Page 49 of Collision!
“That’s good,” she murmured at the twinkling ball.
He stared at her braided locks, captivated by the beams of light shining up along the intricate weaving.His fingers tingled at the texture he could almost feel, the way the ribbon at the end would slide free into his hand…
When he clenched his fists, pain shot through his shoulder, and he hissed out a breath.
That brought her gaze up, brown eyes wide then narrowing.“What happened to your med-mesh?”
She couldn’t see well in this light, he realized.Reaching for the nearest console, he raised the ambient light in the module.“It was choking me.So I took it off.”
She let out a breath almost as harsh as his own.“You’re bleeding again.”
He craned his neck to look down at his shoulder.“That’s where the physician embedded the bone mender.”
“Do you want purple blood all over your precious engines?”
He tilted his head.“It would burn off instantly.”
She huffed another breath.Maybe she was feeling lightheaded too.“Come on.Let’s fix you up.”
She set the thread ball on a hovercart next to the capacitorus and walked away.
Rearing up on stubby hind legs, Lub sloped around the top of the cart with its long tongue but couldn’t quite reach.So it settled for snaring the loose thread and pulling the ball to the deck.
The ball rolled away into the darkness, Lub in pursuit.
Suvan followed Mariah.
She had the med kit open when he stepped up behind her.How had she known where it was?
“Sit there.”She gestured at the stool by the fabricator interface.“Take your meds while I prep this.”
He searched through the bag for the flask Fahrol had said would help his rattled brain.The card partly activated when he nudged it aside.“Love,” it piped.
“Everyone signed the card.”He hadn’t meant to say that aloud either.
But Mariah nodded, turning toward him with a gauze pad smeared with cleanser.“Best chief engineer,” she reminded him.
“They don’t really know that.”He looked down at the small weeping hole in his chest.“They don’t know me.”
“Why’s that?”
Though high on his pectoral, the entry wound was tidy enough and readily accessible; he could care for it himself, even with only one hand.
But he didn’t stop her when she pressed the pad lightly against his skin, holding it in place while the cleanser softened the dried blood and absorbed the fresh trickle.
“Because no one comes here,” he said.“Except you.”
“And you don’t leave.”She peered under the gauze.
“This was supposed to be a three-sunset tour.I’d have had no reason to leave except for…” He faltered.
“Except for the resonark.”
When he started to agree, something stopped him.“Not just that.”He felt as if he were grasping at the edges of a knot, trying to make sense of the mess.“Watch out for my quill-scales.Some are stingers, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Thank you, Chief.”She patted the gauze around the wound, then prepped a second pad.“You know, technically you left the ship to install the ghostform.”
He held himself unmoving when she wiped a little harder.“I’ve reviewed the specs and functioning of the GASM, but I…don’t remember how it came to be.”
