"We do not have thesameDNA or thesamebiological brain," Seth retorted after a moment's thought. "And clearly mine is far superior to yours! Thereareno cyborg females! None here, at any rate, or that we might have a chance in hell of claiming as mates. It does not bother me that she is human. If it bothers you then you must look elsewhere for a mate, I suppose."
"I think it will bother her," Niles said testily.
Dismay flickered through Seth and then anger. "Why? I am fully capable of performing anything that a human mate would."
"Except reproducing."
Seth was tempted to punch Dane in the mouth for pointing that out. He thought about it for several moments and finally discarded the notion since he was fairly certain it would result in the four of them being separated again and he realized that that was a situation fraught with disaster.
"We do not know that we cannot. In any case, we do not know that she would desire a child. She is a soldier, after all--and I am as certain as I can be that I am fully capable of taking care of her needs and pleasuring her as a mate would. I have my programming as a pleasure droid to fall back upon."
Dane and Niles both glared at him. "We also have that programming," Dane said angrily, "and in fact I have already pointed that out to Danika and she did not seem the least interested in allowing me to demonstrate!"
Seth cast his mind back in an effort to recall the incident Dane referred to and realized that he was right. Danika had simply dismissed it, told them they were no better than the human males who thought about nothing but sex, and talked about something else. "We were hunting food then," he said pointedly. "She would not have had interest in sex when we were hunting food. Beyond that, there was no place to demonstrate since we would all have gotten frost bite if we had removed our hab-suits! That does not mean she could not be convinced to be interested."
"Interested in what?" Danika asked, having decided to join the discussion the guys seemed to be so focused on.
Seth, Dane, and Niles all sent her startled, guilty looks.
Dane opened his mouth, as if to explain, but Seth slammed his elbow into his solo plexus, effectively depriving him of breath. "We were discussing our situation."
Danika divided a suspicious look between Dane and Seth. "You mean clean up?" she asked, although she didn't believe that had been the topic of conversation.
"I was thinking that, mayhap, it was not wise to bring you here after all."
Danika had been thinking much the same thing. On the other hand, they hadn't had a lot of options. "We can't go back," she said flatly. "I think they will have figured out by now that it was you guys that killed those ... grave robbers. And I deserted when I was under arrest. They'd just shoot all of us for desertion."
Seth frowned. She was right and he was not happy that she was. "There are other bases on this world."
Danika shook her head. "You know they're probably in as bad a shape as our base was ... is. We'd be putting ourselves in the same situation. And when the fleet gets back, thenwe'd get shot. I've been giving what Reuel said a lot of thought and I think he's right. The best chance any of us have at this point is to make it to Xeno-11. I don't think that's a long term solution any more than he does, but in the short term it's the best option we have."
Chapter Ten
Reuel's plan was a sound one and yet it didn't go as smoothly as he'd no doubt hoped. This was primarily due to the fact that the speech he'd given, contrary to what he'd apparently believed at the time, didn't entirely unite their band of rogues. It inspired those who'd escaped with Reuel when Brown had ordered them shot as traitors to return to the base camp at Slaughter Ridge and kidnap the women they'd left behind.
On the whole, Danika thought it was a good thing--for the women, at least--regardless of the fact that they weren't the least bit happy about having been captured .. uh rescued.
It wasn't exactly a good thing for Reuel's plans, either, since the raiders returned with a band of furious men on their heels.
Danika thought for several minutes that Reuel would order the raiders shot on the spot, or order the cyborgs to retaliate--which she wasnotcomfortable with even if the men were shooting at them!
Instead, he ordered an immediate evacuation of the base they'd appropriated from the Andorians.
They were a far superior force in every way--better armed, better fed, and far better 'built'. The lingering doubts Danika had harbored that Reuel truly meant to do his best to avoid a mortal confrontation with the humans were laid to rest.
It did occur to her that one of the reasons Reuel ordered an evacuation instead of retaliating with deadly prejudice might have been simply because he was ready to leave. She also knew that the men from the other base were never any real threat--except to the cyborgs that had decided to raid their base and that it might have been a completely different story except for those circumstances. She still felt much better about being a part of his command. She still thought that she was going to have to part ways with him at some point if for no other reason than the gender issue, but she felt less like she was betraying her own people.
She wasn't nearly as sympathetic to 'her' people when they had piled everything into the ships that had been repaired and took off. The shipsappearedto have been completely repaired, but they hadn't actually been tested in flight. The ship her and her squad ended up on shook and groaned worse than the lander that had brought her to the surface of Xeno-12 to start with.
Ten minutes after takeoff even she knew that the ship wasn't going to attain escape velocity. For a space of maybe five minutes, she could hear the engines straining, could feel the ship sluggishly climbing a little higher. They were never actually informed that they'd reached an altitude where it was safe to remove their safety harnesses--because they never did. The chugging and sputtering of the engine never ceased either and after an uncomfortably short climb, the ship almost seemed to level out for a handful of minutes and then began to descend again.
Danika sent Dane and Niles, who were seated across from her, a frightened, questioning look when she felt the ship change directions.
"They could not achieve escape velocity," Dane said calmly.
She supposed that might have been his attempt at calming her fears but having him confirm her worst fears didn't help her feelings at all.
"Maybe they weren't really trying?" Danika said a little hopefully. "Maybe they just decided to move the ship to another location to ... uh ... finish repairing it?"
