Survival Strategy (Battlegroup Vega Book 2) by Anders Raynor

Author:Anders Raynor [Raynor, Anders]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Muon Publishing
Published: 2019-10-24T22:00:00+00:00

19

Frozen hell

Riley palpated her chest. The hole in her body armor was alarmingly large. Her hand came out smeared with blood. She tried to get up, but a sharp pain exploded in her chest. She froze, trying to take regular, deep breaths. Even that hurt.

In the cockpit, only red lights flickered in the dark. The pilot’s body was a dark mass slumped over the control panel. The two marines who’d accompanied her didn’t survive the crash either.

Buried under tons of ice on some uninhabited planet. That’s not how I imagined my end.

Riley’s implants struggled to suppress the pain, which was a bad sign. She ordered her cerebral implant to display a full report on her condition. The report confirmed what she’d feared. A non-enhanced human would have died of such injuries within seconds. Even her bionics would probably fail to save her.

She remembered what Talia had taught her about first aid. Right. Grab medical kit, take a shot to stabilize vitals. No painkillers—I’m already saturated with them.

Easier said than done. She could barely move, and couldn’t reach the medical kit.

She lay on the floor in the dark, hoping the pain would subside and allow her at least some mobility. Memories of her short human life unfolded.

Any regrets? She asked herself. If there is such a thing as the afterlife, what will I regret the most? Chocolate?

A wistful smile played on her lips. She realized she smiled so rarely, and almost never laughed. Unlike Jason. He always had a smug smile at the corners of his lips, a mischievous spark in his eyes.

Jason. When I called you an immature, arrogant screwball and an adrenaline junkie, I meant it.

Still, she had to admit he was the one she would miss the most.

Her mind started to drift. The cabin progressively filled with bright, blurry images.

“…mander Lance? Can you hear me?” That voice sounded almost like Jason’s. “Riley, respond!”

“You’re not real,” she whispered. “Oh, I wish you were. I would’ve told you what I didn’t have the courage to tell you years ago.”

“Riley, is that you? Speak up…very faint.”

“When I told you I was a coward, I meant it. The truth is, I cared about you more than I had the courage to admit. You didn’t make it easy for me. I saw you as an arrogant, superficial playboy. But then I saw something else in you. Deep beneath the surface…”

“Hold on, Riley…almost there.”

The dropship’s bulkhead hissed. Riley thought this was another piece of equipment giving up the ghost.

She smiled. “Underneath, there’s another you. And that other you, I…” She swallowed hard. “See, I can’t say this, even now that I’m about to die. Die alone in my icy tomb. A fitting end for me. People always found me cold. Maybe they were right. Cold, insensitive. Obsessed with my military career, with following orders, reaching objectives, submitting mission reports… Now all that seems so far away… So meaningless…”

“Riley!” Jason’s blurry face emerged from the dark.

She thought that too was part of the hallucination.

“I wanted to tell you…” She didn’t have the strength to finish and lost consciousness.

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