Apparently, no one else had noticed it either when they’d been given the order to fall back—except the enemy, because they’d driven them back against a wall of ice they had no hope of scaling. They weren’t equipped for climbing.
They were all going to die—right in this godforsaken spot!
Strategically speaking, they were fucked!
Danika roused herself to make another demand for her weapon just as she heard the command—directed at the cyborgs.
Seth scooped her up and tilted his head back to gauge the distance.
Notthat she didn’t think it was a damned good idea for him to make some calculations before he attempted it, but he made one hell of a target! Miraculously, although projectiles whizzed past them, none made their target … until the very moment Seth crouched to launch the two of them. As he sprang up again, shooting them skyward, she heard him grunt and felt him jerk with an impact.
They weren’t going to make it, she thought in dismay! It was further, she was sure, than the drop from the ship had been and she’d been convinced he couldn’t make that leap and remain operational.
Chapter Two
Seth more or less fell over the top of the precipice. Barely clearing the edge, he pitched himself and her forward in a roll.
Fully expecting to be crushed, Danika was too stunned to move for several moments after Seth stopped rolling, waiting in vain for the pain of crushed and mangled body to reach the nerve centers in her brain, regardless of the fact that she was sprawled on top of Seth when he finally stopped rolling.
Realizing after a few moments that she wasn’t dead or dying, she lifted her head and studied his face. He was staring up at the sky above them and she felt a jolt of fear run through her. Was he dead? Uh—destroyed? “Seth?”
He blinked at the sound of her voice and shifted his gaze to her face. For a long moment, their gazes seemed locked and in that moment Danika saw, or thought she saw, something she shouldnothave seen in the eyes of a cyborg—pain and relief.
It shook her almost as much as the fear that he’d ceased to function altogether and left her stranded on the godforsaken ball of ice alone.
Which was something that shouldn’t have occurred to her at all!
Shewasused to working with her team—her squad—and shewasfond of them—in much the same sense as a person could come to rely on and become attached to any labor saving device, she assured herself. But she wouldn’tbealone even if he was destroyed! There were other soldiers—human soldiers. And the fact was that she was alone even when she was surrounded by her team because she was the only real person among them.
Get a grip, girl! “Damage report,” she said finally, pushing herself off of him with an effort and looking around for her other team mates. Niles, she saw, was crouched beside them, firing toward the enemy line. Dane was nowhere in sight and she recalled abruptly, with a touch of panic, that his mobility had been impaired when the drop ship had been damaged. Scrambling toward the edge of the precipice, she looked down. She had a split second to register the disaster below and discover that Dane was dangling by one arm from the side of the ice cliff and then a hand curled around one of her ankles and she felt herself dragged backwards.
Twisting her head, she saw it was Seth who had hold of her ankle.
He was glaring at her. “You will get your head shot off!”
Stunned at the display of anger, Danika blinked several times, gaping at him. She was far more preoccupied with the scene her mind had captured, however. It looked like fully half of their force—maybe more—was trapped below—maimed, wounded, or already dead, and the enemy was advancing and systematically executing anybody who hadn’t managed to escape the trap. She barely noticed when he released his hold and crawled to the edge of the precipice to look down as she had.
“Can you climb?”
“The mobility of my left arm is compromised. I will try.”
“Niles and I will try to cover you,” Seth responded, turning to summon Niles with a hand motion.
Indignation flickered through Danika, piercing her shock.Shewas the squad leader, damn it! She was supposed to be leading the team! She was obliged to admit after a very little thought, though, that she couldn’t think of anything better to try. It wasn’t as if they could haul Dane’s heavy ass up the cliff!
Well, she supposed Seth and Niles could … if they had a rope of some kind, which she knew damned well she didn’t have in her pack. He was going to have to make it on his own—or not. Gritting her teeth against the pain from her wound, she crawled to the edge again on her belly. Seth stopped firing long enough to plant a hand on the top of her helmet and shove her back. “Stay!” he growled.
Danika sloughed the snow off her face shield and glared at him with a mixture of disbelief and anger. Before she could think of how to respond to his order, however, she saw a hand appear above the rim. Seth put his weapon down and grasped the hand, hauling Dane over the edge.
No one, Danika realized abruptly, had given her a damage report! AI or not, they weresupposedto be at her command!
Granted, they’d been busy, but they werecyborgs! It wasn’t as if they weren’t capable of handling multiple tasks!
“Disengage the enemy and fall back to secure weapons and supply drop, coordinates 3 degrees 47 minutes North West; 14 degrees South ….”
Danika listened while the orders were repeated through the GO—general orders—channel—minus the coordinates. “How far is that, Seth?”
“Thirty clicks.”
