Despite everything, she laughed.
They plunged deeper into the crevasse fields, leaving their pursuers to navigate the obstacles behind them. The ice rose around them like frozen cathedral walls, ancient and indifferent. In its shadows, they were invisible. They were safe.
For now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The crawler’s engine screamed like a wounded animal. Jaz ignored the warning lights flashing across her console, ignored the way the chassis shuddered every time they hit a ridge, ignored everything except the narrow passage between the ice walls that rushed towards them at terrifying speed. Behind her, reflected in the side mirrors, the last pursuit vehicle maintained its relentless pace. It was smaller than the others and faster, clearly designed for exactly this kind of terrain.
“Left,” Adjar said, his voice cutting calmly through the engine noise. “Sharp left, now.”
She wrenched the controls, feeling the crawler’s treads lose traction for one heart-stopping moment before catching again. The cargo sled behind them swung wide, nearly clipping an ice formation that would have torn it apart.
“How do you know where we’re going?”
“The ice tells me.” His hand was pressed flat against the crawler’s wall, his eyes closed in concentration. “There is a valley ahead. Narrow. Too narrow for that vehicle to follow.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then we will learn something new.”
That’s not reassuring,she thought, but she adjusted their heading anyway. In spite of her knowledge of the terrain, his mysterious connection to the ice was more of an advantage.
The crevasse fields had bought them distance, but not enough. Four of the six pursuit vehicles had been forced to fall back—too large to navigate the maze of frozen passages—but two had continued the chase. One of those had been disabled when its driver misjudged a narrow gap and wedged the vehicle hopelessly between two ice walls. But the last one…
The last one was good. Better than good. Its driver seemed to anticipate every turn and every obstacle, matching their desperate flight with almost mechanical precision.
Cyborg?she wondered, but found it difficult to believe. No cyborg she’d ever met was willing to work with GenCon.
“The ravine,” he said. “Two hundred meters.”
She saw it now—a gap in the ice walls so narrow it seemed impossible that anything larger than a person could pass through. The crawler was going to fit with centimeters to spare on either side, but it would be close. Very close.
“You’re sure about this?”
“I am sure of nothing. But I trust the ice.”
“Great. Really inspiring confidence here.”
She aimed for the gap and prayed.
The walls closed around them with shocking suddenness, the ancient ice rising on either side like the jaws of some frozen beast. The crawler’s treads scraped against the sides, sending up sprays of frost and chips of ice. The cargo sled followed with a shriek of protesting metal, its contents shifting dangerously.
Behind them, the pursuit vehicle hesitated.
Through the rear display, she watched it slow, its driver clearly calculating the risks. The gap was wide enough—barely—but the consequences of miscalculation in a passage like this would be catastrophic.
The vehicle surged forward.
“Persistent bastard,” she muttered.
“Continue through. Do not slow down.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
The ravine twisted ahead of them, serpentine and treacherous. She kept her eyes forward, trusting his directions and trying not to think about what would happen if the passage narrowed further. The engine’s scream had taken on a new quality—a grinding undertone that suggested systems pushed well past their limits.
“The walls,” he said suddenly. “Look at the walls.”
