Nothing unusual or noteworthy, so I kept going toward the cargo bay, my eyes locked on the freestanding waist-high medtable in the center of the open space. I always carried a couple of injectors filled with skinbonds on my bandolier, but they didn’t have enough meds to stabilize me. Not this time.
The pain in my side was increasing by the second, the burning and stabbing sensations so intense that they were slowly slicing through the mental shield I’d used to block off the agony of the injury from the rest of my mind. Black stars flashed in my eyes, a warning that I was very close to passing out, but I hit a button on the side of the medtable, and the surface lit up with a blue-white light.
“Welcome,” a female voice chimed. “Please lie down to begin a diagnostic scan.”
I ripped off my helmet, yanked the earbud out of my ear, and tossed them both onto the nearest counter. Then I pitched down and forward and rolled onto my back, so that I was lying on the table. That blue-white light flared again, enveloping me in its soft glow.
“Severe damage to left side. Immediate action necessary to prevent death. Treatment will begin in five seconds . . .” The medtable kept talking, the mechanized feminine voice bright and cheerful, as though she was reciting a weather report instead of my many internal injuries.
Something hissed, and a clear panel popped out of a hidden compartment in the side of the table. The flexible panel arched up and then closed over me as though I was a mammoth butterfly trapped in a cocoon just waiting to be free.
If only things were that easy.
The panel transformed the table into a makeshift hyperbaric chamber. Pure oxygen flooded the enclosed space, and I breathed in deeply, letting the air cleanse my lungs. Strangely enough, it smelled like vanilla, and I welcomed the slightly sweet taste. Despite the filtered air in my helmet, I still felt like I had inhaled half the smoke that had billowed over the lava field. How had Vesper survived it? She should have been coughing, choking, and gasping for breath, but she had seemed fine when we’d boarded the ship. Yet another mystery surrounding her.
“Starting repair work,” the table chirped again in that annoyingly cheerful voice. “Please remain still in order to avoid further damage.”
Several sharp pricks stabbed into my back, and I ground my teeth to keep from snarling. In addition to the oxygen tube, medtables were also equipped with robotic needles filled with antibiotics, along with skinbonds and other chemicals that promoted bone, muscle, and tissue regeneration. The dull, numbing sensation of a local anesthetic flooded my side.
The first wave of needles retracted, but they were replaced by a second round that sank even deeper into my skin, suturing my muscles, tendons, and everything else back together. Despite the anesthetic, I could still feel every tug and pull and yank and stitch, and I ground my teeth again. The medtable treatment certainly wasn’t pleasant, but it was a necessary evil—like so many other things in my life.
A few seconds later, the rest of the meds kicked in, and I . . . floated outside myself. One moment, I was trying not to snarl and silently cursing the person who’d shot me. The next, I was staring up at the ceiling, the pain in my side completely gone.
“Treatment complete. Life saved,” the table intoned in a smug, satisfied purr.
The needles retracted, and the flexible panel hissed open and slid back down into its hiding spot. Weariness flooded my body, even stronger than the meds, but I couldn’t rest. Not while the woman was on board. I couldn’t afford to show any sign of weakness, not even to a stranger.
If she was actually a stranger. She could always be a plant by one of my enemies to kill me or, worse, trap me.
I forced myself to sit up and swing my legs over the side of the table. My mind spun around, but I drew in several deep breaths, and the dizziness slowly faded away. I wasn’t steady enough to stand yet, so I studied my surroundings. The cargo bay took up the back third of the ship, although the medtable was toward the front, close to where the wide space narrowed and flowed into the long corridor that formed the center of the blitzer.
Some plastic crates were lashed to the cargo bay walls, but other than that, the area was empty. I couldn’t tell what weapons or supplies might be in the metal cabinets that lined the walls, but I doubted they contained much, since this type of blitzer was designed to get Imperium soldiers in and out of hostile zones as quickly as possible.
A shower of blue sparks erupted, and vicious cursing sounded. Vesper was sitting on the corridor floor right outside the cargo bay. A metal panel was lying beside her, and she was peering at an exposed nest of wires in one of the walls.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, then frowned. “Why aren’t we moving?”
The low, steady hum and faint rocking sensation of the thrusters had vanished, indicating that we were just drifting along through space, rather than being propelled by the ship’s engines.
“Oh, good,” she drawled, sarcasm rippling through her voice. “You’re awake.”
“Why aren’t we moving?” I repeated.
“The thrusters overheated, probably due to all the lava,” Vesper replied in a distracted voice, yanking a handful of wires out of the open panel. “Who decided to fight a battle on a Magma planet?”
I could have told her that the Techwavers didn’t care how many troops they sacrificed—whether they were merely machines or men stuffed inside metal shells—so long as they achieved their objectives, but I kept my mouth shut. She didn’t need to know mission details or the fact that no one seemed to know what the Techwavers had been so eager to steal from the metal refinery.
“How long was I out?”
Vesper shrugged. “I don’t know. Fifteen minutes? I’ve been a little busy trying to fix the thrusters.”
She still had the dagger she’d grabbed off the table in the Imperium cruiser, and she used the blade to strip the plastic casings off the wires. Then she twisted some of the metallic strands together. A few more sparks shot out, but she kept right on stripping off casings and twisting wires together in intricate patterns.
“Where are we?”
Vesper shrugged again. “We made it up past the volcanoes, and then the pinpoint drive shot us around to the back side of the Magma planet before the thrusters crapped out, and everything stopped. We’ve been skating along the top of the atmosphere ever since, hence all the jerking and shaking. So far, there’s been no sign of the Techwavers. I don’t know where your Imperium buddies are either.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question, but she cut me off.
“And before you glower at me again, you should know the communication system is also fried,” she said. “In fact, pretty much everything is fried. The blitzer was sitting on the lava field for way too long. It’s a wonder it didn’t just melt away—”
The ship rocked from side to side. Vesper pitched forward, then hissed and jerked back. She was still clutching the dagger, but the blade had slipped and sliced into her left palm, leaving behind a long, bloody gash.
A small sting of pain bloomed in my own hand. Startled, I glanced down. A shallow cut had appeared across my left palm, exactly where Vesper had sliced her own hand, although my wound wasn’t nearly as deep. Icy tendrils of dread slithered around my heart and squeezed it tight.
No, it couldn’t be. Not this. Anything but this.