They hadn’t managed to ‘hold’ anythinglong enough to claim it ‘held’.
It seemed inarguable that the focuswas on extermination.
She couldn’t see that the alien oraliens had any regard for anything at all—not even the real estatethey were capturing.
And they were contaminating the watersupply to help them kill off any living thing.
It was even killing the plantlife.
And she’d begun to think there wouldbe nothing to win soon and no one left to enjoy thevictory.
Tau, Xi, and Quan were their only hopeas far as she could see and she wasn’t certain they could doanything.
She’d seen Tau and Quan wipe out anentire platoon of cyborgs, though.
And when it came to human versusCyborg, the cyborgs always won—one could wipe out an entire platoonof humans.
She didn’t care what had convincedthem that they were her men, but she was glad they had beenconvinced and willing, even happy, to do whatever it took tomaintain that belief.
It seemed … unlikely that it wasmerely because she’d claimed them as hers—and that had been toconvince the people at the camp that they were ‘friendly’, notbecause she’d had designs on them.
As unlikely as that seemed as ananswer, though, she was not inclined to pursue it.
It was working and that was all thatmattered.
Quan left them for a time and finallyreturned hours later, when Ultima had begun to worry that he’d runinto trouble—carrying the bloodied carcasses of several smallanimals.
Her belly rumbled.
Tau looked down at it and then at herface, smiling faintly. “That is hunger, yes?”
Ultima felt her face heat. “Asdisgusting as it is to look at raw meat and feel hunger—yes. But Ican wait until we stop tonight.”
Tau scanned the sky. “Yes. It will bebetter to wait until night when the smoke will not be sonoticeable. I would like to reach the tower I saw without drawingattention.”
Unfortunately, the distance wasdeceptive. Xi returned shortly after Quan did and informed Tau thathe had found a fairly easy route to navigate that was,unfortunately, longer than the more direct route. But they wouldhave to camp one night regardless.
“I presume youreconnoitered a likely camping spot on both?”
“Certainly.”
“I think we will take theless direct route. That might throw off anyone who tries to trackus.”
“That will be difficult inany case. Much of it is over stone of some kind. Notnatural.”
Uneasiness knotted Ultima’s belly whenshe saw that the ‘stone’ Xi had told them about was asphalt. “Thiswould be urban. The cyborgs patrol this entire area constantly,”she said quietly.
Tau, Xi, and Quan all lifted theirheads and scanned the area.
“There are none close toour position,” Tau said with so much confidence Ultima didn’t doubthe knew.
She just wasn’t certain ofhow he knew when he couldn’t ‘connect’ with any ofthem—theycouldn’t, or shouldn’t be able to. “Let me walk a little,then, while we have smoother footing.”
He carefully set her on her feetwithout argument and Ultima almost felt a little outdone by thefact that he didn’t argue at all.
He grasped her arm, though, and loopedit around the crook of his arm, giving her support.
She was grateful for it. She neededthe support and more than that something to help her keep herbalance. She was able, with his help, to walk further than she hadbeen able to before she began to feel lightheaded.
