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Bernadette shrieked a wordless scream of rage and pelted after them, a wide-eyed Tumsa bringing up the rear.
* * * *
Doljen’s steps slowed as he came within sight of Berth 615 and the massive Earther transport docked in it. In contrast, his heart went into overdrive as he drew close to seeing Bernadette, Tumsa, and Halmiko.
He was perhaps fifty yards distant when he heard a muffled boom. The rear section of the ship visibly twitched. Smoke began to issue from it.
Figures beneath the vessel were lifting hover stretchers into the air with people on them. They raced off with their patients, startled cries trailing them.
Anxiety fled, and Doljen shot forward to catch a glimpse of the Kalquorian men on the stretchers. When he saw neither were Tumsa or Halmiko, he diverted to the ship ahead of security personnel, who ran shouting toward it too.
He’d served on board spyships during the two recent wars Kalquor had fought. He recognized an explosion when he heard it, and it called to his instincts as a doctor with an emergency on his hands. He raced onto the craft without a second thought.
He didn’t recognize the carrier’s configuration, but it was easy enough to follow the smoke and panicked yells down the corridor toward the ship’s stern. He recognized two voices, and he ran faster. He ignored his diminished vision, brought about by the billowing gray cloud filling the hall. It burned his lungs.
“Bernadette!” he shouted. “I’m coming!”
He nearly ran into a wall that came out of nowhere. There was a doorway next to it, where the already thinning smoke was eddying from. The hiss of fire retardant and Bernadette and Tumsa’s cries filled his ears. He headed to the indistinct forms struggling to lift components off the floor.
Doljen could have cried with relief to see Bernadette unharmed. Next to her, Tumsa raised a shocked gaze to his.
“Halmiko’s under here!” he shouted. “And Kom!”
An Adraf barreled into the room, swirling like a speeding cyclone on three stumpy legs. Hadn’t Bernadette said she was having trouble with Adrafs?
“Dr. Z!” Bernadette cried. “They aren’t answering us!”
“I’m a doctor too,” Doljen called to the new arrival before shouldering Bernadette aside to help Tumsa lift a massive, twisted piece of metal.
“I’ll grab some hover stretchers, alert port emergency services, and be right back.” The Adraf whirled out again at top speed.
Doljen gritted his teeth and strained to push on the broken wall component. The mass came up. Next to him, Tumsa ground out a screech as he fought to shove it off their clanmate and someone else.
“Keep it up!” Bernadette shouted. “I’ve got someone’s foot. I’m dragging him out. It’s Kom. Oh, sweet prophets, his arm—”
“Hurry,” Doljen grunted, feeling his strength ebbing under the brutal weight. It began to bear down toward the floor. His feet started to slide from under him. “Can’t hold it…much longer.”
“I’m crawling under to grab Hal. Hang on, guys!”
The metal slab slid an inch down as Doljen’s shaking muscles turned to water. He dug his feet in and noticed Tumsa doing the same. The Dramok’s veins had popped out on his exposed forearms and biceps, in his forehead. His eyes squeezed shut as he fought to hang on. Pain was written all over his face, increasing with each passing second that he struggled to keep the twisted wall piece from crushing Bernadette and Halmiko.
“Don’t let go,” Doljen gasped as his own arms threatened to give out. He begged himself as much as Tumsa. “Don’t…let…go!”
A thin scream slid from between his clanmate’s teeth, but Tumsa maintained his grip.
“We’re clear! Let it go!”
Doljen released the component. At the same instant, he shoved Tumsa to get him out of the path of its fall. His Dramok did the same to him. They staggered backward, arms pinwheeling to keep from falling.
Ignoring his shaking arms, Doljen sprang to Halmiko’s motionless figure. Bernadette was sobbing between the breaths as she crouched over him, palms pressing the Nobek’s chest as she threw her weight against him in desperate rhythm.
“I can’t find a pulse!”
Chapter Seventeen
“Your quick work made the difference.”
Doljen managed a sickly smile at Dr. Z’s whispered encouragement. He kept his gaze on the man on the operating table several feet away. He’d edged as close as the surrounding surgery team allowed. He had a better view of the diagnostic equipment that spelled out the damage to Halmiko. “It would have been better if it hadn’t taken so long for emergency services to respond.”
