Criestia made an indelicate sound at the question. She fiddled with her hand held scanner for a moment, more to give herself a moment to compose a reply than for any new information it might provide.

“I’m going to put an ATU on it, so he won’t be able to run around, but he ought to be ok to sit up by this evening. Buy tomorrow, if everything goes well he should be able to walk without doing more damage but I’d give it a week to make a full recovery,” Criestia explained. Automatic Treatment Units were a small scale version of the medical computers that starships often carried, able to perform minor surgery and post surgical care by way of small metallic polymer filaments which penetrated to the affected area and then worked on the problem from the inside with a combination of mechanical repair, pharmaceutical treatment and a basic form of 3D printing which laid down a carbohydrate superstructure which the body would eventually subsume as tissue regrew.

“Do you have a medical computer on that ship of yours?” Criestia asked, as she drew a palm sized plastic box from her medical bag and touched a button to sync it to her handheld.

“We do,” Solae confirmed glancing between Rene and the doctor. Criestia pressed the box to Rene’s side, the flexible plastic moulding like putty beneath her hands. There was a soft fizzing sound as surgical superglue attached it to Rene skin.

“Good, if you hook him up to it everyday you might speed recovery time to three maybe four days. Providing…” she wagged a finger at Rene, “you don’t go around getting into any more gunfights.” 

“That might not be up to me, if Bhast is out there recruiting hired guns it’s only going to take so long to figure out who his hiding us and where we are. She has probably already traced Thorne’s call to Ralch and from there she can work her way back to Ten…” Rene cut off with a grimace of pain as Criestia activated the ATU and the three surgical filaments lanced into his skin. The pain subsided almost immediately as they began to apply neuro-inhibitors to deactivate the pain responses.  

“That isn’t my department, I'm just telling you to take it easy if you don’t want to rip yourself open before you finish healing,” Criestia said as she packed up her medical bag.

“I’ll be monitoring your readings but if you feel anything change you should call me immediately,” she cautioned before slinging her bag and leaving the two lovers alone. Solae leaned down and they shared a brief passionate kiss, though she was careful not to disturb the unit attached to his side. Rene showed no such restraint, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing their bodies together for a long moment, the heat and scent of her stirring his loins despite the after effects of wounds and medication. She broke the embrace with a wicked smile before he could risk undoing any of Criestia’s work, he would probably be lucky if the spike in his heart rate didn’t bring her back.

“I suppose some things might do as much damage as another gunfight,” he said with a wink, earning himself a wicked grin from his paramour. 

“So tell me about you new rank,” she said, disengaging herself with evident reluctance. 

“Well,” Rene began, leaning back on his cot.

“A light colonel ordinarily runs a batallion, but they also serve as advisors and military attaches, you probably had one at the embassy in New Concordia, though it may have been a major seeing we are pretty far from Capella,” Rene explained. That had probably been what the Empress had intended when she granted Solae’s request to improve his situation.

“I don’t think that recruiting troops is a good idea, you were onto something with the Syshin but the more people we expose ourselves to the more likely it is someone will try to take Duke Tan up on his offer.” Rene lay back trying to dredge up the bits and pieces he remembered from long ago briefings when he had been stationed on New Concordia.

“I am probably the highest ranking marine left in the Eastern Cross,” he admitted.

“There was a Colonel Drakova stationed on the flag ship of the local naval squadron at Traulis Major but that would have been the first target when the coup kicked off. They probably hit every deployment of marines but its possible there are other fugitives who escaped the purge.” There had been several thousand marines scattered across the Eastern Cross, working as military advisors to the Gids and at small bases like the Rat Trap. Had any of those men survived. There had to be a certain number who had been on leave, or like Rene had simply gotten lucky. If they could find those men Rene could in theory rally them, though he had no training to be an officer beyond what his father had taught him and what he had picked up as an enlisted man.

“I suppose that brings us to what we should do next,” Rene said, the words sounding strange to his own ears. They had been focused on reaching the PEA for so long that he hadn’t really thought about what might come after. The vague notion of finding a quiet world to hide on that he had been forming had been dashed in the PEA chamber. The Empress had given them tremendous gifts but they carried with them new responsibilities and imperatives. 

“It’s a shame we didn’t have time to get any more information.”