Free Crusade For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 2) by Adrian D Roberts Page B

them out of the Blaze traffic control, but to ensure the aircars system was wiped wasn’t.  Valerie really was serious when she told Sneaker to mind his own business.  She felt proud Valerie trusted Deni and her with her secrets.
    This trip was nothing like the last time Hanna had been in an aircraft with Valerie piloting.  There were none of the sudden dives and climbs she previously experienced.  Of course, this time they weren’t being hunted in the air by four armed Helos.  Valerie took the aircar all the way up to the Indigo zone, as her fake pilots licence allowed her.  She then let the aircar have its head, pushing the engines and electron power cell harder than they normally had the opportunity to do within the confines of Inferno city.
    With her part done, Hanna leaned back in her seat and enjoyed the view from the Visual Image screens.  With the exception of the cockpit, there were no windows in the aircar, only screens on the walls showing input from the external cameras. 
    From this high up, the segregation within Inferno was obvious.  The centre had its gleaming towers, a solid Speedway fully encompassing it.  Unlike all the other Speedways, it was on the ground and not suspended above the buildings.  There were no Speedways in amongst the towers, they weren’t needed.  The Privileged all used aircars and, as there were no parking facilities for wheelies in the centre, Manuals could only use the underground trains.
    On the other side of the Speedway ringing the centre, were the dark and grey Ghettos.  They spread out in all directions, as far as Hanna could see, factories intermixed with the residential buildings and Speedways suspended above them all.  Scattered amongst the Ghettos were the suburbs of the Privileged, designed for those who preferred sky over their heads.  Each of these had a solid band of red a kilometre across, made up of the local red bark trees and blood grass, around them.  Where it met the Ghettos stood a wall ten metres high it ensured none of the Manuals could make use of the space and go where they were not wanted.
    Every time she saw this landscape she felt angry.  She knew the statistics, there were over ten million people living in Inferno.  Approximately one hundred thousand of them were made up of the Privileged.  Yet from this vantage point she could see they used almost ten percent of the land.  None of theirs included the factories.
    Feeling somewhat helpless, there was nothing she could do, Hanna turned to where Valerie sat in the pilot’s seat.
    “Yesterday when we met Scribe, did it worry you how everyone was afraid?”
    Hanna saw Valerie’s shoulders tighten at the question and didn’t worry about it.  If the woman didn’t want to answer, she wouldn’t, but Hanna thought she needed to ask, if only to keep her engaged with them.  There was a long pause before Valerie answered.
    “No,” was all she said and there was silence for a while until she continued.  “As Sneaker said, if they’re afraid, it means the chance of them double crossing us is much lower.  If other gangs are afraid, they won’t want to start anything with us.  If the people in our area are afraid they won’t try and betray us.”
    “What about our people?” Deni asked.  “Most of them are frightened of you as well.”
    This time Valerie shrugged.  “You’re not.  When I was reprimanding you over Cest, there was no fear in either of you.”
    “We know you won’t do anything to harm us,” Deni said and Hanna thought back to the briefing before kidnapping Pomykala.  For an instant, Hanna really feared for her life.
    “And that is all that matters to me,” Valerie pointed out.  “As long as the rest get the job done, that’s the important thing.  Besides, none of it will make any difference once we’re off planet.”
    “What about in the Legion?” Hanna asked.  “Did they fear you as well?”
    The pause this time was much longer and Valerie gave out a