Red.
Plasma to fight back the onset of shock. Gauze packed by the fistful into the awful mess that had been a young marine's abdomen before they're hurried onto an evacuation shuttle. One among dozens, and Nick's still not certain how many will make it.
Yellow.
A thick bandage wound up the length of a shredded forearm to hold together the dangling flesh where a husk's talons have sliced to the bone. A shot of analgesic agent to hold back the pain at bay and keep them quiet for a little while. It's a rush job, but the medic has time to note the way his hands are shaking as he ties the dressing off.
Black.
A name, first and last, and a zipped up white bag that ripples as the rain bounces off of it. There are mercifully few, but each is heavier than the last. Nick doesn't recognize any of the names, and he's angry with himself for feeling relieved.
The piercing howl of a shuttle lifting off cut through the downpour as Nick wiped a mix of blood and medi-gel out of his eye, sitting down heavily on a chunk of broken concrete. The gash on his forehead had reopened at some point, allowing a trickle of blood and rainwater to run down his face and dribble off the end of his nose. His medkit sat messily unfurled across the concrete as rain continued to fall in fat, heavy drops, and he watched silently as bloodied bandages and bits of plastic wrappers were slowly washed away by the flowing rainwater.
After the chaos of the past few hours, the half-collapsed stretch of overpass that had been serving as their landing pad was finally quiet, save for the steady drumbeat of the driving rain and the occasional rumble of thunder overhead.
Following the initial attack, the shattered remnants of both platoons had staggered back to their staging area, doing what they could to drag out their wounded as the horde of husks threatened to overrun them. There, the retreating marines had rallied around the recon element's position and dug their heels into the colony's thick, black muck.
It had been a near thing, but the tide of twisted, synthetic monstrosities had finally been broken by a withering storm of hypervelocity fire. Nick had been practically lightheaded with relief as he watched as the last handful of husks were cut down, but he couldn't say it felt like much of a victory.
While the Alliance troops reorganized and hesitantly sent out patrols to search for the missing, he'd been at a hastily established aid station near the collapsed overpass, working feverishly alongside a handful of other corpsmen to stabilize casualties and get them evacuated.
Armed with only jagged claws that they flailed and thrashed with like rabid animals, the husks were capable of inflicting ghastly wounds. They generally weren't immediately fatal, but Vandas failed to find any comfort in that. Every time he saw a wounded marine on a stretcher with their flesh dangling in loose, bloody strips like a half-butchered carcass or groaning and gurgling through the unrecognizable mess that an hour ago had been their face, the gash on his forehead ached a bit and a chill danced up his spine.
As Nick watched the shuttle carrying the last of the seriously wounded begin to climb into the overcast sky, he gave a weak but relieved sigh. After hours of frantic, grueling work tending to the wounded with his strength being sapped away by the cold rain and the pain of his own injuries, the medic found that he didn't even have the energy left to go in search of someplace dry to sit down.
So, he sat in the pouring rain, staring off into the sky at nothing in particular as the thick, black muck was slowly washed off of his armor. A dull, lingering sort of numbness had washed over his senses, and the sensation wasn't entirely unwelcome.
After a few moments, the young marine's attention fell to a fat drop of blood on his left wrist, and he watched it run down along one of the seams of his gauntlet before dripping onto the ground. It landed on the wet concrete beside his boot, blossoming into a wide, crimson splotch for a fleeing instant before being washed away.
A second drop of blood landed on the concrete.
Then another.
And then another.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Running his finger along the seam of his armor, he soon found the source—an uneven gash on the underside of his forearm that had gone unnoticed. It was about half the width of his pinky and sealed incompletely with a bumpy scab of silvery, blue-grey omni-gel. A tiny rivet of blood seeped from the gash when he clenched his fist tightly, forming into a growing drop as he suddenly became aware of a burning sensation that throbbed in his forearm.
He found the release tabs and the seal on his gauntlet disengaged with a wet squelch, an alarming stream of dark red rolling down the inside of his wrist as he pulled the piece of armor away. Nick hissed at the sight of the mess underneath, discovering two long, jagged tears in his undersuit. The spongy black material was soaked through with blood, feeling sticky and faintly warm to the touch.
Peeling back the blood-soaked cuff of his undersuit, he found himself staring at the two ugly tears left by his encounter hours ago with a husk's claws. Both started near his wrist and ran almost half-way to his elbow, the flesh split open widely where it had been ripped open, like someone had reached down and simply unzipped the inside of his arm.
"F-fuck." The medic managed, reflexively clamping a hand tightly over the wound.
He rose unsteadily to his feet, urgently making his way to where his medkit was still laying. His fingers felt cold and clumsy as he rummaged through the bundle with his good hand, but he managed to find a what he was looking for—one of the sealed foil pouches that contained a compression dressing.
Numbed by adrenaline and the cold rain and distracted as he treated casualties, the medic had been clueless that he'd been quietly bleeding out for hours. The medical system in his hardsuit was probably the only reason he hadn't lost consciousness already, but it had its limits, and he now recognized the cold, creeping onset of shock for what it was.
"Fuck!" Nick barked hoarsely, the wet plastic packaging slipping between his fingers as he attempted to open it. He groped at his chest rigging where a row of tourniquets usually hung, but came up empty, leaving a bloody palm print on the shoulder of his armor.
Suddenly, a second pair of hands appeared, gently taking hold of the medic's wounded arm and swiftly coiling a heavy dressing around his forearm. A figure in muddy Alliance combat armor knelt down in front of him, producing another bandage and winding it around Nick's forearm with practiced ease.
"Sarge." Nick croaked weakly, that stranger's features finally falling into focus. Ouder spared the medic only a momentary glance before returning his attention to trying off the bandage, his expression grim and tired.
Taking a moment to inspect his work, the sergeant major stood, carefully pulling the corpsman to his feet. "Come on."
Gathering the medic's medical kit and helmet, the sergeant major led Vandas by his good arm towards a hovering shuttle, the side door swinging open as they approached.
Brice's looming form appeared in the doorway, the dim red light of the passenger bay casting dark shadows across the gunner's face. He offered Nick a thin smile as the medic began to shakily clamber aboard, one of the staff sergeant's meaty hands grabbing him securely by the upper arm and pulling him inside.
The clanking of Nick's boots on the metal floor echoed through the darkened compartment, the roar of the thrusters and the sounds of the outside storm growing muted as the shuttle door slid closed behind him
Caroline and Tolo sat in silence on opposite benches, their gazes flickering only momentarily to note the medic's arrival before they returned to staring at the floor between their boots.
Corporal Furlong sat to Caroline's right, one hand clutching his marksman rifle and the other wrapped in a thick bandage.
Something on the floor stirred, and it took Nick a moment to make out the form of his fireteam leader lying on a litter, seemingly half-conscious with a winding IV line in one of her arms.
The corpsman moved to check on her, but instead found himself being guided into a seat, and didn't resist as Brice gently took his rifle and helmet and stowed them in the overhead locker.
After a few minutes, the side door opened again and Ouder climbed aboard, speaking quietly to Brice before securing his rifle in the arms locker. As the shuttle lurched and lifted off, he took a moment to survey the assembled Rough Rider—battered, bloody, but thankfully all still breathing.
The sergeant major gave a quiet sigh as he took in the sight of them, and even under the dim red glow of the bay lights, Nick could see the equal measures of pain and relief painted across his expression.
For a moment, their gazes met and Ouder gave him the barest of nods. "Let's go home."
...
The only thing worse than a mission going badly was the inevitable after action report that followed, Shepard pondered grimly. They had a special, unflinching sort of horror all their own.
It was a macabre experience, really—sitting down to coldly dissect the events of a mission before the mud on your boots was even dry; the terror and confusion of battle reduced to tidy blips maneuvering across a map. The dead and wounded no more than names and service numbers on a datapad.
The soldiers on the ground ceased to be people, in a sense. They were just items on a list—like equipment, even. To be fixed, or replaced, or packed back up for the next time they were needed.
There was a time when Jane had imagined herself becoming a flag officer, like her mother, but that notion hadn't survived for long. It was one thing to stand beside someone and look them in the eyes as you gave orders you knew would put their lives at risk, but it was another to do it while you were safe and comfortable aboard a ship orbiting a thousand miles above the battlefield. It was a level of detachment she simply didn't possess—she'd known that since Akuze.
In a way, that made the aftermath of Ontarom all the more harrowing.
While the other Alliance forces found themselves fighting for their lives against a tide of husks, Shepard's team had slipped around the flank aboard a Mako and made their way to the comms facility in the city center, meeting little resistance along the way.
There, to their surprise, they'd discovered survivors.
The badly mauled remains of Charlie Company, 543rd Signals Battaltion had dug into the fortified compound—a few dozen technicians, clerks, and armed civilians managing to hold the perimeter against the geth onslaught for the better part of a day.
A ragged cheer had gone up among the beleaguered defenders as Shepard's little team had rolled into the facility. It was pretty underwhelming as far as relief went, but they didn't seem to mind—as far as Charlie Company and the hundreds of civilians huddled in the lower levels were concerned, the Normandy's ground team and their borrowed Mako were salvation.
The officer in charge, a grey-haired colonel who looked like she'd last seen action in the First Contact War, had pulled Shepard aside, offering the commander her first insight in to the awful reality of the situation.
Forewarned by a distress call from a ship in orbit, most of the city's population was already safely tucked away in hardened emergency shelters by the time the geth attack had arrived, but several bunkers in the city center had been overrun by the swift ground assault that followed.
If the synthetics had forced their way in or if they simply hadn't been sealed in time was a matter of debate, but the outcome was the same.
Three-thousand colonists had been slaughtered. Massacred inside of what should have been safe havens. Worse still, they weren't merely killed. They'd been turned. Corrupted.
They'd emerged from the bunkers as a tide of shrieking, grey-fleshed husks. Dead, but with their bodies trapped in a ghoulish state of undeath as they prowled the streets of the city they'd once inhabited.
Jane found the grisly origin of the husks hard not to dwell on. The ones they'd fought on Eden Prime had once been colonists and Alliance soldiers—some even members of Ashley's unit, perhaps.
What if one of the Normandy's crew fell into the clutches of the geth? She pondered. Would their own shipmates recognize them?
Would she?
The spectre lifted her ceramic mug to her lips and took a long, deep gulp of coffee, trying to escape the thought in the bitter taste of the lukewarm beverage.
"Commander."
"Hmm?" Jane started slightly, finding Sergeant Major Ouder staring at her. He looked just as exhausted as she did, a deep red bruise along the side of his jaw accentuating the dark bags beneath his eyes.
"We were discussing our options with regards to Corporal Furlong's injuries." He reminded, his tone holding no particular reproach. The sergeant had read the same reports as the commander and probably understood her distraction.
He nodded to where the ship's physician sat across the small table in the captain's quarters. "I second Doctor Chakwas' recommendation that we transfer him when we reach the Citadel. The First Fleet has a task force docked there, and it'll be more expedient than the Normandy taking him directly to Arcturus."
Shepard took another sip of coffee as she studied the projected image in front of her, finding that she was already down to the dregs. The holographic form of Furlong's wounded hand slowly rotated above Chakwas' datapad, the striking absence of most of his index finger and the tip of his thumb grotesque to look at even in abstract.
The damage could be repaired, Jane knew, but engineered tissue grafts and nerve re-mapping took months. Rough Rider would feel the loss of their marksman in the field acutely, and she worried about the impact his departure from the ship would have on the morale of the remaining squad members. Moreover, while the spectre's little ground team had proven surprisingly capable in the field, she'd still been relying heavily upon the Normandy's marine detachment for additional manpower, despite its small size.
"What if we had better equipment brought aboard?" Shepard asked, glancing to Chakwas. "Could we treat him here?"
The silver-haired doctor shook her head, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of her own. "His injuries will need specialized care at the facilities on Arcturus, and the hospital aboard a cruiser will be able to better tend to him in the meantime. The Normandy's medbay simply can't accommodate the necessary equipment, especially now that Doctor T'Soni has commandeered most of the laboratory for her own work."
Ouder nodded in solemn agreement. "I know we can't spare the numbers, Commander, but transferring him is what's best for all involved."
Jane sighed, slouching back into her chair. They were right, of course, and there really were no other viable options, but that was no consolation.
As a rule, she hated losing, and even things like this were a small defeat in their own way. Corporal Robert Furlong would recover in time, but Shepard knew she wouldn't be there to see it.
He had months of surgeries and physical therapy ahead of him to repair the damage done to his hand, and it might be years before he was deemed fit to return to a combat unit. The last the Normandy would see of him would be as he stepped aboard a shuttle, battered and bandaged, and disappeared from their lives forever.
It was ironic, in a way—with hardly a month together aboard the Normandy, the rest of crew had gotten to know each other just well enough for the absence of one of their number to be felt.
"I'll get his transfer written up and see him off when we make port." Shepard conceded glumly, glancing to Ouder. "I think that means we need to have that conversation about putting Liara on the combat roster." The sergeant major gave a noncommittal grunt, not entirely able to hide a grimace. "But, that's for another time. How's the rest of Rough Rider?"
"I'm keeping Sergeant Scarpasky and Private Vandas on bedrest in the medbay for the moment." Chakwas answered. "As I understand, each went hand-to-hand with a husk and they're worse off for it. All going well, they'll be fit for light duty within a few days, but they're off the mission roster for the time being."
"No missions to be had." Shepard replied, a hint of relief in her voice. "I've already approved liberty once we reach the Citadel. Does that count as light duty?"
"I'll endeavor to ensure they're up to the task." Chakwas replied drolly, and the commander couldn't help but admire the doctor's ability to roll her eyes using her voice alone.
"Put together a list of any additional supplies or improved equipment you want to pick up at the Citadel—I think it's about time we cashed-in a few of these favors we've been doing." Shepard stated, rising stiffly from her chair. "If there's nothing else?" The pair shook their heads. "Dismissed."
Watching the two of them depart, Jane spent of few moments contemplating her empty coffee mug before setting it aside and starting in the direction of the showers with a long sigh.
When they reached the Citadel, she'd talk to Anderson—see what he made of all of this and ask how he'd done it for so long.
After that, she was going to get drunk.
...
The elevator stank of blood, Tali noted, her hands tying themselves in nervous knots as the lift slowly climbed from the hangar to the crew deck.
The smell was subtle, probably beneath the notice of the human crew, but with her suit's olfactory system enhancing her own senses considerably, she could practically taste the metal in the back of her mouth, and she found herself quickly adjusting her olfactory filters to more tolerable levels.
Even aboard a ship as new as the Normandy, there was always something to keep the engineering team busy—a broken thermocouple in one of the emission manifolds, a leaky hydraulic cylinder in the door to the cargo hold, or a noisy bearing in a circulation fan—and the quarian had spent almost the entirety of a rather pleasant shift tucked away in the depths of the ship's engineering spaces.
At any given time aboard, there was always at least a dozen leaks, creaks, and other minor frustrations waiting to be fixed while mission critical problems were tended to, and the thankless work of the ship's engineers was never, ever truly done—and Tali loved it.
Unfortunately, she'd emerged to discover that the news aboard the rest of the ship was far less happy.
The Normandy's marine detail had returned from the surface with wounded, and the murky rumors circulating among the crew painted a grim picture of fighting planetside.
Shepard and the ground team had returned shortly thereafter, tired and not interested in socializing, but Tali had mustered the nerve approach Garrus while he was stowing his equipment. The turian, usually sarcastic and prone to making jokes at her expense, had been uncharacteristically stern-faced.
He didn't know how the ship's marines had fared but had overheard Ouder's report to Shepard, recounting the commander's grim expression as she received the news that Rough Rider had taken casualties and was evacuating to the Normandy.
The detective didn't have any of the details, so, after stowing her tools, she was headed up to the second deck to find out for herself.
The elevator chimed as the door rose, and Tali took a moment to calm herself before she stepped out, realizing she'd been anxiously bouncing on the balls of her feet. After a long couple of seconds, the elevator door began to close and she quickly darted out, heading for the medbay.
While the quarian had quickly familiarized herself with the Normandy's various systems and technical specifications after coming aboard, she still wrangled with the sensation that she was suddenly out of place the moment her shift ended and she left engineering. Despite repeated assurances to the contrary by Engineer Adams, Tali was always fighting the lingering worry that the moment she stopped working on something she was instantly underfoot or a bother to someone.
So, for a while, she just sort of... hadn't stop working.
Her first couple of weeks aboard, Adams had been baffled as mechanical issues aboard the ship mysteriously resolved themselves and engineers reported finding their work already complete. It wasn't until Adams had turned up a bit early one morning and caught the quarian sneaking out of engineering that he'd put the pieces together and persuaded her to actually use some of her off-hours to relax.
Granted, Tali's usual definition of relaxing was curling up with a good technical manual that most people would've considered painfully long and punishingly boring, but it was progress. Amy had let it be known that the quarian had a standing invitation to use either of the booths in the galley that "belonged" to the ship's marines, giving her somewhere she could be out of the way but still surrounded by the pleasant ambience of the crew as they trooped in to eat or spoke quietly among themselves.
All told, a surprising number of people aboard the Normandy had taken an interest in Tali's well-being. Shepard periodically dropped by engineering to check on her, Adams made sure she had everything she needed, and Amy and Nick and some of the other marines went out of their way to socialize when they ran into her.
Admittedly, not everyone had been as welcoming—Garrus, the turian C-Sec officer, didn't seem to entirely approve of her and some of the crew remained quietly suspicious of the non-humans aboard—but given that so far on her pilgrimage Tali's presence had usually been met with anything from begrudging tolerance to open contempt, on the whole it was a marked improvement.
The medbay door opened with a faint hiss and the quarian, having steeled herself to be met with a chaotic scene of Doctor Chakwas barking instructions as orderlies rushed between beds occupied with groaning wounded, was surprised to find the ship's infirmary as quiet as ever, though two of the beds were now occupied.
There was no sign of the doctor, but Nickeli was sitting on the end of the cot nearest the door, seemingly unaware she'd entered. The medic had a white bandage wrapped up the length of his forearm and another covering half of his face above the nose.
He was stripped to the waist, dressed in nothing but the black, form-fitting bottoms of the undersuit he wore under his armor. While the sight wasn't entirely without appeal, Tali winced when her gaze fell on the ugly, red bruise that stretched from his hip to his armpit, the mark thrown into grim contrast against his skin by the medbay's harsh white lighting.
If the chill of the medbay bothered Vandas, it didn't show. He simply sat in silence on the end of the cot, slouched slightly forward with his hands clasped in front of him as he stared into space.
"Nick, are you alright?" Tali asked hesitantly, but got no response. He didn't even turn his head at the sound of her approaching footfalls. "Nick?"
He jumped when her gloved hand touched his shoulder, sending them both recoiling in opposite directions in a cacophony of surprised shouts and startled apologies.
"I'm sorry!" Tali yelped, "I-I was just, trying to check on you—well, I wanted to check on everyone because Garrus said there were—I-I didn't mean to—you were sitting here without your—" With growing mortification, the quarian found she was unable to stop herself as a jumbled multitude of sentences and apologies poured out of her mouth, crashing into one another and careening off in different directions spectacularly like an exploding drive core. Her face burning beneath her visor as all capacity for rational thought came to a screeching halt, it took a moment for a new sound to register. "A-Are you laughing?!"
The noise, as hoarse and raspy as it may have been, was undeniably a laugh, and Nick nodded breathlessly, wiping away tears from his unbandaged eye. His grim, tired expression had lifted into a warm, broad grin, and Tali felt her embarrassment fade a bit.
"Sorry." The corpsman managed at last, still smiling. "You sort of snuck up on me a little bit." He indicated his covered right eye with a wave of his hand, the IV line in his wrist bouncing as he did. "If you need something, it may be a bit. I think Chakwas is in a meeting with the commander right now, and I'm... a little indisposed at the moment."
"Actually, I came to see what was going on. Garrus said things were bad down there." Tali said in a small voice, her hands beginning to wring themselves in nervous circles once again as she surveyed the rest of the medbay. "Was anyone...?"
"No one from the Normandy, at least." The medic's smile disappeared and he sighed as he looked down the row of hospital beds, the fact obviously of no comfort to him. He jerked his head in the direction of the far bed, where his team leader dozed. "Amy got raked down the back by a husk and Furlong got his hand torn up. I got up close and personal with a husk, too—got my bell rung pretty good." He gave a helpless shrug. "It... it could've been a lot worse, honestly."
"I wish I could've been there to help." The engineer said quietly.
The medic didn't reply, looking tired and lost in thought as he examined his bandaged wrist. His expression had darkened again, the accentuated furrows in his brow making him appear aged and exhausted. Tali couldn't help but find the contrast unpleasant.
"Nick?"
His head snapped back up, as if she'd startled him again. "Sorry, just... tired." He flashed a weak, apologetic smile as he met her gaze. Scratching at the bandage wrapped around his head, his expression contorted into an annoyed frown. "Would you mind helping me get this off? It's driving me nuts."
"Sure." Tali replied, quickly locating a dainty pair of silver medical scissors.
The instrument obviously hadn't been designed with a quarian's thick digits in mind, but Tali made the most of it, carefully cutting at the strip of bandage that ran across his forehead, and after a moment the thick coil of dressings fell away.
"Thanks." He murmured, a small, grateful smile tugging at the darkening bruise around his right eye. The engineer could only nod wordlessly, feeling a twinge of sadness as she looked at him.
A cut just above his eyebrow looked freshly sutured, the skin around it still stained with dark orange antiseptic and flecks of muck and dried blood. A narrow, triangular gash across the bridge of his nose had been covered in medi-gel, and Tali winced as she imagined the husk that had inflicted it. The medic hadn't been exaggerating when he said it could've been worse.
Nick seemed to notice her scrutinizing gaze and glanced away, his eyes downcast. "Sorry, I know I'm not great company at the moment."
"It's alright." Tali assured, leaning against the wall at her back. "I wasn't very good company when we met on the Citadel, either."
"No, I guess you weren't." He agreed with a hoarse chuckle, rubbing at the fading cut on his shoulder. "But I'm glad you decided to join us."
"So am I." The quarian agreed.
"Can I... ask you for a favor?" There was a hint of uncertainty in the medic's voice that piqued her interest. Seeing her tilt her head quizzically, Nick glanced towards the door before continuing. "Think you can help me sneak out of here before Chakwas gets back?"
Tali's eyes widened behind her mask. "I-I don't know, Nick..."
"Please?" He pleaded, his blue eyes looking up at her imploringly. "I can't relax in the medbay. If she makes me spend the watch here, I'll end up checking on Amy or working and won't get any sleep."
"I-I really don't think it's a good idea to..." Tali began to murmur before trailing off, finding the way he was looking at her increasingly distracting. A noise somewhere between a sigh and a hiss escaped the quarian's lips, as she vaguely wondered if the ship's infirmary was always so uncomfortably warm. "Fine."
"Thanks. Could you hand me that roll of bandages?"
Tali obliged, watching as the medic carefully removed the IV from his arm and expertly dressed the neat little hole it left behind. While he did need her to tie off the bandage for him, part of her quietly wondered why Nick had asked for her help rather than simply walking out on his own. However, the answer became clear as his bare feet met the ground and he tried to stand.
"Keelah!" The quarian yelped, narrowly managing to catch Nick and prevent him from pitching headlong into the opposite wall. While the marine was about the same height as she was, he was quite a bit heavier, and it took no small amount of effort for Tali to push him back onto balance.
"Sorry." He murmured as he stood with her hanging onto him by his good arm, swaying slightly. "The nerve block is still wearing off. I'm going to need some help walking."
"And you didn't think to mention that part?!" She hissed in a low voice.
"I had to be vague or you wouldn't have agreed to help me."
Tali could see a stupid grin tugging at the corners of his mouth as he repeated her words from Feros, and she felt a very real urge to send him tumbling backwards over the hospital bed and leave him there. Instead, with a strangled noise of frustration, the quarian stepped beneath Nick's arm to steady him as he began to guide him towards the door.
Mercifully, the lounge outside was empty as the pair trudged out of the medbay and towards the elevator, though Tali found herself glancing nervously towards Shepard's quarters. Tali wasn't sure what exactly she'd say if the commander caught them, but she was sure she'd embarrass herself even further.
The elevator door opened before them with a familiar chime and Tali checked the ship's duty schedule on her omni-tool as she helped Nick hobble inside, a low, frustrated grumble escaping her lips. It was still in the middle of second watch, and since Nick bunked in the crew quarters that meant his usual bed would be occupied.
The human crew's practice of sharing beds had always struck Tali as bizarre... not to mention rather unsanitary. Somehow, aboard the Normandy, even with its abundance of unused space and a crew that was positively tiny by quarian standards, there still weren't enough beds to go around. Whether she had the human or turian designers to blame for this, the engineer wasn't sure.
In any event, it meant that unless she was going to deposit him in a random, empty bunk for the bed's rightful owner to discover later, there was only one other place the engineer could think to take him—though she knew the medic might be a bit alarmed when he woke up. So, after a moment of indecision, she palmed the elevator controls with her free hand, sending them slowly descending to the hangar deck.