The Defiant
Chapter Thirty One

The mood on the ship was grim. We’d accomplished a mission we weren’t sure we wanted to do, and we’d lost two of our own in the process.

Immediately after docking on the Defiant, Six and Five rushed our passenger to the prison cell, frog marching, with one on either side of him. Seven ran up to the med bay to get tranquilizers for the Eranians, and we brought the syringes down to the cargo bay and injected them. While we waited for the drug to take effect, I dragged my feet. I knew that we should probably let the Eranians go and leave orbit before the police came after us, but I was reluctant to leave when two of the crew were still on the planet.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t exactly go back down to save them, so after we’d loaded the princesses and their retinue into the Eranians ship (the other was still on the planet, but there was nothing to do about that), we trooped up to the bridge to eject them into space and then get going.

I sat at the pilot’s console. The rest of the crew hung around, slumped on computer consoles or the floor.

I began to execute what I thought was the shuttle ejection sequence, but I was interrupted by a small beep from the back computer station.

“It says a ship just docked,” said Seven, almost like a question.

“I’ll go check it out,” I said right away, glad for a chance to postpone our leaving, even though it was probably a police shuttle coming to arrest us.

Six rose to come with me.

“No, everyone stay here in case it’s the police. I’ll comm if there’s trouble, and you can get us out of here,” I said, and slipped into the lift before anyone could stop me.

When I reached the corridor of Deck Six, I approached the shuttle bay doors with caution. As they slid open, I jumped backward, only to run forward again when I realized who it was.

It was our missing crewmates, but something was terribly wrong. Four was supporting Two, who appeared barely conscious, covered in blood, his face ashen.

“Seven, get down here with a med kit! Two’s been shot!” I called immediately into my comm, rushing forward to take Two’s prone form from Four. I placed both hands on the wound, then cried out in pain, remembering my broken wrist. I pressed down with my right hand, trying to make the bullet wound stop its sluggish pumping of blood.

“I need to get up to the bridge to get us out of here. They were right behind us!” Four said, lowering Two to the ground and racing toward the lift.

I tore a strip of satin off the hem of my skirt, wadding it up and pressing it to the wound on Two’s chest, just below his heart. The dark red was soaked immediately. Two groaned, and his eyes rolled back into his head. Beginning to panic, I pressed even harder on his chest. I thought I heard a rib crack.

Simultaneously, I heard the whoosh of the lift and the sound of the air rushing out of the shuttle bay as the Eranian ships were released to space. Seven and Five raced toward us, arms full of medkits and bandages. Three and Six exited the lift as well, each carrying half a stretcher.

The D17s started up with a roar as Six and Five loaded Two onto the stretcher while Seven worked on him, pressing sterile bandages to the wound and checking his pulse. She began CPR as Six and Three carried him back into the lift. They were followed by Five. There was no room left in the lift, so I stayed on Deck Six.

I waited alone, my heart pounding to the pulse of the engines.

The comm came in nearly three hours later, when all of us but Seven, Three, and Two sat anxiously waiting in the galley. Three had stayed in the medbay to help Seven. Five was rocking back and forth, back and forth. Eight was twisting her hair around her fingers so it cut off the circulation, then unwound it and began again. Four had chewed her fingernails nearly to the quick.

“He’s going to be okay. Everyone needs to come to the med bay.” Seven’s voice, tired but triumphant, echoed through the comm channel, broad-band, so we all heard it at once.

Sighing in relief, we trooped to the hallway and rode the lift down to Deck Four. In the medbay, Two lay in one of the beds, blankets tucked up to his chest,

“He’s sleeping,” Seven explained as we came in. “The bullet missed any organs, thank goodness, because I doubt I’m qualified to perform surgery, being a teenager.” She laughed tiredly. “It hit one of his ribs, though. I dug it out and bandaged him up. He’s got two broken ribs; the one the bullet lodged in and one I must have broken during CPR. He shouldn’t move much for the next week or so; longer if I can convince him to stay in the medbay.”

“Thanks, Doctor Seven,” Five saluted.

Three climbed off the hospital bed where she’d been sitting and stretched, cringing when her shoulders popped.

“Okay, I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“I don’t think so.” Seven turned to face us, putting her hands on her hips. “All of you have injuries, so I’m going to treat you all, right now, before anything gets worse. And we can review the situation while we do that. One, you first.”

I sat obediently on the bed closest to me while Seven brought over a small scanning device and a bottle.

“Take two of these.” She shook pills into my hand. I swallowed them, wincing at their bitter taste.

“So One, what happened? How did they figure out that we were faking it?” Two asked, plunking down on the bed across from mine.

“Davalos figured it out. I think he’d been realizing it for a while, but when I couldn’t name Rosa-Marie’s disease, he knew.”

“Osteogenesis imperfecta,” Four groaned. “That was one of the things we went over!”

“Ouch,” Seven interrupted, staring at her scanner, which I realized was probably an x-ray. “Two of your wrist bones are broken. I’ll set them, and you’ll have to wear a cast for a week while the bone-growth formula does its magic.”

“Why can’t you give some of that to Two?” Eight asked.

“Ribs are tricky. They can’t be immobilized like an arm or leg bone, and if they grow too fast, they can become malformed and cause all sorts of problems. In an emergency, I’d risk it, but it’s to unsafe to do just for convenience,” Seven explained. She held my wrist, turning it this way and that.

All of a sudden, she yanked, hard. I screamed as fire shot up and down my arm. Seven released my wrist with an apologetic grimace.

“Sorry. It’s easier if you aren’t expecting it.” She gave me a few more pills to take and wrapped my still-throbbing arm in a bandage, then moved on to Eight.

“I’ve got a question,” I began. “How did you guys get back up here?”

“Well, after they took me away from the ship, they put us in a holding room or something, and took our comms, which is why we didn’t call. Two was still bleeding pretty badly, and I was yelling for help. I didn’t attack Milonakis when he came in because I thought he was a doctor they’d sent,” Four said.

“Milonakis came in? What did he want?” I asked. Beside me, Eight sucked in a pained breath as Seven wrapped her sprained ankle.

Four shrugged. “He didn’t say anything, just came in and looked at us, then left. He didn’t lock the door, and he dropped a piece of paper on the floor.

“It turned out to be the combination for Bay 218. We just walked right out of the holding room. Milonakis must have gotten rid of the guards. I took Five to Bay 218, and we took off, no complications at all.”

“Why would Milonakis help us?” asked Seven, looking up from plucking glass shards of hovercar windshield from the cuts on Three’s arms.

“Because he was working with the Aerzhu,” I said.

“Um. What?” Five asked incredulously. Everyone else was staring at me too, with the obvious exception of Two, who was still passed out.

“Come on. None of you figured it out? The dresses the Aerzhu picked out for us were the same colors as the rooms we were assigned on Cebos. I’m pretty sure Milonakis knew we weren’t who we said we were, but he didn’t say anything to anyone. And he let Four and Two go. Why else would he have done that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s just crazy,” Three said dismissively, wincing as Seven pulled a particularly jagged piece of glass from a cut on her shoulder.

“No. I think One’s right. My accent slipped a few times and I know Milonakis noticed, but he didn’t point it out to Davalos, which he would’ve done if he hadn’t been in on the plan,” Four backed me up, sitting on the edge of the bed with her little feet swinging rapidly back and forth. She’d torn the bottom few inches of her dress off, presumably for better mobility. It occurred to me that we were all still wearing formalwear in various states of tatter. Had the ball really only been a few hours ago? It felt like so much longer—

“What are we supposed to do now?” Five asked, interrupting my thoughts. “Just go on with the mission like nothing happened?”

“What else would we do?” Eight snapped. “We all knew this would be difficult. This is the only way to regain our memories.”

Three looked up briefly, then down at her hand, which had been open slightly. She closed it tightly, and I heard the crinkle of paper. I looked at her curiously, but she avoided my eyes.

We sat in silence while Seven finished bandaging the last of our injuries, then sent us to bed, like we were a bunch of disobedient children.

“Go get some sleep. One, be careful with that wrist. Eight, keep as much weight off your foot as you can. I’m sure we can improvise some crutches tomorrow if you need them,” she ordered.

“You’ll go to bed, too, right, Seven?” I asked as the rest of the crew trooped off.

“Well, I have to watch Two—”

“I’ll watch him for right now, and then I’ll wake someone else up to sit with him. We can take shifts. You don’t have to do everything,” I reminded her gently.

“Fine. But you’ll come get me if something happens, right?”

I nodded, and she left reluctantly.

I settled myself onto the bed I’d sat on before, with some difficulty in the hoopskirt. Despite the uncomfortable attire, I was exhausted and on the verge of falling asleep when movement from across the room jolted me awake.

I was on my feet in an instant, shuffling over to Two’s bed.

“Eight?” he mumbled, stirring weakly. “Wha’s goin’ on?”

“It’s me, One. The Cebosian police shot you. You’re in the med bay, but you’ll be fine. We got away with only a few minor injuries.”

“’S good,” he slurred.

“Two, I’m so sorry. None of this would’ve happened if Davalos hadn’t figured me out, and I stopped Three from going back to get you—What if you and Four hadn’t been able to get off the planet? It’s all my fault. I’m supposed to be the leader. I’m supposed to keep you all safe. And you, you almost died. You would’ve died, if it hadn’t been for Four and Seven. I’m so, so sorry.” I felt a tear drip onto my hands.

Two let out a harsh, grunting sound. A snore. I looked over at him and realized he was fast asleep again.

A few hours later, I was freshly showered and dressed in black Aerzhu-issued pajamas. How I’d missed pants!

After Two had lost consciousness again, I conked out in the med bay. I woke with a crick in my neck, and someone else was there. Seven must have come in at some point while I was asleep. She was curled up on the cot next to Two’s, sound asleep.

I crawled gratefully into my own bed and snuggled deep under the covers. As exhausted as I was, I had expected to fall asleep immediately, but I lay awake, staring at the stars out the window. Something was niggling at me, at the back of my brain. A memory I had forgotten, a puzzle yet to be solved…

I sat straight up, realization coursing through me like electricity.

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