After half an hour of trekking past mango trees and hapu’u ferns that towered over her head, she saw the first glimpse of metal through the dense green of the jungle. A wispy spiral of smoke rose from it. Not even last night’s drenching rain had completely extinguished the smolder of burning engine parts.
As she emerged into the clearing, she looked for the drone but didn’t see it right away. Maybe it had taken some photos and moved on. How far could drones travel? Who was operating it and where were they based? Or was it automated somehow, not controlled by a live operator?
She really needed to brush up on her drone knowledge. Come to think of it, maybe she could use drones to scare off the ‘io. She should put that in her next grant application.
Putting her binoculars to her face, she scanned the entire area, searching for that drone. She paused as something else caught her eye. Was that an ohi’a tree, with its distinctive spindly trunk and gray-green foliage? She hadn’t explored much in this particular area. The ‘alala preferred ohi’a forest habitat to any other, but she wasn’t aware of any ohi’a in this part of the valley.
She stepped forward to get a closer look, then paused as a strange sound caught her attention. A whistling sort of sound, but not a person. More like a?—
Someone grabbed her by the hand and yanked her backwards. “Hey!” she yelled, stumbling over the root of a hala tree.
Then she was being swept off her feet and whisked away from the plane. Someone was carrying her like a child; she couldn’t see who, but they were strong. Her face was pressed against a hard chest. She spluttered against a mouthful of shirt fabric, and managed to shift her head enough to spot the bandage on her kidnapper’s arm.
Lincoln?
They dropped onto the ground behind a lava formation with ironwood trees growing over it. Lincoln pushed her ahead of him, so she’d be even more sheltered. She flinched as her head brushed against the rough surface of that lava rock. “Ow. What are you doing?”
“That drone was shooting live ammo.” Lincoln spoke in a harsh whisper.
“What? Why?”
“The hell if I know. Are you okay?” He moved to touch her head, but she swatted his hand away. All of this was so suspicious.
“I’m confused. What are you even doing out here? Why is there a drone? I thought it was looking for survivors. Why is it shooting?”
“Those are all excellent questions, but I don’t have any answers.” His dark eyes scanned her closely. “I’m sorry if I scared you. When I saw you standing there, I panicked. I couldn’t explain fast enough, so I just grabbed you.”
“Oh my god.” A shiver swept through her. “I heard something, but I had no idea what it was. “Did that thing actually shoot at me?”
Her heart beat a rapid-fire rhythm as she struggled to process what had just happened. Had he just saved her life? Huddled in the shadow of the rock, they were so close to each other that she could see details of his face she hadn’t noticed before. His long eyelashes, for instance. The scar next to his cheekbone. The furrows between his eyebrows.
“It probably wasn’t personal, if that helps.”
She considered that. “Not at all,” she decided. “It might make it worse. What do you know about drones like that?”
“Not much. My guess is that it was programmed to shoot anything that registered as a living human. I got lucky. I startled a wild boar and it charged toward the plane. The drone shot at it. It either missed or it just nicked the boar, because he made a big squealing fuss and ran off. After that I stayed out of sight so I could watch the drone. Then you showed up.”
She hugged her arms around herself. Realizing that she’d just had a brush with death…holy shit. Now she couldn’t stop shaking. “It probably would have kept shooting if you hadn’t pulled me away.”
“But I did. You’re okay. It’s okay.” He scooted even closer to put his arms around her, but she shoved him away.
“It’s not okay. All of this is your fault.” Of that, she was completely sure.
“My fault?” He had the nerve to actually look offended.
“If you and your fancy private plane hadn’t crashed here, that drone wouldn’t be buzzing around shooting at things. Of course it’s your fault. That poor wild boar! You’d better hope he wasn’t hurt.”
“You’re worried about the pig?”
“He belongs here more than you do! I mean, he shouldn’t be here either. The wild pigs are not native. They were first brought here by the Polynesians, and then by Captain Cook in the eighteen-hundreds. Different pigs, of course. Not the same ones.” She realized that Lincoln was looking at her with a bemused expression, and cut her lecture short, though she had plenty more to say on that topic. “But they are a good food source and they’re part of the ecosystem now, for better or worse, so it is what it is.”
His lips twitched. “Huh.”
“Huh? Excuse me, what does that mean?”
“It means, what better way to pass the time while avoiding a shower of bullets than learning about the history of the wild pig population?”
A slow wave of heat washed across her face. Did she have to be a nerd in every situation? Apparently she did. “Well, now you know.”
