Page 8 of Badari Medic

His face was blank as he gave her a self-deprecating answer. “Gabe is the hotshot pilot, not me. Sure, I’ve done my share of flying here and there, planetary and interplanetary, but my specialties are ground-based. I like to have my boots planted in the dirt, going after the bad guys personally.”

“You’re good at it,” she said, paying tribute to his undeniable skills. “You took out those four Khagrishi so fast my head was spinning. How did you recover from the stunblast so fast? I’m Badari and even I didn’t bounce back as rapidly.”

“Long story, sweetheart. Basically Special Forces guys get a lot of strange experimental equipment, implants and modifications during their time of service. Not allowed to talk about any of it, not even to you.” He gave her a wink. “Let’s say maybe I volunteered for one program aimed at minimizing the amount of downtime a soldier experiences after getting stunned and hey, surprise surprise, the damn thing worked. A lot of the time the shit doesn’t work or not as advertised but every now and then the scientists hit one.”

“What’s our plan?” she asked, studying him closely. Was he more pale under the tan now? Misgivings stirred in her gut.

“We can’t fly straight to the valley, don’t want to give the enemy any intel we don’t have to. I’m going in the general direction and we get close enough you can contact them telepathically. We’ll agree on a rendezvous point, land and wait to be picked up. Easy.”

Raeblin pointed at the control panel. “Can’t we use the com? Call for extraction?”

“Not a good idea. We have no idea who might be listening in if we use a Khagrish comlink.” He turned to give her his full attention. “I want to get us home but at the same time we have to maintain OPSEC for the valley.”

She knew the acronym meant operational security and she couldn’t argue with him. If the enemy ever discovered Sanctuary Valley it would be a disaster. Raeblin settled in her seat and watched the forest rushing by under the flyer. At a minimum Brent was saving them days of walking and possible recapture. “Sounds good to me.” A flicker of red light on the control panel caught her eye and she pointed at the blinking indicator. “What’s that mean?”

Brent barely glanced at it. “Means the Khagrish do crappy maintenance and the engine has a problem. They’ve probably been ignoring this check engine light for months. Idiots never should have been flying this crate but they’re notorious for slipshod mechanics. I’m hoping she’ll get us where we’re going before the damn levels go critical.”

No sooner had he spoken than an alarm blared and a robo voice exclaimed in Khagrish.

Brent fought the controls and the flyer began to yaw and pitch in the air. “Strap in. I’m going to set her down in the first clearing I find.”

He sounded as calm as always and Raeblin obeyed the order, although her heart was pounding. She heard the rhythm of the engine falter and resume and stop again, leaving the whistling of the air against the fuselage as the only sound.

“Damn flyer makes a lousy glider,” Brent said. “Brace yourself.”

She tried to relax against the belt holding her in place, not too worried, being Badari and a fast healer. Her concern was all for Brent, who was human and clearly already injured in his fight with the Khagrish pilot when he took over the flyer.

The craft nosedived and things became confused for Raeblin, with her vision cutting in and out as the flyer rolled several times and time seemed to slow. The trees rushed at her in the vids until she could see the individual branches and then therewas a scraping sound, followed by a horrific rending of metal and a crash. Her body strained against the safety webbing, which had deployed at the first impact with the trees and her mind went blank as all forward motion abruptly stopped in a bright flare of white.

She didn’t know how long she was unconscious, maybe only seconds, but as awareness came back slowly Raeblin realized she was hanging upside down in the straps, she was bleeding from a cut on the head and the cockpit was filling with smoke. “Brent?”

No answer. She craned her head to see him, ignoring the pain the movement brought, and found him hanging in his straps, unconscious. With difficulty she extended her talons and tore through the webbing holding her. She fell to the deck, which had been the ceiling and the breath was knocked out of her for an instant. Coughing, she moved to Brent, trying first to wake him but then slicing through his safety belt and catching him to break his fall. Lying on the deck with Brent on top of her, she heard the crackle of flames and knew they had limited time to save themselves. Exerting her Badari strength, she managed to wriggle out from under Brent despite the close confines of the crumpled cockpit and then hefted him up and onto her shoulder.

As best she could she got them out of the cockpit into the cabin, maneuvering her way through the twisted hull. Fire was eating away at the port side of the cabin and the air was barely breathable here. The heat was intense. Raeblin headed toward the stern and the exit ramp, which she could see through the smoke had been ripped away. As she struggled down the aisle, climbing over seats thrown into the path and hauling the unconscious Brent over the obstacles, she banged her knee on the medkit and grabbed it. Getting herself, Brent and the medkit out of the rapidly deteriorating situation was a nightmare shewasn’t able to explain to herself afterwards but somehow she did it, determined they weren’t going to die here.

Raeblin fell onto the soft forest ground outside the flyer, Brent landing on top of her, and took in deep breaths of the fresh air. There was undoubtedly scant time before the flyer would explode, so she forced herself to her feet, got Brent over her shoulder again, grabbed the medkit and made a shambling run through the surrounding trees. She had no idea how far away they had to get to be safe so she did the best she could but her strength was waning.

Calling upon the goddess to help her, she got a renewed grip on Brent and tried to go faster.

Instinct or perhaps a peripheral sound her inner predator heard caused her to drop, covering Brent’s body as best she could and trying to flatten them both into the loamy soil. A huge blast deafened her and the next moments were insane, with broken pieces of metal and hunks of wood flying everywhere. A few glancing pains as fragments of shrapnel hit her were a distraction but when the noise and the barrage stopped, she rolled off Brent and sat up despite the vertigo which assailed her. Although her hearing was impaired, her eyes were working fine and she took in the crater where the flyer had been, ringed by broken, burning trees.

“We cut it close,” she whispered.

Brent was unmoving and with a bit of panic she checked the pulse point in his neck and was reassured to find it steady but weak. Ordinarily she could have heard his heart beating but the blast had left her partially deaf. Holding her hysteria tightly under control she checked him over and found several gashes from shrapnel, nothing too bad, but when she lifted his tee shirt to check his side she swore. He’d obviously put a crude pressure bandage on it himself, which was blood soaked. Touching the dressing with trembling fingers, she thought she was going tocry and again forced herself to focus. She was a medic, damn it. Savagely opening the medkit she grabbed her diagnosing device and ran it over him, her heart breaking with each new reading. He had massive internal bleeding.

Shoulders slumping, Raeblin sat on her heels, head down, fighting off panic.

Brent opened his eyes. “Hey, sweetheart.” His voice was weak and she had to bend close to hear him. “Sorry about the bumpy landing.” With a grimace he closed his eyes and then reopened them to stare at her as if she was the most important thing in the world to him. He moved his hand and she grasped it in her own.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” she whispered.

“Damn Khagrish had a force knife, got in a lucky blow before I killed him.” Brent licked his lips. “Knew it was bad. Priority was to get you to safety so I gambled we could make it to the valley or to a safe extraction point and then maybe Doc Garrison could fix me up in her fancy hospital. I know you haven’t got anything in your kit for the kind of wound I’ve got. Sucked it up, did the job.” He gazed at the trees above them. “Only luck ran out and I fucked it up. You gotta run now, head west, keep trying the telepathic link. Khagrish will come check on this site sooner or later.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she said, angry he would even suggest such a thing. “And we’re going to have words later about you hiding the seriousness of your wound.”

“We don’t have a later,” Brent said. “Kinda wish we did—you’re a special lady. We made it safe to the valley I might have told you?—”

“Told me what?” Raeblin was desperate for his next words but Brent closed his eyes again. She smoothed his hair off his face and tried to think what to do because she was not abandoning him.

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