Starfire Rising by Phoebe Conn

Author:Phoebe Conn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
Published: 2015-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Dez had boasted about staying awake for the first watch, but without Blaise's stimulating company, he quickly caught himself dozing off. Determined to remain alert, he reviewed their conversation and wished he had handled several aspects of it differently. The crash haunted him now, for if Blaise had landed without difficulty, it was possible that malfunctioning components within his ship, rather than a mysterious force from without, had caused him to slam into the forest. The experience had been terrifyingly familiar, and perhaps he had leapt to the wrong conclusion as to its cause.

He had been positive the rebuilt Scorpion was sound, and Sula had guaranteed it, but here he was flat on his back with two broken legs, a testament that something had gone dreadfully wrong. They didn't have the time to make as thorough an investigation of the Scorpion as Alado's crash investigators would, but when it was light, he would ask Blaise to discover all she could. She had retrieved the medical and emergency supplies from his ship, so she had been in it once. He hoped asking her to visit it a second time wouldn't be too great an imposition.

Alone with his thoughts, it was all too easy to become deeply depressed. He had lived on the edge of danger his whole life, and now, just when he most needed to be in top form, he had been injured in a mishap that had been even more stupid than most accidents. Anger kept him awake for a long while, but when he could no longer fight off sleep, he had to wake Blaise. It was just past 2:00 a.m., and the sky was as black as the cat that had shattered what little peace they had had.

"Blaise?" He had expected her to respond instantly, but he had to call her name several times, and in increasingly urgent tones, to drag her from her dreams.

"Are you all right?" she asked when she finally sat up.

"Hell, no, but it's your turn at watch."

Relieved there was no new emergency, she yawned sleepily and rubbed her eyes. "Forgive me, I should have asked earlier if you were in pain. We've plenty of drugs if you are."

He considered her offer a long moment, and decided against it. "I don't believe I've ever felt worse, but anything strong enough to blur the pain will just knock me out again, and I want to stay as alert as I can. I think my pride hurts worse than my legs. To survive a crash and then fall out of a tree is so damn stupid I can hardly stand it. If I live long enough to write a report about this, I'm not going to mention it."

"Beating yourself up like that isn't going to help us, Dez. Go to sleep, and we'll make some plans in the morning."

Her advice was sensible, but he still felt at a terrible disadvantage. "I wasn't very gracious earlier. It doesn't matter why you came, you've saved my life twice since you've been here and—"

She laid her fingertips across his mouth.

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