1
“Five minutes,” the Navy lieutenant told the platoon. “I want you on board and strapped in sixty seconds after it lands.”
Captain Omestori gave the lieutenant a thumbs-up. They had been ready for an hour now, standing in the hangar while waiting for the OK to leave. As soon as the shuttle returned, they’d board in a moment, happy to get off the ship and down to the planet’s surface.
Sergeant Reverent Pelletier, Perseus Union Marine Corps, shifted his feet, anxious to get on with the mission. “Run Pashu’s checklist again,” he subvocalized.
<Still green, just like it was five minutes ago when you last asked,> Punch, his AI battle buddy said. For a hunk of crystals embedded into Rev’s brain, Punch could be a little snarky at times.
Rev really hadn’t thought that his IBHU, the Integrated Bionic Hopological Unit that hung from his left shoulder in place of the arm he’d lost fighting the Children of Angels, had somehow gone off-line while he waited in orbit. It was just that as a Marine Raider, he was normally among the first to enter a combat zone rather than sitting fat, dumb, and happy in orbit while other Marines secured a landing zone.
“You doing OK, Rev?” Tomiko asked over the P2P circuit.
“I’m fine. Just want to get going. How about you, element leader?”
“Hell, you used to be the element leader, so how hard can it be?”
“Yeah, you say that, Miko. You’ll see.”
This was going to be the first time in three missions that Rev wasn’t the team’s Second Element leader. In fact, he wasn’t in an element at all. He was the platoon’s package, not a real member, and he didn’t like that one bit.
With him taken out of the chain of command, Sergeant Tomiko Reiser had stepped up to take over. Rev knew that Tomiko would be fine. The only reason he’d been the element leader before was that while they both had the same date of rank, Pelletier came before Reiser alphabetically.
“Keep an eye on Radić. This is his first mission.”
“Ya think? Come on, Rev, I know what I’m doing.”
Rev winced. Tomiko was a hard-charging, kick-ass Marine—and his best friend. But sometimes, he was a little too protective of her, and he’d been on the receiving end of her tirades concerning that on more than one occasion.
“Sorry about that. I just—”
“I know, Rev,” she said, her tone softening. “But I’ve got it. Strap and Carp are experienced.”
But you haven’t worked together for real yet.
With Yazzie killed on TRT-36 and Rev pulled from the element, Tomiko had been left as the sole member. So, Lance Corporals Mordechai “Strap” Gantz from First Element and Tera “Carp” Porter from Second Team had transferred over. And now, with Private Til Radić, so boot he didn’t have a nickname yet, the element was at full strength.
Rev was no longer leading the other Marines, but he couldn’t just turn off his feeling of responsibility. He doubted any Marine sergeant could.
Red lights flashed in the hangar, and a moment later, the Ibis shuttle was pulled through the curtain and over to LP 2 where the tractor beams set it down as gently as a leaf.
Yellowshirts ran out to set the chocks while the Flight Deck Officer shouted, “Go, go!”
The platoon, along with another dozen cats and dogs from other units, ran in a line to the back of the shuttle and up the ramp. Rev, in his privileged position, was the last to board, and he took his seat along the starboard side. It made sense. With Pashu’s bulk, he took up more room, so this put no one on his left. But he knew the real reason. He’d be the first one out, and if the shuttle was hit coming in, he’d have the best chance at survival.
It was Colonel Trejo, the IBHU project manager, who called Rev’s position “privileged.” To Rev, it was more like being in a gilded cage. Being the first one, his IBHU had cost more than a Navy Shrike fighter, and the brass seemed to be afraid to lose it. But if they didn’t want him to fight if the situation was too dangerous, then why develop the weapons system in the first place?
The ship’s tractors lifted the shuttle before the ramp was closed. A few Marines looked up in alarm. Once past the curtain, they’d be in the void, and none of them were geared up for vacuum combat.
But the tractors merely spun the shuttle around, waiting for hull integrity. The ramp sealed shut, the red LEDs flashed to green, and the tractor beams shot the shuttle free. At the required distance from the ship, the shuttle’s engines powered up, and they started the descent to the surface.
“OK, listen up,” the captain passed on the platoon net. “The situation on the ground is hot, but the LZ is secure. As soon as we land, a red-patcher is going to take us to our designated assembly point. I want a three-sixty with Sergeant Pelletier in the center. Remember, we’re one of three reaction forces, so we need to be ready for anything. But based on that last comms before the tin-asses cut them off, be ready sooner rather than later for a frag order.”
Which was pretty much what the update to their operations brief had been four hours before. Evidently, Rev wasn’t the only one tired of sitting back while other Marines were in contact. The captain, too, was itching to get involved. Raiders were the point of the spear, not the ones in the rear with the gear.
This wasn’t going to be a nice, easy descent. The Union Navy might control the space around Mistake, but it certainly didn’t control the surface where an estimated two hundred-plus Centaurs were doing their best to throw off the landing. The shuttle, on full autopilot corkscrewed in, braided around the big terajoule beamer shots of one of the Navy monitors. With shields on full, there was no power for artificial gravity.
For all of Rev’s combat capabilities, he had what was referred to as a delicate stomach. He fought it while in null-G, trying to keep his breakfast down, but when they hit the atmosphere, with all the maneuvering, it was too much.
“Give me the antiemetics!” he gasped out.
A moment later, the need to puke lessened to merely tolerable. He gave a big sigh, then looked up to catch Hussein’s deadpan stare. Rev wanted to sneer back, but he didn’t have the energy. The other Marine had a stomach of steel, and nothing bothered him.
<You know, you don’t have to keep trying to weather it, right? You can get the meds before the ride.>
Rev ignored him. It didn’t seem right to him, no matter how logical it was.
The shuttle lurched again, and that threatened to send him off once more, but with pure willpower, he forced the gorge back down.
“You surviving?” Tomiko asked.
Rev didn’t answer but gave her a weak thumbs-up. He swore that the brass made the ride that rough on purpose, making the Marines so pissed off that they would rush out of the shuttle despite intense enemy fire rather facing that than getting bounced around like ping pong balls. The weird thing was that while he felt like he was as weak as a kitten, he knew the moment they hit the ground, he would be fine, roaring and raring to go.
The shuttle shuddered, a bright flare filling the cabin, and all thoughts of nausea disappeared. Red lights flashed, and air started whistling out a few seats forward of Rev. One of the crew ran back, pushed Bambam Sinclair out of the way, and shot the bulkhead with what looked like whipped cream. He stared at it for a moment, his body tense, before he relaxed and started saying something over his throat mic.
“Were we hit?” Bambam asked.
“We’d be dead already if we’d been hit,” the sailor said with a condescending roll of his eyes. He looked at all the Marines, the eyes of every one locked onto him. “No, folks, we’re OK. The shielding held. Just a stress fracture. Popped a seam. I got it fixed.”
He waved the can around so everyone could see.
“I think I about shit myself,” Tomiko passed.
“You and me both. I guess this is one of the downsides of coming in late to the party. Let’s just put this sucker down and get dirt under our feet.”
“And I guess that’s why they split you guys up.”
Rev knew that “you guys” meant him and the other two IBHU Marines. Not only were they going planetside on different shuttles, they had also made the passage to Mistake aboard different ships. “Spread loading,” the military called it. Lose one ship, and there were still two IBHU Marines making it to the planet.
Rev was the first IBHU Marine, but six weeks ago, he’d been joined by Corporal Thesbian “Backstop” McAnt. McAnt was a former supply clerk who’d lost his right hand and halfway up his lower arm to friendly fire when a Navy Shrike had hit their supply dump. He’d agreed to the IBHU and had been transferred to the Raider Platoon’s Second Team. For the first four weeks, Rev and Top Thapa had been pushing McAnt hard, bringing him up to speed as a Raider. The next two weeks had been working with his team, integrating them into a semblance of a fighting unit. McAnt wasn’t there yet as far as being a grunt, but his IBHU made up for a lot of that.
Then, ten days ago, Private First Class Ethereal Randigold had joined Bravo Reconnaissance Company’s Raider platoon at Camp Falcon. Rumor had it that she’d been badly burnt in a fire, losing both arms and a leg among her other injuries. The three IBHUs had been scheduled to train together next week, but this mission popped up. Rev was a little hesitant about having a boot IBHU, on a combat mission, but the plan wasn’t to have them operate together. They and their teams would be three separate reaction forces, ready to reinforce where needed.
Where and when that would be depended on the ground situation. Rev looked over at the newly promoted captain, wondering if he should ask if the platoon commander knew how things were going in the fight. But with comms out on the planet’s surface, he wouldn’t know much more than what they’d already been told.
The shuttle hit turbulence, and Rev clutched at the harness that was keeping him in place, glad he’d taken the antiemetics. The angle of attack increased as the Ibis hurtled to the ground.
“This is—” Tomiko started to pass when she was cut off.
<We’ve hit the comms blackout.>
Rev shook his head. It still rankled him that with two Marine regiments, almost five thousand Marines, facing from two to three hundred Centaurs, that they could still lose comms. They’d had thirteen years to figure this out, and still, the Marines were going to be reduced to hand-and-arm signals and runners to communicate.
The shuttle flared out, flattening every Marine into their seat. The back ramp started opening before they hit the ground. It was a sunny, too-bright day, the planet’s sun an orange dwarf. Rev deployed his face shield, darkened to protect his vision.
His harness snapped off, and the crew chief started yelling, “Go, go!”
Rev was the closest to the ramp on the starboard side, and he began to run down the ramp before it had fully lowered. He jumped while the edge was still a meter or so up and immediately started looking for the red-patcher, a logistics Marine with the traditional red patch on the outside of each knee.
But no red-patcher came out to meet them. Rev started to slow down, and the Marines behind him started to pile up. A captain rushed forward instead, gave a wary look at Pashu, and asked, “Where’s your commander?”
Rev turned and spotted the captain coming down the ramp. “That’s him. But we’re supposed to be being led to our assembly area, sir.”
“No time for that, Sergeant. You’re being sent out right now.”
* * *
The captain hadn’t been kidding. Nine minutes after Rev stepped off the Ibis, Third Team was on the move. Bravo Company was pinned down by a single Centaur. The tank that had been in direct support of the company had been destroyed.
That, and the company’s location, was about all the team knew, but that was enough to get them going. Bravo was over fourteen klicks from the LZ at the base of the scraggly mountain range that was the prime terrain feature in their AO. The area between the LZ and the company was supposed to be secure, and Bravo needed relief, but Staff Sergeant Delacrie was minimizing the risk as they jogged forward by keeping them in a team wedge, Rev in the middle. The terrain became rougher the closer they got to the company, but they made good time, reaching the beleaguered force in just under an hour.
The guide met them at the designated spot at a bend in a stream and led them into the company CP while the intermittent whooshes of Morays echoed off rock walls to their front.
“Glad you could get here,” the company commander said, shaking the staff sergeant’s hand while warily glancing at Pashu. The IBHUs were no longer secret, but most Marines hadn’t seen one yet.
“Sorry it took so long, sir,” the team leader said.
“I’m just glad you’re here now. This is the situation. I’ve got a squad pinned down inside that box canyon. I tried to extract them, but it’s a shooting gallery in there. We had an attached Avenger, and it went to cover their withdrawal, but the bastard got it.”
“One Centaur? What kind?”
“A riever, I think. We’re not sure. No comms, of course.”
“And the squad, they’re still effective?”
Which was a polite way to ask if they were still alive.
“They keep yelling out to us to let us know they’re still kicking.”
“And you tried to get them out? I mean, after the tank?”
“Twice,” the captain spat out, her eyes blazing. “Lost six Marines.”
“And you sent in drones?”
“No. I thought I’d keep them tucked away in their holsters, all safe and sound, Staff Sergeant,” she snapped.
Staff Sergeant Delacrie blanched. “Of course, ma’am, I know you would have. Sorry about that. I was just going over my checklist.”
He looked over at Rev for rescue. “What do you think, Sergeant Pelletier?”
Rev had been looking to the top of the box canyon, listening to the Morays being fired.
“That’s a lot of Morays, ma’am. But since your squad hasn’t come out yet, we’ve got to assume the riever is still alive. Any idea why?”
“One of my PFCs said he got a look at it, and it’s dug in.”
Rev couldn’t hide his surprise. In all of his battles, he hadn’t heard of Centaurs digging in a position.
“Yeah, I know,” the captain said.
“And he’s sure?” Rev asked.
“Yeah. He’s sure. And I’m sure. But I’ll let him show you in person.” She turned to a corporal and said, “Get Weems.”
“We’ve got to get a better look to see what we’re up against, Staff Sergeant,” Rev said as the PFC was being fetched.
Rev still felt weird telling the team leader what he needed. The staff sergeant was in command, not him. Rev wasn’t even the senior sergeant with Nix and Hussein in the team. But considering that Pashu was the tactical focus, the team’s tactics had to maximize her capabilities.
PFC Weems came running up.
“Show him,” the captain said, pointing at Rev.
A company commander didn’t have the authorization to tell a Marine to jack into another, nor tell another Marine to accept it, for that matter, but the PFC didn’t hesitate. He pulled the extendable jack out of his sleeve and offered it to Rev. His eyes widened when Rev’s end slid out of Pashu.
“OK, send what you saw,” Rev said after he made the connection.
There was a brief flicker, then Rev was “seeing” what the PFC had seen. And it sure looked like the riever was dug in almost like an ancient pillbox, back up against the rock face. Not much of it was visible, and something exploded behind the riever on the wall. The recording was barely three seconds long before the PFC had turned away.
Rev disconnected, then offered it to the team leader. He waved it off.
“Thank you, PFC Weems,” Rev said. Then he turned to the staff sergeant, “We need to get closer.”
“I’ve got a fire team ready to lead you up.” She paused, looking at Pashu again. “You really think you can take that thing out when an Avenger couldn’t?”
“I’ve done it before, ma’am.”
She shook her head and said, “I hope you’re right. And whatever we can do, you let us know.”
A fire team, led by a corporal, guided Rev, the staff sergeant, and Nix forward, the last fifty meters on their bellies.
“If you pass the boulder there, you’ll be in the fucker’s sights,” the corporal said.
Rev turned to the staff sergeant. “I’m moving forward.”
Delacrie hesitated, then nodded. Rev knew the staff sergeant had been told not to risk losing him, but he also knew that Rev had to know what he faced.
Still on his belly, Rev low-crawled forward. For all of Pashu’s power, she was not made for low crawling. Rev made a mental note to pass that onto Daryll or Doctor Chakrabarti. This was one of the many issues that hadn’t been considered until the field trials revealed them. The problem was that the “field trials” were actual combat, not back in the rear surrounded by techs.
After another ten meters, the still-smoking hulk of the Marine Avenger came into his view. Rev tried to push the thoughts of Bundy and Ten out of his mind. That was easier said than done as the hulk could be one of them right there, thirty meters away.
But it also became evident why the tank had been destroyed. As he crept up closer, he could see that the tank had been canalized into a kill zone. It couldn’t maneuver, which took away one of its most effective capabilities. It had been a sitting duck.
Rev crept up to the boulder the corporal had indicated, then studied what he could see of the terrain. Ahead of him was a typical box canyon, about twenty-five meters wide and a hundred meters long. The bottom was strewn with boulders. Cliffs, maybe forty meters high, rose above.
Several bodies were in his line of sight, while five Marines were hugging the backside of a particularly large rock. They had spotted him, and one was pointing to his right, signaling “Enemy, ninety meters.” Rev acknowledged the information.
At ninety or a hundred meters, Rev couldn’t pop up and try to take it out with Pashu’s cannon. It was out of her effective range. And while the boulders on the ground could give him cover, they would also both slow him down and limit his ability to change direction to maneuver closer.
He looked up, but it was pretty obvious that even if they could get word back for the Navy to hit the canyon, the monitor would have to be in orbit directly overhead to get a hit.
As he was looking up, however, a plan began to coalesce. But he needed to know exactly where the riever was.
“No way around it. Punch, record, wide-angle.”
Rev took three deep breaths, then popped up over the boulder and dropped back down an instant before energy washed around him, the air crackling with ionization.
“Show me.”
The image PFC Weems had shown him had been focused on the riever itself, with not much else noted. But with Punch’s help, Rev now had a snapshot of the scene. He studied it for a minute as a plan—an audacious plan, but a plan nonetheless—came together.
He crept back to where the others waited.
“You had to expose yourself?” the staff sergeant said, his eyes blazing.
Rev ignored the question.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.”
* * *
“Come on, Miko. Those Marines need us,” Rev muttered.
High above him, Tomiko was climbing the rock face, a rope dangling from her harness. Rev had planned on making the climb himself, but the staff sergeant had nixed that.
Rev had been annoyed, but he had to admit that the team leader was right. At less than half his weight and with two regular arms, she was having a far easier time climbing than he would have. And just like Pashu was somewhat of a liability in crawling, she would have been the same in climbing. Just one more thing to add onto the list to tell Doctor C.
Tomiko finally disappeared over the top. A few minutes later, she leaned back over the edge and gave them a thumb’s up.
“That’s me,” Strap said. He snapped his climbers into the cable and started up, the climbers automatically supporting most of his weight. Within a minute, he was at the top.
“Radić, you’re next,” Nix said on belay, the running end of the line wrapped around his waist. The private scampered up like a monkey, even quicker than Strap had.
Porter followed, a little slower than Radić. Rev watched until she disappeared from view.
“You ready, Rev?” Nix asked.
“Let’s do it.”
Rev attached his climbers to the line, then to his harness. He gave it a tug, and the tiny light turned green.
“Kick some ass, OK?” Nix said.
“You just be ready to light the thing up and give us some cover.”
“Will do.” Nix gave him a pat on the shoulder, and Rev started up. He could have just stayed still, letting the climbers raise him without effort on his part, but that was a recipe for getting banged around the rocks, something he didn’t need. So, like a rappel in reverse, he essentially walked up the hill, but let the climbers do the heavy lifting. He wasn’t as quick as the other three, but he crested the top where the element had formed a hasty defense and unhooked.
They pulled in the line, which Strap attached to his harness, and Tomiko said, “Let’s go.”
It had taken a bit of map study, but Rev had selected to climb at a spot four hundred meters from the Centaur and the trapped squad. Now they had to walk along the top of the ridgeline. It was a little rougher than it had looked on their maps, but they were augmented Marines. This wasn’t going to stop them from reaching the box canyon.
Strap had point, and he held up a closed fist to stop everyone. He pointed down, then gave the signal for enemy. If they were at the right spot, below them should be the riever and a trapped infantry squad. Farther out, the staff sergeant and First Element should be with some more Bravo Company infantry, waiting for Rev’s signal.
Up on top, Rev and the four Second Element Marines got down on their bellies and crept forward, using a twisted evergreen growing out of the rocks as their landmark. He couldn’t see the riever, but it should be directly below. The rocks protruded out a good five meters, which was probably why the riever had chosen its spot. The Marines didn’t have comms with the Navy, but if the monitors could break through the visual and electronic jamming, they could possibly target the riever, so the overhang could give the Centaur more overhead protection.
The staff sergeant had favored simply blasting off the overhang and letting it fall to crush the riever, but several quick simulations indicated that would not be a sure thing, nor even a probable thing, and it could end up crushing the Marine squad instead. So, they had to go back to Rev’s plan.
“We ready?” Rev asked.
“It’s on you,” Tomiko said.
Rev turned over to his back and motioned to Strap for the line. This time, there would be no climbers. Rev didn’t think he could control it and still do what he had to do. He attached the running end to his harness and waited for the rest.
Strap was going to be the anchor. He found another tree about five meters back, attached his harness to it, then ran the line around his back. Radić was the end man, there to take some of the stress off Strap but also to make sure the line couldn’t run free. Tomiko stayed closest to Rev. She’d handle any maneuvering required as well as shoulder part of Rev’s weight. Porter was security, ready for a drone-eye or anything else.
They’d all trained with this type of descent, but never together.
Shouldn’t matter, right? We’ve all done it before.
He looked at Strap as the Marine settled into place. He was the key that would keep him from freefalling to the bottom of the canyon.
“Hey, Strap. I did say I was sorry for punching you in the face back in Swansea, right?” he whispered.
Strap smiled and said, “I do seem to remember that little incident. Sucker punch.”
“Well, just remember that I apologized.”
“I never said I accepted that.”
Rev gave Strap a little salute, then got to his knees.
“All systems green?”
<All green.>
He pulled out a flare from his cargo pocket, took off the cap, then hit the bottom on the armor over his knee. The little rocket took off and climbed a hundred meters before exploding into a green starburst.
Within seconds, Morays and Yellowjackets were being fired into the canyon. Without being able to see the riever, they weren’t coming in expecting to hit it, but rather catch the thing’s attention.
“Remember what I said about firing too high,” Rev muttered as he stood up, ran a couple of steps forward, and jumped out over the edge.
He twisted around as the three Marines let out five meters of line, then he looked down, and immediately spotted the riever, just as its cannon glowed from firing. It wasn’t exactly dug in, but it had stacked rocked all around it as if it were inside a little castle.
With Rev swinging in to the side of the rock face, engaging with a Moray would have almost been impossible until his feet were planted. But Pashu was think-and-fire. As he was swinging in on the line’s moment arm, he twisted and pointed, “thinking” it to fire. Pashu blasted, and with the riever only thirty or thirty-five meters below him, it didn’t stand a chance. Its pedestal seemed to tip over, and then the self-destruct took over, and the thing exploded.
The shock wave rolled over Rev just as his feet hit the wall, knocking him sideways. Instead of a nice, solid absorption of the hit, he was flung off-kilter and smacked his right arm and head against the rock face before he bounced back off.
He didn’t care. He hadn’t been sure this cock-eyed plan would work. He hooted as he swung back out, his feet dangling in the air.
“Stupid thing never even looked up, Punch.”
He twisted his body again as he started to pendulum back the other way so he could get a better look at the shattered hulk beneath his feet when the sharp, unmistakable discharge of a Centaur cannon reverberated between the canyon walls. He tried to whip his body around, which caused him to drop another couple of meters before Strap and the others could stop the fall.
He didn’t notice the sharp drop. Directly across from him, from behind a finger of stone, a paladin was emerging, but sideways, like some vast spider crawling along the wall. Rev didn’t know they could even do that. A paladin was huge, but as far as he could see, it had no support other than its twelve legs keeping it on the vertical face.
The paladin fired its self-defense belt, and bits of the rocks on the ground disintegrated into dust.
“Range!”
<Fifty-nine meters.>
“Shit!” All Rev heard was the fifty-nine meters as he checked his cannon. The red light was blinking as it recharged.
<Sixty-six meters.>
“What, you just said . . .” Rev started before his swing brought him back into the wall one more time. Instinct took over, and he kicked wildly, trying to push off. He didn’t get much of the wall, but he got enough to put some force back into the swing.
<Fifty-eight meters. Fifty-four meters.> Punch kept relaying to him as Rev swung back out. Rev lifted Pashu, but she was still red as he reached the far side of the swing.
The paladin fired again, crawling out just a little farther, but Rev lost sight of it as he twisted at the end of the line and swung back.
<Fifty-nine meters. Sixty-seven meters.>
“Rev, what the hell are you doing?” Tomiko yelled from over the top. “We can’t hold you.”
Rev blocked her out. And this time, as he swung into the wall, he was ready. He hit it flush, bent his knees, and then pushed off with all his strength. The line jerked down another meter, but he’d put his augmented strength into it.
<Sixty-two meters. Fifty-eight meters.>
Rev pointed Pashu at the paladin, but she was still red.
<Fifty-two meters.> Punch said just as he reached apogee. The push had gained him two meters in range.
And right then, the paladin seemed to falter. Rev wasn’t sure why, but he knew that the paladin had finally figured out that the infantry on the ground wasn’t the threat. It lifted itself out a little farther from the wall, looking even more like a giant spider, as Rev started to swing back.
A wonderful green light lit, and without thinking, Rev fired, even if he knew it was probably out of range. But three of the paladin’s leg slipped, jerking the big chunk of armor. Then as it tried to recover, a few more legs slipped. That was enough, and the paladin fell. It crashed to the ground, hitting with a whump and a shower of dirt and dust.
A moment later, it detonated, not with the little one that the riever had used, but the full-fledged detonation that he’d seen on Preacher Rolls. The blast wave flung Rev into the wall, knocking the breath out of him. Shrapnel pinged around him, scoring his exposed skin. He dropped another few meters and jerked to a stop.
The wall had absorbed most of his momentum, and still dazed, he slowly swung back out, now only twenty meters above the ground. There wasn’t much left of the riever, but even less of the paladin. He raised his head to look at where it had been hiding, seemingly invisible. He still couldn’t believe that it had been able to cling there. And more than that, why, when Rev had shot it, had it fallen all the way to the ground? The damn things could fly.
But he wasn’t going to complain. The Centaurs had picked a good spot, perfect for a trap. Because it was obvious now that it was a trap. The riever was the bait, the paladin the deal closer.
But who was the trap for? The riever had killed the tank, not the paladin. Were they waiting for more tanks? For mech? Or were they possibly waiting for something else, a new threat, like an IBHU Marine?
He sure didn’t know the answer to that, especially dangling like a pinata, waiting for someone to take the stick to him.
“Rev, are you OK?” Tomiko shouted from above.
He looked up and saw her worried face peeking over the boulder.
“What the hell happened?”
“I’ll tell you later. But for right now, can you just pull me up?”