Chapter 4: The Locked Med Bay

The shuttle bay doors were already shut when Idris got there.

Through the viewport he watched the last transport lift off the deck and fall away toward the dead moon.

Rurik's red head was visible in the cockpit window.

He had been left on a station under attack by a team that had counted its heads and gotten the number it wanted.

"Fine," Idris said. "I wasn't going to enjoy the trip."

"Med bay," the shade said, appearing at his elbow, flickering.

"Second ring. I can see them through the walls. Seven men. Not all of them can walk."

"You can see through walls?"

"I'm a ghost." The shade's voice cracked on the word. "I am being very useful. Run."

Idris ran.

The med bay was a long white room with ten cots, and eight of them were full.

Two medics stood against the far wall with their arms around each other.

Seven reservists lay on the beds in bandages, all wounded in the border skirmish of the week before.

None of them had been put on a shuttle.

"Door's sealed," one medic said, hoarse. "Breach protocol. It locks from the control room. It won't open until the all-clear."

"Who has the all-clear?"

"Vossler."

Idris looked at the sealed door and then at the ceiling.

Something scraped in the vent.

It was a thin, dry, clicking sound, and it was coming from three places at once.

"Skarn scouts," the shade said.

"Four in the east vent. Three behind the supply wall. They are fast, they are small, and they eat soft things first."

The medics started to cry.

Idris stepped past them to the nearest cot.

A boy of nineteen or twenty lay there with a field dressing over his ribs.

The dressing had gone black, and the boy was grey around the mouth and breathing in shallow sips.

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