Rene managed to catch Solae as she crumpled, though taking her weight, and that of her armor sent a stab of red hot pain up his side. A pair of hard faced men leaped from the armored air car and grabbed the pair hauling them through the hatch and into the rear compartment of the vehicle. The hatch hissed shut sealing away the crackle of burning APCs and the din of alarms set off by the discharge of the buildings high energy defensive weapons. Rene’s vision had become curiously monotone and the sound of fans and voices merged into a meaningless warble. Ten’s face appeared in his vision, pulling his helmet away but though his lips were moving Rene could make no sense of the words coming from his lips. He had the curious feeling that his tutors would be angry at him if he couldn’t relay Ten’s words to them. The kingpin turned and spoke to one of his men but by the time he turned back Rene had already slipped into unconsciousness. 





[b]  Zatis - Day 23
[/b]


“...needs a hospital… lost a lot of … pressurize…” Rene’s eyes fluttered open to reveal nothing but a blinding overhead light. The taste of antisceptic filled his throat  and cold fluid pumped into his right arm with a steady pulse like rhythm. He tried to sit up but some kind of bracing around his chest prevented him from doing so, though it didn’t prevent a stab of pain and the blaring alarms of several monitoring system. A face appeared above him, silhouetted against the bright light.

“Mr Quentain, you need to relax, don’t try to move,” a familiar voice told him. Rene tried to summon up the name of Ten’s doctor but the woman’s name seemed to have vanished from his foggy mind.

“Solae…” he croaked, his voice dry and cracked.

“She is ok, in better shape than you that is for sure,” the doctor replied. Rene felt himself relax either from some modification to the drugs he was being treated with, or simply the knowledge that Solae was safe.

“Good..” he whispered.

“You were shot,” the doctor said in an accusatory tone. Cristeta, that was her name, Rene recalled.

“Occ...occupational hazard,” he managed. Something moist was pressed into his mouth and he sucked on it instinctively, water coating his parched throat.

“You would be surprised how often I hear that,” Cristeta responded somewhat sourly. 

“A piece of your armor fractured inwards and penetrated your liver,” the doctor went on somewhat more clinically.

“It’s a miracle it didn’t lacerate an artery while you were running around all hopped up n that awful cocktail,” Cristeta marveled. The kind of combat drugs used by soldiers in the field were not well thought off in the medical community, a doctor wanted a drug that was safe and stable, a soldier wanted whatever it took to keep them on their feet.

“Any one you walk away from doc,” Rene responded, his voice strengthening, “but thank you for saving my life.” Cristeta grunted in acknowledgement a certain professional pride showing on her face.

“I need to see Solae,” he said after a moment. The doctor glared at him.

“What you need to do is rest and heal,” she countered. Rene shook his head.

“No time,” he explained, “Bhast and her men will be out by now and… wait how long have I been out?”

“Almost 30 hours I’m supposed to let Ten know as…”

“As soon as he wakes up yes,” Ten interjected, stepping through the door into the room. Rene forced himself up onto his elbows. The room must have been intended to be an elegant sitting room but it had been stripped of furniture and covered with semi-transparent plastic sheeting. A variety of surgical equipment including life support monitors and a synthetic blood transfusion set were spaced more or less equidistant around the bed in which he lay. 

“I need to talk to Solae,” Rene insisted, forcing himself slowly to sit up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

“What would I know, Im just a doctor,” Cristeta muttered after a glance at Ten to make sure the kingpin would not insist on her behalf.

“Has the Decameron already lifted?” Rene asked. Ten nodded.

“There was no point in trying to prevent it, Antigony Bhast could certainly have sent the news on any one of a hundred indepentent transports, perhaps you will get lucky and the Decameron will come apart when it tries to jump. It would have been a smarter move to blow the building with her inside,” Ten said with a total lack of emotion.

“Destroying a PEA worth more than the rest of this planet combined,” Rene added a touch sourly. Cristeta hurridley produced a wheel chair and Rene sank gratefully into it. His body was healing rapidly but there were few safe ways to combat exhaustion other than actually resting.

“It might have been worth it, to keep Tan in the dark,” Ten countered. Rene shook his head.

“Even if the Decameron wasn’t monitoring the communications net, which they certainly were, the Captain would have to be an idiot not to assume the worst and report it to Duke Tan.”

Ten shrugged, not conceding the point, but unwilling to keep arguing it. 

“I will take you to the Marquessa, and you can discuss your next move,” he told Rene, moving behind him to guide the wheel chair out of the improvised operating room.