Girl Gone Nova Read Online Free PDF Page A

inner guide. Earth people called it a conscience, or sometimes, the voice in their heads.
    “Can something that big be transported? And where would they put it?” The Earth engineer didn’t look at the woman, just continued to study the problem as if she were a voice in his head.
    The other man was asking someone at the other end of the radio those same questions.
    “Not into space,” she said. “Don’t want to litter an ally’s orbit. See if they can find a large area dirt side, one without life signs or structures.”
    And then she turned, as if the problem no longer concerned her, her light playing across the ground. That light started to track his direction when there was yet another interruption.
    Two more figures approached, their light falling on her like a blessing. It was Morticia. She was covered with blast dust and there were black marks, and streaks that might have been blood, on her face. He couldn’t tell if it was hers. Despite her general disarray, she projected an aura of calm competence, and no hint of that lethal quality that had caught his interest. This woman had many facets to her, like a rare gemstone.
    “Corporal?” She lit them up with her light, but avoided hitting them in the eyes. “Is there a problem?”
    “She said she wants to help.”
    It was one of the female servers. Hel frowned. Why would a server be offering to help?
    “Are you trained in healing?”
    Part of him was surprised Morticia knew the right terminology, the rest of him wanted to provide the answer. Of course this girl wasn’t trained to heal.
    The young woman’s chin lifted, as if the question puzzled her. For the space of several breaths the two women stared at each other.
    Morticia smiled.
    And hit the girl in the chin with her fist.
    * * * * *
    The young corporal managed to catch the server, despite his shock.
    “Ma’am?”
    Doc pulled up her pant leg and extracted a knife from a holster strapped to her lower leg. “Lower her to the floor.”
    Her tone of command had the desired effect on her unwilling assistant, and he did as he was told. Doc knelt next to her and slid the knife under the edge of the girl’s top, cutting it open in a quick, fluid motion. She pushed back the sides and the corporal inhaled sharply.
    “Son of a bitch. I’ll call EOD—”
    Doc studied the timer on the bomb as her brain kicked into a predictable kaleidoscope of higher gears. Despite the surge of data, there was a precision to it, as if her brain were a Swiss clock on steroids. EOD—Explosive Ordinance Detail—wouldn’t make it. She had maybe a minute to defuse it. The good news, a “Doc minute” was more than enough.
    “Shine your light on that for me while you make that call.”
    The corporal did as directed, directing his beam on the woman’s chest. “How did you know?”
    “Know?” Her tone was absent as she studied the pattern of wires and explosives. It felt like time elongated and slowed, though she knew it wasn’t possible.
    “That she was wired.”
    “It was a woman who set off the first bomb. The insurgents in Iraq used to do that, wait for help to arrive, then send in round two.” In the shifting patterns in her mind, the right one came to the front.
    “Oh.” Silence. “But how did you know ?”
    “Her eyes were totally dead. She was probably a Dusan ‘companion’ prior to the war. They were programmed to do anything they’re told.” Her mind tried to jump on the distraction and take her into this unhappy place, but it was easy to resist with the timer ticking down to the Gadi equivalent of zero. She felt no fear. One had to dread death to fear it.
    “Even to blow herself up?” The young soldier sounded shocked.
    “They probably didn’t tell her that part.” Doc’s tone was dry. What she found even more disturbing than using these women—captured when the Dusan invaded their worlds and turned into slaves—as tools. Their C-4 was wired into the bomb. Like secondary explosions, questions