Chapter 17
We were almost outside when I stumbled and nearly went down as a wave of wireless signals drove a spike into my brain. I swallowed the urge to vomit. Either Riccardo had been found or something else big was happening. I tried to catch one of the messages but the effort made the nausea worse.
“What’s wrong?” Ian whispered.
“Nothing. But we need to move fast to the gate. Can you do it?”
White lines of pain bracketed Ian’s mouth, but he just straightened and said, “Yes.”
“Keep leaning on me. It’ll look like we’re out for a drunken stroll. The cuff will protect us for a little while.”
We stepped out into chaos. The evening had deepened into night, but floodlights lit up the area. Fire flickered from our left, the direction of the spaceport, and armed guards ran to provide backup. No one paid any attention to us as Ian leaned deeper and deeper into my shoulder. By the time we made the gate, I was half carrying him.
“Aoife?” I called.
She stepped out from behind the gate column, clad in her combat armor. She slid open her helmet and I caught her frown. “Why are your coms down?”
I touched my ear but the tiny earpiece was gone. “Things didn’t exactly go according to plan,” I said. “You’ll have to carry him.”
Ian growled something under his breath, but he was far too pale. Aoife pulled the gate open, setting off a screeching alarm. She took in my heels with a glance. “Can you keep up?”
I could run in these heels, but not for long. “How far is the ship?”
“Over a kilometer. The dark will help, but we need to move.” She assessed Ian with another probing glance. “I can’t put him over my shoulder with a stomach wound like that, so I won’t be able to shoot. It’s up to you.”
I took off the half mask I still wore. I needed to see as well as possible. I tried to take Ian’s blast pistol but he clung to it tenaciously. “I’m not that helpless,” he grumbled.
Aoife took off and within three steps I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my shoes on. I kicked the heels off and took flight barefoot. The pockmarked pavement was littered with debris that stabbed the tender soles of my feet.
The world narrowed to running and pain. The cuff pulsed as it repelled three quick shots. Ian shot over my head and a distant scream indicated a hit. My feet were on fire, sending lightning bolts of pain up my legs, but I blocked it out as best I could.
I hit one target but didn’t have time to celebrate as another pulse vibrated up my arm. Was that six or seven? Somewhere I’d lost count, but either way, the cuff was nearly out of power.
Fatigue dragged at me and the air burned through my lungs. A side stitch felt like someone had stabbed me between the ribs and still we ran. When the ship came into view, the relief nearly put me on the ground.
Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones interested in the ship. A hail of blaster bolts greeted our approach and the cuff vibrated once, twice, then died. Pain, bright and familiar, tore through my right leg.
I stumbled, my body numb, but a hulking figure in combat armor scooped me up and ran for the ship. I clung to consciousness by the merest thread. I had to know if Ian was okay.
The bright lights of the cargo bay blinded me and I blinked the stars out of my eyes.
“Fortuitous, take us into orbit,” Aoife demanded. The ship chimed an acknowledgment. “Alex, drop her in the medbay then go to the flight deck and get us hidden.”
“Ian first,” I mumbled as Alexander slid me onto the medbay diagnostic table. “I’ll be okay for a while.” My nanobots might be a huge pain in my ass 99 percent of the time, but even working slower than most, they wouldn’t let me bleed to death from a blaster wound. Probably.
I grabbed weakly at Alexander’s armored arm before he could move away. “Thank you,” I said.
He inclined his helmeted head and disappeared. I blinked and Aoife’s face appeared above mine. She’d stripped out of at least the top half of her combat armor. She reached for the diagnostic console.
“Ian first,” I repeated.
“Funny, he said the same thing about you. But since there are two diagnostic tables on this ship, neither of you gets to make a noble sacrifice.”
“He’s been bleeding for far longer. Patch him up first,” I whispered.
Something softened in Aoife’s expression and she nodded wordlessly.
I drifted in a haze of pain, listening to Ian’s grumbles and Aoife’s gruff bedside manner. I hurt from head to toe—literally—and did my best to lie completely still.
“Your turn, princess,” Aoife said. She pressed an injector to my arm and pulled the trigger. “That’ll take a while to hit, but your nanos have already started on your feet, so the diagnostic recommends digging out the debris as soon as possible. Can you stand it?”
I could’ve told her that my nanos wouldn’t make much progress in five minutes, but that would just lead to more questions, so I took a deep breath and nodded. Pain and I were well acquainted.
She grabbed my left ankle and began poking and prodding the bottom of my foot. I locked my knee straight and gritted my teeth. Agony flared in waves as she removed tiny pieces of glass and metal. After a few minutes, I couldn’t stop the tears, so I stared at the ceiling and let them roll silently into my hair.
The cool sting of an antiseptic wash was nearly a relief. Aoife slathered the sole of my foot in regeneration gel, though the wounds weren’t deep enough to really need it, and wrapped my whole foot in bandages. “One down, one to go,” she said. “You okay?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I merely nodded again. Her sympathetic face appeared in my view. “You’re doing well,” she said. “The painkiller should kick in any minute.”
This leg was far worse because every time she moved my foot, the wound on my thigh sent slivers of pain straight up my spine. I kept still only through long practice and held breaths. When she hit a particularly deep piece of something, a tiny whimper broke through my control. I froze for a second before I remembered where I was.
“Stay down,” Aoife commanded and I frowned at the ceiling because I hadn’t moved.
Ian groaned and I rolled my head toward the sound, only to find him sitting on the edge of the second diagnostic table. His shirt was missing and his torso was wrapped in white bandages. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “Lie down before you hurt yourself worse!”
His eyes met mine. “I’m fine. Aoife patched me up.”
Of all the stubborn men in the world, I had to get stuck with this one. “Ian Bishop, if you do not lie back down on that table, I’m going to come over there and make you. And I still have glass in my feet and a hole in my thigh.”
He didn’t move, so I sat up with a groan. The edges of my vision darkened, but I fought through it.
Aoife kept a hand clamped around my ankle. She grumbled something under her breath that caused Ian to flash a look at me, but all I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears. I was dangerously close to passing out.
I decided that consciousness was the better part of valor, so I wilted back to the table. I was so busy not passing out that I barely noticed Aoife bandaging my foot.