Junebug ignored the babbling prisoner as she poked around the camp until she found what she was looking for. Uncermoniously she turned her back to the men, stripped off her shirt and upended a 40 gallon canteen of water over her body, allowing the tepid water to sluice away the worst of the blood and vicera from the earlier encounter with the local wildlife. She let it gush down over her hair and body for long moment before taking a few mouthfuls to cleanse the ozone taste of EM discharge from her mouth. Feeling significantly better she toweled herself off with a mostly clean blanket and then slipped on a spare shirt that had been drying on an improvised clothes hoist made of optic fiber cabling, her camo pants were still soaking wet but the tropical heat would dry them sooner or later.

"Sure," she said contemptuously as she finished pulling on the shirt and walked towards the two men. The sleeveless shirt more completely displayed the owl tattoo on her shoulder than the exercise shirt she had started the day with. As she walked she slipped into her armor and started fastening the catches. The intergeral unit informed her that that the drug the rebels had accidentally injected into her was a cortisol plasminogen cocktail for burns. No sweat, at least she didnt have to worry about crashing.

"And this is the part where we go along with your cunning plan and then you bolt and ditch us in the jungle. Do you take us for idiots?" Sayeeda sneered. She tossed the pistol into the woods as she settled her sub machine gun into place. Drake's mouth worked like a landed fish for a moment.

"No no no, nothing like that," he bleated, "I swear I'm on the level!"

"Said every con man ever," Junebug rejoined, reaching into her pocket and drawing out a needle stunner. Drake yelped again when he saw the weapon and tried to put the tree between himself and the mercenary.

"Look it's worth big bucks to the Terrans I swear big money!" Sayeeda paused and cocked an eyebrow. What in the Goddess' name did the Terrans have to do with anything. Still the very fact that he made the statement gave some validity to Drake's claim though. He could still be bullshiting of course but that seemed a level of bullshit too good for the man.

"Are you working for the Terrans then?" she asked, lowering the stunner despite her own better judgement. Drake emerged from behind his tree though he still held his hands up defensively infront of him and maintained a half crouch. Junebug wondered why he thought that would help.

"Yes. No. Listen I was going to set up an auction once I knew that the Earth Heads were interested in it, nothing final yet."

"Uh huh," Sayeeda said skeptically. She cast a glance at Neil, predictably he looked like an eager puppy about to be taken for a walk. It woudn't cost them anything to check out Drake's story they were somewhat ahead of schedule... Sayeeda stiffened suddenly as something changed in the ambient noise around them. Judging from their puzzled looks neither Neil nor Drake had heard it yet. Drake opened his mouth but she raized the stunner again and he fell silent. She held up a hand for quiet.

"Fuck," she said and shoved the stunner into her pocket. In a singal motion she drew a knife from her belt and cut Drake's bonds. The man squealed as though she intended to cut him and then staggered as she shoved him down the hill towards the narrow creek bed at the base of the slight rise.

"Go go go!" she yelled and grabbed Neil and gave im a similar shrug. Both men must have thought she was insane but the started moving which was the important thing.

"Incoming!" she yelled as she ran past them down into the creekbed. Instinctively she turned inland away from the distant keen of oncoming engines, now faintly audible even to those who hadn't spent years in situations where your life depended on recognizing the sound. They raced along the rocky bed of the creek, making far better time than the would in the open jungle. A few moments later a supersonic aircraft tore the sky overhead. It was too fast for Sayeeda's naked eyes to identify it but her helmet video caught a few instants of it and identified it at 98% certainty as a Terran Karlov Class Dropship. According to the scematic the Karlov was a low altitude insertion vehicle for commando units.

Sayeeda dropped back to run beside Drake. He wasn't as fit as she was but he was certainly motivated to move.

"Anything else about the Terran's you want to to tell us before I kill you, you son of a bitch? Like maybe why they are sending commandoes out after you?" she rasped.

[@POOHEAD189]