The Healer (The Order of Intergalactic Peace #1) - Kelly Lucille Page 0,37
others traveling through it daily. Explosions and a loss of communication meant people had likely died, with the possibility of many more to come
She headed for medbay just as the fleet wide announcement started over all coms.
Prepare for Light Speed transition. All hands. Code Red.
She made it through the doors or medbay to find all three of her assistants were locking down whatever needed to be secured. The mess that Mal had made had been cleared away, mostly. No one had yet had the chance to remove the scissors and scalpel embedded in the wall.
“What is code red?” She asked. She knew what she assumed it meant but hoped for details.
Meg and Marte stopped what they were doing briefly to look her over. Brin kept working in his usual silence. He had been in the labs when all the drama happened so that wasn’t really a surprise. Marte and Meg studied her like they were looking for injuries.
As soon as they saw she was unscathed they both turned almost as one to finish their tasks. Marte finished first and then grabbed her arm dragging her to a grouping of jump seats they had pulled from the wall.
“For us it means that medbay needs to be prepared for casualties coming in,” he forced her into one of the seats and even strapped her down before he turned to take his own. Brin was taking the last of the line. Meg took the one on Serenity’s other side.
“And for everyone else?” she asked.
“War,” Marte said grimly, his usual teasing demeanor completely absent. “It means we are going to war.”
Serenity sucked in a breath.
“We don’t know that” Meg argued with a small tremor in her voice. “It could be a natural disaster, or something else.” She looked at Serenity. “Code red can mean a lot of bad things.”
Serenity swallowed hard and said. “Commander Jas told Lord Ryn that there were reports of explosions on Cronos, and that communications are down.”
Marte sucked in a breath on her other side while Meg nodded once and swallowed hard.
“Then I was right the first time,” Marte said. “It means war.”
This time Meg didn’t argue.
But with who, Serenity wondered, even as the lights flashed to signal eminent light speed transition.
She thought of the shrewd intelligence in Nolan Rand’s eyes when she had saved him. Was it the resistance? Had she saved one man just to plunge thousands more into war?
Chapter Eleven
Cronos was on fire. At least the military part of the spaceport was. The regular shipping lines and trading areas where travelers frequented seemed relatively unscathed. Even the barracks and family housing had escaped attention from the saboteurs who had attacked with timed explosions in the night. So while there were casualties, and the communication array would need a ton of replacement parts, it could have been much worse.
That did not lessen Mal’s anger at the sight of his burning ships and wounded soldiers. They had not been able to give him any conclusive numbers yet, but the attackers had known exactly where to hit to do the most damage, and they had been smart enough to leave the civilian population out of it.
“The medteam is standing by to portal down and assist at your orders my lord.”
That brought his thoughts to a screeching halt until he remembered that the main healer never accompanied the med staff on away missions.
“Who?” he growled out.
His aide looked at him strangely but clicked away at his com pad diligently before looking back at Mal. “I have the usual number asking for permission to disembark sir, do you want me to stop them?”
Mal felt a small tension leave his shoulders. “No. Give them the word as soon as we have the all clear from the sensor sweep.”
His aide, one of his elite shields when they were off ship gave him a brief salute in acknowledgment of his orders and Mal put Serenity firmly from his mind. He would see her when he did his usual rounds with the wounded. Until then he had saboteurs to hunt and obliterate from the universe.
***
Serenity was getting tired of arguing. She huffed out a breath and speared Marte and Meg with her eyes. “We have confirmed reports of dozens of wounded all right now being treated together in the Cronos health center, correct?”
“Yes,” Marte said looking a touch frantic. “But any high-ranking officers will be separated once we arrive and sent back to the ship for you to heal.”