Page 45 of Starfighter’s Salvation

“He will not survive the flight.”

Her head came up and she glared at me. “Don't. Don’t say that where he can hear you.”

“He is unconscious.”

“People hear more than you think.”

“We have ten others to get on the ship and we're running out of time.”

“Then stop talking and load the others. No one is dying on my watch.” She placed a line on her first attempt and injected something from the locked cabinet she had admired yesterday. Then she leaned down over him and spoke to him as if he really could hear her. "You are not going to die. Do you hear me? I'm here now and you're going to fight."

“Gina. Do the math.” I knew she didn't want to lose a patient, but this….

I heard Renn’s voice as soon as the words left my mouth. Do the math. It had been his phrase, his cold arithmetic, and hearing it from my own lips left me numb.

Her head came up. “No.”

I lowered my voice. “The scanner has marked him nonviable.”

“Scanners don’t get to make that call. I decide.”

“That is literally what the scanner is for.” She knew this. We used the exact same tech in the training simulation, what she referred to as her game.

“The scanner doesn’t know he’s been fighting sepsis for two days while teaching two kids how to keep him alive. Look at his temperature. His body is still fighting. Look at his pressure. Low, but there.”

“Barely.”

“Barely is still alive.” She applied hemostatic foam to the festering wound she'd uncovered and a warming wrap to his trunk. “Antibiotics and fluids are coming on board. I can keep him alive if we load him flat and warm.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough. Load him, Corvan.”

Fuck. Renn would have called me an ass for wasting thirty seconds arguing with my medic, and he would have been right. I looked at Gina — filthy to the elbows, certain she could save a dying man even when the medical scanners swore it was impossible — and I gave in to the fact that I would do anything she asked me to as long as she never asked me to sacrifice her.

“Load order,” I said over the comm. “Walking wounded first. Cassia on frame one. Brennix on frame two. You are not walking on that ankle.”

“I can carry⁠—”

“No,” Gina and I said together.

He stopped arguing, and the apprentices helped the least injured onto the ship. Two other engineers helped get Cassia onto a stretcher, and I lifted Brennix onto the second frame while he objected to every movement. Gina stayed with Tavar.

Enemy fire began striking the trench outside.

“We're out of time,” I called.

Rock dust fell from the ceiling.

We moved faster. The first stretcher reached the ship as another round hit above the entrance. The walking wounded ducked. Brennix hopped off the transport frame and grabbed one of my rifles off my back.

“Keep moving!” he shouted. “This wall held back worse.”

Cassia started swearing at the base of the ramp because Brennix remained outside. Gina leaned over her and brushed the hair off her face.

“Brennix will be on this ship, honey. I promise.”

“You don’t know him.” Cassia groaned as she tried to shift her weight.