The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,117

designed it thusly so that workers would have the time and atmosphere they needed to mend any breaches.

Taelon looked toward the front. “Ari’k, can you divert power and temporarily reinforce weapon station three’s shield?”

“Such would weaken the shield around the rest of the transport and—”

“Just do it!” Taelon snapped.

Ari’k paused. “Yes, Prince Taelon.”

Taelon seemed surprised by the capitulation.

“Shield reinforced,” Ari’k announced.

Taelon swiftly yanked up the floor panel, then swore. “Help me get him out.”

Sodu moved to his side.

Though it was awkward as hell, the two managed to lift the unconscious Yona male out of the ball turret. The left shoulder of his uniform bore a large scorch mark, much of the fabric torn away. Blood poured from a grisly wound that offered glimpses of mangled flesh. More blood spattered his neck and one side of his face.

Sodu immediately closed the floor panel. “Panel secured,” he called to Ari’k.

Taelon felt Yihrus’s neck. “Still alive.”

Kuxa left the cockpit and strode past them toward the back of the transport, not stopping to look at his fallen comrade. When he reached a door, Kuxa placed his palm on the scanner beside it and tapped the screen.

The door rose.

Her jaw dropped. She had known the transport was twice the size of the area in which she sat. The windows on the exterior had indicated as much. But she’d figured it was just additional seating and storage.

Wrong.

The large white room Kuxa entered looked like an infirmary with a small bathroom to one side.

Kuxa crossed to a cabinet, unfastened it, and began removing supplies.

Taelon and Sodu hoisted Yihrus up, jostling his wound as little as possible, and carried him into the next room.

Lisa followed, bouncing Abby slightly in her sling to calm her.

Yihrus lay unconscious on a stark, narrow bed with lots of drawers beneath it. An electronic arm descended from the ceiling and ran a wand across the injured male. A line of light began at his head and moved down his body like a document scanner. The wand retracted.

Taelon opened a drawer and withdrew a small cylindrical object that reminded her of a key chain pepper spray canister while Sodu cut away the soldier’s clothes and Kuxa took packages down from a nearby cabinet.

Lisa leaned against the doorframe, not wanting to get in their way. The three men barely spoke a word, each seeming to know exactly what Yihrus needed before the computer’s calm female voice announced it. Had Taelon fought in other battles? Had he tended to injured soldiers? Had he been injured like this before?

Taelon held the canister over the oozing wound and sprayed a clear liquid on it until the liquid coated every jagged edge. While Lisa watched, it swelled into white foam that the blood turned pink, then red. It fizzled for several seconds before it melted down and turned clear again, ultimately vanishing and leaving the wound clean.

The injury looked even worse now than it had when blood obscured it.

Taelon donned a pair of gloves and studied it. “Still bleeding,” he murmured.

Sodu nodded. “We need to remove the debris. Prepare to seal the tears.”

Kuxa joined them, holding out a tray.

Taelon grabbed a slender canister from the tray. A long, skinny tube protruded from one end and reminded her a little of the can of WD-40 she always kept on hand at home. Then he reached up and drew an otoscope-shaped device attached to a thicker tube from the array of mechanical devices above the bed.

“Okay.” He stepped back.

Sodu took a flat wand from Kuxa’s tray and held it over the wound. Shrapnel shot out of the damaged flesh and attached itself to the wand.

Shit!

Blood rushed out.

Taelon leaned over the open wound and sprayed a tiny shot of something into it, then aimed the otoscope at it. A beam of blue light shot from the otoscope thing. He repeated the process several more times before stepping back. “All sealed. The bleeding has stopped.” He studied it a moment. “Looks good.”

Not from where she stood.

“Begin blood transfusion,” Taelon commanded as he set his instruments back on the tray and removed his gloves.

A mechanical arm descended from the ceiling and hovered over the bend in one of Yihrus’s arms. A grid pattern appeared on his tanned flesh seconds before a needle pierced it. Red blood slithered down a tube and into his arm.

Sodu covered the shoulder wound with a bright white bandage.

Kuxa sprayed it with a substance from yet another canister.

The bandage fitted itself against Yihrus’s flesh as though suctioned to it as