"I'll bring dessert."
"You'd better." She moved toward the door, then paused and turned back. In three quick strides she closed the distance between us, rose on her toes, and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth, brief, chaste, and absolutely devastating in its simple intimacy.
Then she was gone, leaving me standing alone in the medical bay with my markings glowing bright enough to probably be visible from the observation deck.
I touched the place she'd kissed, feeling like an adolescent experiencing first attraction instead of a forty-three-year-old Chief Medical Officer with two decades of experience.
This was dangerous. Complicated. Probably going to end with someone's heart thoroughly broken.
I didn't care.
My comm unit chimed. Captain Tor'van's voice came through crisp and professional: "Zorn. Bridge. Now. We have a situation."
I grabbed my medical coat and headed for the lift, already compartmentalizing the personal into professional focus. Whatever situation had developed, it would require my complete attention.
But underneath the professional competence, underneath the decades of trained response and careful control, something warm and hopeful and absolutely terrifying had taken root.
I was in love with Bea Santos.
And based on that kiss, she might be falling for me too.
Chaos ensuedon the bridge when I arrived. Captain Tor'van stood at the central command station, his massive Zandovian frame dwarfing the human-designed console modifications we'd implemented after Dana and the other Liberty survivors joined the crew. Er'dox was at the engineeringstation, Vaxon at tactical, both wearing expressions of focused concern.
"Report," I said, moving to my position at the medical readiness terminal.
"Distress call from a refugee transport," Tor'van said without preamble. "TheVeritaxis. Attacked by raiders approximately four hours ago. Over eight hundred beings aboard, multiple species. Significant casualties."
The main viewscreen flickered to life, showing a battered vessel tumbling through space, surrounded by debris. Hull breaches are visible even at this distance, atmosphere venting in crystalline streams that caught the light of a nearby star.
"How many wounded?" I asked, already running calculations for medical resource allocation.
"Unknown. Their medical officer was killed in the initial attack. Communications are sporadic." Tor'van pulled up trajectory data. "They're drifting into Kalmar territory. If the Kalmar find them before we do?—"
He didn't need to finish. The Kalmar were territorial isolationists who responded to border incursions with extreme prejudice. Eight hundred refugees wouldn't be seen as victims needing rescue but as invaders requiring elimination.
"How long until we intercept?" I asked.
"Two hours if we push the engines. But Zorn, the raider signatures indicate they might return to finish the job. This isn't just a rescue. It's potentially a combat situation."
I met his eyes. Tor'van was asking whether medicine was prepared for mass casualty scenarios in a hostile environment.Whether I was willing to take my staff into active danger.
"We're equipped. We're ready. And those people need us." I turned to my console, already pulling up personnel rosters. "I'll need a full medical deployment. All available staff, emergency surgical stations, maximum supply loadout."
"Vaxon will provide security escort. Armed teams at all medical stations."
"Understood. What's our tactical situation?"
Vaxon's voice cut in from the tactical station, sharp and professional: "Unknown number of raiders. Ship class indicates mercenary operation rather than organized military. They'll return if they think there's profit in salvage."
"So we extract the refugees fast and disappear before they come back."
"That's the plan."
I began making rapid assignments on my console, tagging personnel for the operation. Dr. K'shav for triage coordination. Nurse Pellen for emergency stabilization. The entire surgical wing was on standby.
And Bea.
I hesitated over her name in the personnel list. Her trauma surgery skills made her essential for an operation like this. She'd been trained on Earth to handle mass casualty scenarios, and had experience I couldn't replicate with Zandovian-trained staff alone. But she was also still recovering, still fragile beneath the competent surface, still learning to function without using work as self-punishment.
