Seth, Dane, and Niles all looked so thoroughly pissed off when she finally arrived at the brig to try to talk to them that she was more than a little tempted to simply turn around and leave again. She'd had to sneak out of sickbay to evade Basil, though, and she didn't like that even more.
Thankfully, much of their anger seemed to dissipate when they saw her. All three moved to the bars. "You are not hurt?" Seth demanded after examining her with his gaze.
Danika considered it. "Not really, no. It hurt like hell at the time and it still burns, but I'll get over it. Did they take your locators out, too?"
"Earlier, when we first came," Dane volunteered. "I have to tell you I liked it much better when I was only alerted of damage and did not feel it. Mind you, there are some things that I find far superior about the senses as opposed to the sensors, but pain is not one of them."
Danika could relate. She wasn't crazy about pain herself. They seemed to have recovered from it, however. She couldn't see that any of them were moving stiffly--even from the signs of battle. "What happened then?"
The three of them exchanged a speaking look.
"That 'borg they had set to act as medic had not awakened!" Seth growled. "I did not know it at the time or I would not have allowed the bastard to carve on you as if you could feel nothing at all!"
"Then you became unconscious and I thought--we thought--that he had killed you," Niles added.
"We retaliated for the attack upon you and Reuel came with others and we fought," Dane finished. "Now we are ordered to stay in the brig for two days for disorderly conduct."
Danika stared at them, torn between warmth and dismay that they'd ended up in the brig for trying to protect her. Well, according to Niles, retaliating for what they saw as injury to her.
And then there was the little matter that it was going to be damned hard for them to watch her back from a jail cell.
She decided it probably wasn't a good idea to tell them about the incident with Basil, but she was damned if she could figure out how she was going to evade Basil's absolute determination to romance her out of her pants for two days!
"Well! I think I should be in there, too. I mean, we're a team. We should be together, right?"
They all frowned, Niles and Dane thoughtfully, Seth suspiciously.
"You did not take part in the fight," Seth said pointedly. "Why would they throw you in the brig?"
"Yes, but it was really my fault, you know."
"How do you figure that? That is not at all logical."
Danika waved a hand airily. "We're a team, remember?" She turned to the guards. "I want to be locked up with my squad."
The guards had been studying her with frowning intensity, making it clear that they had been following the conversation. They exchanged a look. "We were not ordered to lock you in the brig," one of them volunteered.
"I know, but you could," Danika said cajolingly.
"We cannot. We were not ordered to do so."
"It is not at all comfortable," Dane pointed out. "You will be more comfortable in the barracks."
Like hell! She didn't think she was going to be able to sleep a wink surrounded by horny cyborgs--assuming, of course, that they were all in the same state as Basil! And she didn't see any reason why they wouldn't be. They were fully aware, now. The bastards back at base camp could hardly get their minds off of their dicks for five minutes at the time. The cyborgs might not have been 'awake' long, but their hormones seemed to be in full production now! She didn't think it was going to takeanyof them long to figure out what their urges were and what they needed to do to appease them!
Of course that also meant that her own squad members were going to be in the grips of the 'fever' before long, if they weren't already, but she hadn't noticed that they were yet and, at any rate, they still seemed to be ruled by the team bond. She thought she could handle them.
"I'm a soldier. I don't expect to be comfortable and I think I deserve to be in the brig if you guys are. I'll go talk to Reuel," she added decisively.
* * * *
"What do you make of that?" Seth asked thoughtfully when Danika had left.
"I think she does not want to be alone," Niles responded.
Dane snorted. "There are nine hundred cyborgs here. How could she be alone?"
Seth and Niles exchanged a look. "Alonewiththem," Niles elaborated. "She has no one to watch her back because we are here."
