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“Is there an evacuation tunnel?” he asked

“They told us to stay here,” the teacher said

“I’ht was I have to find Mei

Chapter Four: Bobbie

Consciousness returned as an angry buzzing noise and pain Bobbie blinked once, trying to clear her head, trying to see where she was Her vision wassound resolved into an alarhts flashed in her face as the suit’s HUD sent her data she couldn’t read It was in theon one by one She tried to h weak, she wasn’t paralyzed or frozen in place The iel in her suit had returned to a liquid state

Soht that was her hel in and out of view Then a click as soed a hardline into her suit’s external port A corps her injury data

A voice, , in her suit’s internal speakers said, “Gotcha, Gunny We gotcha Gonna be okay Gonna be all right Just hang in there”

He hadn’t quite finished saying there when she blacked out again

She woke bouncing down a long white tunnel on a stretcher She wasn’t wearing her suit anymore Bobbie was afraid that the battlefieldher out of it the normal way, that they’d just hit the override that blew all the seaet a wounded soldier out of four hundred kilos of armored exoskeleton, but the suit was destroyed in the process Bobbie felt a pang of remorse for the loss of her faithful old suit

A moment later, she remembered that her entire platoon had been ripped to pieces before her eyes, and her sadness about the lost suit see

A hard bu up her spine and hurled her back into darkness

“Sergeant Draper,” a voice said

Bobbie tried to open her eyes and found it ihed a thousand kilos, and even the attempt left her exhausted So she tried to answer the voice and was surprised and a little ashamed of the drunken mumble that came out instead

“She’s conscious, but just barely,” the voice said It was a deep, mellow male voice It seemed filled armth and concern Bobbie hoped that the voice would keep talking until she fell back asleep

A second voice, fe her fully awake right now is dangerous”

The kind voice said, “I don’t care if it kills her, Doctor I need to speak to this soldier, and I need to do it now So you give her whatever you need to give her tothe words the nice voice said, just the kindly, warood to have someone like that to take care of you She started to fall back asleep, the co blackness a welcome friend