Sky Hunter by Chris Reher Read Free Book Online

glowing eyes gleamed with mischief. “Hey, how about
a boyfriend?”
    Nova launched from her perch as if he had
stuck a knife in her arm. “Don’t!” she exclaimed before she caught
herself.
    He blinked, confused by her reaction. “Easy,
Nova,” he said, but there was a hurt look on his face. “I’m just
kidding around. I just told you I had a girl.”
    She took a deep breath and shook her head.
“Sorry, just jumpy, I guess,” she said although until this moment
she had been perfectly at ease up here. “I know you didn’t mean
it.”
    Reko shrugged in an effort to make light of
the awkward moment. “Of course I meant it. You’re a pretty lady
when you’re cleaned up a bit, Lieutenant.” He sighed dramatically
and settled his helmet on his shaved skull. “Much too pretty for a
Centauri grunt with a face like a boot.”
    Nova smiled. “Damn straight.”
    She packed up the remote scanner display and
climbed after him into the hover plane. These compact vehicles were
used to move silently among the hills, barely raising a plume of
dust even at low altitudes. Not even remotely as powerful as her
Kite, they were little more than a souped-up, armored skimmers, but
at least she was airborne some of the time. It made her banishment
to this isolated post more bearable than she had expected.
    “ Point the way, Sarge,” she said when
they had lifted off. He was studying their maps to look for the
next point along their surveillance route. After a moment he sent
the information to the onboard navigator and she let the plane
coast through a gap in the bluffs, away from Shon Gat and into the
rugged hills to the south. Gradually, the foothills gave way to
more densely-treed slopes. Ahead of them lay a saddle between some
cliffs through which a narrow stream had carved its way through the
ages. Beyond that, they knew, lay a village where they would
rendezvous with another squad.
    Nova tapped the ship’s com system to hail
them. “Do you think they’ve got any dinner for us up there?” she
said to Reko. “I hear the people up there know how to roast those
little goat-things without incinerating them.”
    “ Probably helps to use a real fire.
Would be nice to get some of that.” Their quartermaster at the base
had taken to purchasing herds of churries to augment the mess hall
menu. Their use as an almost daily protein offering was decidedly
underappreciated by the troops.
    “ Is everyone asleep up there?” Nova
hailed the detachment again.
    Reko looked up from his display. “No
reply?”
    “ Nothing. From any of them.” She tried
an unencrypted com band. “Unit Five, come in. We’re en route with
your supplies. Got the ointment for your piles, Beamer, just so
you’re grateful.”
    Still no reply.
    “ I’m not liking this at all,” she said.
“Let’s get a visual before we land.”
    They continued in silence. Nova scanned for
airborne threats in the distance, Reko’s attention was on the
ground below them. They overflew gullies, rockfalls and several
creeks meandering through the hills and onto the flats where the
water sunk through fissures near Shon Gat to fill a vast
subterranean reservoir.
    “ There,” Reko said to his screens.
“Those don’t look like herdsmen. Groups of three or four, moving
near the tree line.”
    “ Are you sure?”
    “ Yeah. Weapons. And there’s a troop
moving two by two. Definitely not villagers.” He zoomed the real
vid for a closer look. “Rhuwac!” He cursed and reached for his
rifle.
    “ Emphasis on the last syllable,
remember?” She kept the plane low to keep them camouflaged against
the backdrop of the hills. “We’ll come back for them. I want to see
what’s going on up there before we start shooting
Rhuwwies.”
    “ I never get to have any fun,” he
grumbled but took his hands off the door he was about to slide
open.
    Nova signaled the base. “Unit Four here,
Sarge. Rebel movement heading north toward Shon Gat. Counting
Rhuwacs. No response from Unit