Remnants of Trust. Elizabeth Bonesteel

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      “And if they don’t?”

      “Then our mission is complete, Captain.”

      He looked discontented at that. “I’d get up and scan for the damn thing myself,” he growled, “but I seem to be immobilized. Any reason you pack of geniuses are standing there staring at me like I’m a garden gnome?”

      Under other circumstances, she would have asked him what a garden gnome was. “We are waiting for Doctor Xiao,” she told him.

      “Ah.” No gibes for Xiao, at least. His eyes stole away from hers, returning to Keita. “How many dead?”

      “Internal comms are down, sir. We can’t be sure. We can’t even bring up the duty rosters to validate who was on duty down there.”

      “Who’s on that?”

      “Galileo has sent their comms people,” Keita told him.

      “How many do we usually have on duty in the engine room?”

      Keita paused. “Eighty-four, sir.”

      Guanyin did not think any of the others were close enough to hear the hiss of the quick breath Çelik sucked in between his teeth. He turned his attention back to Shaw. “You’re still a mechanic, as I recall,” he said to her. “Tell me: Is this a rescue mission, or is it salvage?”

      Guanyin wondered if the woman would lie to him. “Salvage, sir,” she said at last. “In my opinion.”

      The last Guanyin recognized as a kindness. She thought Çelik would recognize it as such. He ignored the words, and turned back to Guanyin. “Captain, how many of your people have you got on board?”

      “We have brought forty so far,” she told him. “Captain Foster has a similar number, I believe. I am bringing another hundred to clear the ship, and more when we are certain the raiders are gone.”

      At that, his eyes went dark and tired, and for the first time in the ten years she had known him, Guanyin thought he looked old. “You won’t find anyone,” he said. “They got what they came for.”

      Xiao came in then, quick and businesslike as if she were walking into her own infirmary, and stepped up next to Guanyin. She clucked down at Çelik. “You should have stayed away from the walls,” she told him, pulling out her medical kit.

      “I’ll remember that next time,” he replied dryly. “What’s under that mess?”

      Xiao frowned at the readout. “Your right leg is severed mid-calf,” she said, as if she was explaining an insect bite, “and your femur has a hairline fracture. You might do better to have it taken off at the hip. It would make for a cleaner joint when they grow you a graft.”

      Guanyin felt her gut turn over, and she laid a hand instinctively on her round stomach. She had always found Xiao somewhat tastelessly matter-of-fact about these things, but under the circumstances she thought Çelik might appreciate the bluntness. Indeed, a grin stretched across his gray features. “For now,” he told Xiao, “I’d just as soon you leave me what parts are still attached.”

      Xiao heaved a sigh; he was making her life more difficult. She turned to Guanyin, and switched out of Standard. “We’ll have to remove the debris quickly so I can cauterize the wound,” she said. “He may bleed out if I don’t. He might if I do, but it’s our only option. And he’s likely to pass out either way; the pain will be dreadful, even for a man like him. We’ll need to immobilize him.”

      “Perhaps,” Çelik put in, speaking Standard, “one of these brave souls could prop me up.”

      Guanyin had forgotten he could understand them. She took a step toward him, but next to her, Shaw spoke. “I’ll do it, Captain,” she said. Guanyin gave her a sharp look, and Commander Shaw must have guessed what she was thinking, because she softened her expression. “I outweigh you by a bit, I think,” she added. Guanyin nodded, willing herself to take a step back and trust that others could look after him as well as she could.

      They cleared as much of the debris as they could without removing the lifesaving pressure from his wound, and then, at Xiao’s nod, Commander Shaw sat on the floor next to Captain Çelik, her back to him, bracing her feet against the wall. “On three,” Xiao said in dialect. “One—”

      “Wait,” Guanyin said. She met Shaw’s eyes; it was clear the woman didn’t understand Xiao’s numbers. “I will count.”

      She counted down in Standard, and when she finished, Keita—along with Cali, Aida, and the rest of the soldiers—heaved the remaining chunk of metal off of Çelik’s trapped leg. The captain made a brief, strangled sound through clenched teeth and then fell silent. Guanyin forced herself to look at his face rather than Xiao’s frantic ministrations. He was still gray, and with his eyes closed and his face slack he looked disturbingly vulnerable; but she could see him breathing, his chest rising and falling in shallow gasps. She caught herself breathing with him, and dug her fingernails into her palms, steadying herself. Xiao was a professional, and Çelik was strong, and she would have no more deaths today, thank you very much.

      After interminable minutes, Xiao sat back. “That will hold,” she said, to Guanyin’s look. “The break was fairly clean, and he was burned as well. Without that, he would have bled out, even with the bulkhead cutting off his circulation.” She frowned at Çelik’s face. “His pressure is still lower than I’d like, but he’s better off unconscious right now. We should transport him.”

      Guanyin nodded, and Xiao commed her team and began packing up her kit. Out of the corner of her eye, Guanyin saw Shaw looking from Xiao to Çelik and back again; but it was Captain Foster, listening in on the exchange, who spoke in her ear. “With respect, Captain, he should be transferred to Galileo.”

      Guanyin had been expecting this objection. “Do you worry our medical team is inadequate?” she said icily. “Or do you believe we will harm him?”

      She braced herself for more of Captain Foster’s paternalistic rubbish; but his tone stayed steadily professional, and she thought he had anticipated her objection as well. “He’ll want to be with his wounded people, Captain. And most of them will prefer the familiarity of another Corps starship.”

      Damn. He’s right. Guanyin had been thinking about Çelik as an individual, not as a starship captain. That, and her own selfish worries. Chanyu’s voice echoed in her ear: It is how you make apologies that will show what sort of commander you are. “You are quite right, Captain Foster. Would you object to Doctor Xiao accompanying him?”

      Guanyin caught something flicker through Shaw’s dark eyes; relief, perhaps. “No objection at all,” Captain Foster said. “And if she’s willing to stay and help, I’m sure our chief medical officer would be grateful for the extra hands.”

      Galileo medics arrived, and to their credit they did not blink even once at the mixed crew tending Captain Çelik. Xiao spoke with them, and a few minutes later they carried Çelik, still unconscious, down the corridor on an anti-grav stretcher. Guanyin had to fight the urge to go with them. Perhaps she would find an excuse to visit later; she still had to ask what it was the raiders had taken away.

      And she did not think she would feel easy until she heard him snipe at her again.

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