“Tau!” she calledout.
When nothing but silence greeted her,she strained to see through her tears and spied them, lying tangledin a heap with the pieces of Eml’s armor strewn aboutthem.
“Xi! Quan!” shescreamed.
Dashing the tears from her eyes, sherushed to the ladder and began a reckless, breakneck descent,nearly falling repeatedly in her rush to get to them.
“Tau!” she called outtearfully as she finally touched the ground and crumpled into aweak heap. “Xi! Quan!”
She managed to get to her feet andrushed to them, searching them for signs of life.
When she had despaired of any hope atall, she saw Tau blink.
She let out a wail of tentative reliefthen, wondering even as she allowed it if it aspremature.
Someone touched her shoulder and shenearly jumped out of her skin.
“These are your men?” thestranger asked.
Ultima burst out wailing. “Yes.They’re hurt. They’re hurt so bad. Help them! Please!”
* * * *
They were carried out on makeshiftstretchers—Tau and Quan and Xi—in a state that wasn’t entirelyconscious or unconscious.
Ultima kept telling herself all theway along the arduous trek to remove them from the battlefield tothe field hospital that had been set up beyond the carnage that shehadn’t killed them.
She feared she had.
She hadn’t seen the light of theirlife forms afterward—not so much as a spark of it.
The bodies they’d inhabited stillfunctioned, but she couldn’t even be sure that that was somethingthat she could rely upon as a sign of life.
Few of the machines had been able torise after the EMP had hit them. And of those, they were socompletely disoriented that they were easy prey for the soldiersmoving among them in an attempt to completely destroy the army thathad been raised against them.
Finally, though, the commandingofficers of the groups answered the calls for quarter when themachines threw down their weapons and held up their arms insurrender.
They were herded off of thebattlefield into pens then and held under guard while the remainderof the force was sifted through.
They seemed so lost and confused,Ultima couldn’t help but pity them—because she knew they had merelybeen puppets used by the alien invader.
But she doubted many humans would seethem that way and take pity on them and allow them the chance toprove they could be helpful.
And she didn’t really have a lot ofemotion to expend on them when she was caught up in her grief overher men.
Days passed in pure torment for herand then one evening Tau opened his eyes and looked straight ather—with recognition—and confusion.
“Why am I here and youthere?” he asked in a voice that didn’t sound like his at all andmade Ultima want to cry.
He thought he was in the hospitaltent, she realized, when she’d been hurt.
She struggled for many moments overher grief about the things that had happened between them that heseemed to have lost.
No huge surprise given the massivejolt he’d had from the EMP, but tremendously devastating forher.
She cleared her throat, struggled withher emotions. “I shot you.”
Surprise flickered in his eyes. “Why,beloved? Why would you do that?”
