Danika was so stunned by the accusation of favoritism that it took her a while to figure out what he meant.Notthat she had any trouble grasping that his reference to 'last eve' was an allusion to her having had sex in the shower room with Seth! That had instantly leapt into her mind! She just couldn't figure out why he thought that had had anything to do with the attack.
Maybe he knew something she didn't? He had certainly questioned the guys. Would he have gotten them to tell them why they'd been fighting?
Because she didn't buy the story Seth had cooked up about sparring. She thought itcouldhave been possible, maybe even likely if they were human soldiers. But they were cyborgs. They didn'tneedto practice. Everything they needed to know about hand-to-hand combat was hardwired into them.
Even so, it was easier to accept that they'd been practicing than the possibility that they'd been fighting--at least on one level. She didn't think they'dlostthe ability to be logical and reasonable because they'dgainedthe ability to feel. Even if emotion did cloud their judgment now, just like it did with their human counterparts, what could they have disagreed on vehemently enough to fight about it?
The sex thing, she realized, dismayed. She'd wanted to dismiss the suggestion, but she couldn't think of another damned thing that might have. Of course, that was assuming that both Dane and Niles felt left out and wanted sex.
Basil had made it pretty clear, though, that the cyborgs already had, or were going, to reach the point where they were as inclined as any human male to feel that urge powerfully.
It was weird that she hadn't noticed. She supposed that was because she'd just gotten used to thinking of them as teammates.
Either that or Reuel was wrong and it had had nothing to do with the fight at all.
He had to be referring to that, though, as the reason for the screw-up. She'd gone looking for them or they wouldn't have been out there to start with, and if they hadn't been fighting before she got there they would've followed her immediately.
She supposed she'd expected them to. She supposed that was why she hadn't felt any real sense of danger.
Poor judgment on the part of all of them--which brought her to the inescapable conclusion that she'd screwed up worse than she'd realized when she'd given in to her own urges. Shehadconsidered that it was bound to change her relationship with Seth and that it might not be a good thing, but she hadn't considered that it might change things between all of them.
Of course, she'd been stupid enough at the time to think nobody would ever know but her and Seth and hadn't considered that she mightneedto worry about her actions affecting anybody else.
Not that any of that mattered--now. She couldn't go back and undo it so she had to deal with it.
And there were only two options that she could see. She could try to pretend it had never happened and hope the guys got it through their thick skulls that that meant she didn't mean to repeat it--or share. Or she could accept that her actions might have aggravated an already volatile situation and that the best way to prevent more violence was to behave impartially for the good of all.
That would work as long as no one was emotionally involved and it wasn't obvious to all of the men that some of the men were seeing 'action' while the majority did without.
In other words, the maritime sex act.
The problem was, the odds were way worse now than they had been back at the base at Slaughter Ridge. If they were discreet, it should keep her squad in line and focused. If they weren't, it might still keep peace within her squad, but create severe morale issues throughout the rest of the battalion and she didn't think Reuel would thank her for that!
And she also didn't think the handful of women who'd 'joined' them would appreciate being forced to fend off the other cyborgs or give in. They'd opted to join them for the sake of survival because they knew their chances weren't good if they stayed on Xeno-12. Most of them still looked upon the cyborgs as machines, though, and they wouldn't see it as necessary to partner up for the sake of morale and peace among the ranks. In fact they might be more inclined to use it to create disharmony.
Well, she supposed some of them might feel enough of a bond with their squads to do what they thought best for the squad--regardless. But it seemed to her that most of the women that seemed to be coming around to the possibility that the cyborgs were living beings, not machines, also viewed them as alien and inhuman and wanted nothing to do with them because of that.
And then there was Sheila who, as a non-com, hadn't had her own squad to start with.
* * * *
Danika discovered the task Reuel had set for her was undoable--at least with the technology they had at hand. The hab-suits were designed of impermeable fabric and that meant it would not absorb any kind of dye. Their briefs and T's were a different matter. The plant dyes worked so well on them that no amount of washing would remove the stains once treated with the concoction she came up with and the same, unfortunately, was pretty much true for their skin.
No one was particularly inclined to complain even though their underclothes didn't offer much in the way of protection from biting insects or the occasional unpleasant encounter with scratchy vines and branches. It was actually a relief to have an excuse to come out of the suits during the day while they worked. Xeno-11 was orbiting in the comfort zone around its star, but its rotation was slower than Earth's and that allowed the day side to heat up to an uncomfortable ninety to one hundred degrees during the day. At night, that also allowed the temperatures to drop to a very uncomfortable forty to fifty degrees, but the hab-suits weren't bright enough to present as much of a target once the sun set either and, in any case, they generally worked during the daylight hours to conserve energy. Only those posted to guard duty worked at night while everyone else retreated inside the ships.
Most of their energy was directed at resupplying and outfitting the ships that had brought them from Xeno-12. Reuel's plan/hope was to effect a full evacuation of the system before the Confederation fleet arrived, with a short-term goal of returning to Xeno-12 to rescue anyone still stranded there that they could find.
They had only one ship capable of taking them beyond the system, however, and it wouldn't hold even the people currently with them. Which meant that they were still, effectively, trapped--sitting ducks when and if the Confederation launched a strike to recover or destroy the cyborgs. It also meant that they didn't have the means of even attempting to rescue anyone else stranded on Xeno-12. It was high priority, therefore, to complete the transformation of the short-range ships to long-range as soon as possible.
The attack on Danika forced Reuel to re-evaluate the level of threat the natives represented, however. Their primitive weapons in and of themselves weren't a serious threat, but not only did he not want to waste valuable, and currently irreplaceable, munitions fending them off while they completed preparations of the ships, he also saw that they could potentially be very disruptive of their efforts to complete their main objective within the time frame he'd set. One attack upon landing was an annoyance. Two attacks in a matter of days was a problem that needed to be dealt with.
The day after the attack on Danika, therefore, Reuel ordered a complete sweep of the area. The objective was to eliminate or force a retreat of the natives to a more comfortable distance. He would then setup a secondary perimeter tokeepthe natives at a distance.
The sun had barely crested the horizon high enough to begin brightening the sky when they launched their offensive, which meant that the jungle still lay in gloom, a cluster of shadows within shadows. Danika was tense. She was certain she would have been anyway. Not knowing where the enemy lay in wait or evenifthey did or when they might pop up was unnerving. With the attack the day before still all too fresh in her mind, though, she thought she wasmoretense with expectation. It took a strenuous effort of concentration to keep from tightening her finger on the trigger every time she heard the faintest rustle of vegetation or snap of a twig.
They'd formed a wall, almost shoulder to shoulder, around the perimeter of the base camp. As they moved outward, however, the line began to loosen and separate perforce to cover the widening circle they were searching. She'd ordered Dane and Niles to keep watch of the trees overhead while she and Seth scanned the terrain in front of them. She knew their vision was far better than her own, particularly since they could also scan in infrared, and it still took an effort to keep from casting glances upward as they moved beneath the trees.
She thought she'd managed to acquit herself well enough the day before, particularly since she'd been heavily outnumbered, but she was still shaken from it.
