Dagon examined the blue skin. “I believe this is a suit.”
“But how does he breathe in it? Or see? It even covers his eyes.”
If he had eyes. Dagon couldn’t discern any.
Adaos jogged around a curve with his bag and hurried to join them.
Dagon cupped a hand around Eliana’s elbow and rose, drawing her up beside him. “Eliana’s hand needs tending.”
“Screw that,” she said and motioned to the form at their feet with her dagger. “What can you tell us about this?”
Adaos’s eyebrows shot up. “What the srul?”
“That’s what I said,” Maarev uttered.
Adaos waved his portable scanner over the intruder. “The scanner detects no life save a faint signal where his chest has been punctured.”
Eliana frowned. “Is the blue goo his blood?”
Adaos studied the readings on his tablet. “No. The dark red liquid is.”
The blue goo, as Eliana referred to it, must be what blocked their sensors.
Liden cleared his throat. “Commander?”
When Dagon and the others turned to look at him, he held up a device that looked like a small data tablet with a cylinder attached. “This is the explosive device he dropped. It appears Eliana halted him before he could set the timer.”
Dagon silently berated himself for becoming so distracted by Eliana’s injuries, her astonishing strength, and the bizarre intruder she’d captured that he’d forgotten the drekking explosives.
Efren leaned into the hole and drew out a bag. “There are many more in this.”
Enough to cripple the ship and leave it motionless and unable to maneuver if attacked.
Eliana had just saved their asses.
Adaos set his med pack on the floor and withdrew a hover gurney twice the width and length of his data tablet. Holding it waist high, he pressed a corner. The board extended until it was long and wide enough to carry a man Dagon’s size, then hovered in the air.
Eliana’s eyes widened. A smile lit her pretty face, supplanting the pain and confusion. “Cool!”
Adaos smiled and motioned for her to climb aboard.
She sent him a condemning look. “Oh hell no. I don’t need that. Put him on it.” She motioned to the intruder. “I accidentally stabbed him, so you need to patch him up before he dies. If he came aboard on the pod, then he knows what happened to Ava.”
Dagon agreed. “I’ll carry Eliana.”
She scowled up at him. “What?”
“I’ll carry you so Adaos can transport the intruder on the hover gurney.”
She rolled her eyes. “My legs are fine, Dagon. My hand is injured. If Maarev hurt his hand, would you insist on carrying him?”
Srul no. But Dagon didn’t feel for Maarev what he felt for Eliana. Not that he could tell her that. Yet. Not while surrounded by his overly curious soldiers. That was a conversation best held in private. “No.”
Maarev nudged Eliana with his elbow, careful not to jostle her injured hand. “Maybe the next time you kick my ass, I’ll let him carry me to Med Bay.”
Her frown melted into a smile. “Maybe I’ll carry you myself, big guy.”
Laughing, Maarev glanced at the hole in the wall and shook his head. “I believe you could.”
Glaring at his friend, Dagon wrapped an arm around Eliana’s waist and gently drew her back to give his men more room to work. “Get him on the gurney.”
They bent over the intruder.
“Drek, he’s heavy,” Liden declared with a grimace as he and Efren hoisted the being onto the hover gurney.
Efren nodded.
As soon as they released him, both men wiped their slimy hands on their uniforms, their faces creased with disgust.
Whatever the blue goo was, it continued to ooze from the hole in the man’s suit.
When Adaos detached the small corner controller from the hover gurney and aimed it down the hallway, the board carrying the intruder silently floated forward.
Dagon glanced down at Eliana.
Her eyes widened. Then she sent him a big grin and whispered. “I want one!”
Chuckling, he kept his arm around her as they followed Adaos and his patient to Med Bay.
Dagon’s mind whirled as the past few minutes caught up with him. He had known all along that Eliana possessed an abundance of internal strength. She had exhibited it many times since the Kandovar had been destroyed. But the incredible physical strength she had just demonstrated…
He could not remember if she had mentioned having such when she had reluctantly confessed the ways she differed from other Earthlings. He had been too focused on her injuries, the transfusion she’d needed, the fangs she’d displayed, and the vulnerability she’d tried to conceal while she awaited his reaction.
He had never encountered a being her size who could punch through thick metal walls. And he could think of few larger beings who were capable of it.
Androids? Yes, depending on their purpose.
Cyborgs? Definitely.
Men or women of any Aldebarian Alliance race who had not been mechanically enhanced? No.
Eliana really had held back when she’d trained with Maarev and the others.
Upon reaching Med Bay, Dagon let Adaos enter first with the intruder. Then he and Eliana followed. Maarev, Liden, and Efren joined them and positioned themselves within lunging distance of the intruder while the rest of the security contingent guarded the door.
The hover gurney settled upon the nearest empty treatment bed. Segonian males with burn wounds occupied two others.
Adaos ordered the medics treating them to transfer their patients to the private rooms in back lest they be injured if the intruder awoke and sparked violence. Judging by the sounds of it, some of the rooms down the hallway were already occupied by injured men.
When Eliana would’ve stopped beside the intruder’s bed, Dagon applied pressure to her back and led her past it to the closest private exam room.
Dragging her feet, she craned her neck to look back over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“You need a transfusion.”
She jerked her attention back to him. “That can wait.”
“No, it can’t.” Her hand continued to swell and was now discolored by more than the blue slime.
“Yes, it can. I want to see what’s under the blue goo.”
“I do, too.” He picked up the med tablet just inside the door. “So let’s do this quickly, shall we?” He gestured to the bed.
When she opened her mouth to balk, he arched a brow, daring her to refuse.
Clamping her lips together, she crossed to the bed.
She was so much smaller than the men on his ship that the bed was too high for her to simply slide onto. Dagon didn’t want her to have to stop supporting her injured hand, so he set the data tablet aside, gripped her narrow waist, and lifted her up to sit on the edge of the bed.
Her eyes met his, that fascinating amber glow brightening briefly. “Thank you.”
Nodding, he withdrew his touch and used the tablet to order a blood transfusion for her.
Eliana scooted a little to one side so she could peer through the open doorway and see what was happening in the main room. She nevertheless stiffened when the mechanical arm bearing the needle descended from the ceiling.
“It will infuse your injured arm,” he told her, moving to stand beside her.