Fated Blades by Ilona Andrews

Author:Ilona Andrews [Andrews, Ilona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Montlake
Published: 2021-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

Matias pressed against the trunk of a big evaner. Ramona squeezed in next to him.

Two hundred meters away, a debris field at the end of a long furrow marked the spot where their aerial had exploded.

Subatomic particle disruptors capable of hitting a target on the ground from orbit were expensive and heavy. Most larger military vessels didn’t bother with them because at that range they didn’t pack enough power. They were precision weapons, deployed against small targets: satellites, beacons, underground bunkers. He’d never expected they would use them against an aerial.

“The Vandals?” she guessed.

“Yes. Unless Drewery bought himself an orbital defense patrol vessel of corsair class or higher.”

“That would be pushing it, even for him.”

Particle beams left no traces. They wouldn’t register on planetary defenses unless someone was in visual range, but the presence of a warship, even one with a diplomatic tag, would. To fire at them, the Vandal warship would have had to drop into low orbit. There was a limited amount of time before Orbital Traffic Control would make them move. The Vandals could stall for a bit, but eventually they would have to return to their designated traffic lane.

“I have no uplink,” Ramona murmured.

He tried his implant. Nothing. Perfect. Just perfect.

The first edge of the storm rolled across the sky toward them. Lightning flashed, snaking through the dark churning clouds in an electric burst of blue.

Right now, they had bigger problems than lack of signal. In a few minutes, the storm would break over their heads. It wouldn’t be a gentle rain; it would be the kind of deluge that made the gardens of Dahlia possible. The forest would do little to stop it. They had to find shelter.

Ramona dug in her bag and pulled out a rifle. “I think I saw a First Wave temple when we were flying.”

A temple . . . he recalled being small and standing next to his grandfather, holding his hand and looking up at a bright-blue bubble of precursor transparite caught in a web of silver filaments above their heads.

“Which way?” he asked.

Ramona waved vaguely to her left and clicked the rifle’s scope, activating it.

“Why the rifle?”

“Point cloud scanner.” She grinned.

The point cloud scope tagged the environment, differentiating between shapes. The temple would be large and round. It should stand out among the trees like a mushroom in the grass.

Ramona hung the rifle over her shoulder and faced the tree. “Give me a boost?”

He cupped his hands. She stepped on them, and he straightened, propelling her upward. Ramona caught a branch, pulled herself up, and scrambled into the crown.

A long moment passed.

“Found it,” she called down. “Two klicks. Think it’s safe to tag it?”

“Yes.”

The rifle popped. Ramona had shot at the temple, and the rifle’s targeting computer recorded the trajectory of the round. They would follow the scope the way mythical ancients followed a thread through a labyrinth. As long as the storm gave them another fifteen minutes, they would make it.

Lightning tore the clouds above them. Thunder rumbled, the heavens opened, and the rainstorm doused the forest.

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