The Heart of Valor by Tanya Huff

Author:Tanya Huff [Huff, Tanya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2008-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

“YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?”

“Walk through the settlement to the power station.” Crouched in the lee of the rock, bootheels tucked up under her butt, Torin traced over the route with the point of her stick, gouging it a little deeper into the snow. “Confirm that a majority of the enemy is inside, place the charges where marked on the schematic I’ll download into your slate, and get back here as quickly as possible so that they can be detonated before the Others have the opportunity to reprogram the scenario.”

Dr. Sloan shook her head, smiling tightly. “You misunderstood the question, Gunnery Sergeant. I wasn’t asking for clarification, I was asking if you were insane. I’m not walking into that.” She gestured toward Dunstan Mills, outlines of the buildings barely visible behind a gently falling curtain of snow. “I’m not a soldier, I’m a doctor!”

“If you don’t do this, Dr. Sloan, you’ll have plenty of chances to practice your trade.” Torin straightened, never taking her eyes off the doctor. “In the time it would take us to crack this scenario, the Others will have their chance to take control of the drones.”

“Major . . .”

“Sorry, Doc.” Major Svensson frowned down at Torin’s sketch. “There may be a better way to do this, but we don’t have the time to think of it. We need a position we can fortify—and we need it now. The last thing we want is to be caught in the open between the drones from the settlement and any long-distance drones that might be on their way. If we had any more of those chips . . .”

“Fine.” Yanking off her mitten, she shoved her thumbnail up under the lower edge of the plastic square on her forehead. “You can have this one.”

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” the major said quietly after a moment, grabbing her wrists and pulling her hands down to her sides. “Remember, I told you it wouldn’t come off without a special solvent. You’ll be saving lives, Kathleen,” he added, sliding his grip down to her hands and wrapping his fingers around hers.

“You also told me that the drones in an operative scenario don’t shoot to kill, and you . . .” She freed a hand to point at Torin. “You told me this is an operative scenario. So why can’t we wait until morning?”

“For now this is an operative scenario,” Torin agreed. “The Others know we’re here—they turned it on. You need to destroy the drones before they can be reprogrammed to shoot to kill.”

“And we wouldn’t ask you if there was any other way,” Major Svensson assured her.

She stood for a long moment, the snow beginning to pile up on the bright blue shoulders of her jacket, then she sighed. “Do you guarantee the drones won’t notice me?”

“Just to be on the safe side, you’ll maintain comm silence, but that chip renders you invisible until the Others reprogram,” Torin told her. “After that, we can’t guarantee anything but a fight we might not win.

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