The captain herself was struggling to keep a hold on her emotions as it was, and the situation was only made more difficult by the doctor's assessment of Teg's condition. Her fists and jaw were clenched, her eyes hard as they stared over at the unmoving body of Teg- then at Andrea- and slowly her expression changed to one of defeat. They had experienced an overabundance of tragedy in such a short timespan. If one were to look closely they might even see her eyes starting to mist over a bit, but she was keeping the tears at bay and just trying to listen to whatever diagnosis Kai was giving her. "Only a matter of time," he'd said. So Teg was as good as dead unless some sort of miracle brought her back to them, and Maria had never had much faith in miracles.
"We'll get through it, doctor," she commented, giving the ithlo a brief pat on the shoulder. She wasn't a very affectionate person and she doubted Kai was either, so this was as close to a hug as he was ever going to get from her. It was plain for any of them to see that he had taken a liking to the spirited mercenary. It was very possible he was going to be the one the most hurt by this loss, and that garnered sympathy from the captain. Maria would never admit it, but she was one of the biggest bleeding hearts in the galaxy. Damned those human ideals and pack-bond mentality...
She approached the bed when Kevej started stirring, though she did stay a bit off to the side so as not to overwhelm him. He was probably pumped up with drugs at the moment and it would take a bit for him to be fully coherent again.
"Hey there big guy," she'd greeted, though it was very possible it didn't register with him. He noticed the doctor first.
"Thanks Kai'Mos, I guess this is why you get paid the big bucks."
And then it was her turn. He said her rank, which might as well have been her name at this point, and then began his ramble of what had happened on the bridge. "She pushed me ahead of her." That was surprising. Maria had never taken Andrea as the sacrificial type. "I wish I could've done the same for her." It seemed they were going to have to form a club for that sentiment, Kevej. Damned fool thinking she had to be the hero and get herself killed. That had done them so much good. Now here they were, out in the black with no pilot, a damaged ship, a nearly dead mercenary, and a wounded first mate. Either way they had the same amount of people dead. Same amount of dead with no pilot. Yes, a load of good that sacrifice had done for them indeed.
But even as these cynical thoughts ran around in her head, Maria's vision clouded over and the woman raised a hand to the bridge of her nose and tried to play it off like she was warding off a headache as she wiped a couple of the betraying drops of liquid from her eyes. It
would be the human woman that cried first. Gods damned stereotypes coming back to haunt her. She was desperately clawing out in her mind trying to take hold of the anger that had been there a mere few minutes before, but all she felt was the crushing emptiness of defeat. They were not going to recover from this any time soon.
She stayed silent for a good minute or two before finally properly looking at Kev and patting his arm, seeming to regain enough control to feign composure.
"It's alright, Kev. It's not your fault, and you know that. There's not a whole lot you can do in those situations, and there's no use in dwelling on what could have been or what you might've done differently. Just try to get back on your feet as soon as possible, okay? Oh and heads up: don't be alarmed if you see a pink ithlo and a robot running around."
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Bork