Danika turned to look at the activity below again, trying to decide if what Seth had suggested made any sense. She could think of only two reasons to explain enemy soldiers in the uniforms of the confederation, however—they’d either needed the hab-suits for their own survival. Or it was a trap.
Even as she signaled the men to pull back so that they could consider their options, however, there was a series of heavy thuds behind them that sent an alarm through her. She rolled, bringing her weapon up in the same motion. It was knocked from her hands hard enough to send blinding, numbing pain through her injured arm.
She didn’t have time to nurse the injury. Seth had surged upward and slammed into the soldier that had attacked her. Within moments, all three of her team mates were engaged in a ferocious battle to the death virtually on top of her. Despite her shock, it didn’t take more than a few seconds for her to realize their attackers were cyborgs. If they’d been human, there would be no battle in progress. Seth, Dane, and Niles could have dispatched them quicker than the blink of an eye.
She was still trying to figure out whether to try to extricate herself or to try to help her men when someone seized the front of her suit and yanked her to her feet. “Stand down, soldiers! We are on the same side!”
Either they all recognized the voice, or they simply responded to the order automatically—or most of them. Niles and Seth used the ‘cease’ command to level the two cyborgs they’d been fighting.
“Are you done now?” the man—the officer—holding her demanded when both Seth and Niles turned to size him up.
Seth’s gaze flickered to her face and then to the hand that had shifted from the front of her suit to her waist, imprisoning her. “You attack fellow soldiers?” he ground out.
The arm around her slackened and Danika stepped away, turning to stare up at the man who’d captured her.
Cyborg.
She blinked, trying to assimilate what her mind was telling her. She knew no purely flesh and blood human would look like the mountain of a man who’d yanked her to her feet—or have that kind of strength. His command of the situation still left room for a great deal of doubt—until he spoke again.
“We could not know you were not the enemy, returned to try to finish your handiwork.”
“Who are you?”
The question drew his attention to her and Danika felt uneasiness creep through her as he studied her speculatively.
“Reuel CO469 … Seventh Battalion, United Confederation of Planets.”
Notan officer as she’d assumed, thought. Not human. Danika’s uneasiness intensified rather than diminished. She did her best to hide it. “What happened here?”
“Once those who could retreat had, those who could not … regrouped.”
How, she wondered? The cyborgs not too damaged to make the jump to the ridge had and taken their human counterparts with them.
Sizing Reuel up, she saw several patches on his hab-suit, indicating he had taken a number of hits. She supposed that explained why he hadn’t retreated with the rest—maybe. Dane, Niles, and Seth had all been shot and they’d still managed. It seemed to her that any of the cyborgs that had been too damaged to retreat would’ve also been unable to put up a fight when the enemy arrived. Obviously, that hadn’t been the case, though, because she’d spotted dozens moving about below them—or maybe their nanos had managed to patch them up enough to fight while they were waiting for the enemy to move in and finish them off?
Thatstillseemed farfetched, even considering that they were cyborgs. The enemy had been virtually on their heels when they’d retreated to the ridge. Then again, maybe some hadn’t been in as bad a shape and had merely stayed to cover the retreat? The question remained, however, as to who had ordered it—particularly when she didn’t recall hearing any such order and they’d still been using their com-units at that point. “We didn’t expect to find any survivors,” she said slowly. “We were detailed to collect whatever supplies we could, account for the dead, and return to base. Who’s in charge?”
Reuel hesitated. “No one. Captain Philips died at dawn.”
She wanted to ask if there’d beenanyhuman survivors, but the cyborg made her distinctly uneasy.
It was the eyes.
She thought she might be able to put down the anomalies in his behavior to the combat situation. He wasn’t behaving just as she was accustomed to the cyborgs behaving, but she hadn’t observed them before in an actual battle setting, she realized. She certainly couldn’t dismiss the possibility that his seemingly ‘strange’ behavior at this point was the result of his AI.
Maybe that was all it was with both Seth and Niles?
And yet ….
She shook her doubts off. “That leaves Lt. Brown in charge. Our orders are to collect whatever munitions and supplies we can and get back to the base camp. The enemy destroyed most of our supply drop.”
Something flickered in Reuel’s eyes. He merely nodded, however. “We have been in the process of doing that.”
Danika turned and surveyed the cliff, scanning it for some way down since she damned sure couldn’t simply jump. In any case, they, hopefully, would be burdened with munitions and supplies when they headed back. “Any idea how far this ridge extends?”
“As far in both directions as we could discern. This is one of the lower points.”
Danika had suspected as much. She was still dismayed. “We’re going to have to figure a way up.”
