, still hugging his knees. Kelly choked back tears. He couldn’t be dead. She’d found him. She yanked a power gel-pack from her suit and powered his, then pulled his furs out of her backpack and wrestled them onto him. His suit began to warm. She cupped his face in both hands. He twitched, raised his gaze. She kissed him, imparting precious warmth to his trembling lips.

Kelly brushed away ice that clung to his goggles. “You disobeyed a direct order, soldier.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but ripped open the med-kit in the backpack, tore the seal on a hypo, and jammed the needle into his neck. He didn’t flinch. The hypo glowed as it analyzed his blood, synthesized a drug cocktail and pumped it into him, then went dead, drained of energy. She tossed it aside and grabbed another.

His mouth moved, but no sound followed. She forced calm, inspected his suit, rubbing his hands and feet as she put on his fur boots and mittens. Kelly jammed the second hypo into him. It filled him with the chemicals, then went inert. His lips were moving and Kelly realized he was saying something.

She held her mittened finger to his lips. “It’s too late to apologize. I’m going to court martial you.”

A corner of his mouth twitched in a barely perceptible imitation of the smile that always melted her heart, and Kelly almost laughed in relief.

She discarded the second hypo. “Did you activate the disruptor?”

He nodded more vigorously this time.

“Good. Let’s go.”

Kelly pulled him to his feet. He stood, using her for support. She was down to one gel-pack, as was he. She jettisoned the spent two and left the backpack and med-kit. She was down to only her suit, sidearm, wrist-nav, and furs. Better to travel light. If they didn’t make it to base, the supplies wouldn’t do them any good.

Head tilted against the wind, Kelly hugged her polar furs with her free hand as she slid Grayson’s arm around her shoulder and pulled him closer. He wrapped his other arm around her; even half frozen, his powerful body enveloped her in warmth.

An hour later, Kelly was amazed Grayson could still walk. Hypothermia had to be winding its way through his body. His gel-pack had failed a half-mile ago. Fear twisted her stomach. If she hadn’t found him when she did, he would be dead. They might still end up dead.

She tightened her grip on his sleeve and pulled him through the blinding wall of snow that whipped past in a horizontal whiteout. Cold stung the small line of exposed skin on her forehead. The power in her goggles had died minutes after they’d started for base, but without them, her lids would be frozen shut.

Flashes of white-hot weapon-fire slashed through the whiteout like silent lightning. They paused and lifted their heads heavenward, then looked at each other. His expression mirrored what she was thinking: the Kirsovals had arrived. Would their months of hard work pay off? Would their friends, their families survive?

Grayson slipped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. He had thought to draw fire away from her, even if that meant giving his life. But his efforts were moot. Instead of their last moments being spent with her legs wrapped tight around his waist as he thrust into her, they would likely die in this frozen wilderness. Even if they made it back to base, it would probably be to find the mountain blown apart. When she’d lowered the force field to go in search of him, she’d left an open door.

But he had closed the shield after he left. How had he planned on getting back in? There was no communication from outside the cave. Did he think he could link with her mind? Gooseflesh rose on her arms. Was it coincidence that she’d woken from a dream about freezing to death when the man she loved was wandering across twenty-foot-thick ice? But it wasn’t him linking with her, she realized, for he wouldn’t want her risking her life by coming for him. Had she really linked with his mind?

Kelly wanted to laugh. Grayson was always one step ahead of her. Not this time. This time, she was one step ahead of him. The dream had seemed a natural reaction to the unnatural weather and the fear that they would lose to the Kirsovals. But what if it was something more, what if it had been prophetic? Visibility was arm’s length and the heads-up-display in her goggles had gone dead half an hour ago. Did the dream mean they weren’t going to reach home? Her jaw tightened reflexively. Onyx had been a subtropical planet. Only those who could have predicted the Kirsoval sub-thermal probe that had put the planet into deep freeze could have seen the need for a HUD to survive on Onyx.

A white beam stabbed down in her periphery.
A Kirsoval weapon.
Kelly whirled, dragging Grayson with her. A white rod of energy stretched from ground to sky, moving in a ragged path toward them. A sizzle shrieked above the wind. She yanked Grayson back. Brilliance threatened to singe her eyes. Her goggles didn’t darken. No power. Lines burned in her vision everywhere she looked. Fear twisted her stomach. The Kirsovals had detected their heat signatures. Grayson stumbled, nearly pulling her down with him. Her shoulder wrenched, but she yanked him upright.

“Move it,” she yelled, but her words were devoured by the wind’s howl and the beam’s roar.

The weapon cut a gap in the ice across their path, then snapped off. Kelly blinked at her nav and headed left, first south then west. They hadn’t detected her and Grayson. Their aim couldn’t be that bad. The weapon discharge had to be a stray from the battle above—but deadly nonetheless.

Grayson yanked her back and she caught sight of the crevice she’d nearly stepped into. She hadn’t spotted the hole, her vision still impaired by the beam’s afterimage. The ice crumbled beneath her feet. She backpedaled against Grayson, who had planted himself with the effort to pull her back. Her feet slipped. She threw herself on the ice, twisted, and grappled for his ankles. He fell backward as the ice below her feet slipped into the fissure. Support vanished. She thudded onto the ledge. Her legs dangled over the edge. Grayson grabbed her hood and pulled her with him as he scrambled back. Her fur coat cinched into her armpits, lifting her arms off the ice.

Another beam sprang to life behind him.

“Grayson!” she yelled.

He twisted to look. The beam cut a line across their escape. It was going to trap them on an island of ice.

Grayson worked right. The beam staggered left. Her feet gained purchase and she propelled herself ahead on all fours, then three when she grabbed his coat and dragged him alongside. The beam sputtered, stabbed twice more and died. The smell of ozone hung heavy in the air. A measure of exhilaration helped her gain her feet.

Grayson was up and moving. “They got it,” he yelled.

He’d read her mind. The beam’s erratic cutoff meant the ship at its source had been disabled…or was it too much to hope the ship had been destroyed? Which ship had fired at them? Was it an escort or the mother ship? Dammit, they were blind without sensors.

Chapter Three

Wind sliced across Kelly’s face where the hood had fallen from her head. She’d lost her goggles during the stray Kirsoval firepower. She stumbled and pulled at Grayson. He slipped from her grasp. She spun, but fingers of steel seized her shoulders, and Grayson yanked her against his chest. Her legs gave way and he crushed her to him while she buried her head in his warmth. His enviro-suit had run out of power and her only gel-pack was nearly depleted. Tears rose, but didn’t fall in the freezing temperature. He swayed. She straightened.

“We’re not dying out here. You understand me?” Her eyes stung.

He pulled the hood up over her head. Her heart broke. Her nav no longer functioned. She scanned the sheet of white sky for the hint of sun that would point her south toward base. All she could do was pretend, for his sake.

She grasped his sleeve and pulled him. “This way.”