While I waited for it to take effect, the med bay doors hissed open again and I scrambled to grab a weapon—but it was only the float bed the computer had promised, literally hovering several feet above the air. It entered the room and moved until it was directly beside Dax’s body, just as he began to change into his human form.
I hadn’t watched the process very closely before, but now I found myself fascinated by it. His fur seemed to retreat into his skin, like one of those videos of flowers opening—but run backward at quadruple speed.
When he was back in his human form entirely, I checked the wound. It was a huge, ragged hole in his side, and although I could hear him breathing, there was an odd bubbling noise in his chest that worried me.
“Computer, lower the float bed.” It dropped to the floor and I hooked my hands under Dax’s armpits, grunting with the effort of dragging first his torso onto the float bed, and then his legs.
“Computer, send the floatbed to the medbay now.” As I took a step to follow, the Karlaxon’s hand shot out and caught my ankle. I let out a yelp. I’d been so convinced he was dead that I had ignored him entirely.
His hold on me was weak, though, and I jerked my foot out of his grasp.
He said something that my translator didn’t translate, a strange gurgling growl that faded away into nothing. And then his hand dropped back down to the deck as he blew out a long rattling breath.
“Computer,” I instructed as I hurried out the door and into the hallway to catch up with the floatbed, “inform me if the Karlaxon on the bridge…well, if he does anything at all.”
“Acknowledged.”
I raced to catch up with the green alien tiger man who had abducted me—and who was now the subject of my prayers.
I was now terrified for his life.
What the hell is wrong with me? By all rights, I should be happy enough to see him die.
I swallowed the emotion clogging my throat and stepped into the medbay, ready to do anything I could to help make sure he lived.
Chapter Sixteen
Dax
An aching pain throbbing in my side woke me. Still groggy, I sat up on my elbows and glanced around, relieved to see I was in the medbay of my own scoutship—I half expected to find myself in the brig of some Karlaxon mothership.
“Oh, thank God. You’re awake.” Nora moved up beside me and peeled back the healing pack plastered to my wound.
“What happened?” I asked, wincing as she squinted at my wound, then patted the sticky side of the pack back into place.
“One of those rhino-aliens shot you.” She moved back to the computer interface panel, checking some readouts before tapping in information. For someone who had never been on a spaceship before, she seemed remarkably adept with my computer.
“Where are we?”
“Same place we were when you got shot. You’ve been out for hours.”
Hours… my translation matrix gave me a sense of time-units similar to Drovekzian sundrops.
“Where’s the Karlaxon?”
“Still on the bridge. Your computer says it’s dead.”
I pulled a face. “We need to space it before it starts stinking up the place.” I tried to sit up all the way, but a flash of fiery pain shot through my abdomen. I subsided with a groan. “Garlockian hells, that hurts.”
“Yeah, you’re not going anywhere for a while.” Nora managed to sound both sympathetic and stern at the same time. “Computer, prepare the sedative we discussed earlier.”
“I don’t need a sedative,” I protested.
“Maybe not, but you’re getting one. According to your computer, you’ll heal faster if you’re asleep.” She moved to the dispensary cabinet and plucked the sedative solution-infuser out of the recess as soon as the door opened. “I’ll see what I can do about the dead rhino on the bridge while you’re out.”
I opened my mouth to protest again, but Nora held the injector to my temple, and everything went black.
The next time I woke, it was to the sound of Nora arguing with the computer.
“We have no such item aboard,” the computer said in its usual maddeningly calm voice.
“Okay, if not scissors, do you have a knife? Something sharp I could cut this with?”
I opened my eyes to find Nora holding up the skirts of her voluminous white drapery—but it wasn’t so white anymore. The bottom half was stiff with dried blood.
“Perhaps I could help,” I croaked, my mouth dry from the sedative and presumably several more sundrops’ worth of sleep.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.” Nora rushed to my side. “Your ship says there’s nothing on board to cut things with. What the hell kind of place is this?”
My laugh threatened to turn into a cough, and I cleared my throat. “The kind with a Drovekzian crew.” Concentrating a little, I popped a claw out of my forefinger.
Nora blinked, shrugged, and stretched the fabric out front of me. “Cut the bloody part off. In fact, just cut the whole thing to knee-length, if you don’t mind.”
I tilted my head and examined her clothing. It was elaborate, layers of soft shiny cloth topped with one layer of shimmering semitransparent fabric, and a final top layer made of delicate threads in an intricate pattern.
“What you waiting for?”
“I hate to destroy something so lovely.”
Nora paused to stare down at her clothing and spoke softly. “It was a beautiful wedding dress, wasn’t it?” Then she shook her head and her voice turned brisk. “But it’s ruined now—and I wouldn’t want to keep it, anyway. I just need it to be wearable for however long it takes us to get back to your planet. I assume I can get something there to wear? Your computer said there’s nothing else on
