Jon glanced at me, surprise evident. “A knife isn’t going to be of much use in an Adlin attack. If you’re close enough to use that thing, you’re dead.”
“I know, but other critters do roam Tenterra.” Or, at least, roamed her borders.
“And that’s what you have blasters for.”
I grinned. “Yes, but sometimes ammo does run out.”
His expression suggested I was crazy, but all he said was “It’s been delisted as an active weapon, so as long as you sign for it, it’s yours. Come along.”
I followed him over to the small office area, signed out the weapons and the ammo, then thanked him and headed across to the motor pool to grab a scooter.
Ten minutes later, I was speeding out of Winterborne and into the Tenterra dustbowl. The scooters were lightly armored vehicles shaped like rather fat tadpoles and, at a push, could fit two people in them. They were designed for scouting missions such as this and used a form of electromagnetic repulsion technology that drew on the earth’s energy lines to move. Those same crisscrossing energy lines also provided coordinates for the navigation systems. The scooters—unlike most military vehicles—were not only fast but also raised little in the way of dust, a major bonus given the numbers of Adlin that now roamed Tenterra.
Winterborne’s gleaming metal wall soon became little more than a speck in the scooter’s rear-vision screen. Dawn had begun to smother the stars and it lent the barren landscape a moment of beauty. But that star-like flash that had drawn me out here had disappeared.
“Base, can anyone one still see that beacon?”
“Negative,” came the reply. “But Ava worked out some rough coordinates before she signed off. Sending them through now.”
“Ta.”
Numbers flashed up on the scooter’s control screen. I punched them through to navigation and released manual control. The scooter surged forward, the whine of her engines audible even through the helmet. It was a somewhat comforting sound, if only because it meant everything was working as it should.
The skies brightened as the sun began to rise over Drakkon’s Head, the massive peak that was reportedly the main entrance to the Irkallan colony that ran deep under the Blacksaw Mountains. I sometimes wondered why the earth and air witches had never taken the war directly to the Irkallan—why they hadn’t destroyed their land rather than ours. Nothing in the history books ever mentioned such an attempt, and if there was a sound reason for not doing so, it had never been recorded.
Of course, it could also be that we unlit had no need to know, so it simply wasn’t a part of our education.
I was just over an hour out of Winterborne when I reached the coordinate location and the scooter began to slow. I couldn’t see anything in the immediate vicinity and the sensors—which had a range of about a mile, depending on the terrain—weren’t picking up anything. I switched the scooter to manual and began a long circular sweep of the area. About three-quarters of the way around the sensors began to beep—the directional lights indicated it was to the northeast, and the slow nature of the auditory signal suggested it was at least half a mile away.
It turned out to be a woman.
I stopped the scooter but didn’t immediately get out, instead giving the sensors time to do another sweep of the area. The Adlin had been known to use the bodies of their victims to lure soldiers to their deaths, and while this woman looked whole, I wasn’t about to step beyond the punitive safety of the scooter until I knew for sure there was nothing and no one else out there.
When the sensors gave no further indication of movement or life in the area, I hit auto hover to keep them operational, took off my helmet and tossed it into the back of the scooter, then opened the door and climbed out. The wind stirred around me, whispering of the heat that was to come later that day. If there was anything more dangerous in this part of the world, she certainly wasn’t inclined to tell me. I grabbed the medikit then slung the rifle over my shoulder and walked across to the woman.
The first thing I noticed was the fact that there was absolutely no indication of how she’d gotten here. There were no footprints or vehicle tracks, and the wind certainly wasn’t strong enough to have already erased them. Aside from the thick silver bracelets on her wrists, she was naked, but her pale skin showed no sign of sunburn, which suggested she’d walked through the night rather than the day. But from where?
The second thing I noticed once I was much closer was the rough-cut, circular black stone lying near her left hand.
It was an Adlin beacon.
My pulse rate jumped several notches. I stopped beside her and scanned the area again. The brown landscape stretched on endlessly until it met the blue of the sky. If anything moved, it would be visible long before the sensors spotted it. But there was nothing near—nothing heavy enough to stir up the dust, anyway.
And yet I couldn’t escape the notion that something was out there, watching us.
If it was the Adlin, we were in deep trouble.
I bent to press two fingers against the woman’s neck. Her pulse was slow and strong, and her breathing regular. It was almost as if she was asleep rather than unconscious. There was no evidence of wounds or bruising on her back, rump, or legs. The soles of her feet were cracked and hard, suggesting she spent most of her time without shoes. But there was little dirt caked between her toes or covering her ankles—what did linger was black rather than the red-brown of the Tenterra desert—and no sign of the redness that came from walking through the night on soil heated by long days of hot sunlight.
I grabbed the mediscanner out of the kit and ran it over her. Other than noting she was dehydrated and carrying a very low body weight for her height, it backed up what was already evident by sight—although she was, apparently, eleven weeks pregnant.
I moved the glimmer stone and then carefully rolled her over. Despite her paler skin, she had what was considered to be typical Sifft features—an oval-shaped face, an aquiline nose, and well-defined cheekbones. Her hair was as black as mine, but also had thick streaks of silver—and silver so pure, be it in the hair or the eyes, was usually one of the signs of air witch.
I pressed the earwig and said, “Base? I’ve found my target. It’s a woman, unescorted, with no apparent means of transportation.”
“Is she alive?” The voice belonged to Jeni, one of the night shift communicators and my assigned comms point. She’d obviously been held over because I was out.
“Yes. Unconscious but unburned and unhurt.” I hesitated. “There’s an Adlin beacon with her.”
“But no other sign of a trap?” Her tone was detached—without life or emotion. Another side effect of the enhancement chips. “No indication she’s been tampered with?”
I pursed my lips and quickly switched scanner mode. Thankfully, the screen remained green. “There’s no indication of internal alterations or weaponry insertions.”
“The captain said to bring her back but leave the beacon. Be wary, though—sensors are picking up activity about fifty miles southeast of you.”
Which put it between Winterborne and us. I swung around. The horizon remained clear, but maybe the teasing wind was erasing any sign of movement. “Keep me updated, Base. Out.”
I flicked off the earwig and returned my gaze to the woman, only to discover she was awake and watching me. But there wasn’t a whole lot of awareness in her eyes—eyes that were a silvery-white rather than the gold of a Sifft.
“I’m Nightwatch eight-three from Winterborne.” I kept my tone soft so as not to spook her. If the activity Base mentioned was the Adlin, then the last thing I needed was this woman screaming. I had no idea if they’d be able to hear her from such a distance, and no desire to find out. “Have you any memory as to how you got out here?”