AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Drift rose to his booted feet. “I’m exiting the ship.” He swept his hands over his body armor. All the holsters and sheaths built into that protective garment were filled with weapons.
“I’ll accompany you.” Cure did the same. The male might be a medic now, but they had all been trained for missions like the one they were currently on.
The two of them moved toward the exterior doors.
Drift performed another lifeform scan.
No beings were detected.
He drew a gun with one hand and opened the doors with the other.
The ramp lowered. A blast of dry, hot air hit his face.
“Oxygen levels are within human range.” Cure verified his reading. “The air is compatible with human life.”
The Humanoid Alliance could have made Cancri B their base.
Those enemy forces were all human.
Drift swung his weapon from the left to the right and back again as he walked slowly down the ramp. His visual system spotted no movement other than the sand shifting on the rock-covered ground.
They reached that surface.
Cure crouched beside Drift. He pointed his handheld at the stone by their booted feet.
“Let me make a projection.” Drift kept watch. “The rock blocks lifeform scans.”
“That hasn’t yet been determined.” Cure covered his hand with a layer of sand.
Drift ran a lifeform scan. “I detect one cyborg male with your dimensions. Minus one hand.”
“My scans relay the same results.” The medic tossed the sand back onto the ground. He straightened. “The stone and the sand block lifeform scans.”
Drift looked around them. Mountains loomed to the right of them. Sand dunes stretched in the other direction. “We’re surrounded by stone and sand.”
“My contact could be situated under our booted feet.” Cure stared down at his footwear.
A wayward medic wasn’t Drift’s concern.
“The Humanoid Alliance could be situated under our booted feet.” Drift shifted his weight from his left side to his right. That prospect made him extremely uneasy. “They could have fabricated a massive compound underneath the ground, and we wouldn’t process it.”
That wouldn’t be unusual for their enemy. Some of the Humanoid Alliance’s laboratories on other planets had been fabricated below surface level.
“They would have attacked us by now.” Cure dismissed that possibility. “And my contact wouldn’t have suggested this location if the Humanoid Alliance were situated here. He wouldn’t put the Rayan Skin Restorer at risk.”
Drift’s lips twitched. “You might have been manufactured in a vat, Cure—” As all of them, excluding the freeborn cyborgs, had been. “—but you are one of a kind. It’s a privilege to undertake a mission with you.”
Cure looked at him.
Drift gazed blankly back.
“I project your comments aren’t serious, but I don’t process what the joke is.” Cure shrugged. “We should unpack the supplies and the equipment. My contact is due to meet with me within 811 heartbeats.”
That contact would provide more information about where the Humanoid Alliance was situated on the planet.
Drift could wait for those answers.
He opened the cargo hold, and they began unloading the designated supplies.
