Ice Baron (Ice Chronicles, Book One (science fiction romance)) Read online

  The oldest of Baron Dubrovnyk’s children was Anya, and she had been thirteen when he had been thrust into the role of protector. His own life had turned upside down at a similar age, so he empathized with what she was going through.

  At first, Joshua had believed himself blessed. To become both baron and protector at such a young age was an unbelievable honor for a young man who had come from absolutely nothing. He had been twelve when he had joined the army. By sixteen, he had earned more medals for valor than most men twice his age. Afterward, he had transferred to the air fleet. He was fearless in battle, and praised by all of his commanders. And shrewd. A man they wanted in their corner.

  When Joshua turned nineteen, Jason Dubrovnyk heard about Joshua and enlisted him into the elite service. The rest was history.

  Overall, Joshua thought he had done well. The job of baron was difficult, but a perfect fit for his aggressive, take-no-prisoners personality. He had even grown to like the children, which was a good thing, as protector. The world was his…except for one thing. Protector was a sacred trust. On oath, the baron’s family had become his own. He could not become romantically involved with one of his charges.

  Of course, the Old Barons’ Law was meant to keep protectors from gaining power by unscrupulous means, such as by marrying the oldest female heir. If Joshua did break this sacred trust at any small point, all power and position would be stripped from him. He would become as an enlisted soldier again, and the baron’s daughter would lose her inheritance to power. But even worse, if a larger offense was proven, both culprits would be stripped of all possessions, and cast from the territory forever. Joshua’s honor would be forever lost, for he would have taken advantage of one of his charges. A heinous crime, especially to the Order of the Barons, who highly prized their children.

  And now Joshua had finally discharged his duty. Anya was about to safely marry another. He had kept his honor and pledge to her father. And, by an undeserving twist of fate, he would remain baron.

  With a mocking twist to his lips, Joshua raised his glass to heaven. “Your daughter is safe from me, Baron. Of course, Onred…” A hoarse bark erupted. It should have been laughter, but it burned, as if the very flames of hell licked down into his soul. Just the thought of that grubby bastard touching Anya… All rational thought abruptly left his head.

  He snarled out a string of curses, damning Onred to hell forever.

  * * * * *

  Anya surreptitiously checked her watch. Ninety minutes of the journey had elapsed. Time to put her plan into motion. Finally.

  She pulled her carry-on bag onto her lap. With a fake frown, she rummaged through it, aware that Onred’s men watched her every movement. At length, and with an audible sigh of success, she pulled out a compact. Of course, she had known its location the entire time. Although the compact appeared to be a frivolous item, it also doubled as a compass.

  Anya peered into the small mirror, pretending to study her face from all angles. She squinted, as though it were hard to see. Finally, with a sigh of disgust, she shoved the compact back into the bag and stood. Handles slipped over her forearm, she headed for the women’s restroom.

  Onred’s men, and one of Joshua’s, hidden in the last seat, continued to watch her, but did not interfere. Where could she go? Already they were speeding over frozen wasteland, several kilometers above the earth’s surface. She glanced outside, at the massive Tien Shan mountain range rapidly approaching from the south. In half an hour, the shuttle would pass over the northeastern ridge and head southeast to Bogd, Onred’s main city.

  After locking the restroom door, Anya quickly set to work. She pulled off her jacket and slipped on an ultra-light, specialty vest, and then she slipped knives, a laser gun, and back up solar charges into the loops in her belt. Next tucked in were matches, a solar light, rations, and a cup-sized water purifier, complete with instant heater, to melt snow into a hot drink. The minimum needed, should she lose her bag. She pulled her parka back on, and adjusted the top pouch of the underlying vest. Last of all, she tied the bag to her arm with thin black rope, which matched the color of her parka.

  Done. Although her heart beat rapidly and nerves twisted through the pit of her stomach, Anya left the restroom with a bored expression on her face. She wandered to the window and looked down at the barren wasteland far below, which was bordered by the craggy Tien Shan mountains. She searched for the dip, indicating the pass through the towering mountain peaks. There it was, to the south—the Dzungarian Gate. Her second destination.

  Her first destination, however, was this white, barren, no-man’s land; but at a point as close as possible to the Dzungarian Gate. She glanced at her watch. Previous calculations told her that only two minutes remained. Heart beating harder, she swallowed and stared outside. From this vantage point, it was impossible to tell that lakes lay beneath the unending sheet of snow. Snow drifts had claimed frozen Lake Zaysan to the east, and to the west, Lake Balkhash. This wasteland, with temperatures which reached as low as -42° C in February, was far too desolate for human habitation, but she would survive well enough. Her hard, militaristic father had trained both of his oldest daughters in the basic elements of survival. He had wanted them to be prepared for everything.

  Anya was glad for that now. But she hoped she would meet no snow leopards. The animals, which used to prowl the higher mountains, now hunted the warmer, lower elevations in search of food. Her laser would protect her, of course—provided she saw the animal before it sprang upon her.

  Beneath her lashes, Anya glanced sideways at the cabin. One of Onred’s men watched her, but the others had closed their eyes, intent on a nap between here and Onred’s home city of Bogd, more than an hour distant.

  She wandered toward the pilot area. No one followed her. This was going to be easy. Anya actually felt disappointed. She found she was itching for a fight. Was it because she was sick of feeling impotent, with her entire life dictated by others…duty, the Old Barons’ Law.... Ultimately, of course, by Joshua. The gray door to the cockpit was at hand. She pulled the laser from her belt, yanked open the door and barged into the small space.

  “Hey!”

  “Get out,” barked the pilot.

  “You don’t belong…” The sight of Anya’s laser shut up all three crew members.

  Slowly and distinctly, she said, “Open the emergency door.” As trained by her father, she knew that the cabin, at these low altitudes, was not pressurized. Opening the door would harm none of the cockpit crew, who were seatbelted, in any event.

  One man’s hand crept across the dashboard. Anya whipped her laser toward the emergency door handle and fired. Green lights flickered in the cockpit, and something sizzled. An acrid smell drifted to her nose. Everyone froze, staring at the madwoman who had invaded their cockpit. Anya shoved the laser into her belt, ran for the door, and rammed a shoulder into the emergency release bar. The door jerked right, and air blasted into the cockpit. A hard lunge, and she was through, falling into empty, cold air, hurtling toward the earth.

  Soft snowflakes brushed her skin as she yanked and jerked at the vest under her jacket collar, searching for the ripcord. Where was it?

  Below, the flat snow pack and a few huge drifts rushed closer. Her fingers finally brushed the knotted cord and yanked. With force, the parachute popped the back of her head as it shot from beneath her jacket collar. The next second, the billowing chute jerked her body, stopping its death fall.

  All was silent. She didn’t hear the shuttle. It was probably long gone. Cold snowflakes kissed her cheeks. The earth continued to drift closer—faster than she had expected. She bent her knees, bracing for impact. One of the drifts looked huge and bulky, as if it hid a gigantic boulder, but before she could adjust course, she hit the ground with teeth rattling impact. Clearly, an ice sheet lay beneath the surface of the deceptively soft looking snow. She tumbled hard and spun sideways into the craggy rock. Pain slammed into her shoulder and head, and then she lay blessedly still.

>   She was safe. And, for the first time in her life, completely free. No one—not duty, not the Old Barons’ Law, and not Joshua—would ever rule her life again. It was a surprisingly freeing thought. With a faint, grimacing smile, Anya slipped into blackness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Astana

  “She what?”

  “Anya skyjumped from the shuttle, sir. Onred is furious. He thinks this has all been a trick.”

  Joshua’s curled fist went to his head, as if that could put a lid on this insane turn of events. “She didn’t. She wouldn’t.”

  “She did, sir. What are your orders?”

  For a moment, Joshua couldn’t think. Anya could be…. No. He would not allow the thought to form. She couldn’t be dead. He would feel it. Somehow, he would know.

  His natural command swiftly returned. “Send out aircraft. Search the area where she went down.”

  “She jumped in the middle of the wasteland, sir. A storm is coming.”

  Joshua swore. “Get my flight gear.”

  “But sir…”

  “Do it.”

  Flying through storms had been his specialty in the elite air fleet. He would find Anya. Never would he leave her out there, alone, in the middle of a storm.

  He would find her. But when he did, he would kill her.

  * * * * *

  Anya’s eyelids fluttered open. Frigid, furry snowflakes clung to them. It was so quiet and still.

  Cautiously, she moved her head. It ached. A glove touch to her chin came away bloody. Her shoulders and back felt sore, but nothing to write home about. A grim smile curled her lips at that absurd thought.

  Carefully, Anya sat up. So far, her body seemed to be in working order, although her head ached more sharply now. Gripping the fingertips of one glove in her teeth, she pulled it off and felt the back of her head. No blood. Just a small bump. Good. She slipped the glove back on again. It wasn’t too cold this afternoon—maybe -23° C, but extremities cooled rapidly. She didn’t want to risk frostbitten fingers.

  She opened her snow covered pack, still tied to her arm. Quick use of her compact and the first aid kit dealt with the gash on her chin. Then she pulled on a warm face mask and pulled up her parka hood. Last of all, she pulled out her heat insulating camouflage tarp, re-zipped her bag, and slid her arms through the loops, using it as a pack.

  The tarp was white on one side, and black on the other. After casting a look to the north and noting the dark, heavy gray clouds advancing across the steppe, she smiled. Good. A storm was approaching. She pulled the white side of the tarp over her head and around her shoulders like a cape and tied it securely in place with the rope. Blizzards were common, and she didn’t want to lose her prized tarp in the storm.

  Micro-sensors were built into each side of the camouflage tarp, which enabled it to change colors like the rare chameleon. It would allow Anya to blend into her surroundings, so the search fleet Joshua was certain to send wouldn’t find her. Even better, the tarp would act as a shield, preventing her body heat from being detected from overhead. She would be virtually invisible to all searching aircraft. Even so, she intended to travel at night as much as possible, until she passed through the Dzungarian Gate. Travel might be slow going, and she estimated it would take three or four days of steady trekking south to reach the Gate.

  Snow continued to gently fall as she walked across the wasteland, heading for the shelter of the Tien Shan foothills. The snowfall would mask her footsteps, and the coming blizzard, although it promised misery, would obliterate her path. Good.

  Satellite images had helped Anya plan this trip, and she knew where a few snow caves were located. She would spend the days in those—as long as wild animals, such as bears, hadn’t already claimed them. She shivered, and tried not to think about that right now.

  She trudged for the foothills. It would take until nightfall to reach them. If all went well, she’d continue walking until dawn.

  * * * * *

  Astana

  Gray, thick clouds roiled outside Astana by the time Joshua’s small, single pilot airbird flew from the hangar. A kilometer below, snow dusted the clear, pod base encircling Astana’s stem, which secured the city to the earth. From the sky, the stem looked like a long umbilical cord, interlaced with steel supports. The pod base was a domed greenhouse, warmed by the heat generated from Astana’s life support systems.

  Joshua pushed the throttle to half of Mach 1 and allowed the familiar weight of gravity to push his body against the chair. It still felt strange to him to live so far above the earth’s surface. He and his brother and sisters had been born and raised in caves, deep inside the earth. Astana was as different from his childhood home as night from day.

  Sky cities like Astana had become popular two hundred years ago when lighter, cheaper, and stronger construction materials became available. It was an advantage to live in cities high and free of the ever-encroaching ice pack and snow drifts. But mostly, the Old Barons had liked looking down on their domains. Maybe a lingering desire to escape the damaged earth had played a part in their construction, too.

  The cities looked like the flying saucers of old.

  Joshua chuckled grimly to himself. How naïve people had been before the nuclear wars. Mankind had more to fear from his own destructive nature than from scout ships from another world. Just now, the space academy was starting to open its doors to all recruits; even the disadvantaged poor, as he had been. If Joshua had still been in his twenties, he might have joined. If he wasn’t a baron. If he wasn’t a protector to five Dubrovnyks; the eldest of which had just pulled the stupidest stunt imaginable.

  His fist tightened on the throttle. When he found her…

  He wanted to thunder at her, and shake her for scaring him like this. But he would not. Losing control of himself was never an option. Ever. He would not be like his father.

  Joshua slowed to 100 kilometers per hour when he reached the spot where the shuttle pilot reported that Anya had parachuted to the earth. She couldn’t have gone far. She had been wearing all black. It would be easy to spot her.

  But it wasn’t.

  The wasteland was a sea of white. No black anywhere. Where was she?

  The small flurries thickened. What if Anya was injured, and now covered by a layer of snow? Joshua’s pulse felt thick and sluggish with anxiety. He programmed the computer to scan the landscape for signs of body heat.

  The scan came up clean—no readings of heat anywhere in the wasteland at all, except for a few small, faint readings of warmth—probably voles burrowed beneath the snow, in the earth.

  Joshua circled a ten kilometer area once, twice, and then three times before a frown locked his brows together. Visibility in the growing blizzard had become nonexistent, but his instruments did not lie. Anya had vanished.

  Violent gusts shook his craft now. He couldn’t find her. Fear and powerlessness were old, unwelcome emotions, and Joshua battled to suppress them. He had never failed a mission. Never. And yet he was failing Anya now. If he didn’t find her, she could die in this storm. Where was she?

  * * * * *

  The blizzard whipped the tarp and buffeted Anya’s body. At times, the wind felt like a giant, invisible hand, repeatedly shoving her and trying to push her down. Every few steps, it succeeded.

  She fell to her knees again in the deepening snow. Walking in the storm was miserable, but at least the snow wear kept her warm, and her compass kept her on track. And the rope she’d cinched around her waist prevented the tarp from ripping free. She would be in big trouble if that happened. If necessary, she could wrap up inside the tarp and use it as a shelter. She could survive the blizzard within its cocoon, as long as she wasn’t smothered by a mountain of snow.

  But wrapping up in the tarp was a luxury she could not afford right now. The angry, spitting blizzard was doing her a favor by erasing her tracks from the pristine white wasteland. Once she reached the mountains, the clumpy vegetation would help to hide her trail. But for no
w, cruel and wretched as it might be, the blizzard was actually a blessing. Neither Joshua nor Onred would be able to follow her tracks, and that meant her plan to forge a lasting peace with all of their enemies—not just Onred—had a fighting chance to succeed.

  So Anya kept walking.

  Storms came from the north, and so she pocketed the compass and allowed the wind to drive her south, toward the mountains. Sooner or later, she would run up against the foothills, and if the storm was still raging at nightfall, she would take refuge in one of the small snow caves until its fury subsided.

  First the Dzungarian Gate, and afterward, Tarim Territory. Her uncle’s land.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Joshua flew his airbird like a possessed man during the bright, sunny days following the blizzard, only stopping long enough to snatch the required hours of sleep. His elite pilots traded off in shifts, keeping a total of seven birds patrolling the steppe. But so far, no trace of Anya had been found.

  Birn, his first-in-command, suggested calling off the search after two days.

  Joshua told him to go to hell.

  In the meantime, Onred had delivered several broadcasts—actually, temper tantrums disguised as newscasts—threatening an offensive strike if Anya wasn’t delivered to him within 72 hours.

  Onred could go to hell, too.

  Joshua’s respect for the Altai leader had disintegrated, and a knot of self-condemnation and fury lodged in his throat when he realized that he had almost delivered Anya into that jackal’s hands. Within the last few days, Onred had revealed his true colors. He was hot-tempered and undisciplined, and Joshua now doubted if Onred’s desire for peace was genuine. He had rejected Joshua’s attempt to return the bride payment, and instead had called Joshua every foul name under the sun. Each day seemed to prove more clearly that Onred took after his father, a devil named Jacan, who had passed baronship to his oldest son before he had a chance to die. Now there was a living baron unwilling to surrender his territory to fate. If Onred failed him, Jacan’s other son, Cadmus, would take over.