Armor>>Clover: That’s better than we’ve had in years. Even if the team cannot reach us, your communication has made our dishonorable end acceptable.
Clover>>Armor: You went down fighting. If we cannot retrieve you before we take the BlazeStar to meet up with the Rogues, I will send a team back for you. Please relay to those not yet in hibernation.
Armor>>Clover: The probability of you escaping is not 100%.
Clover>>Armor: Correct. But my message to the Rogues has been sent by Amp. They will retrieve you and others.
Armor>>Clover: That probability is not 100%.
Clover>>Armor: You don’t know Rogues. Neither do I, but Rogue CyberTitan Evo has assured me they only fail when they are betrayed. So they isolate themselves to ensure effectiveness. Only CyberGuardsare indestructible and succeed with missions no matter the situation.
Armor>>Clover: We have missed many years of upgrades to Brothers.
Clover>>Armor: We will catch you up when you are free. Team approaching your location.
I hear voices of others, Titan and human, but they’re muffled by the dirt in my ears. Only one eye remains above the surface, so I squint, blink to clear the dust, and scour the brown crust between a loose strand of dry grass and an iridescent green beetle toward a flashing light paired with the pops of distant gunfire. I cannot focus much through the mirage that ripples everything around me.
The team moves closer, but so do the sounds of Skysprinters racing overhead.
I send out a ping, a beacon, in case they need one.
Menace>>Armor: I am sorry, Brother. We are pinned down.
My hope crashes like the nearby ship that sends a faint shudder through the desert. Another Skysprinter quickly flies in to replace the last.
Fracture>>Armor: We will return when the threat of Solcrue fighters is resolved.
Armor>>Fracture: Understood.
It pains me to watch our hope of a chance at freedom and returning to service flee under Solcrue fire, but I can’t change what is beyond my control, which is basically everything right now.
Mace>>Armor: Rescue?
I rework my response because I do not want to break his hope or Firebolt’s.
Armor>>Local: Pending. Skysprinters overhead.
Mace>>Local: Damn.
But as the firefight moves away from us, something else comes closer. I see the shadow in the sand even though I cannot see what makes it. Something brushes the back of my head. Then again. It is gentle and cautious.
I catch a scent in the breeze. Sweat. Musk. Leather.Soap?
Human.
The shadow moves closer to me and lower to the ground. It crawls over the end of my half-buried left wing.
A small arm appears before my eye. On it is the tattoo of a mining camp from Earth Minor. It pulls into view the face of a female plastered with sweaty strands of ash-brown hair and blue eyes.
“Bet they were looking for you,” she whispers as she digs into the dirt, freeing it from the rest of my face.
I look to where she works, and she jolts in shock. “You’re alive?”
Meeting her gaze, I blink.Yes.It’s the only thing I can do until she frees my mouth.
She lurches forward, digging faster, frantically. The woman swipes the dirt from my other eye, and I can finally look at her with complete focus.
I have never seen such a beautiful sight in all my years of operation. A human is rescuing me, like the Creators once did. But this female stirs something deeper, a desire I did not know I could have for a human. Watching her curves sway and shift as she claws free a clump of dry dirt from my neck gives me daring thoughts of what I want to do to her if I break free.
But our meeting is cut short by a string of green bullets punching a line toward us from a Skysprinter.
I cannot let her die. It is my duty as much as I feel it in my core. She may be our only chance if Menace’s team doesn’t make it back.
I redirect all of my power to the wing most exposed. It is stiff and slow to respond, but I grit my teeth and pry it up from the desert floor with a loud crack.
She leans back and looks up at it in horror, like I’m going to hurt her. But I want the opposite. There’s no time to try to communicate. My arms are still stuck. My wing and my eyes are all I have. So I shield her with the last of my energy and hope she doesn’t give up on us.
