But rather than the rumble of the pulse projector, Kade appeared at the top of the ladder again. “Aiden wants me down there with you,” he announced, beginning a careful climb down the ladder. “If anything comes loose and it’s not possible to climb out again, he’d prefer us together so we can help each other out.”
I was sorely tempted to ask whether my master didn’t trust me. But in front of three scared and injured strangers was not the place for such a question. Once Kade was at the bottom of the ladder, he called, “Okay, ready,” up to the doctor, who relayed the news to my master and his team.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then a low rumble filled the air, and then a series of thumps – likely parts of the rocks falling down the stairs. I wondered which planet they’d come from, and whether some of these scientists were going to be terribly upset about us destroying their precious samples.
The rumbling cut out and relative silence filled the air… but then another wave of rumbling started up again. The floor beneath our feet vibrated slightly.
I heard an ominous, creaking groan from the ceiling above us. I looked up, expecting to see more of the edges of the metal raining down around us. But instead, I watched in horror as a large section of the ceiling buckled, cracked, and began to fall. But the edge of the strip was still attached on one side, so insteadof falling straight down, it twisted, swinging down right into the path of the injured women.
Kade and I both moved at the same time. The woman with the injured arm was closer to me, so I grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her out of the way. She yelped – I’d likely jarred her arm in the process, but that was better than being body-slammed by a sheet of falling metal. The Denzogal woman scurried out of the way, given that she was uninjured, but the woman with the injured leg had no hope of moving in time. And it seemed that Kade realised that at the same time as I did. So instead of trying to move her, he threw himself in between her and the falling slab. The end of it swung like a wrecking ball, and I watched helplessly as it slammed into his side. His other side hit the woman, causing her to scream in pain as the combined weight shoved her across the floor, but with Kade’s body cushioning the blow, she shouldn’t have any more damage than a few more minor bruises.
Kade, on the other hand…
“Fuck. Kade? Kade!” I scrambled to help him the instant the slab stopped moving. It was still attached to the ceiling by a twisted length of metal, though there was a serious risk that the rest of the connection would give out at any moment. “Fuck, Kade…” Knowing I was risking doing him further injury, I grabbed his belt and dragged him further away from the fallen metal. If the rest of it did come down, that should at least mean none of us got hit again.
Then I dared to check his shoulder and hip where he’d been hit. There was a deep, ragged cut on his right shoulder where the metal had punched through skin and muscle, and a tear in his pants at his hip, though that seemed to be more of a graze than a real cut. He’d have some nasty bruising, though. Unless the blow had been hard enough to actually break something?
“Kade? Talk to me,” I demanded. “Are you conscious? Can you hear me?”
“Still alive,” he groaned, floundering about until he managed to lift himself onto his knees. “The woman?”
The Denzogal woman was already checking the one with the spike in her leg, and she shrugged as I looked her way. “No worse than she was before,” she reported.
“It is broken or just a cut?” I asked Kade, very gently attempting to move his arm.
“Not broken,” he said with a groan.
“Are you all right?” Dr Lantaraz called down to us. “Oh, stars, Kade, you’re bleeding!” She scrambled for a medical kit to throw down to us, but Kade stopped her.
“No, I’d be better off coming up there,” he said. “Then you can bandage it properly.” He stepped over to the ladder and put his foot on the bottom rung.
“You can’t climb with only one arm,” I protested… even though I knew perfectly well that he could. I would have done, if I’d been in the same position.
Kade gave me a wry look. “Yes, I can,” he said simply, and then he did, climbing slowly but smoothly up, while the doctor waited anxiously at the top.
I could hear the ongoing thumps from the other side of the bulkhead that indicated the work was still going on to clear the stairway. But a moment later, it became apparent that my master hadn’t been willing to wait until it was completely clear. I heard his voice as he arrived in the upper room, and then a sharp curse as he got a look at Kade. “Fucking hell, what did I say about being careful?” he scolded Kade.
“I was careful,” Kade replied, with just a hint of sass. “It could have been much worse.”
I heard the doctor mutter something, though I couldn’t quite make out the words, but I guessed a moment later that she’dbeen shooing my master away, because he came over to the edge of the hole next. “Jai? How are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I told him. “But we’ve got two more injured crew down here who can’t climb the ladder.”
“Help is on the way,” he assured them. “As soon as we get the stairs cleared, we’ll get some stretchers in here and lift you out.”
The next half an hour was an exercise in extreme patience. A couple more medics arrived, with a stretcher for the woman with the leg injury. But before they could load her onto it, they had to assess the edge of the hole to make sure it was stable – which it wasn’t. A few hasty repairs followed, shoring up the flooring with metal braces, before they were willing to climb down.
Then they had to give the woman a thorough check over to make sure she didn’t have any other injuries that were going to be made worse by moving her. And then we began the very slow, very careful process of lifting her up into the room above via a couple of pulleys. I went up the ladder alongside the stretcher, steadying it as we went and making sure the woman didn’t get hit with the rough edges of the metal. The stretcher got stuck on the edge twice, and I narrowly missed taking a blow to the face as we finally managed to swing it outwards, easing it up and over the lip of metal.
I clambered up the last few rungs of the ladder, then helped the two Wasop soldiers on our team carry the stretcher away from the hole.
“Once we make sure she’s stable,” my master said to me, “can you help carry her out to the transporter? Chorokan is going to help get the other woman out of the hole.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, turning my attention to the doctor to provide any assistance she might need. While I was steadying the splint and passing her rolls of bandages, I was aware of my master fussing over Kade in the background.
“No. No more for you today,” he said firmly, in response to Kade’s offer to help with the second woman. “You’re going back to the base in the next transporter, and you’re going to get one of the doctors to stitch up that arm for you.” The doctor here had given it a cursory clean and bandaged it to stop the bleeding, but that wouldn’t be enough to make sure it healed properly. “And take some pain killers. That’s not a question,” he added sternly. “You’re going to have some serious bruising all down your side. So take the time to look after yourself. You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Kade said, with a small, bashful smile. “I will.”
