by Rachel Clark
“Yes, sir,” Yavef said again. “The outer shield is almost up to thirty percent of full capacity already. I estimate another four minutes, eleven seconds to completion.”
Devlin shook his head slightly, smiling at Cooper as he said into the communicator, “Thanks, Yavef. Good work.” He glanced at the small arsenal Cooper was carrying. “Yavef, you and the others stay put. Cooper and I are going to track down and neutralize the other intruders.”
“Yes, sir.”
With barely a nod of agreement, Cooper and Devlin turned and headed in opposite directions.
* * * *
Avery’s hands shook, but she somehow managed to keep them pressed against the deep gash at the back of Ruth’s skull. She jumped again as more weapons’ fire hit the outer door to the kitchen area. Loud booming noises filled the room as Ruth’s attackers tried to get in.
“Ruth?” The woman didn’t even moan, but at least the blood seemed to have stopped flowing. Avery wanted to turn her, but wasn’t sure if she should. Her lack of knowledge scared her more than the men trying to get in. Fuck, anything she did could make Ruth’s condition worse.
“Ruth?” she repeated. “Come on, you old nag. Wake up and tell me what to do.” Avery held her breath, a big part of her hoping that the insult would miraculously wake the woman. Ruth had been there for her even before their rescue from slavers several years ago. Avery really could use her nagging advice about now.
“For fuck’s sake, Ruth. Wake up and tell me what the fuck it is I’m supposed to do.”
The banging got louder, the noise almost deafening in the small space.
Panicked now, Avery tried the communicator again but the damn thing seemed dead. No noise, no sound, no voice of any kind answered her desperate plea. Were she and Ruth the only ones left alive?
Avery glanced back at Ruth’s still form and almost collapsed when she realized the woman’s eyes were open. Thank God. She hurried back to her, and dropped to her knees, ready to launch into a rant the likes of which Ruth had heard a million times.
The woman looked seriously annoyed, the expression one that Avery had managed to put there often. But then she sighed and closed her eyes.
“Ruth? Don’t do this. Don’t leave me. I know I’m not much of a substitute daughter, but I’ll try harder. I’m sorry. Just give me another chance.” A sob tore from Avery’s throat, her vision blurring as tears fell unheeded.
Anger began to burn through the grief, boiling rage at the men who’d done this to the only person who’d ever given her a chance. The banging continued, the metal shrieking eerily as it was pried apart. Stone-cold hatred filled her heart. They did this. They would pay for hurting Ruth. Murderous fury stole through her, an icy anger that stilled her hands and cleared her vision.
She’d do this one last thing. To hell with everything else.
* * * *
Only one name pounded through Del’s brain. Avery. They’d been friends for years, but whether or not she understood it, she held his heart and he couldn’t even contemplate life without her. He forced himself to focus, grasping his stun gun in the same grip Devlin had drilled into him time and time again.
Calm, focus, control. He needed all of them and he called on every skill that Devlin, Kam, and Cooper had ever taught him. Tee-ani’s lessons also rose to the fore. Assess, act, react.
He followed the noise to the kitchen area, managing to glance around the corner without being seen. What he saw terrified him. Everything he’d ever learned, everything he’d ever been taught flew out the airlock when he saw Avery charge toward two intruders. She attacked, two massive kitchen knives held in front of her like battering rams. She screamed her hatred and lunged toward them even as they laughed and raised their weapons at her.
Del stepped around the corner, stunned the guy closest to him, and then turned to the second one just as Avery drove both knives straight into his gut. Her screech sounded inhuman, animalistic. Final.
Del stunned the guy, moving quickly to Avery’s side.
Her hands were still wrapped around the blades, her face and chest covered in blood. She shook, still screaming abuse, her anger raw, her hatred obvious.
“Avery.” He said her name quietly, trying not to startle her. “Avery,” he demanded more forcefully when she didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes darted briefly in his direction and then back at the man who now lay underneath her.
“Avery, where’s Ruth?”
She didn’t seem to comprehend, her eyes darting between Del and the face of the man she’d attacked.
“Avery,” Del asked in deep, soothing tones, “where’s Ruth?”
“Kitchen,” she answered in a monotone voice. “Don’t let her die.”
Del rushed past her to check on Ruth, relieved to find the woman breathing. She was still unconscious, so he quickly used his portable medical scanner to check for other injuries before trying to wake her. She was sitting up by the time he headed back into the other room to check on their intruders.
Avery still sat on top of the man she’d attacked, still held her hands in a death grip around the knife handles, still watched the man’s face like he might get up any moment.
“Avery?” She flinched but didn’t move. “Avery, you need to move. He needs medical attention.”
“No,” she growled, the words deep, the anger palpable.
“Avery, he can’t hurt you now. Just let me tend his wounds so that he doesn’t die.”
“He should die. He killed Ruth.”
“He didn’t. Ruth is going to be okay,” he said quietly.
“He would have killed her.”
Del couldn’t argue with her assessment. There was no doubt in his mind that their intruders were here to kill everyone on the ship. “Avery, you need to listen to me. Yes, he’s a killer and he probably deserves to die, but, sweetheart, you’re not a murderer. Don’t do this, Avery. Let me save him.”
“No.” She said it so quietly he almost didn’t hear the word. Terror filled him, and at that very moment he realized that he was at risk of losing the woman he loved. Even if she survived this day, she was never going to be the same.
“Avery!” he said sharply. “Move away…now!”
He could barely breathe. She looked so determined, but after a moment she exhaled heavily and moved off the prone man. She walked away. Del took a moment to make sure she was heading back into the kitchen and not going after another intruder before he dropped to his knees and began repairing the man’s injuries. Two deep knife wounds had done quite a bit of damage, but Del managed to repair all of the internal injuries with the equipment he’d brought with him. He sedated both men just in case the stun shots wore off and then headed back into the kitchen.
“Avery, we need to go. Help me with Ruth.”
“But—” she said, sounding very lost.
“No buts,” he said sternly, holding his hand out to her. “Now.” She grabbed his hand and allowed him to pull her to him for a brief hug. She shook in his arms as reaction set in. “Stay with me, Avery,” he said, rubbing the cold skin of her hands before turning to lift Ruth into his arms. Ruth looked very pale, but even she must have realized the change in the younger woman because she reached for Avery’s hand and held on tight. But as they headed down the corridor, Avery’s lifeless stare scared him more than anything.
The medical bay stood silent, quiet, seemingly deserted.
Del carried Ruth and Ruth dragged Avery through the electronic mirror curtain. But a fraction of a second later Del almost wished they hadn’t.
Frantically, Sarah worked on a patient with severe burns who seemed to be in cardiac arrest. Several other patients lay on beds, burned, moaning, distressed. Others milled about less injured or trying to help. Somehow he didn’t recognize any of them.
Darting his eyes around the room, Del took a deep breath and prayed for that medical distance Tee-ani had taken pains to teach him.
“Avery,” he said, turning to her. He had to lift her chin wit
h his hand to get her to make eye contact. “Avery, stay with Bae. She’s having her baby in the middle of all this mess,” he said, trying to sound jovial rather than terrified and overwhelmed. “So I need you and Ruth to stay with her while I check the other patients.”
Bae seemed to understand the situation better than Avery did because she grabbed Avery’s hand and dragged her to the chair in the corner. Del lowered Ruth onto a chair beside them. They had so many patients behind the curtain that the woman with a concussion and the one in labor didn’t even have beds. Shaking his head in frustration, Del quickly moved to triage the unattended patients and ran straight into a large G’trobian.
“Trey?” Del asked in confusion. Last he’d heard, Ben, Trey, and Tee-ani hadn’t yet made it back to the ship. Hope swelled through him when he realized that probably meant Tee-ani was on the ship dealing with patients right now.
But the feeling fled when he looked at the face of the badly injured patient in front of him and saw Tee-ani. She was a mess. Most of her right side was badly burned, the skin swelling even as Del did a quick visual assessment.
“How?” he asked Trey as he grabbed the medical equipment and started dealing with Tee-ani’s multiple injuries. If he could heal the skin before it swelled too much, she had a chance to recover more quickly. The medical bed scanned her internal organs even as he healed the external damage. The report wasn’t good.
“How?” he asked again.
“Suicide bomber,” Trey mumbled. “Blew herself up as soon as she blew our cover.”
“The attack on the ship?” Del managed to ask as he continued to use precious medical resources to save Tee-ani’s life.
“Keytark definitely knows we’re not slavers now.” He said it so simply, but it meant that more than four cycles of undercover work to try and stop the slave trade in this area now lay in ruins.
“Trey,” Tee-ani managed to say once Del healed the burns to the side of her face. A lot of her hair had been singed away, but Del managed to heal the area without any scarring, so he felt confident that it would grow back.
“I’m here, Tee,” Trey said as he gripped her hand and brushed burned hair away from her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said on a sob. “I shouldn’t have blown our cover.”
“No, g’bani. This isn’t your fault. She was injured. You had no way of knowing she was going to do that. Please, g’bani, please just let Del heal you and then I promise Ben and I are going to spend a long time just holding you.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling slightly. She was obviously still in a great deal of pain, even with most of her skin healed. Del turned to speak softly to Trey.
“Trey, I have to operate, but I need to wait for Sarah.”
Trey nodded, glancing over his shoulder where Sarah was still trying to resuscitate the woman lying on the bed. Sarah glanced over in time to see his face.
“Talk to me, Del,” Sarah yelled over her shoulder. “Does she need surgery?”
Del glanced at all the people listening and then realized that Tee-ani’s obsession with doctor-patient confidentiality would just have to go hang. The situation was crazy enough without trying to whisper information.
“Yes,” he said, trying to sound confident instead of scared.
“Okay,” Sarah said, still facing her patient. “Prep her. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Del set about doing what needed to be done, glancing at Avery, Ruth, and G’baena only once.
Chapter Two
Avery looked down at her hand held firmly in G’baena’s grip and wondered why it seemed to have been dyed a deep purple-red. She flexed her fingers, uncertain why they would feel so stiff.
“Avery,” G’baena said quietly as she shifted in her seat, “why don’t you get cleaned up?”
Avery tilted her head to see down the front of her clothes, a strange sort of feeling fogging her brain.
“H–How did I get so dirty?”
“I don’t know, honey,” G’baena said, groaning the last word. Avery frowned at G’baena as the woman seemed to suffer more and more from pain. She panted, gasping for breath as the agony seemed to intensify. Comprehension finally dawned on Avery but was quickly followed by near panic. Dread flooded through her as G’baena grasped her hand tighter.
“Avery,” she pleaded on a quiet breath.
“No. No,” Avery said, shaking her head and trying to dislodge her hand. “No! I can’t do this. You’re having a baby. You need a doctor.”
“They’re busy. Avery, I need you to just sit with me. Just stay beside me so I’m not alone.”
“Ruth…” she began to say but realized that the woman had lost consciousness once more. Avery sat there as terror filled her. She’d spent her entire life screwing up. How the hell could she be trusted to watch over an injured woman and possibly deliver a baby?
* * * *
An agonized screech came from somewhere down the corridor.
Del looked up just as Avery bolted from the medical bay and toward the sound. He moved to follow but stopped suddenly. He couldn’t leave his patient. He couldn’t leave Tee-ani in the middle of surgery. Even if Sarah could do the surgery by herself, he needed to be on hand in case anything went wrong. He couldn’t leave.
“Avery,” he called, trying to get the woman’s attention.
“Trey,” Sarah said in a tone of voice he’d never heard before. Trey glanced at Tee-ani, back at Sarah, and then to him.
“I’ll help her,” he said as he turned and left quickly.
Swallowing hard, Del tried desperately to set aside everything else and concentrate on his patient. Tee-ani needed his skills, everything that she’d taught him, and he couldn’t let her down.
* * * *
Cooper found three more intruders on his way back to engineering. Fortunately, he’d managed to stun them before they’d been able to shoot back.
He cursed a blue streak when his override code to get into engineering failed to work. He tried again, certain he’d entered the correct sequence, but willing to allow for the stress of the moment. When it failed again, fear for the crew streaked through him. If the enemy had control of engineering, the fight was very literally over. He tried to not think about what could be happening to Avery and Del at this very moment. Losing them would paralyze him, so he needed to bury the fear and stay focused.
Breaking emergency protocol, Cooper risked contacting the two engineers he’d left guarding that section. If there was no answer, he fully intended to blow the door wide open. He patted his pocket, checking that he still had the small amount of explosive that they hadn’t used to blow the attached ship into space.
“Cooper?” Helborn answered through the communicator. “Where are you?”
“On the other side of the damn door,” he answered irritably.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, not really sounding sorry at all. “I changed the codes.”
“Why?” Cooper asked through clenched teeth. He and Devlin had designed the lockdown codes to record each crew member’s movements in times of crisis such as this. Everyone had an individual code. It meant that they’d be able to track the movements of everyone on the ship. As morbid as it sounded, it helped them to track down dead crew members. The life sensors would locate the living, but the “last known movements” data was sometimes the only way they had to find the dead quickly. With some of the medical equipment they had these days, finding them within moments of death could mean “dead” wasn’t a permanent condition.
“I…ah…changed them because it…ah…seemed like a good idea at the time,” Helborn said haltingly.
“Just open the fucking door,” Cooper ordered as his patience wore thin. He wanted to check on Avery and Del, but first he needed to make certain all of the intruders had been neutralized.
“Yeah, I’m on it,” Helborn said, not sounding very confident.
“Cooper, there is a firefight near the intruders’ point of entry,” Yavef said calmly. “It appears that they tried
to retreat back to their ship. I think Kam needs some help.” Cooper was sprinting back the way he’d come even before Yavef finished speaking.
Cooper re-stunned the unconscious intruders he’d dealt with earlier to be certain they didn’t wake anytime soon, and made it back to the crew quarters in time to see Kam hit with a projectile weapon. He hit the ground hard, green blood spraying everywhere, even as he managed to fire back. Six intruders advanced on Kam’s position. Cooper didn’t hesitate. He lifted both of his weapons and sprayed the corridor with stun shots and bullets.
He kept shooting as he moved closer to Kam, glad to see the G’trobian still alive, and grateful to find that the intruders weren’t.
“Can you walk?” Cooper asked as he moved past Kam’s position and checked to make certain there wasn’t any more of the enemy headed their way.
“With help, I think,” Kam answered through gritted teeth. He’d already managed to stem the bleeding, but he’d lost a lot of blood. Cooper had no idea how much blood a G’trobian could lose before it became life threatening, but he sure as hell didn’t want to find out.
“Come on, Kam,” he said as he helped the man to stand. “Let’s move this party to the medical bay.”
* * * *
Hours later, Del finally had a moment to check on Avery. Trey had caught up with her just in time to protect her and Janku from being slaughtered as Avery dragged her away from the intruders. Peni had died almost instantly when an energy weapon had torn through her heart. Janku had been so distraught that she’d fought against Trey and Avery, refusing to leave Janku despite the woman being beyond any medical help. Eventually, Trey had been forced to stun her with his weapon.
And then Avery had followed Trey back into the medical bay, taken charge of the unconscious woman, and also returned to caring for Ruth and G’baena. Somewhere along the way she’d managed to drag surgical scrubs over her clothes, get her face and hands cleaned up, and help G’baena deliver her baby.