Rene leaned forward placing both hands on the bench. The air at this latitude wasn’t cold but it was chilly compared to the tropical heat of New Concordia, the wind and rain had been enervating at a level that wasn't truly noticeable until the bulk of the Bonaventure offered some relief. The presence of the girl was a complicating factor he hadn’t planned on. It would still be at least a day before search and rescue aircraft were a real threat but he didn’t want to get caught half way through refueling either. 

“I doubt the inflatable will handle the waves,” he admitted his eyes thoughtfully on the exhausted girl. The small raft was meant as a refuge in case of a ditch in an aquatic environment, and while it may or may not be sufficiently hardened to resist collisions with the reefs and shoals, without a serious engine the wind and currents would drive them back onto the island.

“I think… I think our best bet is to try to refloat that barge on the beach, the hull is torn up but we can patch it with vacuum sealant, at least long enough to get across the straits.” The wrecked vessel hadn’t had an engine of its own, probably hadn’t in many years, but Rene had a few ideas about how to retrofit one from equipment they had on the Bonaventure. A smile tugged at his lips, the skills he had gotten in training were getting quite the workout. Perhaps if they survived long enough a problem would arise that he could solve by the right application of a courtly bow or a recitation of family history. It did not seem he was quite so well prepared for the world as he had imagined back on Cappela.  

“It will take both of us to crew it though, plus I’ll still need you to help get into the computers at the communications center.” It was going to be a tough job to cross the storm tossed straights as it was, but there were just too many things that could go wrong for one person to handle. Rene figured that if Solae was conning the boat then he could deal with anything else that came up.

“We should take the inflatable too, we can always abandon the barge if we have to, once we get out over the reefs,” Rene mused as he pulled out the first aid kit that Solae had put together from supplies salvaged from the plantation as well as the Bonaventures own medical gear. He drew a bulky medical scanner that the slavers had used to help sedate their victims and turned it on, fiddling with the display until he found the setting he wanted.

“Sir Rene, are you certain it is wise to risk exposing your paramour to such risk!?,” her synthesized tone made it sound like an exciting adventure but that was only because rebuke was difficult to pull off in a sultry manner.

“Well the ship is stuck in the mud till it dries out and I dont have alot of other options,” Rene mumbled, his words muffled by an IV kit he was holding between his teeth while he dug through the supplies. He found a bag of IV fluid and checked to make sure it was rated for human usage. Fortunately the biological divergence between human and Syshin physiology was not so great that the slaves had needed specialized supplies. He spat the iv kit out onto the bed next to the unconscious girl. 

“Besides, I don’t think its likely that word of the bounty on Solae has beaten us here,” he explained. That much was true, a message from New Concordia would have had to come by ship, been downloaded to the planetary net and then been distributed. Rene hadn’t really paid attention to ship movements during the boring garrison duty on New Concordia, but even if the rebels commandeered every merchantman and courier on the planet, they would still have more possible jump destination than available shipping. Word would reach Panopontus sooner rather than later, but it was so unimportant that Rene doubted it would have made the list for top priority worlds. Even once it got here, he doubted that the planetary communications infrastructure was operating well in the wake of the hurricane. The comm center in San Roayo might have the alert, but who would be distributing it when everyone was busy dealing with the aftermath of the storm. He didn’t like putting Solae in danger, but whatever her odds were of escaping, they went way down if he drowned trying to cross the ocean and she was stuck here in a ship with next to no fuel. 

“Just for the record this is way easier on 200 pound marines,” he complained. With sluggish half remembered steps he uncapped the IV needle and scanned the girls arm with a reddish wand of infrared light from the medical computer. The red on black pattern it returned was not precise but he thought he had some sense of where the girls veins were. Taking a deep breath he pressed the tip of the needle into the girls arm. Damaris twitched but didn't wake as the sharp plastic needle slid into her forearm. Frowning Rene pressed his fingers against her flesh, turned the needle slightly and jabbed it forward. A flash of red blood filled the cannula and he breathed a sigh of relief before pressing down on a small clip. Synthetic film extended to secure the IV in place and he screwed the bag of iv fluid into the access port. Clear fluid began to flow down into the girls arm, providing hydration many times more effectively than drinking could have done. He blew out a relieved breath.

“When she wakes up we need to find out as much as we can,” he said quietly, “ then we should try to get her home, even if she did try to knock my brains out.”