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.“My blood is what killed him.”“This is because you are impure.Like the other, but more complicated.” She regarded me.“Do you wish me to separate you?”I thought of Jarn, and how happy Reever would be to have her back.“Sorry, but I don’t have another body sitting inside my chest.”She shrugged, and started to say something else, when she frowned and turned toward the starboard side of the ship.“There is another vessel approaching.”“You claimed that you did not have any ships,” Xonea said.“It does not belong to the Jxin.” Her expression cleared.“It is only the undesirables.”Something hit the side of the Sunlace, rocking the deck under our feet.“They are shooting at you,” Maggie said helpfully.ThirteenXonea left Medical while the staff and I secured our patients and prepared for incoming wounded.I went to the isolation room to check on Marel, who was still sleeping, and brief Reever on the situation.“Unless Xonea needs you to negotiate with these people,” I told him, “I want you to stay here with her.”“I am not leaving her.” He glanced out at the nurses hurrying to prep our staging area.“What provoked this attack?”“We’ve been signaling for help since we got here.” I bent down to kiss my little girl on the brow.“This is probably why they didn’t respond.”Maggie didn’t protest when I put her to work preparing triage gurneys and instrument trays, although she seemed a little bewildered by our response to the attack.“They have a faster vessel, and more powerful weapons,” she told me.“You should not shoot back.”I’d already heard the sonic cannons booming as Xonea returned fire.“Maybe we’ll get lucky.Why are they attacking us, Maggie? What did we do?”“It is not what you did; it is what they do.” She shrugged, and then said something even more ominous.“That is why there are no others.They attacked and killed all of them.”The first wave of wounded arrived from a lower level that had suffered heavy damage and some sort of explosion.The crew’s injuries were a combination of impact fractures and serious burns.Whatever weapons the Odnallak were using employed a lethal phosphorous compound I’d never seen before: one that flash-burned on contact and then continued to burn through the derma down through the muscle and bone tissue, charring everything in its path.Three crew members died before I found the right counter-agent to neutralize it.Shon joined me as I finished assessing a navigator with spinal trauma.Jorenian blood spattered the front of the oKiaf’s tunic, and he looked ready to maul someone.“I will do what I can here.”“Don’t overextend your ability,” I warned him.“I’m going to need you in surgery.”Grimly I reported our status to Command, issued orders for the neutralizer to be administered to every burn victim who came in for treatment, and then took my first patient, a female with severe head trauma, into surgery.The battle raged on, and as the ship shuddered and jerked around us, I wondered how long the stardrive core would hold up.If the Odnallak were able to successfully locate and target it, this fight and the ship wouldn’t last much longer.I worked as fast as I dared to remove tiny fragments of bone from my patient’s brain before I closed and called for the next patient.Time and faces began to blur as I operated to save patients with crushed rib cages, fractured spines, and battered organs.At some point I realized the fight had ended, but then we began having disruptions in our power supply, and I had to give the order to switch the bay over to the emergency generators in order to maintain life support systems for the critically wounded.When I had a minute between cases, I looked in on Shon and ChoVa, who were working in the other surgical suites, and the residents, who were handling the now-overflowing triage.I issued orders to our logistics technicians for them to set up every available chamber on our level as temporary patient wards.Our caseload surpassed twenty, then fifty, then reached a hundred before security stopped carrying in wounded.Six hours after the battle, almost one-third of the crew had reported or had been brought to Medical for treatment.Xonea signaled me sometime that night.“We have negotiated a cease-fire.”“Thank God.” I stripped off one bloody glove before I rubbed my tired eyes.“What are the terms?”“We are to follow them to their homeworld and surrender some of our people to them for questioning.”I didn’t like that.“Who do they want?”“Maggie, you, Duncan, the Hsktskt, and the oKiaf.” Before I could ask, he added, “They would not explain how they knew your names, or why they wish to question you.”I glanced at the isolation room.“Can we jump away from here?”“Only if we wish to finish what the Odnallak started.The stardrive is inoperable and on the verge of implosion.” He sounded old and very tired.“Cherijo, we cannot escape or continue to fight.Presently the only thing holding the ship together is the protocrystal.If I am to make repairs and save the crew.”“I’ll speak to the others, and we’ll get ready,” I promised.I already knew what their answer would be.“All I want in return is for you to protect Marel, and get everyone home.Do whatever it takes, even if it means leaving us here.”“I will, ClanSister.”We arrived at Odnalla two days later and assumed orbit above the planet.I caught a few hours of sleep now and then on a cot in Marel’s room in between caring for our patients.Reever never left her side and ate only when I brought food to him, and slept in the chair beside her berth only when I threatened to sedate him.Our exhausted daughter slept a great deal, but the few times she woke, she was alert and coherent, if a little confused.She had no memory of teleporting to the Sunlace, and in particular watched me with wary eyes.“Healer Cherijo,” she said on the second day, when I paid her a visit during my morning rounds, “you are my mama, aren’t you?”“Yes.” The lapses in her memory did concern me, but considering the trauma she had suffered, they weren’t unexpected.“Do you remember being with me on Joren?” Her curls bounced as she shook her head.“I came to see you after Jarn left.”She looked at me, and then her father.“Daddy? Who is Jarn?”Reever exchanged a look with me before he said, “She was a friend of ours who stayed with us while your mother was away.”“Oh.” She yawned and her eyelids began to droop.“Was she nice?”“She was very nice [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]