Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [24]
“What took you guys so long?” Stiles grumbled, smiling. “My right arm’s broken… you guys really butchered this building. What’d you have to hit it so hard for? You could’ve just blown one wall. I could’ve walked right out. I guess you didn’t want to take any chances. What a team… you’re so great to me… I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“You always yell,” Travis told him. “We quit listening a long time ago.” “Long ago” Andrea Hipp agreed with a grin.
‘Tm glad to see you,” Stiles told them. “There’s some guy in the next cell… I think he’s going to kill me.” “why should he?” Andrea asked.
Bernt Folmer shook his head. “You’re just nervous. Don’t worry about him.” “But he’s a criminal or something,” Stiles protested. “How do you know?” “He’s in jail, isn’t he?”
Travis smiled and jiggled Stiles’s knee. “So are you, light~ foot.”
Heartened by the presence of his team, Stiles raised his head again and surveyed the sheered-off slab of wall that pinned his
right leg. “Why don’t you lift this off me? I think I can stand up if you do. My toes are moving.”
Uneasily Jeremy White glanced at Berut. “Well… we can’t.”
“Why not?” Stiles blinked at him, then looked at Andrea and Bernt, then finally at Travis, from whom he would get the straight answer. “What’s wrong?”
Travis Perraton leaned against a jagged rock piecing a crack in the wall. “We didn’t make it”
“We tried to get you” Andrea added. “But they got us instead.”
“what?” Shoving up on his one good elbow, Stiles almost immediately collapsed in a surge of shock and misery. “Aw, Travis… how’d you and Jeremy get out of the coach? Why’d you leave? Berut, the fighters were guarding the coach! You were the Wing Leader… you had your orders….” “We didn’t want to leave you,” Bernt said. “You’re such a bag of emotions, Eric,” Travis commented.
Jeremy splayed his hands in a shrug. “So we’re ghosts. Could be worse. Eric, you’re going into shock.”
“Stay awake, Eric.” Travis knelt beside him. “Eric, stay with me, lightfoot. Don’t go to sleep. Are you listening? Open your eyes .” “Cover up” Andrea reminded.
“Okay, I’ve got my own orders, I get it:’ Pulling the blanket over his chest again, Stiles felt a series of moans run through his body. The sound was detached, as if made by a wheezing wind or a sighing pipe deep in the plumbing.
“Stay awake, Eric,” Bernt warmly repeated. “That’s an order.”
“Aye aye,” Stiles murmured. “I feel better now. I’m warming up. Thanks for looking after me.”
Travis offered his continental maitred’ smile. “Sure, lightfoot.” “We’ve got to go,” Bernt said. Stiles forced his eyes open again. “So soon?” Andrea shrugged. “It’s just that they hate aliens.” “See ya;’ Jeremy threw in. Stiles sighed. “See ya. Hey, what about my arm?” “I can set your arm, ensign.” Another voice. Soothing and stable.
He turned his head to his right, and there in the haze of feeble light saw the one person who could sustain him in any crisis.
“Ambassador… you came” he rasped, as if thanking the famous man for dropping in at a party. “And I’m just gum on your shoe….”
Spock tilted his elegant head accommodatingly and with his long hands caressed Stiles’s demolished arm. “You’re under great strain, ensign. I shall set your aim before I go. I have a splint here, but the arm will have to be lifted briefly. Relax.”
The words were clear and inspired confidence. Stiles closed his eyes, understanding that there would be terrific pain and he would do better if he relaxed as ordered. Spock pressed a reassuring hand to Stiles’s chest, as comfortingly as Travis or Jeremy might have done, then cradled Stiles’s shattered limb. His expression became studious and determined.
Stiles closed his eyes tighter, turned his face away, and braced for punishment. When it came, the gripping anguish took him completely by surprise despite his preparation. To a young man in the prime of youth who had never had a broken bone, pain’s sheer overdrive utterly disemboweled him. His head cranked back into the stone, his teeth gritted, and he was dimly aware of his body as it wrung and twisted. With every