Savachev screamed in pain.

"Hold her damn you," Rene snarled. The merchant was white faced, lifting the spacer was not a pleasant task. One hand was under the woman's shoulder, but the other was just below buttock, the burned flesh slid under hand, the grip lubricated by sera and damaged flesh. Bouradine swallowed hard but kept his grip. It wasn't Bouradine's fault really, the merchant was doing well enough given the task at hand, Rene simply didn't like Solae wandering around without him. It made sense, but he didn't really trust anyone to look out for Solae as well as he could. Part of that was skills, but devoted as the Syshin were, as much as Rosaria looked at her as something between a mother and a savior, no one loved the Duchess the way he did.

"One more second," Rene told Bouradine and nudged the backplate into place. Savachev was whimpering now, her body growing limp as the pain overloaded her system.

"Ok, down," Rene directed, lowering the spacer down into place. The armor was slightly too large, sized for Rene, in theory it was adjustable but the process was tedious and didn't really matter for this purpose. They settled Savachev down and Rene picked up the chest plate and pressed it into place, it clicked and there was a whir of seal engaging.

"Are you really with the Marines?" Bouradine asked. Rene looked up at him, forgetting for a moment that he was still wearing a combat helmet. The merchant was scared, all but babbling, inhabiting a world of fear wholly different from Rene's. What had he expected when he and Bel'sian eloped? Certainly not a crashed escape pod, and Imperial Duchess and being pressed into service as a medical orderly. All things considered Rene supposed he was doing surprisingly well. Instead of responding immedialey he raised his right sleeve to display the tattoo of the dagger crossed planet and the serial number marked into his flesh.

"Really," he confirmed tonelessly. The visor blinked a red alert as it resynced with his chest plate. A schematic of a human body occupied a portion of the head up display. Red warning lights lit up all over the body. Not Rene's body, Savachevs. It was possible to open the individual alerts if more information was required, though the real purpose of the sensors was to inform a squad medic and command group of soldiers status. Rene didn't need to open them to know that the spacer was in bad shape. The critical alert flashed in his visor and Rene activated the emergency medical pack. There was another soft hiss as auto injectors pumped antibiotics into Savachevs system. Judging by the white count and the blood pressure it was amazing the spacer was still alive. Whatever Bouradine had done had probably saved the woman's life. The spacers eyes snapped open as drugs and combat stims poured into her system.

"S..sir?" she moaned, her voice like a wood rasp. Her eyes tried to focus, but the left one seemed to refuse to do so, a side effect of the anti-shock meds artificially raising her blood pressure. 

"Colonel Quentain," he identified himself, "keep calm and relax for stars sake, we have medical inbound, but I need you to stay calm till we can get you into a medi-comp." The spacer nodded and seemed to relax, her signals improving slightly.

"I can't feel my legs," she half whispered.

"No sweat, the analgesics are deployed by vasoconstrictors, targets where you are hurt, it isn't paralysis," Rene assured her. Savachev nodded, letting out a deep breath. She reached over and her hand pawed at a panel. Rene reached out and pulled the panel free. Beneath the panel was a data key, striped red and black. The emergency data dump. Any time a ship launched escape pods it dumped an encrypted copy of its core files onto a high capacity key. Rene took it and slid it into his pocket. As the senior officer it was his responsibility.

"Gory... gory... but a hell of a way to die..." Savachev moaned, sinking back into her fuge.

"We will get you help, just hang on," Rene told her, listening for the distant roar of the Bonaventure.

"Just hold on," he repeated under his breath.