“No. We don’t need anything blown up. Back to your bed.”
Lala poked her tongue out. “Fine. Mal, hope your sexy cyborg’s okay.” She trudged off, her pet droids following.
Mal raced alongside Xander, willing him to hold on.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eos and Mal ran into the medbay and cleared off the bed.
Nik and Dathan set Xander down, and Eos swung the moveable arm of the medscanner over him, across his chest. It whirred quietly as it went to work.
“Mal, get his shirt off.” Eos bustled back to the shelves, grabbing medical equipment.
Right. Mal found the fastenings at the shoulders. The black fabric fell away, baring dark-bronze skin stretched tight over a muscled chest with a light covering of dark hair. She drew in a sharp breath.
He wascoveredin enhancements.
A row of round, silver implants—that looked similar to the cogs on his uniform insignia—curved along his left collarbone. His left arm was entirely silver-gray, all the way to the shoulder joint. Unable to help herself, she touched his forearm. It felt like skin, felt warm, but was really smooth.
More silver implants circled his right wrist. Under his gorgeous skin that she couldn’t help but want to touch, she saw a faint neon-green glow in his veins.
What had they done to him?
Unlike cyborgs from other parts of the galaxy, there were no ugly scars, no Frankenstein-like mishmashing of parts. No, the Centaxian scientists prided themselves on aesthetics and perfect work.
Then she noted the jagged slash on his side.Claw marks. Stars, he’d been bleeding the entire time on her ship!
“We have to close this wound. He’s lost a lot of blood.” Mal grabbed a steri-pad from Eos and jammed it against the wounds.
Eos let out a frustrated noise. “The scanner’s not working. But from the look of that bruising, he’s probably got internal bleeding as well.”
If he’d been on Centax, he’d have expert doctors with equipment to treat a cyborg. Mal’s jaw clenched. He couldn’t die. “Nik, go get my portable diag-comp. Now!”
With a nod, her cousin ran out of the room.
“Eos, hand me the medscope.”
Eos obeyed, even as she shook her head. “Mal, it’s useless?—”
Mal gripped the tool, the metal smooth in her palm. When Nik returned, she took the diag-comp that she usually used on her salvaged engines and ship computers and went to work.
He was part human, part machine. They couldn’t help him with equipment designed just for the human side. She tapped the screen of the diag with one hand and slowly swept the medscope over Xander with the other, studying the results and attempting to circumvent whatever was stopping the medscope working.There. The diag screen showed the program running, no doubt from some implant deeply embedded in his brain.
She refocused, set the medscope down to tap in commands on her diag.Come on. Come on.Her attempt failed and she swore under her breath. She noted his seizure had stopped and he was still. So still.
No.“I’m not going to let you die, dammit!” She worked the code again. The diag beeped.Got it.She snatched up the medscope, flicked it on again.
Blue light bathed his skin. The cuts started to knit before her eyes.
Eos grinned. “You did it!”
Mal’s shoulders sagged. “Can you put the medscanner over him? Let’s get that internal bleeding fixed.”
Her cousin-in-law hurried to adjust the larger machine and set it to diagnose and heal.
Xander’s chest rose steadily now. His body more relaxed.
“That was close.” Dathan moved closer, gripping the edge of the bed. “Nice work, Mal. Should have known you could work on a cyborg just like a ship engine.”
