* * * *
Danika watched Seth and Reuel for a few minutes and finally turned to survey the landscape, squinting her eyes against the glare off of the ice to look for any distant movement that might indicate snipers. “We need to set up a perimeter,” she said after a few moments.
“This has been done.”
Danika glanced around to see who’d spoken and saw it was one of the cyborgs that had attacked her men. “On whose orders?”
The cyborg hesitated. “Captain Philips.”
He was lying. The pause before he responded was significant enough to suggest he’d considered before he spoke. “Before or after he died?” she asked dryly.
The cyborg blinked at her, studied her curiously for a moment, and then frowned. “He could not have given the order after he died.”
Danika was willing to bet he hadn’t given the order at all. If he’d died, it seemed doubtful that he’d been in any kind of shape to give orders after he’d been wounded. It wasn’t impossible, but she didn’t think it was likely.
It seemed more likely that Reuel had given the orders.
She didn’t know what to think about that. The cyborgs had AI. He would certainly have had the capability of analyzing the situation and acting. But they were supposed to yield to humans—even if those humans were nothing but grunts, like her. Like the wounded he’d told her about, although they might not be in any shape to consider what needed to be done.
Maybe she hadn’t understood the way the cyborgs worked as well as she’d thought she did? Or rather she hadn’t fully grasped the difference their AI would make once they were in combat?
She seesawed between relief and a persistent uneasiness for a few moments and finally dismissed it. “We should pack what we can of the supplies and munitions they’ve already gathered and send a detail back to camp to pick up the walker … assuming they have it working. At the very least, we need to report the situation to Lt. Brown.” She studied Niles for a long moment, struggling with her uneasiness about being left with cyborgs that weren’t behaving the way she was used to. “You should lead the party back to camp. If the walker isn’t working—actually even if it is—you need to see if you can find anything we could use to make gurneys to get the wounded to camp. The walker can’t carry more than four—two top, two bottom. I need to go down and see if anybody is able to walk.”
Dane nodded. “Shall I take you down?”
Niles frowned, dividing a look between her and Dane. “I will take you down. Dane should go back to camp to report.”
She didn’t particularly relish the thought of him jumping off the cliff with her, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of options unless she waited for the cyborgs to cut the pass. Deciding to ignore Niles’ ‘suggestion’, she studied Dane doubtfully. “Are you repaired enough to manage without risking more damage?” Especially to her!
His expression went blank in the way they had of doing when they were processing. “Affirmative,” he responded as Seth and Reuel returned.
Seth and Reuel both glanced from Dane to Danika questioningly.
“There is a spot approximately one half mile to the west that seems to be the best prospect for cutting a pass,” Seth reported.
“Good! You should get on it. I’m going down with Dane to have a look at the wounded.”
Seth’s lips tightened. “His mobility was impaired. I will take you down.”
“I offered to take her down,” Niles put in.
Danika frowned at both cyborgs, torn between irritation and uneasiness that they seemed to be ‘fighting over’ who was going to carry her down and a flicker of amusement. It seemed more like two boys bickering over who was first than anything else—not threatening or flattering—just a contest of wills, or maybe a ‘turf war’. “He ran a damage report,” she said pointedly.
“Even so.”
She had expected that to settle the dispute, for logic to rule. She hesitated, torn between an urge to exert her own will and the realization that he was big enough to exert his over just about anybody. But, despite Dane’s assurance that he was repaired enough, she didn’t particularly want to make the jump with him. She also didn’t like the way Niles and Seth had glared at one another. “Fine! Let’s just get down there.”
Expecting him to drop his pack and take her onto his back, Danika was so surprised when Seth swept her into his arms instead that he’d leaped from the cliff before she could formulate a response. She sucked in a sharp breath as they dropped, grazing the inside of one cheek with her teeth as they came to a jarring halt at the bottom. By the time he’d set her on her feet, however, the stinging had begun to subside and she dismissed it.
The discomfort of being cradled against his chest was a little harder to dismiss.
Actually, it wasn’t exactly discomfort. It was an uncomfortable awareness that she shouldn’t have felt at all. He wasn’t human! She shouldn’t have felt the rush to her senses that she had—as if she’d been embraced by a man.
Resisting the urge to glance at him, she looked around at the battlefield instead.
“The wounded are here,” Seth said, gesturing toward a mound of snow at the bottom of the cliff.
To her dismay, she discovered as she moved toward it that it wasn’t a mound of snow at all. It was a mound of bodies covered in snow. “Oh my god!”
