Page 7 of Badari Medic

Raeblin waited,periodically testing her reflexes and ability to move. She was pleased with her steady recovery from the stun blast and her inner predator was ecstatic. Badari couldn’t handle being immobilized for long. She deliberately kept her thoughts away from what might have happened with the Khagrish soldiers. Brent had saved her, only the Great Mother knew how, and she was grateful. Time enough to have a traumatic breakdown after she was safely away from this spot. Brent could probably handle her emotional lapse too if necessary.

She smiled, remembering the gentle kiss he’d given her, even if it was only on the forehead and meant for reassurance. Paralyzed or not, she’d felt the impact of his lips on her skin deep inside her core and she resolved to do something about this physical, aching need she had for him once she got back to the valley. Brent was Gabe’s friend and Gabe was her own Alpha’s mate. Surely she could get Gabe to help her spend time with his friend and explore whatever was going on where Brent and her were concerned. Did he feel anything for her, she wondered. Certainly he’d been kind and solicitous and saved her from the Khagrish when she was helpless but did it go any deeper for him?

Frustration at not knowing how to read a human male, or a Badari for that matter, when it came to matters of attraction, Raeblin straightened her spine and reached for the pulse rifle with less effort than movement had cost her only a few minutes ago. Take off and run away? Raeblin scoffed. Not a chance. She was his teammate, his backup, and she wasn’t going to abandon him, no matter what orders he spewed. She tested her controlover her legs and shakily got to her feet. Not ready to charge into battle yet but soon.

While she waited Raeblin reviewed her options for finding her way to the flyer and what she’d do when she got there. She wished she’d had more combat training or experience but there was nothing to be done about it. Instinct would have to guide her.

There was a rustling in the brush and she aimed her weapon toward the sound. She scented Brent and relaxed but kept her weapon at the ready.

He stepped into the small clearing and clearly approved of her readiness to do battle, giving her a thumbs up. “The flyer is ours,” he said. “One guy, not much of a challenge. Ready for a flight?”

Focusing in on his side, Raeblin frowned and moved closer on shaky legs. “You’re bleeding.”

Brent gave the spot a cursory once over. “Yeah, he didn’t like the idea of us hijacking his flyer. Managed to get in a couple of hits. I’ll be fine.”

“Let me take a look.” She turned to the medkit. “Take off your shirt and sit down.”

Brent put his hand on her arm. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “We don’t have time right now either. I’ll let you examine the wound later, once we’re safe, okay? For now I could use that shot of adrenaphix if you’re willing to part with it yet.”

Hesitating, she opened the medkit. Giving a patient a stim before assessing and dealing with the injuries was against her training but Brent knew himself and if he said he was good to go, then he was. She’d observed his self-knowledge the last time he sustained a minor wound at the lab. “You could have taken an inject for yourself—why didn’t you?”

“Hey, you’re the medic and it’s your kit. I’d only touch your supplies as a last resort, if you weren’t here. But you are here, so let’s make progress, okay?”

His respect for her warmed her heart and she made quick work of preparing the shot and giving him the inject in the upper arm. Flexing his muscles and rotating the arm a bit, he grinned. “All right, it’ll be a walk in the park now. Ready to go?”

She closed the kit with a snap of the latch and picked up her rifle again. “Lead on.” As she went, Raeblin looked over her shoulder in the direction of the spot where they’d been captured. “What are we going to do with the bodies? Are we leaving them out in the open?”

“I’m figuring we’ll take off, hit the site with blaster fire and head west. The beams will touch off a forest fire, covering up our presence efficiently.”

Raeblin considered the idea as she walked. On the one hand she hated the idea of igniting a massive blaze which would endanger all the normal residents of the woodland but on the other, they did need to hide the evidence of their capture and escape as long as possible.

As if he could read her mind, Brent said, “Of course we could drag the bodies over to the vermore pit we saw a mile to the east and dump them in there but that would take a lot of time and energy we don’t have right now.”

And be really unpleasant to do, Raeblin thought with a shudder. “Your plan sounds fine to me.”

“Holding up all right?” he asked, pausing now for a moment and assessing her with narrowed eyes.

“Fine,” she said with as much force as she could inject into one word.

The skin around his eyes crinkled with humor and he smiled. “Right, fine.”

Maybe she’d overdone the emphasis on her assertion.

Brent started walking again. “It’s all going to hit you at some point and when it does, I’m here. Or maybe we’ll be in the valley by then and your girls will have you. You’re doing a good job, soldier.”

Warmed by his praise, she followed him to the flyer, which the Khagrish had landed in a clearing a few hundred yards away. Brent hesitated ever so slightly before he ascended the open ramp and Raeblin was struck by something off about his movement. She made a resolve to check his wound more closely as soon as she got wherever they were going. Despite the way he was talking about it being nothing, she had her doubts.

“Luckily I was trained by your Badari cousins to fly these things,” Brent said, standing beside the ramp controls until she was safely inside. “Beats walking.”

As the stern of the flyer closed up, Brent was already heading for the cockpit so Raeblin set her medkit in an empty seat and followed him. He slid into the pilot’s seat and worked the controls as she joined him, taking the other chair. The engines spun up with a roar and the flyer lifted into the air with a jerk.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had flying lessons?” he asked casually as he steered the flyer in a wide turn. Leaning forward he hit the targeting interface and the flyer shuddered as blaster beams raked the forest below in a long burst.

“Too busy with basic training and working at the hospital,” she said. “This is only my third flight in my entire life. Once when Gabe rescued us from the lab where we were created, the flight three days ago deploying on the mission and now this. I love it up here, though, free as a bird.”

Laughing, he flipped the weapons tab and the blasters cut out. On the rear vids she watched the forest burning and a wave of sadness came over her. “Don’t worry,” he said, “The foliage was all pretty moist, high humidity, nothing will burn too long. Not fire season yet.”

“You’ve flown a lot?” she asked as they soared through the sky toward the setting sun.

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