by S. L. Viehl
I looked at the helm display, and saw in horror that the Captain had harnessed himself to the seat. He was still guiding the launch, though his body was spasming violently.
Gravity was gone. My body floated weightless above the launch deck. When I turned my head, I saw Reever was holding on to me. He was the one who had pulled me back. Where there had just been a twenty-foot section of hull was now a jagged-edge hole. Through it, I saw the looming profile of the Sunlace.
Were we going to make it?
The launch careened against the bay portal, then slid over the threshold, skidding over the Sunlace’s deck. Gravity reinstated itself and I fell, hard.
Reever held me up. I had my breather off and was at the helm in another heartbeat.
Pnor had managed to guide us in just before decompression burst his lungs. Green blood streamed from every orifice. His hands were still clenched over the controls.
The Captain was dead.
There was no time to grieve, the ship was still under attack. Xonea had taken over command, operating from level twenty-one. He took the news about Pnor without a blink. I didn’t have time to wait for a reaction, or find out why my confined-to-quarters ClanBrother was suddenly running the ship. After a quick scan to assure the sojourn team had suffered no ill-effects, I ran to Medical.
The bay was in a state of controlled bedlam. I found Squilyp, who stopped shouting out orders long enough to report.
“Casualties are coming in from all decks. They’re not being particular about where they hit us this time. We should be transitioning right about—”
Reality twisted. We both found ourselves, along with a number of nurses, on the deck.
“—now,” he said, and groaned.
“We better step up the practice drills,” I said, and pushed myself up on my elbows.
“There is blood on your face.” The Omorr nodded at my cheek.
The burn from the rifle blast had split open when I’d tried to get to Pnor. I swiped at it with my tunic sleeve. “Remind me to make you go on the next sojourn.”
“Your team arrived without incident?”
“We made it. All but the Captain.” My raw voice earned me a grimace of sympathy. “Come on.” I helped him up. “How many have been brought in so far?”
“Twenty. There will be more.” He indicated the serious cases that were separated from the minor injuries. “These four first.” He grabbed my arm when I would have started for them. “One of them wants to die, Senior Healer.”
Not on my ward. “Keep the nurses out of there for now.”
Two of the four required surgery at once. I shouted for the teams to prepare and scanned the other two. They could wait. I sedated them and went to the first surgical patient.
Squilyp told me a feedback had created an explosion in the huge banks of tech that ran the ship’s automatic functions. The data programmer’s face and arms were horribly burned, and she had massive respiratory damage.
“This is Healer Cherijo,” I said as I bent close to her ravaged face. “We’re going to take you into surgery. Don’t be afraid, we’re going to help you. Blink once if you understand.”
She blinked her scalded eyelids once. I administered sedation, then moved to the next patient.
He was groaning miserably. A terrible gash across his torso revealed half his internal organs. White eyes opened when I touched him.
“My . . . Speaker . . .”
“Is busy fighting mercenaries,” I said. So this was the one who wanted to die. “What is your name, ClanCousin?”
“Yetlo . . .”
“Yetlo, I’m going to take care of you. You are not going to embrace so much as an optic light today. Got it?”
“My . . . right . . .”
“I have decided to render my assistance,” a familiar voice said from behind me.
I closed my eyes briefly. “One second, Yetlo.” I straightened and turned. “Get out of my Medical Bay. Now.”
Rogan stood there, cleaner than I’d ever seen him. Not that it made a big improvement.
“You need help. Your resident can’t keep up with the injured.”
“The day I consider you help, Rogan, tell them to shoot me into a star, all right? Leave.”
“Doctor.” Squilyp joined Rogan. “We could use the hands.”
I eyed the Omorr. “Fine,” I said. “Then he’s your responsibility. He does not assess patients. Let him suture and dress wounds. Keep a nurse on him while you’re in surgery to make sure he doesn’t screw that up.”
Rogan didn’t like that, and opened his four lips to tell me so. The Omorr grabbed him and pulled him away.
“Thank you, Senior Healer,” Squilyp called out over Rogan’s protests.
“You’re not welcome,” I called back. I bent to Yetlo again. “As you can see, I have enough problems without you wanting to die on me, ClanCousin. What do you say?”
He looked stubborn. “I . . . want . . . my . . . Spe—” His head lolled to one side as he lost consciousness.
“Oops.” Had I accidentally administered the sedation before he could tell me what he wanted? It seemed I had. What a shame. Perhaps Yetlo had been asking for a speech therapist. A nurse appeared beside me, already geared for surgery. “Prep him.”
“He asked for Eternity, Senior Healer.”
Another one. I drew myself up to my full height and did an imitation of Joseph Grey Veil.
“He didn’t ask me, nurse. Prep him, now.”
While I was scrubbing, Xonea sent an emergency signal to Medical and had one of the residents pull me out of prep. I trotted over to the display, already scowling. The strong, glowering face staring back at me didn’t improve my mood.
“What?”
“Status report,” Xonea said. I gave him a brief outline of the casualties and indicated I was going into surgery. “Your hands?”
“I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t so sure, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Next time you want status, talk to one of the nurses.”
“I wanted to see you were unharmed.” He smiled briefly. “Command out.”
Surgery was a bit crowded. Squilyp and I operated simultaneously on the two critical patients, our tables side by side. We shared the scrub team between us, enabling more staffers to deal with the overcrowded ward outside.
I had to repair fissures in Yetlo’s chest cavity and clean up shards from a half dozen broken ribs. After a quick scan, I found a sizeable bone shard lodged in the wall of his heart. This was not my lucky day.
“How are you doing?” I said to the Omorr.
“I’ve performed a lobectomy where her alveoli were scorched,” he replied. “Her bronchus on the remaining side is compromised in three areas. The tracheostomy tube will have to be permanent.”
“Trach’s gone?”
“What’s left isn’t viable.”
“Preserve tissue samples. We’ll clone the fibrous and muscle tissue the same way we did those Furinac stomachs.” I swore under my breath as I visually located the bone shard. As it was now, there was only a vestige of cardiac hemorrhaging. Removing it would be like taking a cork from a bottle. “Yetlo, you are really beginning to aggravate me.”
Squilyp’s dark eyes looked up over his mask at me. “Heart?”
“Yeah. He’s got a chunk of rib bone stuck in the right ventricle. I yank it out, he’s going to rupture on me.” I straightened and let the nurse blot the sweat from my eyes. “We’re looking at another four hours here with the open-heart procedure.” I turned and gave the team instructions to begin cooling Yetlo down. Once we put him on the heart/lung supplanter, I could work on the damaged ventricle.
“I can cover the ward,” the Omorr said.
“I’m not worried about that.” I flexed my hands painfully. “You may have to take over cutting for me.”
Squilyp stared at my hands. “Can you leave your patient for a minute?”
“Yeah.” I had finished repairing the damage internally, all but the heart. “Start reduc
ing body temperature,” I said to the scrub nurse, and stepped around the table.
The Omorr gave orders to the assistant beside him. She began suctioning blood from his patient’s chest cavity. My eyebrows elevated when he stripped off his gloves and hopped over to me.
“Did I accidentally challenge you to a fight again, or something?” I asked.
“No.” He looked amused. “Give me your hands.”
I held up my bloody gloves. “My hands?”
“Yes. Remove the gloves first.”
Puzzled, I did as he asked. His membranes took hold of my fingers. His flesh felt odd, almost hot as he touched me.
“Uh, Squilyp? What’s going on?” I could see me making some kind of accidental betrothal here. I seemed to be an expert at that.
“Close your eyes. I’m going to heal you.”
I scoffed out some air. “In your dreams.”
“I mean it.” He sounded peeved. “You know my people practice touch healing. Close your eyes.”
Reluctantly I shut my eyelids. His touch was growing uncomfortably hot now. “This hurts,” I said. “Don’t you think I have enough problems?”
“Shut up.” He said something my vocollar didn’t translate. “Visualize your hands as they were before the injuries. Remember what you could do with them.”
I pictured myself performing surgery on Hado Torin. Then my fingers had flown so fast I’d extracted and replaced a cardiac valve in less than three minutes.
“Yes. There is the power. I can sense it,” he murmured. I peeked through my lashes. His gildrells flared, and made snakelike undulations. “I enable you with your power.”
“Squilyp—”
“Believe.”
The word seemed to echo in my chest. Believe. Believe.
Okay. I believed. Only my hands were burning again. I sucked in a quick, sharp breath, and squeezed my eyes shut.
“The pain is the healing,” he said. “Take the pain. Make it yours to command. Force it back where it came from.”
I concentrated. The scrub teams were whispering, distracting me. “Quiet, people.”
I saw my hands in Hado’s chest. Saw his heart being repaired. I could have that again. I had to have it.
The burning sensation faded. Neuropraxic tingling remained in its wake. The tingling became a warm, pleasant flush. Squilyp released me. We opened our eyes and stared at each other.
My hands should have been numb, so I looked down and shook them, then flexed my fingers in dumbfounded shock.
“It worked.” My head snapped up. “Squilyp, it worked!” To prove my claim, I reached over and picked up a clamp and twirled it through my fingers. The instrument became a smooth, blurred circle of movement.
He nodded and looked at his own membranes. “Belief is a power unto itself.”
“If that’s all it takes,” I said, grinning, “then why did we bother going to medtech?”
“Beliefs require faith. Certification boards do not.”
I laughed. Leaned over. Kissed him right smack on the gildrells. I never knew the Omorr could blush.
Thirty-six hours and ten operations later, I let the nurses chase me from Medical and stumbled down two levels to my quarters. My rooms were darkened when I opened the door panel. Cautiously I peeked in to see if Xonea had left a new gauntlet of obstacles for me to trip over.
Jenner padded over and gave me the once-over. Late again? He raised his chin to my tired fingers, and sniffed at me. There’s blood on your hands. Big blue eyes regarded me solemnly. Why don’t you ever bring home your kills for me to share?
I sat down in a chair, trying to work up enough ambition to head for the cleanser. A nerve in my neck twitched, and I rubbed my hand over it. Everything seemed fuzzy. I should have turned on the lights.
A low whisper startled me. “Cherijo?”
“No, it’s a half-ton Hsktskt killer. Got any weapons?” I was too weary to do more than stand and start peeling off my tunic. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
Twelve warm blue fingers were suddenly undressing me. Xonea didn’t adjust the lighting as he helped me out of my tunic.
“I can’t see anything,” I said as he dressed me in my favorite undershirt. Yawning became a chore.
Smooth lips gently touched my injured cheek as he placed me on the sleeping platform. His hands stroked down my back.
“I’m really tired,” I said, hoping that would be enough to convince him to leave me alone.
“I know, little one,” his low voice whispered. “I will do everything.”
Little one? Xonea never called me that. Suddenly a hand was between my thighs. The other on my breast. Hot breath scalded my face.
“No.” I struggled, and the caressing fingers became cruel and bruising. “No!”
A fist slammed into my face.
I was pitched out of the sleeping platform onto the floor. Everything went grey for a few seconds. I heard running steps. The door panel opened and closed. No, I couldn’t let him get away, I thought, and pushed myself up on my elbows. The door panel opened and closed again. The interior lights snapped on.
“Cherijo?” Xonea saw me on the floor. “Cherijo!”
When he reached for me, I cowered. Gentle hands carefully lifted me to my feet. That was when I realized I was shaking all over.
“Xonea.”
He pressed me against his chest, tucked me under his chin. Slowly he rocked me in his embrace. “You are safe, Cherijo. You are safe now.”
The only thing I could say I repeated, over and over. “I thought it was you. I thought it was you.”
No one challenged Xonea’s right to assume command of the Sunlace. Pnor’s ruling, I learned, became void at the moment of his death. Someone else would have to accuse Xonea of trying to kill me before he could be removed from command. No one did that, either. Apparently my Choosing Xonea had convinced the crew the whole banishment thing had been a mistake.
Since Xonea suspected the Furinac First Scion had betrayed our position to the League, our convoluted course to Joren was immediately altered and recharted. His first official act as Captain. His second was to schedule all Senior crew members for a strategy session. I was to report to the meeting as well.
Xonea told me about it as I was getting dressed for work.
“What about the murderer, and Rogan? What are you going to do about them?”
“Defense planning must take priority.”
I didn’t agree. “Xonea, you can’t ignore this problem and hope it’ll go away.”
“I will deal with it.”
I wasn’t going to pick a fight with him. “All right. But I don’t know why you need me to attend this meeting. Ship defense isn’t my area of expertise.”
“Your input will be valuable.”
“What input? All I can say is stuff like, ‘Don’t stand there bleeding when you get hit, report to Medical.’ ” I pulled my tunic straight and sat down at my vanity console to attack my snarled hair. “I’m not a combat veteran, like some people I know.”
“Stop. You are making it worse.” Xonea came up to stand behind me and took the brush from my fingers. “As Senior Healer, your presence is mandatory.”
I sighed and sat there as he patiently detangled my knots.
“What sort of strategy are we talking here?”
He chose his words carefully. “There is a main item to my agenda: our current response to the League threat. Pnor felt swift retreat alone was the appropriate response to these mercenary attacks.”
“And you don’t.”
“No. The Sunlace was commissioned by our HouseClan primarily for extended deep-space survey. The ship is not, however, defenseless. I will invite opinion on our current procedures, and propose changes.”
He might have sounded all Captainish saying that, but I knew what was behind the words. After all, the man had a warrior’s knot in his hair. Pnor, I suddenly recalled, had never worn one.
“Changes that include fighting back.”
“If the Senior crew members agree,” he said, “yes.”
“Hooray for democracy. I may have something to contribute to this meeting after all.” Such as how many more casualties we could expect if the Sunlace did return fire.
“Where and when are you having this meeting, so I can be sure to be late?”
“Tomorrow morning before your shift begins. You will not be late. I will escort you myself.”
“Gee, Captain, what’s next? Time drones?”
His lips quirked as he separated my now-smooth hair into three sections. “If necessary. You do seem to have an abhorrence to punctuality.”
“I have an abhorrence to a lot of things.” I shivered as the frightening assault replayed in my mind. “What are we going to do about last night?”
His eyes met mine in the mirror. “I will assure it does not happen again.”
“You can’t baby-sit me forever.”
“I will find the traitor,” he said. His hands skillfully wove the long black strands into a braided cable. A rather tight cable. “Until then, you will not be left alone.”
It was time to be blunt. I waited until he took his hands off my head. I liked my hair attached to my scalp. “Xonea, we need to access my memories.”
“You were drugged,” he said.
I bit my lip, then jumped in the rest of the way. “Reever was able to get to them once before. He can do it again—”
Xonea grabbed my braid and used it to pull my head back. Upside-down, he still looked furious. “No. I forbid you to do this.”
“You’re being unreasonable, Xonea. Reever—”
“No!” Xonea shouted. I found myself yanked out of the seat and spun around. “Duncan Reever did not Choose you. I did!”
So he was angry. He wasn’t alone. “Choice has nothing to do with this!”
A muscle in his jaw twitched as he glared down at me. “Stay away from him, Cherijo.” Dark rage transformed his features. Maybe becoming Captain made him think he could order me around. He needed a wake-up call.
“You don’t own me, Xonea.”
“You will do as you are told!”
“How many more people have to die before you do something?”
He flung me away from him. Not a shove. Not a push. I literally flew through the air, and landed on the sleeping platform ten feet away. What the hell was wrong with him? Getting the wind knocked out of me didn’t improve my mood. As soon as I could, I sat up to blast him.
