Armor Read Online Free PDF

jerked as though electrocuted, throwing himself back and away. But Connection was made and her face stayed close to his, wide and screaming. He gagged and panted and, for just a moment, could not move.
    Until at last he, too, screamed, a hoarse sound. “Shut up!”
    She shut up. He paused, took a deep breath, and hit the stasis key. In seconds the helmet was, except for a fading odor, clean. He looked at the girl again, who was just then seeming to realize what he was.
    “You . . . you’re a man?” she asked timidly, like a small child.
    “Yes,” he replied, nodding.
    “I thought you were. ...”
    “I know.”
    “You’re a man,” she repeated. “You’re human.”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re not the ants again.”
    “No.”
    “I thought you were …” she whispered and her eyes flared with growing hysteria.
    “I’m Felix,” he said quickly, trying to disrupt the momentum of her panic. “Scout, A-team Two.”
    Her calm firmed somewhat as she focused on this information.
    “I’m Taira. Warrior. A-team. . . . You said A-team Two?
    You’re A-team Two?”
    “I am,” he replied impassively.
    “Oh, thank God, thank God! We drought. . . . I thought I was . . . alone! A-team One is… is….”
    “Hit your tranq key,” he said quickly.
    “. . . they’re all dead! All! The ants were . . . Oh, God!!”
    He growled. “Hit your tranq!”
    “Hub? What?”
    “Key your tranq! Now!”
    She blinked uncertainly, obeyed from instinct. From just above. her elbow a tiny stream of compressed air shot against her skin, opening a pore and injecting the drug. Felix watched her pupils swell and contract as the tranq took effect. Taira blinked again, shook her head, blinked once more. Slowly, she pulled herself together.
    “How many made it?” she wanted to know.
    Felix ignored her. “Are you able to move?”
    “No,” she replied brusquely, businesslike at last. “My legs are broken.”
    Judging from her contorted posture, he could well believe it. “I suppose I could carry you,” he mused aloud. “How many are. . . . What’s your name?”
    “Felix. What’s your power level?”
    “Uh . . . 84 percent. Pretty low.”
    He laughed dryly, felt the disgust welling.
    “Okay,” he said. “Key your painers. It’ll be a rough ride and….”
    “Felix,” she said slowly, her voice now as cold as his.
    “You’re alone, aren’t you?”
    He met her gaze. He nodded. She stared a moment, then closed her eyes. She sighed loudly.
    “Two hundred and four people,” she whispered to herself.
    She opened her eyes. “Two left.”
    He said nothing. His eyes were blank.
    “And you’ll carry me?” she asked with more than a trace of bitterness.
    “I’ll carry you,” he replied in an even colder tone that told her she was right to think what she thought.
    She grimaced, taken aback. Then she relaxed. “All right, Felix,” she said wearily. “I’ll be all right here. Just g. ...” “Freeze!” he barked suddenly.
    “Oh, come now. Scout. I know what you think you .. .” “Freeze!” he snapped again, looking past her down the canyon. “Ants!”
    Just around the corner of her helmet, he could see the four ants coming back into the canyon. He was in a lousy position to see anything, but he was afraid to attract their attention by drifting. He settled for severing Connection, a slight movement. “Don’t move,” he said. “They’ll come right by us.”
    “I can’t move,” she replied softly. “Where are they now?” “Shut up!” he ordered bluntly, watching them shuffle across the hard packed sand. The one with the blaster was trailing behind, he noted.
    “Are they close? Do they see us?”
    “Shut up!” he snarled.
    “Tell me!”
    Her tone of fear and pleading got through. He looked at her. His eyes relaxed a bit. He looked back to the ants. “They’re coming right past us. You’ll probably see ‘em when they go by. My view is bad. About twenty meters now….”
    ‘How many are . . . ?”
    “Four. Quiet. About fifteen meters, ten. The last one’s back a ways. It’s got a blaster. They’re not looking at us.
    Five meters .