The robot swiveled on its tracks immediately to meet the attack, but not fast enough. Kiel slammed into it before it could track and adjust. Grasping the head, he gritted his teeth and twisted it sideways. The head came off with a screech of grinding metal, disabling the robot instantly. Unfortunately, Kiel felt a tearing sensation in his belly at the effort. Holding his hand to the wound site to counter the pressure and pain, he glanced around quickly. To his relief, he spotted Manuta's original configuration almost immediately and surged toward it. The CPU was not hard to find. Ripping the panel off with his fingertips, he grasped the circuit and jerked it loose, aided by a jolt of electrical current that knocked him backwards several feet. He landed in a bundle of cables and wires, felt a hard jolt run through him and then nothing at all.
When he regained consciousness, dead silence surrounded him, an eerie, unnerving silence. Gathering himself with an effort, he disentangled himself, looked around to get his bearings and stumbled out. The exit, not surprisingly, did not work but as he'd surmised, the hole Manuta had blasted in the door was large enough to climb through.
Dismay filled him when he emerged and straightened. The entire settlement lay in shambles. The debris of dozens of robots, server bots as well as the soldier bots, lay everywhere. The habitats had blackened blast holes in them and the ground was littered with the bodies of cyborgs who had died in their attempt to gain their freedom.
Manuta's wrath was far worse than any of them had imagined it would be.
Nausea swept over him and dizziness, but it was hard to decide if it was the sight of so much death and destruction that caused it or his wounds. Feeling weak, he dropped to his knees.
He had no idea how long he sat staring at the battle ground, his mind curiously empty, but his gaze finally focused on Jalen limping toward him.
"You are wounded?"
"The soldier bots caught me unaware," he responded.
Jalen's face hardened. "They caught us all unaware," he ground out. "I had not considered that Manuta would send them against us. Truthfully, I had thought it had long since destroyed them." He paused, surveying the settlement as Kiel had. "We have dead-many dead."
Kiel swallowed a little sickly. "How many?"
Jalen sighed and shrugged. "I counted mayhap twenty who will not rise again. Twice that are badly wounded. I have not seen such wounds before. I do not know if the nanos can repair them or not." He wavered slightly and finally dropped to his knees and settled beside Kiel. "Manuta turned the server bots against us, as well. Not that they were equipped to fight as the soldiers were, but they caught many off guard. It is possible there are more that are dead or mortally wounded at the construction site. This was a disaster."
The comment wiped the pain, tiredness, and sickness from Kiel's mind. He surged to his feet. "Go and see how they fared," he said abruptly, striding quickly toward the city gate.
"Where are you going?" Jalen called after him.
"To the river."
The fear that had driven Kiel to rush to the river to make certain that Danielle had not been hurt or killed in the battle instantly transformed to rage when he topped the rise and spotted Danielle on Baen's lap, kissing him. A red haze seemed to fill his mind, pushing all other thoughts out except the one need that instantly leapt to mind-to tear Baen limb from limb.
Despite his preoccupation with Danielle, Baen, he discovered, had heard his approach. Even as he felt the rush of adrenaline and the stinging sensation that swept over him as he changed form, Baen leapt up to confront him. Baen's response was instinctive and almost instantaneous. He shifted forms, as well.
Uttering a challenging bellow, he charged Baen, barely even aware of Danielle, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, the color draining from her face until she was as pale as the sands that covered the river bottom and the exposed edges on either side. Even as he made contact with Baen, however, Danielle sucked in her breath and let out a sound that made his eardrums rattle.
It distracted him, made his head jerk in her direction as if the sound had controlled the movement. Fortunately, it also distracted Baen. He whipped his own head around to stare at Danielle just as she leapt to her feet and took off running along the riverbank.
Both Baen and Kiel froze, staring at her rapidly retreating form blankly.
"You fool!" Baen bellowed furiously. "You did not learn anything the last time you changed forms! You will frighten the life out of her!"
Kiel slammed his fist into Baen's jaw hard enough he reeled back several feet. Regaining his balance, he uttered a counter challenge and charged, slamming his head and shoulders into Kiel's gut. Pain exploded inside him at the impact, another burst following the first as he was slammed into the ground by Baen's weight and the impetus of his attack. Blackness swarmed, threatening to swallow him. By the time he managed to fight it off, he discovered Baen had taken flight. Even as he watched, Baen swooped toward her, scooped Danielle up and turned, heading toward the settlement with Danielle screaming and fighting him like a wild souse.
The pain effectively doused the fire of his rage. Despite the residual anger burning in him, he knew he was in no condition to follow Baen at the moment and resume the battle.
He was going to beat him unconscious when he was up to it, though, he promised himself! The fucking bastard! He had been nigh insane with the fear that Danielle was hurt. As relieved as he was to find that she had not been, the discovery of what she had been doing with Baen while he was trying to keep from getting killed only added to his rage.
Jalen reached him while he was still struggling with pain and anger, waiting impatiently for the nanos to repair his internal injuries so that he could go after Baen.
"What are you doing lying there?" Jalen demanded blankly. "Did you not see that that bastard, Baen, has flown off with Danielle?"
"I saw," Kiel ground out. "She took to her heels the moment I challenged Baen, uttering the most horrible sound that I have ever heard. It was worse than the scream of the jitoo! I could not decide if it would stop my heart first or destroy my hearing!"
Jalen stared at him blankly. "Is that why you are lying there? The sound stopped your heart?"
Kiel released a heavy breath of disgust. "I have torn something in my belly that the nanos had only begun to repair."
"You fought him?"
"It was not much of a battle," Kiel retorted, disgusted. "He struck me in the belly and I nearly lost consciousness."
"Well, I will go and kick his ass, then!" Jalen snapped. "My leg is better."
"Baen was not wounded at all!" Kiel pointed out. "He was here with Danielle, protecting her."
"If he was only protecting her," Jalen said suspiciously, "why did you fight him?"
"Because he was not only protecting her! The bastard decided to try to take her as his mate while we were nearly getting dead!"
"That is … that is … I do not know what that is!" Jalen snapped. "But it totally infuriates me! I will tell you that! Now I know I am going to kick his ass!"
Kiel was inclined to urge him to do so without delay. A sudden thought occurred to him, however. "Now is not a good time."
Jalen halted in his tracks and turned to look at Kiel. "Why not? I am pissed off now!"
Kiel shook his head. "There has been enough fighting tonight. Everyone is still angry. It is liable to stir them up and, what would be worse, it is liable to encourage them to try to mate Danielle. Manuta is gone. They will realize there will be no interference."
Jalen sobered instantly. "We have destroyed Manuta?"
Kiel thought it over and shook his head. "I do not know. There is much damage. Manuta misread our intent. It thought we meant to destroy it and determined that it was better to risk some damage to protect itself. I have the main processing circuit and it does not seem damaged, but we will have to examine Manuta to see what damage it did to itself trying to kill me."
Jalen's legs seemed to give out. "What are we to do if we have destroyed Manuta?"
Kiel felt ill at the thought. "Live," he said tightly. "As we were created to."
* * * *
It almost seemed as if everything was happening too fast to take it all in, which was especially bizarre since it also seemed as if time had slowed almost to a halt. It wasn't until time had regained its normal rhythm that Danielle realized that she had taken pretty much everything in. She just hadn't been able to process it.
Baen had dumped her on the ground so fast she was too stunned to assimilate what had happened and before she could, she spied the snarling monster tensed to pounce. Screaming the moment her vision connected with brain function and identified what she saw, she had leapt to her feet instinctively to flee in sheer terror. She had no clear idea of where she was going and certainly no notion of her chances in successfully eluding a winged beast that looked more like a dragon of mythology than anything else she'd ever seen. She screamed again when she felt talons close around her like a vice, but the moment her feet left the ground and she realized the beast had snatched up to fly off with her, her terror shifted focus from the beast to the ground dropping away beneath her.
Actually, she had seesawed between the fear of falling and her fear of the beast's intentions until she got a look at the settlement. Shocked into a state of near catatonia at the sight of the battleground, it almost seemed like her mind shut down completely until she felt firm ground beneath her feet and discovered that it was Baen holding her.
"What happened?" she managed to gasp, uncertain herself whether she was referring to the incident at the river or the battleground she was staring at.
"Gods!" Baen murmured as if he hadn't heard her. "What the fuck …?"
He strode away then without a backward glance, obviously too stunned himself to have any clear idea of what he was doing. After staring after him for several moments, watching him move from one fallen man to another, Danielle finally came to enough awareness of her surroundings to look around for a place of safety.
She wasn't sure any place was safe, but the habitat where she'd been staying was the most familiar to her and she hurried to it and went inside. She collapsed weakly on the couch in the living area as soon as she reached it, but she discovered that, despite the strange weakness that made her tremble all over, she couldn't sit still. Moving to one of the windows, she stood watching for some time before it dawned on her that she should've offered to help. She didn't know how she might help, but she decided she should look for something she could do to help.
By the time she'd finally arrived at that decision and gone out again, she discovered that most of the bodies had been removed. It was about that time that she realized that there wasn't a single robot that was operational. The only movement she could see was the cyborgs.
Confused by the discovery, she wandered almost aimlessly until she came upon a group of cyborgs that seemed to be wounded. There didn't seem to be anyone attending them, though.
Uneasiness crept through her at the thought of approaching them. She wasn't a medic. Although she'd had some first aid training, she thought the men must be beyond anything she could do. They must be badly wounded or they wouldn't have been lying in the grass out in the open.
Stealing herself, she approached the nearest and crouched beside him. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
He stared at her so blankly she thought at first that he might have a head injury. "I am thirsty," he said finally.
Relief flooded her. It might not be that helpful, but at least it was something she could do. "I can get you something. Anything else? Bandages maybe? Painkillers?"
He went back to staring at her blankly. "We do not have bandages or painkillers."
Danielle blinked at him. "They have to have something for wounds!"
"Nanos," the soldier behind her responded.
She glanced at him sharply, feeling her face turn fiery red. Obviously, she was still more rattled than she'd realized for it to have completely slipped her mind that they were cyborgs and had nanos. Not that she'd known they did, but she'd certainly guessed as much. "Right! I'll get you something to drink."
She'd managed to get over most of her embarrassment by the time she found something to carry water in, filled it, and headed back. She discovered when she arrived that there were more men than before, some of them lying down, others sitting up with their backs propped against the buildings behind them. "What happened?" she asked the man she'd spoken to before. "Did the Nubiens attack?"
He drained the glass and handed it back. "Thank you," he said, looking away uncomfortably.
Frowning, Danielle turned to the next man, looking at him questioningly.
"It was Manuta," he said tightly.
Danielle gaped at him. "Manuta … did all this? Why?"
Either no one had an answer or no one wanted to answer. She'd managed to work her way through about a quarter of the men and had just straightened to head back for more water when Kiel abruptly appeared beside her. Catching her arm, he escorted her back across the settlement to her habitat. "They do not need you to bring them water," he said tightly as soon as they'd entered her habitat.
Danielle gaped at him. "They're hurt! Nobody else was trying to help them!"
Kiel's lips tightened. "Because there is nothing that we can do for them! Their nanos will repair the damage, or they will be unable to repair the damage."
"Well! That's just plain … callous! Even if there's nothing else that can be done, I can at least help them be more comfortable! They've been fighting. They're thirsty!"
He studied her speculatively for a long moment. "I will send someone to carry water to them," he said finally.
"I can do that!"
"Someone else can do it better."
She didn't think if he'd slapped her that it would've stung more. It was absurd that it hurt her feelings, completely ridiculous to feel stepped on just because, in his opinion, she wasn't competent to do a job a complete idiot could manage. She should be just plain mad that he'd called her an incompetent moron and completely without provocation! She decided instead to pretend it hadn't bothered her. "Fine! I was just trying to be helpful," she snapped, folding her arms and staring stonily at the floor.
"Is this why you kissed Baen? To be helpful?"
She sent him a startled look. The discovery that he'd shifted closer sent her deeper into chaos, but it also made her pulse leap and heat rush through her. "Is that what this is about?" she gasped finally.
"Yes," he said, closing the distance between them and covering her mouth with his own.
A jolt of surprise went through her. A wave of pleasure followed so closely on its heels that it completely disoriented her. She was enthralled by the pleasure before she had time to consider whether she wanted Kiel to kiss her or not.
The only solid thought that crossed her mind was that he was a quick study. There was nothing the least bit awkward as there had been the first time he'd kissed her. His mouth fit perfectly over hers, his lips moving against hers in a way that sent cascades of heat along her nerve endings. Before she had time to register the discomfort of trying to embrace and kiss a man so much taller than she was, Kiel lifted her from the floor, pressing her back against the wall behind her.
She lifted her legs instinctively and curled them around his waist to help support and balance herself. The moment she did, he pressed closer. The thick ridge of flesh he pressed against her cleft produced almost equal twinges of discomfort and pleasure, but the eagerness the pressure evoked to feel him inside of her surpassed both. This, she was instantly certain, was what she wanted, needed. It had been so long since she'd felt any of the things he made her feel in the way he held her and kissed her; like a woman, not a sexless soldier-beautiful and desirable; felt even a brief illusion of being safe and protected.
She kissed him back eagerly, begging him to take her away from everything that frightened her, even for just a few moments, coaxing his tongue into her mouth to suck on it in mock sex when she'd explored his mouth until she wa
s drunk with his essence. It sent a hard tremor through him. His hands tightened almost painfully on her buttocks, pressing her tighter against his erection.
When he broke the kiss, gasping for breath, she nibbled along his neck and throat and jaw, exploring his chest and arm and belly with one hand until she reached the waist of his loincloth. He was shaking so badly by the time she'd worked her hand inside to stroke his cock that she was torn between the conviction that he was ready to explode and the certainty that he was going to drop her.
Tightening her own grip on him, she decided to ignore the latter and focus on the former. There seemed no point in wasting time helping him to get ready, particularly when he seemed in danger of going off without her, and she was more than ready herself. Slipping her hand from his loincloth, she tugged at the opening of her suit at the crouch.
She met his gaze as she shoved his loincloth down, grasped his cock, and lifted up to align his flesh with her body. His eyes were glowing red. It made her heart execute a strange little double gallop, but she also felt her womb contract, sending a fresh flood of moisture along her channel. His eyes, narrowed to start with, slid closed as she pushed the head of his cock into the mouth of her sex. He sucked in a harsh breath, held it while he cupped his hips to push deeper, and expelled it in a rush when he discovered he was making little headway.
Danielle looped her arms around his neck, pulling herself more tightly against Kiel and nipping at his chin in a silent demand for a kiss. He met her lips with his own, kissing her with a wild hunger that made her belly clench and unclench rhythmically, releasing more moisture to ease his way.
For a few moments, it almost seemed like it wouldn't be enough regardless. He strained against her, eased off, and pumped again. Her flesh seemed to stretch to its limits, began to burn slightly with the strain so that she seesawed between anticipation and anxiety-though she wasn't certain herself whether she was worried that he wouldn't be able to drive deeply enough to satisfy her craving or if she was uneasy that he would split her in two in the attempt.
The Forgotten Five Page 3