She hadn’t noticed it before because it hadn’t been there.
Reuel had said this was the trap. She should have known! That was why everything had looked so thrown together and impermanent! That was why Reuel had said they would ‘wait’. He hadn’t been talking about the baby, not then, anyway. They were waiting for the company’s militia. They’d known they would be followed.
Which meant that Reuel had known she was carrying another locator.
He’d been testing her, trying to find out if she was aware of it, and the fact that she’d been transmitting information to the company from the moment he’d picked her up.
Fury washed through her. She felt like choking him.
Damn the man anyway! He’d used her ... again!
Angrily, she glanced around for sight of him. The huts they’d built were piles of debris now. What caught her attention, however, were the cannons emerging from below ground ... and the three squads of cyborgs kneeling in battle formation behind them.
As she watched, a company craft appeared on the horizon, heading straight for them. Her heart leapt into her throat. They were going to have to drop the shield to fire on it and whoever was manning that ship knew it.
As small as the neutron bombs were that were used for localized battle, one would turn this entire compound into a pile of smoldering dust.
They were all mad!
They were all going to die.
She braced herself, knowing she didn’t have enough time to run. As the craft shot over the palisade wall, the cyborg manning the largest of the cannons opened fire. White blue snakes of light shot upward like long, gnarled fingers, straight through the field, grabbing the craft. The craft dropped like a rock, bounced when it struck the field and began sliding along the curvature. The force field flickered and the craft dropped through, slamming into the ground with the sound of grinding metal.
Dalia was too stunned to move. As she watched, a squad of cyborgs leapt to their feet and charged the downed craft. Even as they reached it, a squad of rogue hunters stumbled out, stunned, bleeding, but struggling to form up.
They didn’t get the chance. Before they could draw more than a ragged breath, the cyborgs fell upon them, beating any who refused to lay down their weapon into submission.
The discharge of the strange cannon brought Dalia’s attention back to the cannons once more and she saw two more company craft shoot over the palisade and into the line of fire. “What is that thing?” she muttered. She’d thought it must be a neutron cannon, or perhaps a laser. Whatever it was, it had drained the propulsion from the craft as suddenly as if they’d flipped the off switch on the engine.
The two remaining cannons fired almost simultaneously. The first hit its target head on and that craft dropped, smashing into the force field. The second cannon missed its target entirely. That craft veered away, but she could see it was losing altitude fast. Even as the craft that had been struck dead on dropped through the force field and slammed into the ground, the third craft hit the trees beyond the palisade and exploded, sending shrapnel in every direction.
The effect was devastating. Debris shot through the opening before the force field could be reactivated, cutting down cyborg and rogue hunter alike. The distraction also cost them in domination of the field of battle. The squad of rogue hunters who piled out of the second ship was prepared for battle before the second squad of cyborgs could reach them. The hunters, who’d been subdued, began struggling to free themselves to join the second squad.
As Dalia watched, Reuel leapt from the firing pad of the largest cannon and charged toward the fray, the final squad of cyborgs on his heels.
Dalia never consciously made the decision to join them. Her gaze followed Reuel and her heart and body followed. She was in the thick of the fight before she even realized that she had charged forward to help.
She was also completely unarmed.
It dawned upon her about the same moment that Reuel turned and caught a glimpse of her. Immediately distracted, he surged toward her. Dalia stared at him disbelievingly, but in the next moment, movement just to one side of him caught her attention and her gaze moved from Reuel to the man beside him. The hunter caught Reuel on the side of his jaw with the butt of his gun. Reuel’s head jerked sideways at the impact and his body followed, flying toward the ground.
“No!” Dalia screamed, surging forward even as the hunter flipped his gun, switching ends and drawing a bead on Reuel, who was still struggling to rise. Launching herself at the man, she landed in the middle of his back. He staggered, but he was easily as big as Reuel and barely registered her attack. Locking her legs around his waist before he could toss her off, Dalia flipped the chain of the manacle around his neck, looped it once and pulled it taut. He gagged, bent forward belatedly to throw her over his head, and she tightened her legs around him.
He clawed at the chain, swung backwards, trying to knock her off. Despite her efforts to dodge him, he caught her along the jaw with the edge of his fist. Blackness swarmed at the edges of her vision, but she held on, pulling tautly at the chain until, finally, he dropped to his knees. When he did, she released her grip on his waist and kneed him in the back.
Someone caught her arm as the hunter fell face first onto the ground. She tried to shrug the hand off, gritting her teeth as she concentrated on choking the life out of the man. He caught her hair, jerking her head back. “Stop it, Dalia!”
She stared at Reuel blankly, but she didn’t slacken her grip.
He caught her wrists. “We want captives, not dead men!”
The fight went out of her and she dropped her arms weakly. “He would’ve killed you.”
Shaking his head, Reuel pulled her off of the unconscious man and hauled her away from the battle. He’d dragged her all the way back to the pile of rubble that had been her prison cell for the past three days before the shock wore off of Dalia enough for her to realize that he was furious as she had never seen him in all the weeks she’d known him. He surveyed the debris for several moments before he turned to look at her. She almost took a step back at the look in his eyes. “You gave me your word,” he ground out.
Dalia blinked at him uncomprehendingly. “What?”
“I asked you to give me your word that you would protect my child, that you would leave if things went badly.”
