Chapter 45

Chapter Forty-Five

Even before becoming a young rebel, blood had never troubled Connor. He’d trained with his father for years in full-contact martial arts, so he’d seen plenty of grisly injuries.

But the wound to Martienne’s head looked bad. Dangerous. Life-threatening.

He stepped back, brushed sweat from his forehead with the back of a gory glove, and assessed the situation.

Monitoring systems pinged and chimed, but their data weren’t so cheerful as their sounds. The pilot lay on the treatment bed, naked torso covered with a sheet that didn’t obscure the equipment leads or the purpling bruises from where her harness and the mangled shuttle nose had punished her for her bold landing attempt.

His own backside and neck were probably just as deeply bruised, based on the aches when he shifted or turned.

And then there was the empty Dustoff packet Drew had dropped.

Connor sucked in a deep, alcohol-laced breath to reset himself.