DarkStar Running (Living on the Run Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

turned back to his
instruments. They were growing dim but showed enough for him to realize his Dart was inching deeper and deeper into the ice. “Scanner says we’re sitting nearly
three hundred feet beneath the planet’s surface. We’re rapidly losing what
little power we have.”
    Stan gave her a moment, but Lilia said nothing.
    “Looks like we’re buried alive. Some escape this was.” He
turned in his seat to see Lilia better. “Sorry, Trog. I gave rescuing you my
best shot, but . . .”
    Lilia glared at him. “Quit with the ‘name calling’ already.
And besides, I wasn’t the only one being rescued.”
    “Oh?”
    “I doubt the Grand Architect’s through with either of us
yet.”
    Stan knit his brow in disbelief. “Still believe in this deity
of yours, do you? You Trogs are really something. Well, suit yourself.” The
thought caused him to scowl.
    Although the Dart was buried in snow, Lilia’s dark
eyes were warm and intense as they focused on his face. “Until He’s through
with me, Captain, I’m bullet proof, and so are you. You’ll see.”
    “One lousy little bullet brought us down, my little
waitress. You’re not bulletproof.”
    “Oh? Aren’t I?”
    Stan shook his head. “Look, there’s one thing I don’t
understand.”
    “Just one?”
    “Okay, several things, but one heads the list. Why didn’t
you run away? When everyone hates Enforcers, why did you come with me?”
    “Not everyone hates you, Capt. Archer. The One who lives
forever loves you more than you can know.”
    “That doesn’t answer my question.”
    She diverted her eyes. “I was under orders to go with you.”
    Well, well, well . . . a Troglodyte spy had played
him, and played him good. “You were under orders?” he said, guarding his tone.
“Whose orders?”
    Lilia hesitated. “Another time perhaps.”
    Stan reached back and gripped her wrist hard. “As a soldier,
I understand obeying orders, but you better come clean, and I mean now.”
    “Ouch, you’re hurting me.”
    “Trog?”
    “I didn’t have much choice. You grabbed me, then the . . . Architect said to go with you.”
    Great, Stan thought, a nut-job who hears voices. She seemed sincere, and that in itself was scary. Stan released her.
    “So you will obey this god of yours in spite of any apparent
danger? Old Consul Dais won’t get that much from me, dreamy-eyed girl.”
    “Dreamy eyed?” Her words flared defiance. “Perhaps. But I’ve
often wondered whether I would refuse the most difficult task my Lord asked of
me. Well, now I know.”
    “I still don’t see why you let slip you were a Trog when my
men were sitting right there. Didn’t you understand that as an Enforcer I was
duty bound to kill you?”
    “I knew.” Lilia lifted her eyes to focus on his. “It was a
slip of the tongue, but the moment I said it, I knew it was the right thing to
say. Some things are more important than life. If then and there the Immortal Architect
hadn’t told me to stay the course, I would’ve probably tried to backtrack.”
    One corner of Stan’s mouth pulled into an amused grin as he
remembered her in the alley. “It took courage to face death as you did, but
where does that leave us? This deity you’re so fond of, is he going to reach
into this ice and pluck us out?”
    She tilted her head and her eyes revealed a glimmer of hope.
“Providence, Mr. Archer; do you know what the word means?”
    He did not.
    “Well, Stan , it means, ‘to be held in the God’s
hands.’ I know we’re in His hands, even now.”
    Unconsciously Stan’s brows furrowed more deeply as he
puzzled at the boldness written in her eyes. “Well, I see no way out of this
mess. I’m at my wit’s end. The game screen says, ‘You lose’.”
    “There’s a higher power than our wits, Stan Archer. Of that ,
you can be assured. And the game isn’t over until the Grand Coder stops writing
its program.”
    He considered the naked strength written in her face.