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“I’m having trouble stopping the bleeding!” Logus yelled.  It was the only way any of them could hear each other.

“Kell, can you help him?” Brooks asked.  “I’m needed at the controls!”

“It is best I do not,” Kell replied.

“Then can you take the damn controls?” Brooks yelled.

“That is an even worse idea,” Kell replied.  “Arn Logus, perhaps if you pinched the vein that is bleeding, it will prevent the flow.”  He managed to make his sarcasm biting even to a nearly-deaf man.

“Oh, sure, just show me where it is!”

“I would think you could tell,” Kell said, his annoyance showing.  He knelt next to the bleeding and unconscious Decinus and reached his fingers into his tattered arm.

Decinus sat up like a shot, screaming.

“What did you do?” Logus yelled, trying to hold Decinus still, who was thrashing like a wild man.

“I pinched the vein.  This is why it is best I am not involved.  Your life has a visceral reaction to the touch of my kind when you are dying.”

“What the hell . . .” Logus said, his words still loud, if not quite a yell.

“Damn it,” Brooks muttered, setting the controls as best he could on auto-pilot.  The ship was so simple it could do very little on its own, but he could leave the controls for a moment, at least.

He came over.  Decinus was in a bad way, but if they could get him help quickly . . .

Of course, they couldn’t realistically do that.  They were hours out from the Craton at the slow delta-v the shuttle could make, and their mother ship should not stay that long.  When the Hev launched on it, they would be much quicker than the diplomatic shuttle.  Even with her many defenses, the Craton would not be able to stop them all forever.

Decinus’s eyes had the look of a panicked animal, and Brooks was trying to help him calm, but Kell’s touch had sent him into a state that they couldn’t snap him out of.

A voice came from the control panel.

“Diplomatic shuttle, this is the Craton.  We are taking control of the ship, stand by for pickup.”

“What?” Logus said, his face puzzled.

Brooks stood and rushed back to the controls.

A flash of light appeared outside the front window, dulled by the cameras automatically, but still enough to make him flinch.

And the Craton was there.

“Damn it, Urle, you should have taken her out of here . . .” he muttered.  “But you didn’t feel you had a choice, did you . . . ?”

He did feel relief, though.  Even if he knew it wouldn’t last long.

He felt more than saw Kell’s stare, but said nothing to him.

A communication came in.

“Captain,” Urle’s voice came.  It sounded unnaturally soft.  “Are you all right?”

“We’re alive, but Ambassador Decinus is badly hurt.  Ks’Kull’s envoy was a bomb, and he was injured in the blast.”

“Is anyone else hurt?”

“Not badly,” he said.

“You sound kind of loud.  Hearing damage?”

Brooks wished the volume on the panel went higher.

“If you just said what I think you said – yes, Logus and I are suffering from hearing issues.”

“And Ambassador Kell?”  Urle seemed to be talking louder now.

Brooks looked to Kell, who seemed amused.  “I am unhurt,” he said.

“He’s fine,” Brooks told Urle.  “Get Dr. Y to meet us at the airlock with a trauma team.”

“Already done.  We’ll have you on board in two minutes.  And Captain – glad you’re all right.”

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