Parker tried to smile, but failed to muster the strength. "Better…shut me down, Mags. Don't suppose…there's a medibot anywhere near…"
The Hesht shook her head, producing a roll of stickytape from her sole surviving duffel bag. The others were lost – along with thousands of quills' worth of comps, surveillance equipment and camping gear – in the wreck of the train. Working as swiftly as possible, she laid one section of wood along the human's side, then the other inside his leg. The tape drew tight, making Parker gasp. Magdalena showed him her teeth. "No stasis bag for you, my fine kit. No sharp-smelling, shiny clean medical bay. Only an old mother cat and a medband made of bark keeping you from the Peerless Hunter!"
"Oh…" Parker twitched painfully as she adjusted his shoulder. "Better get me…a fresh band, Mags. Something…sharp."
"All out." Magdalena fitted slats of wood around his shattered arm and went to find a board to immobilize his chest. "You'll have to share teat like everyone else."
Five minutes later, Parker was trying not to pass out as Magdalena hoisted him onto broad, ebon-furred shoulders, arm and leg taped tight to his torso. Her last duffel had been cut into a rough sling harness to carry him.
"You have to hold on," she growled, wondering if the monkey could handle the pain of being moved. "There's no medical attention here…we need to get you to a human hospital. Gretchen will be very displeased if you die. She will blame me."
"Ooooh…" Parker's head rolled limply to one side as his medband complained. "Don't wan' tha'…"
Time to go, the Hesht thought, licking her lips nervously. He's turning gray.
Setting her feet, Maggie adjusted her shoulders, took a step and then padded quietly out of the station house. The flames licking along the walls had reached up to brush the ceiling, and more glass was warping and cracking, adding yet more noise to the lamentations of the wounded and the dying hiss of steam.
On the steps leading down to the street, the Hesht raised her head and tasted the air. The sound of war continued to mutter and growl in the distance, leaving the avenue littered with debris – scattered bodies, abandoned runner-carts, drifts of blowing leaves and paper – and the air was tight with fumes and smoke. Far away, among the clouds, an air-breathing dragon boomed from horizon to horizon.
Looking both ways from the shadow of the door – just as her mother had taught her on the training fields of the clan-ark – Magdalena set off after the three other humans, following the clear scent of their blood drifting in the air. They had taken to the middle of the avenue, but Heshatun were drawn from warier stock and she kept to the mottled shadows under the shop awnings and broad-leafed trees lining the road.
Aboard the Cornuelle
In the Upper Troposphere
Above Continent Three
A familiar vibration against his back roused Hadeishi from a drugged, placid daze. He woke with his heart racing, overcome by a feeling of near-panic. There were voices on the air, but more immediate was an overriding urgency… The ship is waking, Mitsuharu, you must be at your station!
The metallic smell of urine and blood filled his nostrils. Hadeishi opened his eyes, took in a ceiling with two dead lighting panels and a dull emergency light and turned his head carefully to the side. The Chu-sa had woken up in Medical more than once and experience reminded him to move with deliberation. A handful of medical staff, haloed by portable lamps, tended an inordinate number of patients. The bay itself was in zero-g, which was one more sign of severe damage, and sticky webs of damage control spray kept loose garbage, debris and the wounded from drifting.
Hadeishi craned his neck, looking down his arm. His usual medband was gone, replaced by a cufflike unit attached to the medical bed. An amber indicator showed the medibot was running on battery power. I'm still in my suit – odd – ah, now I remember. The ship is damaged. I am damaged.
Everything popped back into focus. Hadeishi cleared his throat experimentally and found he could still move his tongue. And speak, I hope.
He clicked his teeth and felt the comm thread and earbug come alive against his cheek.
"Hadeishi to Engineering. Status?"
That was quick, Isoroku responded after a moment's delay. The engineer's voice was overlaid with a buzz of static. The Chu-sa heard the throttled growl of the main power plant and its attendant transformers, heat-exchangers and transmission apparatus in the background. The gui-ni said you'd be out for hours while you healed…
"The ship woke up," Hadeishi said, still feeling rather distant from the dark, suffocating room and his numbed body. "And so did I. Main power is on-line?"
Hai. Bottle's up, control systems are clean. We're about to start bringing up navigational control and the reaction drives. Should be able to make orbital correction in about…forty minutes.
"Do we have communications outside the ship?"
To the surface, you mean? Isoroku's voice faded with exhaustion, and then strengthened again. We had a tightbeam link to the Legation about an hour ago…but the Residency came under attack and the comm dropped out. I think Helsdon is dead.
"What about traffic control?"
Up here? Chu-sa , there's no one to talk to! Only derelicts…
Hadeishi convulsed with a wheezing hack. The table beeped angrily at him and sleepyhead began to leak into his blood. The Chu-sa felt a familiar numbness in his extremities and began breathing through his nose, slowing his heart. Sometimes the medical bay bedsensors had to be treated delicately if a man was to get his work done.
"Thai-i, the ship will be a danger to navigation – including our own shuttles – as long as the point defense systems have node power. So as you restore grid by grid, make sure none of the gatling or railgun mounts come back on-line. Route your damage control teams to disable them as soon as possible."
Hai, kyo!
"What is this?"
The gui-ni in charge of the bay suddenly appeared over Hadeishi, a reproving scowl on his dark brown face. "Awake despite the drugs, I see." The Mixtec leaned close, one hand on the bed-rail, and produced a sensor wand, watching the readout from the heavy-duty medband. "Chu-sa Hadeishi, your rib-cage is badly bruised, your lungs are half shriveled from lack of oxygen and low suit pressure, your leg muscles are badly strained and you've suffered a heavy dose of radiation poisoning."
He passed the wand over the Chu-sa's forehead. "Why don't you let yourself heal? In sixteen or seventeen hours, the worst of the damage will be repaired…"
Hadeishi moved his head aside. "There are crewmen who need your assistance, isha. My condition is sufficient for duty. I am needed on the bridge before more of my men are injured or killed."
The gui-ni regarded him levelly for a moment. "Both medical bays are full. I've men in trauma bags hanging in the hallway like cuts of meat and there are whole compartments from bulkhead sixteen back the damage control teams haven't managed to cut into yet. I need this medical bed, but you're the captain and that means you get priority treatment -"
"I disagree." Hadeishi pointed his chin at the restraints across his chest. "Release me and you'll have the bed back."
"Your condition -"
"Isha, I'm giving you an order," Hadeishi said, forcing his tongue to move. "I'll sit very still once I'm on the bridge."