Dremiks (37 page)

“My apologies, sir. The dressing-down will have to wait; I don’t think I can stand at the moment.”

That whispered statement of weakness scared him to his very toes. “Well of course you can’t stand,” he nearly shouted. “Don’t be obtuse O’Connell; I won’t accept it, no matter how injured you are.” Swallowing hard, the captain turned his anger on the nearest target. “Price! Get a stretcher over here right now.”

The lieutenant jumped to do the captain’s bidding. Brett stood looking down at Maggie and tried to resume an even tone. “We’ll talk later. Good work down there.”

She didn’t try to speak but both auburn brows rose a few inches.

He chuckled. It was a low, rich, sound. “No arguments, eh? You must really be dying.” He stepped out of the way as the medics rushed up with the stretcher. The captain knew a moment’s helpless frustration as he watched her being carried away. He shook himself and turned back to Price. “I’d like you to get some sack time. Then you need to prepare to give tomorrow morning’s staff briefing. Any resources you need to complete your report are yours, understood?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Hill clapped the young man on the shoulder. “Good flying down there. Go get some rest now. We’ve got plenty of work still ahead of us.”

Beaming with pride at his captain’s praise, Price trudged off to find his bunk. The captain watched him depart. He turned his head and nodded towards a corner of the landing pad. Dwax floated across the floor, his head bowed.

“Well?” The captain’s tone was biting.

“They wish to know your status and how much you have learned. They know of the crash. I do not think they will have learned of the rescue mission’s success... yet. They still await the arbiter’s ruling on the agreement between humans and Dremikians. There are some who wonder why you do not simply return home.”

“I have a mission to complete. Failure is not an option when the future of both our peoples is at stake.”

“I told them you would say that.”

“And your loyalties?”

Dwax made a soft clicking noise. He paused his forward motion. “There is a debt to be paid. Human blood was spilt due to a deception that I had a part in. Your officers are my ship mates. My duty is clear. I am, as they say on Earth, your man.” Despite the passion and sincerity of his words, the Dremikian seemed to shrivel inward.

Captain Hill resisted any notion of pity. “Good,” he snapped. “Then tell your people to go to Hell, for it is surely where they have sent us.”

Chapter 21

The medical bay was very quiet. Only the soft hum of the medical equipment broke the silence. On one of the ten beds, Specialist Mangoda had a breathing aide and a heart monitor attached to his still frame, as well as a small crown-like device resting on his bandaged head. A screen suspended on the wall beside his bed showed all of his vitals. He was covered in a soft cotton sheet and a woven-blend blanket.

Two beds over, Commander O’Connell stirred restlessly. Her arm was wrapped against her body to immobilize it. There was a large square bandage on the left side of her head as well. Her bound arm and the large brown healing-pack laid across her collarbone made it hard to sleep comfortably. When the door to the bay snapped open and shut, her eyes blinked open. She looked around.

Captain Hill stood a few feet away speaking in soft tones to Dr. Ruger. The doctor handed him a tablet with the latest information on her patients’ conditions.

“So, you were able to cauterize the internal wounds? Was there significant tissue loss?”

“Part of his spleen may be lost, but I will need a day to determine that. If so, it might require more invasive surgery to remove the dying tissue. I will have to wait to see. The new lasers worked wonders. Frankly, I’m more worried about his concussion. The swelling near his left frontal lobe is still dangerous.”

Hill glanced sideways and noticed that they were being watched. “Your other patient is awake, Doctor.” He walked over to O’Connell’s bed and stared down at her.

“Maggie you really need to rest.” Cassie leaned over and adjusted the head monitor. “Your wounds will heal faster if you are sleeping.”

“It’s not really possible to sleep with this thing holding me down.” She waved with her good arm at the pack resting on her collarbone. “What
is
this thing?”

“It’s a healing pack. It uses heat, pharmaceuticals, and Dremikian herbs to knit your bones. You cracked your collarbone, and it will take two to three days to heal. If you don’t stay still and leave that thing in place it will take months for a broken collarbone to heal. So, listen to your doctor and leave it alone.” While delivering her lecture, Dr. Ruger checked her patient’s blood pressure and temperature, and adjusted her blanket.

The captain waited until Ruger’s lecture was finished before asking, “Besides being confined, how are you feeling?”

“Like I crashed a lander on an alien planet.” She shifted slightly in the bed. “And it hurts.”

“I bet. Says here you have a broken collarbone, a dislocated shoulder, a mild concussion, a nice three inch gash on your head, and a sprained ankle. You might have taken pity on the doctor and only injured one area of your body, you know.”

Cassie grinned. “I’ll leave you two to chat; I need to go check on a colonist who is having breathing difficulties. Don’t wear her out, she
has
to sleep.” She glared at Maggie. “If you aren’t sleeping when I come back, I’m giving you a sedative.”

They watched the doctor leave. Maggie lay her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes. “If it’s all the same to you, sir, could you just skip the strangling me bit and toss me straight out the escape hatch?”

He pulled a chair over and flipped it around to straddle it as he sat. “You’re not getting off that easy, Commander. You’ll have to redeem yourself by going back down there and getting my lander back.” He leaned his arms on the chair back and relaxed his usually rigid posture. “Look, accidents happen, even to the best pilot in the fleet. You were lucky. Mangoda is going to live and probably recover fully. The ultimate blame for this debacle rests on the Dremikians for sending us blind into this mess.” He looked away and his hands clenched. “If I had to make a list of sources for my inordinate anger, you’d be pretty far down on the list, Maggie”

She lay still watching him, not knowing what to say. She caught his unusual use of her first name and registered the slip as a sign of how very upset he was.

He turned back and gave her his usual cocked-eyebrow expression of scorn. “You played me, Commander.”

She knew it was fruitless to deny it. The only shock was that it took him this long to bring it up. “Like a fiddle, sir.”

He sighed as he stood. “I won’t have time for revenge, not now. Get your rest, Commander. I’m going to need you back sooner than the doctor would probably like. There is a lot of data to pour over, and you’re the only one who has spent time down there.” He paused and gave her a curious look. “Did you set up the box scanners while you were down there? We’re getting all sorts of data feedback now.”

She shrugged and then choked as pain from her injured shoulder washed over her. “Didn’t have much else to do to pass the time.” A gasp punctuated words muttered through clenched teeth. “Set up everything I could.”

“You dragged fifty pound scanners out of a damaged craft, with your dislocated shoulder and sprained ankle?” He shook his head. “Stubborn woman. You’re doing a damn good job of punishing yourself.” He saw the brief flicker of temper in her expression. Oddly, her show of insubordinate obstinacy made him feel better about her condition. “Sleep.”

She lay very still, watching him walk out of the dimly lit room. His back was ramrod straight. His head was up, and he was alert to everything going on around him. Whatever else had happened, the captain was back and most definitely in charge. She smiled with satisfaction and a certain amount of pride. When Dr. Ruger came back both of her patients were sound asleep, and one of them was still smiling.

***

Three days later, Captain Hill rubbed the back of his neck. The corded muscles there told him he could expect another stress headache within the hour. He glared at O’Connell as she limped—visibly in pain, damn it all—across the deck and slumped into her pilot’s chair. Upon reflection, it probably had been a touch petty, his telling her she couldn’t be drugged while on duty. And he certainly could have rearranged the schedule for a few more days to keep her off rotation. But, damn it, she
had
played him like a fiddle, and he
did
want to shake her until her teeth rattled inside her otherwise empty head.

I would’ve sent someone down there, eventually. I didn’t need her goading me to action.

His petulance ratcheted up another notch, and found a new target, when Lieutenant Price leaned over and “helped” the senior pilot with her restraint straps. The straps weren’t mandatory while they were in stationary orbit and they certainly didn’t need to be jerked into place with giddy sadism onto the commander’s bruised and tender collarbone. Her strangled yelp made the captain mad at both of the pilots.

“You are relieved, Lieutenant. Commander you have the con. I’ll be in storage bay 3.”

Blinking furiously to prevent tears slipping down her cheeks, O’Connell swallowed twice and managed a respectably normal “Aye, aye, sir.”

The captain’s mood was not improved on the way to the bay. First, he bumped into, and he doubted it was a coincidental meeting, Dr. Ruger. For a woman so petite, she looked terrifyingly ferocious. Had he not been irritated at O’Connell, Price, and, he had to admit, himself, the captain might have been more amused by the doctor’s glare. As it was, he tried very hard to shoulder past her.

To his great surprise, Cassie planted her dainty little feet in the passageway directly in front of him and refused to budge. “You are avoiding me, Captain”

“You seem to have gotten over your fear of me, Doctor.”

She ignored his taunt. He was being a first class asshole to her patient. “Why are you deliberately interfering in medical matters? Why did you insist up on putting Maggie back on the watch rotation and then deny her any sort of pain medication?”

He was already feeling guilty for those actions. His conscience did not appreciate being prodded any further. “
Commander
O’Connell has duties to fulfill. If she is not able to fulfill those duties, then I expect you to have her sedated in the medical bay. As long as she is mobile, she is on duty. She is ultimately responsible for not just her well being, but the safety of everyone else on this ship.” He repressed the urge to physically intimidate the doctor. Her spitfire impersonation would have been endearing at any other time. He much admired this side of her. Besides, he thought with a grimace that the doctor misinterpreted, the sudden urge to cause physical harm to annoying women was not a part of his personality that needed furthering. “If your patient needs to be removed from duty, please inform me, ma’am.” Seeing her grind her teeth, he nodded politely. “If you’ll excuse me, Doctor, I am late for an appointment.”

He managed to get down the length of the passageway without sighing or running his hand through his hair. The knots in his neck throbbed in tune with the pulse in his temple. The only thing this day was missing was…

“You showed amazing restraint, brother.”

Captain Hill allowed himself to drop his chin onto his chest in a fleeting moment of surrender. This was his punishment for his sins: beset by troublesome officers and his own brother hovering in the wings.

“Good afternoon, Ryan. Is there something I can do for you?”

Ryan could tell his brother had a pounding headache.
God, who does he think he’s fooling?
O’Connell had finally gotten to him. Ryan had secretly bet himself that the annoying red-head would not be able to crack his brother’s stoicism. For once, Ryan was happy to be wrong.

“You can explain why you didn’t tell the dear impertinent miss why her best friend in the whole star system is limping around in the first place.” He added an annoyingly nasal intonation to his words just to see his brother wince. “Seriously, Brett, O’Connell goads you into letting her disobey a directive and when she wrecks a valuable spaceship, and nearly kills herself in the process, you just shrug?”

“You forgot Mangoda.”

Ryan waved his hand in a gesture meant to convey dismissal as well as acknowledgement. “You’re avoiding the point.”

Captain Hill turned and glared, really glared with the full force of his pent up emotions, at the vice chancellor. “O’Connell didn’t goad me into anything. We are all focused on our jobs. What the hell do you
want
, Ryan? I’m beginning to think you and Trell don’t want us going down to the planet at all.”

“I don’t think you’re
thinking
at all, brother. You’re letting that woman tie you in emotional knots and not using your head. Or,” he cut a sly look at the captain before turning and walking toward the storage bay, “is it the potential harm her dear Daddy can do to your precious career that has you so motivated?”

“You do plenty of damage to my career all on your own Ryan. O’Connell’s parent pales in comparison to the amount of FUBAR you drag me into. Unless you really have business with Guttmann or Fortunas, get lost. Go rub your wife’s cankles.” The last insult he nearly snarled before stalking past Ryan Hill and forcefully slamming the release lever for the bay’s metal hatch.

Dr. Fortunas looked up, saw the way the captain stalked, rather than strode, across the bay and nudged the officer beside him as a warning. He saw Lieutenant Guttmann register the captain’s mood and the resulting effect on the younger man’s expression. With any luck, their news would greatly improve the captain’s demeanor.

“What do you have?”

Fortunas laid a hand on the crate he was standing beside. The simple square structure stood almost as high as his waist and was broader than the two men standing beside it. “Price’s last sortie was an unqualified success. Captain, I present to you one hundred kilograms of lorga—enough to set off the reactions necessary to restore Najif’s orbit.”