“No need,” he gasped. The old, familiar face of Uncle Masumi looked at her sadly. “I’ve got a minute. Maybe two.”
“Why did you do all this?” she asked.
“You’ll see when you get older. Spouses die. Friends move on. Children grow up and become strangers. You always end up…alone.” He coughed hard and blood came up, coating his lip and chin. “Only the mark you leave on your civilization stays. I tried to ensure the PAC’s survival.”
“You’ve threatened its survival. We’ll be lucky if we can avoid interstellar war. That’s your legacy.”
He coughed again and gasped hard for breath. “…wrong. Wait and see.”
She leaned down to hear his weakening voice. “What do you mean?”
But the light in his eyes had gone out. She straightened.
Her heart froze. Wren. Oh, no. Was she too late? She turned and ran. As she approached, she saw eyes full of grief and sympathy.
Wren’s pale eyes looked up at her, tortured. “I’m so sorry.” She moved aside.
Fallon fell to her knees beside Raptor. His skin had gone a sickly color.
“He dove in front of me,” Wren murmured.
Words poured out of Fallon’s mouth. “No, no, no! Raptor!” Her throat burned as she framed his face with her hands. Traces of her blood smudged onto his skin. “Why did you do that?”
His eyes didn’t open, but his lips moved slightly. “You love her.”
He went limp.
“Oh, hell no!” Fallon yelled at Raptor. “You are not dying on me!” She looked around wildly. “Where’s his backpack?”
Someone found it and brought it to her. She tore it open and grabbed the packages of nanopods and the injector. She slammed every damn nanopod they had into him.
“Fallon.” Hawk touched her shoulder. “Don’t torture him. That was a maximum-setting blast. He can’t…” His words trailed off. “He’s not breathing,” he said carefully. He probably sensed that telling her that Raptor couldn’t survive it would have a bad effect on her.
“Then someone had better fucking start breathing for him!” she shouted. “He wouldn’t give up, if it were us, and we’re not giving up on him.” Her cheeks were wet. She impatiently swiped her hands over them but was surprised to see little blood on them.
It was Krazinski who knelt by Raptor’s head and put a respirator over his face as she wiped her hands on her thighs.
“Per, inform the Roosevelt that we need medevac. Immediately.” The docking of the Roosevelt would probably take more time than Raptor had. Maybe it was already too late. The rest of them thought so. But she wouldn’t stop trying until a doctor forced her to.
She measured the time in the artificial breaths that Krazinski supplied. Wren put a flat silver disk on Raptor’s chest and gave him regular shock-pulse charges, keeping his body’s electrical system online and forcing his heart to contract. So Fallon counted those too. Breath, pulse charge, breath, pulse charge.
Wren was on her knees above Raptor’s head, stroking his hair and whispering in his ear.
Fallon almost wished he was bleeding. That would give her something to do, trying to patch him up. But she could do nothing for him but count and wait.
Finally the Roosevelt’s medical crew arrived and took over, saying a lot of medical words. Fallon recognized enough of the words to be terrified in a way she’d never felt in her whole life. She trailed the medical workers, refusing to be more than a few feet away from Raptor. As if she could keep him alive by sheer will, if only she were close enough.
On the Roosevelt, her team and the others went somewhere while she followed Raptor to the infirmary. Time passed. She had no awareness of how much.
She heard more medical words like broken ribs and internal bleeding and concussion and suddenly all the attention was on her. She wanted no part of those words. The only words she wanted were, “He’s going to be fine.”
She refused to leave him, so the medical staff had to work on her sitting up. She heard soft murmurings including her name in the far corners of the infirmary. She didn’t care. Fuck their words. Fuck everything if Raptor wasn’t with her. The medical staff changed out, then changed again. She never took her eyes off him.
She nearly fell off the stool when his eyes opened a crack. She stood and leaned in close to him. “Raptor?”
He whispered something but she couldn’t hear it.
“What?”
He managed three louder, rusty-sounding words. “You look awful.”
She took what felt like the first breath she’d taken since he’d been shot. “So do you.”
“You smell awful too.”
“Well, you stink worse than I do.”
“Good.” A ghost of a smile haunted his mouth. “I’m going to sleep now. You go clean yourself up. Didn’t anyone tell you it’s unbecoming of an officer to look so shitty?”
She laughed. “Pretty sure that was the first thing we learned at the academy. I’ll go clean up if you promise me you won’t die while I’m gone.”
“Deal. No dying today.”
It was only after his eyes closed again that she realized how much her body ached.
“What I’d really like is some blistercakes.” Fallon frowned at her soup. It didn’t even have meat in it.
“Soup first,” Wren insisted, taking a spoon from the tray she’d placed on the foot of Fallon’s bed and handing it to her. “It’s chock full of Bennite vegetables, and will help restore your energy. Brannin says you two can try a little walking tomorrow. If you try today, I’ll send you right back to the infirmary.”
Fallon scowled, but put a spoonful of soup into her mouth. Sure, it was delicious, but blistercakes would really hit the spot.
“I ate all my soup.” Reclining next to her, Raptor sounded far too obedient. He held the bowl out for Wren, who took it and set it gently on the tray. “Can I have blistercakes?”
Wren beamed at him. “Yes! I’ll go get them.” She pointed at Fallon and said sternly, “Every drop or you’ll get
