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“Would you believe it felt so good, Kaye?” She actually laughs.
She must be in pain, but she doesn’t move or wriggle or cry. She just lays there and stares at the ceiling. The bot told me that her nerve endings have been destroyed in the worst places.
“The patient is going into shock,” the bot calmly announces, as if it isn’t a panic-inducing statement.
“What?” I cry. “What do I do?”
“Elevate the lower half of the body—”
“It is!” I’m yelling at an inanimate object. I lift her legs higher, measuring the recommended height roughly with my arm length. Frankie’s staring dizzily at the ceiling, her mouth slack.
“Seek regeneration or qualified healing technician to continue treatment immediately.”
“Comm line, dial the bridge,” I shout, gritting my teeth as I search the room for something to keep her legs up.
“Kaye, do you want someone to come back in there with you? Is she stable—”
“It says I need regeneration or a qualified healer… I think I need a real doctor. Is that possible? She’s dying. She’s in shock.”
“Regen… I can get her in regen, but it’s going to take you off course from our original plan—”
“I don’t care. Do it. She needs it now.”
“How long can she last?”
Frankie’s eyes close, and I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a terrible thing.
“I have no idea, but the med-bot can’t do anything for her and it’s recommending this… She’s— she’s—”
“It’s okay, stay calm. I’m changing our course now.”
Not long after, Raffa comes in bearing a bowl of liquid that seems too iridescent to be water. He has a cloth over his shoulder.
“This is an antibiotic treatment with a numbing agent,” he tells me, crouching to place it beside me. “It should help her body to sleep through the night instead of waking with pains. Rossa sent it.”
“Thanks, that’s very helpful.”
“Do you need anything else? I’m wired, so I don’t think I’ll be going to sleep. Everyone’s up; there’s too much going on!”
I smile, accepting the cloth he hands me. It’s soft like microfiber, and when I dip it into the liquid, I realize that it’s extremely absorbent. I wipe Frankie’s face first, and she stirs but doesn’t wake.
“Some company would be nice,” I say. “This might take me a while.”
He nods, glancing down at Frankie and wincing at the sight of her. Since dissolving the ruined clothes, I’ve covered her with a light sheet and added bandages per the med-bot’s instruction, but she’s still a gruesome sight. He quickly looks away, eyes darting all over the room.
“She’ll be okay, right?” he asks softly. “A regen tank will help her.”
“I hope so.”
“Why don’t you tell me a story,” I suggest, dipping the cloth into the bowl.
“Have you heard about the one they call Ashbringer?” he asks, eyes lighting up. “He’s nine feet tall with silver hair, and he can become invisible at will…”
“That’s impressive,” I say, encouraging him to continue.
Raffa weaves half-remembered tales of a mysterious figure the warriors call Ashbringer. Like Robin Hood, he seems like a combination of fact and fantasy. He creeps through Azza battleships undetected, silently slitting throats in their bunks. He’s a lone assassin capable of infiltrating war rooms for secrets and destroying entire ships all on his own before disappearing into the galaxy ether. Sometimes Raffa forgets the details, but he makes up for it with enthusiasm. He tells me that he heard all this from a soldier that tells stories in the market whenever his ship stops on the Kar’Kali homebase.
Then, slowly but surely, Raffa starts to nod off.
