Page 38 of Fighting Gravity
We came to the Shadowbreaker to find others from my crew at the ramp, weapons in hand. They were waiting and the sound of the cruiser’s engines said they had already warmed up our new ship for departure. But ports had protocols. If Ket got an opportunity to activate his security systems, we’d be blocked in or maybe even shot down the moment we took off. I sprinted on board, barking orders at my men. The rest of my crew shuffled in behind me and then sealed the door closed.
Veron appeared as soon as the ship began to shudder and move.
“This way!” she shouted, leading me through the halls.
Hot blood coated my arms and I knew, even if I wasn’t an expert on human anatomy, that Quinn was losing too much. Her garment was soaked and the metallic scent of it drowned the air. She was shivering. No. Convulsing. Noc’ran barbs were coated in natural toxins that could put a man like me on his ass and Quinn was small. Her skin was easily broken and the barbs had gone deep. I wasn’t even sure if they had pierced any vital organs. If her outsides were so frail, I couldn’t imagine her insides had any protection.
“You should have left her,” Veron argued.
“Not now!” I roared. “Fix her.”
“She is losing too much blood.” She stepped to the side of the red trail that Quinn had made on the floor.
“Noc’ran spines,” I said. “Four punctures from what I could tell.”
We turned sharply into the med bay and I laid Quinn’s body on the first table. She was having a hard time breathing. Each breath sounded rough and strained like air being forced through a too-small hole. When I tried to step back and make room for Veron, Quinn’s fingers closed over my wrist and she squeezed, choking out another tortured cry.
“P—Please don’t leave me,” she forced out.
Those words stabbed me right in the chest and I felt my Thel aching to calm her down, but she wouldn’t hear it.
“Humans do not handle pain well,” Veron said under her breath as she began her work, slicing the clothing away to reveal the bleeding holes in Quinn’s side. There was another in her thigh and a long scrape up the lower part of her leg.
“No one handles noc’ran pain well,” I said, stepping behind Quinn’s head to give Veron the room she needed.
Her hand still clutched my wrist, but her strength was fading. I could feel her pulse through her fingers. It was rapid and erratic and her breathing was quickly following suit, coming in short, clipped bursts. Sweat beaded on her forehead and almost before my eyes, the color of her skin became ashen and sickly. Looking up, I watched Veron jam a needle into Quinn’s stomach near the deepest wound. A coagulant, most likely. Noc’ran venom thinned the blood and Quinn had no more to lose.
Her nails bit into my skin. It didn’t hurt, but it grabbed my attention. I looked down at her face as her eyes opened. She saw me for a split second, tears swelling and spilling over the sides of her face. Then her eyes began to roll back and her body went rigid.
“Quinn,” I said, placing my other hand on the side of her head.
“Drek!” Veron barked.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. Everything. I haven’t exactly studied how humans react to various toxins in the galaxy. This might be killing her.”
“Find a way to prevent that.”
“Why? We’ve gotten what we wanted out of her. What makes her worth the trouble? You should have just left her on that rock! I don’t understand this foolish dance you’re—"
I slammed a fist down on the table, the rings in my throat thrumming loudly. Threateningly. Veron lowered her head, her shoulders coming in on her for a moment before she quickly got back to work, shoving more needles in Quinn’s skin.
Quinn took in a labored breath and I looked down at her again to see the convulsions return. I put my hand back on her head, trying to steady her when Veron moved to my position, pushing me aside. Vomit pooled in Quinn’s mouth and Veron immediately rolled her on her side, letting it spew onto the floor.
“She will choke,” she said. “Hold her here so it does not drown her.”
I crouched down in front of her, one hand on her shoulder and my other under her head to keep it a little elevated. Her eyes were closed and slowly, her convulsions slowed. Her arms went lax, one of them flopping over the edge of the table while the other was bent inward under her stomach.
I paid little attention to what Veron was doing from that point on. She handed me an oxygen mask at some point while she paced from place to place grabbing different instruments and I slipped it over Quinn’s mouth, waiting to hear her breathe. Before she could, I saw her body seize and ripped the mask away as she puked onto the floor again. That time, half of the liquid coming from her mouth was blood.
A slow burn rose up in my chest at the sight and I slid the mask over her face again, disturbed by the way her body shivered and twitched.
I stayed that way for some time, taking the mask back off only to wipe her mouth once I thought she’d stopped throwing up. Slowly, her pulse seemed to even out and her breath had become a steady wheeze. I barely knew how much time had passed by the time Veron began putting her things away. On the floor was a mixture of pale, mostly digested stomach contents and blood.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Veron sighed.
“Tell Umos to do it,” I muttered, staring at Quinn’s gradually relaxing face. “He is the one that took the last of the felbaruk.”
