Jude ran a hand through Octavia’s soft hair as his mouth covered hers.

The soft moans coming from her urged him on. He scooped an arm under her legs and swooped her off her feet. He strode around a small copse of apple trees until they were out of view of anyone else and wouldn’t be discovered.

Octavia clung to him, kissing him like she was starving and he was the nourishment she’d craved for so long.

Setting her feet back on the ground, Jude ran his hands up her sides. His fingers brushed her breasts.

She responded by tightening her hold on the back of his neck and pulling him in for a deeper kiss.

Jude barely heard the quiet hissing sound over his head until it was too late. The overhead sprinklers poured water on them.

Octavia broke away from their kiss and blinked water out of her eyes. She laughed, and swiped the water away. “Did you know this would happen?”

Jude tried to cover her with an arm, but it was no good. They were both soaked. “It must be Patrick. He’s not happy I’m in here.”

“That must be the guy who yelled at me when I came in.” Octavia tipped her head back. “I did say I was looking forward to a shower.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Jude grabbed Octavia’s hand. They ran back to the exit.

“That’s right,” roared Patrick. “Get out of here. Don’t come back without an invitation.”

They both laughed as they raced away from the bio zone.

Jude was happy to see the anger had gone from Octavia’s face. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips swollen from their kiss. She had to know he wanted her. He would show her in any way possible.

“So, what now?” Octavia shoved the soggy cap on her head.

“You still haven’t slept,” said Jude.

“You want to take me to bed?” Octavia’s eyelids lowered.

Jude backed her against the wall and ran a hand down her arm. “More than anything.”

She pushed her damp hair under the cap. “Maybe we should get cleaned up first? And there’s the small matter of the State and their weird comms signals.”

Jude felt like nothing mattered in that moment other than Octavia. But she was right, he couldn’t let himself get too distracted by her. There would be plenty of time for that later.

“You go to the comms room,” he said. “I’ll grab towels and something to eat.”

“Coffee would be good,” said Octavia.

“Then that’s what you shall have.” He grabbed another quick kiss before hurrying to his quarters.

He rough-dried his hair and shrugged on a clean T-shirt. His pants had escaped the worst of the drenching and would be fine in an hour.

He collected a clean towel and another T-shirt before heading to the canteen where he collected the only food available; two freeze-dried ration packs and some coffee.

When Jude returned to the comms room, Octavia was already in a seat, an earbud in as she listened to the channels.

“I got you something to change into.” He handed her the T-shirt.

“Thanks.” She took it but kept it clutched in her hand.

“Have you picked up on something?” Jude placed the food and coffee down and sat next to her.

“Take a listen to this.” Octavia handed him an earbud. She began to pull off her long-sleeved T-shirt and then stopped. “Keep your back turned. I’ve got nothing on underneath this.”

“That’s something I’d love to see.” Jude grinned as he shifted around in his seat, giving Octavia some privacy.

“What do you think of the message?”

Jude forced himself to concentrate on the garbled noise in his ear, and not the fact Octavia was stripping off. “Hold on. This is English I’m hearing.”

Octavia sat back down, pulling her cap on, but not bothering to hide her scars. “Our programs have partially decoded the messages. It’s not perfect. There are still too many letters missing. I heard a couple of words, though. Just listen and see what you can pick out.”

They sat next to each other in silence, both concentrating on the Dinnorm language.

“They’ll be changing the channel in a few seconds, if I’m right about this latest pattern,” said Octavia. Sure enough, ten seconds later, the noise vanished. “What did you hear?”

Jude’s shoulders felt tight. “I only got one word. Attack.”

“It had to be something like that,” said Octavia. “They wouldn’t go to such great lengths to hide what they were doing unless it’s something big.”

“An attack where and on what? When is it going to happen?” The unanswered questions spun through Jude’s head.

“That’s what we need to find out,” said Octavia. “And there’s a way we can do it. Now we know the basic patterns they’re using to broadcast their message, I have what we need to crack the rest of it.”

“Another piece of software?”

“It’s equipment.” Octavia looked steadily at Jude. “We need to go to my supply store.”

***

THE LOOK ON JUDE’S face was just as Octavia expected it to be. A small frown played across his lips as he ran a hand down his face.

“It’s not a good idea to be out right now. We could find ourselves in the middle of this attack the State are planning.”

She nodded. It was a risk. But it was one they needed to take. “My supply store is secluded. It’s a hidden air raid shelter. You’ll find hundreds of them all over the place, often in people’s backyards or in fields.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” said Jude. “Old, solid concrete bunkers that people built during the last war.”

“That’s right. When I found it, I realized it was ideal for what I needed. I couldn’t carry all my kit in the van, so I used it as a central store.”

“What does this equipment do?”

“It will track the frequency-hopping pattern the State are using,” said Octavia. “We can follow along with them in real time. It will mean we won’t miss any of their communications. It will give us a chance to collect the data in a complete message.”

“We might still do that with the programs we’re already using,” said Jude.

“These have been running for hours. If they were going to work, they’d have done so by now.” Octavia ignored the frustration she felt. They needed this bit of kit.

“There might be another way.” Jude raised the wrist comm device he wore. “Kade, are you awake?”

“If you’d asked me five minutes ago, you would not have liked the reply.” Kade sounded sleepy. “Why the hell are you awake so early?”

“I’ve not managed to get to bed yet,” said Jude. “I’ve been working with Octavia on the comms mystery the State are broadcasting.”

“What have you found?” The sleepiness in Kade’s voice had gone. He loved solving a puzzle.

“A couple of words have been deciphered,” said Jude. “Come take a look. You might be able to help.”

“Give me five minutes.”

Kade arrived in three, his shoulder-length dark hair unbrushed and his crumpled shirt misbuttoned.

“Kade, this is Octavia,” said Jude.

He nodded a greeting. “What have you got for me?”

“Take a listen to this.” Octavia passed him an earbud, being careful to keep her scars away from Kade. Although Jude didn’t seem to mind them, she wasn’t ready to reveal them to everybody else.

Kade grabbed one of the mugs of coffee from the desk without asking and downed it as he listened to the message. “You’re missing content.” He pulled the earbud out. “You won’t be able to decode this until you’ve got a complete message.”

“We figured that out for ourselves,” said Jude. “Isn’t there some kind of fancy program you’ve got that can do it for us?”

“All of my programs are fancy, but they’ll be best guessing.”

“Can’t you put your mega-brain to use and crack this?”

“My skills are in code breaking, not wordplay,” said Kade. “I will take a look, run it through a couple of programs, but I’m promising nothing.”

“This is what we’ve used so far.” Octavia showed Kade their programs.

“These are as good as mine,” said Kade. “If they haven’t figured out the patterns, then nothing I’ll do will make a difference.”

“We need that equipment.” Octavia raised her eyebrows as she looked at Jude. “I know it will help.”

“What’s that?” asked Kade.

“It’s a frequency tracker,” said Octavia. “It will follow the pattern the State use so we can collect all the data.”

“That sounds perfect,” said Kade. “Plug it in and start using it.”

“There’s one problem,” said Jude. “It’s not here.”

“But I know where it is,” said Octavia. “We can get it. The site is secure. The State know nothing about it.”

“How can you be so certain?” asked Kade.

“The alarm system on the air raid shelter. If anyone tries to get in, I get an alert pinged through. It’s out of the way, hidden in overgrown bushes. No one will ever find it. That’s where the equipment is.”

Concern clouded Jude’s face. “Can you build the device from what we’ve got in the bunker?”

Octavia looked around the room. “I might be able to make adjustments to the kit here. But if we can get our hands on what I already have, we can use it straightaway. It would take me a couple of weeks of tinkering to fix up what I need. That’s time we can’t waste.”

“How far is it from here?” asked Jude.

Octavia did a calculation in her head. “We can be there in an hour. It’s in Alpha zone eleven.”

“Not much goes on there. It’s a relatively safe zone. It could be just what we need,” said Kade.

“We’ll have to travel at night,” said Jude. “We can spend the rest of the day tracking these messages. We might have cracked it before we even need to leave.”

Octavia nodded, knowing that wasn’t true. She’d spent every waking minute she had listening to these messages and had hardly scratched the surface. “I’ll give you the coordinates, so you know where to go.”

Jude brought up a 3D map of Alpha zone eleven. “I’ll check in with Heath and Danni, make sure they agree to the mission.”

“There won’t be any trouble,” said Octavia. “Like I said, no one knows about the place.”

“Even so, we’ll need a small team with us,” said Jude.

Octavia sat back in her seat as she listened to Jude and Kade discuss the logistics of the mission and plan their route. She didn’t want to wait until night, even though it would be safer for them. A heavy, twisted feeling sat in her stomach. The State were planning something big, and that meant bad news for anyone who got in their way.

She planted an earbud in and continued to listen to the State babble. As she did so, she lined up some music and hit play, broadcasting it out to her Flame listeners.

She couldn’t do anything now to solve this problem, but she could give her loyal listeners something to enjoy while she figured out how to stop the State.