The false recruit sobbed again from the dark.
"Please. I can't move. My leg is pinned."
The voice bounced along the ravine walls, close enough to raise the hair under Caleb's helmet.
Jaxson shifted toward the edge of the ridge.
Caleb caught the back of his armor and drove him down against the stone before the veteran could lean far enough to silhouette himself.
"Bait," Caleb said.
Jaxson shoved at Caleb's forearm. "Get your hands off me."
"Then stop trying to die for a voice."
Mud moved at the far end of the bottleneck.
The Mimic lowered itself out of the shadow, its featureless dome pointed toward them like a helmet with no face. Four anchor legs planted into the gray growth. The machine had failed to pull them apart with the rescue cry, so it settled for force.
Caleb released Jaxson and dropped from the ridge.
"Hold the perimeter," he ordered over the squad link. "Hiro, freeze behind it. Iharu, flanks only. Rina, watch the dome."
