In three minutes, I’d clear the atmosphere. I just had to keep him talking. I pulled back on the controls a little more, pushing the ship to the edge of safety.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I am no one. A promise fulfilled,” I said, “nothing more. But if you interfere, I will become an enormous problem.”
“You’re from the Syndicate?”
I said nothing. The silence stretched.
“What does the Syndicate want with one of our miners? We would’ve happily negotiated for his release.”
I laughed low. “I know how you negotiate, Commander. MineCorp took something from us. We retrieved it. I regret that so many of your troops failed to stay out of our way, but such is life.”
“Was the other ship the distraction or are you the distraction?” Richard asked.
“Perhaps we are both the distraction. Have your troops reached the mine depths yet, Commander?”
He gestured to someone off camera.
“What will the Syndicate give me for your safe return?”
“You should ask what they will do should I not return safely. That is the far more interesting question.”
“If I let you go, you must do something for me in return.”
“If you let both ships go, the Syndicate will honor one future request from you, free of charge.”
“No, not them. You, personally.”
I chuckled again. “I am no one. You are trading gold for dirt.”
“It is my choice.”
“What do you want?”
“I haven’t decided,” he said, “but can you put a price on two ships and multiple lives? My request will be worthy of that debt.”
Did he know? Could he have possibly guessed who I was? I should promise him whatever he wanted and then break that promise, but even now, I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. Ian’s lifeblood leaked in the cargo bay every second I delayed and even if we jumped, Aoife, Alex, and Ferdinand were trapped for another hour.
“Very well,” I said. “If you look the other way while both of our ships exit your system, I will personally honor one future request from you that will take no longer than a week to complete and must not harm me or mine.”
“How will I contact you?”
“Post a public request for information on a source of gold dragon scales. I will contact you.”
“Very well, my lady. I accept. But if you go back on your word, I will destroy everything you love.” He said it softly but steel laced his tone.
The blood froze in my veins. He knew. If not about Ferdinand, then about me at the very least.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Your family may yet prove useful to me,” he said. Then with an arrogant little smirk, he cut the connection.
I didn’t trust Richard in the least and expected a barrage of fighters from Santa Celestia at any moment, but the ship’s sensors weren’t picking up anything. I couldn’t keep hesitating. I had to trust that Alex and Aoife could take care of Ferdinand.
I released the manual controls and let the ship take over. I checked our flight plan again then pressed the jump confirmation button. The engine noise changed and ramped up for an alarmingly long time before my stomach dropped and we jumped.
I checked our location, then put the ship in what passed for stealth. We would drift for four days before we could jump again.
Now I had to save Ian. I prayed I wasn’t already too late.
Chapter 27
I had to use the combat armor to carry Ian into the tiny medbay. The diagnostic table took up more than half of the room. I carefully maneuvered Ian onto the table and kicked off a scan before returning to the cargo bay to strip the armor off.
By the time I returned, the scan was done. The report listed his injuries from most to least severe, and it was a long list. The worst injury was internal bleeding from a blaster wound through his right side. That one needed immediate treatment. The report recommended time in a regeneration tank, but that wasn’t an option—this ship had no tank.
The outlook for alternative treatment put his chance of survival at less than 50 percent and that was with his nanos. But if I could keep him alive for the next few days, the doctors on Benedict’s ship could save him. I cut off his shirt, washed and disinfected my hands, and got to work.
I’d had some basic field medicine training years ago. I tried to remember what I had been taught as the diagnostic table walked me through a manual IV insertion. Usually an IV machine would start the IV for you, but this ship’s medbay didn’t have one, so I was on my own.
My hands shook so badly that I had to stop and take a deep breath. I could do this. It took three tries before I hit the vein. I hooked him up to a bag of synthetic blood replacement and moved on to his wound.
The blast had gone straight through. I rolled Ian onto his side, being careful with his IV. I irrigated both sides of the wound, and his blood ran like water. Luckily, the ship had a decent supply of regeneration gel. I pumped the wound full of gel. The regen gel congealed and sealed the hole, preventing him from bleeding out, but he might need another bag of synth blood.
I couldn’t lift him to wrap bandages around his body, so I pressed thick pads of gauze against the wound on his back and taped it tightly in place, then repeated the procedure on his front.
I cut off his pants, then cleaned and bandaged the rest of his wounds. Most were shallow, but he’d lost a few decently sized chunks of flesh to blaster bolts. His heart rate began to slow as the synth blood replaced what he had lost.
With Ian as stabilized as I could make him, I cleaned and bandaged my own wounds. My arm wasn’t bad enough to need regen gel, so I skipped it. I didn’t have time for the pain and Ian might need more before we could jump again.
I turned on the audible heart monitoring on the diagnostic table and piped sounds from the medbay through the ship’s speakers. I would hear if anything happened while I was exploring our refuge for the next four days.
The comforting sound of Ian’s continued life followed me throughout the ship. The main area was a single level, with a half-height maintenance level underneath. Besides the flight deck, cargo bay, and medbay, there was a large passenger lounge filled with tables, chairs, and two synthesizers, a bathroom, and a tiny crew cabin with a narrow bed.
The ship was designed to ferry passengers between close planets in a system. Most trips wouldn’t last more than an hour or two, so crew comfort wasn’t exactly a priority. There also weren’t any available communication drones, so I couldn’t jump a message to Benedict.
I grabbed a meal replacement shake and bottle of water from the synthesizer. I wasn’t hungry, but my head rang like a bell and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. I briefly considered trying to get some broth into Ian, but decided that fluids via IV were less likely to choke him. He wouldn’t starve in the four days before the real doctors could take over.
I stopped by the crew bunk and snagged a pillow and blanket, then returned to the medbay. I slid down the wall across from Ian and drank my shake without tasting it. I sipped at the water and listened to Ian’s heartbeat.
Once I’d drained half the bottle, I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. Adrenaline gave way to exhaustion. It wasn’t that late, but today had started early. I could hardly believe that we’d broken into MineCorp just this morning—it seemed like a lifetime ago.