Chapter 20

Sophia had dreamed of crashing; crumpled metal, shouting and pain. But that was long ago. Now she was dreaming that she'd only five minutes left to get to a critical meeting between the ambassadors of Anatoray and Disith, and she'd put her dress on backward. No matter how she struggled outside the closed double doors to the meeting room, she couldn't seem to get the damn thing on right.

Even as she dreamed, she knew it was a dream, so she was annoyed at her predicament but not unduly. Soon the dream would end and another would begin. By the time she woke, all those thousands of dreams that had played across her brain would be forgotten. That was how dreaming worked.

She woke suddenly. Simply opened her eyes and took a slightly deeper breath. Before she could do more than establish who she was, a man's face came into view.

"Awake? Good." The man turned slightly, "Dial down the drugs for a moment. Seventy-five percent of full power."

Sophia blinked, raised her hands to rub her eyes. She felt sluggish, like she'd been sleeping a long time. Her brain threw up a name to match the face. Dr. Gareck.

Which meant that she was on the Silvana. She'd crashed the Warlock.

She'd crashed the Warlock.

"The Warlock!" She cried out as the older dream washed over her. Crumpled metal. The Warlock was broken. She sat up abruptly and went to swing herself out of bed and run for the ship. A hand pushed her back down to the bed roughly. She snarled up at the man who'd done it.

Then her common sense finally came back on-line and she realized what she was doing. The second man was Bren. His green eyes were not amused even though his expression was stoic. He'd been furious with her but was now trying to hide it. But if he was there looking at her, then the Warlock was safe. He might be angry with her, but he wouldn't take it out on her ship. She settled back onto the bed.

"Good reflexes." Gareck said to Bren before the doctor turned and demanded equipment from an aide; Sophia assumed it was the medical terminology that made him sound like he was talking absolute gibberish.

"She's done it before. Banks warned me." Bren withdrew his hand, and Sophia frowned up at him

"Tell me." She said, and realized her voice hadn't been used in a while. She repeated herself in a stronger voice, "Tell me."

Bren flicked a glance toward the foot of the bed, and Sophia made a note to see for herself what it was he'd had to look at before answering. "You pushed the Warlock off the docking bay without fuel or safety precautions. How you survived is anyone's guess."

Sophia ignored that part, "The Warlock?"

Bren gave her an irritated look. She ignored that too. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose before putting them back on and telling her what she wanted to know. "I'd recommend you donate it to a charity group and have them sink it as an artificial reef."

Sophia closed her eyes.

"The cabin itself managed to avoid total compaction, which is more than you deserve, but everything on the outside was bent, broken or snapped right off. Because you decided to just throw yourself off the Silvana with no fuel, there was very little Claudia burnout damage, but the impact damage more than made up for it. There wasn't a single system or compartment on board that wasn't affected."

There was a long pause, then, "Pilot Forrester. Sophia."

"I'm here." She said, and opened her eyes again. "I'm still here."

He chose to misunderstand. "You shouldn't be. You should be painted all over the ground right now. One dark red smear." He'd been angry before, and he was again. Sophia tried to nod, but a massive headache had snuck up on her, and she winced. She'd woken up fine, but now she felt sore all over.

"Right on time." Doctor Gareck showed up in her field of view again, peering carefully into her face. "Good. If you'll bear with me, Pilot Forrester, I'm going to ask you some questions and run some tests. It's easier to identify any brain damage when you're awake than when you're in a variable-depth forced comatose state."

"What?" Sophia was afraid she'd just failed the first test.

"Dreaming coma." Bren explained shortly before he stepped back and vanished from view. She turned her head far enough to see that he hadn't moved far. Then she resigned herself to a long unpleasant examination.

Sophia would have fought if Gareck had suggested she be forced back into sleep, but apparently once she'd been taken off the drugs that had kept her in the dreaming coma, they were not used again.

By the time the tests were over, she was exhausted and cranky. It had taken multiple tries — and multiple tests — to calibrate the numerous different drugs in her system so that she was aware of the pain without being hindered by it, able to think clearly without being beset by apathy, depression or panic.

Still, it was a good thing that Gareck had given her a little too much of the drug that caused apathy when he had, because shortly after that she'd looked down to see the crippling hole that had been ripped into her right thigh. Through the narrow trough that Gareck hadn't been able to stitch skin over, Sophia had been able to clearly see all the vulgar colors of her flesh that should have been politely hidden by her skin.

All she'd said was "I do wish you would use opaque bandages." Her voice had been conversational. Gareck had taken one sharp look at her and ordered an aide to ease back on the drug.

But now the tests were all over and Sophia could stare up at the ceiling while her brain idled. She was not tired yet, but she did feel as though she'd been put through hours of rigorous exercise instead of simply laying in bed and having Gareck poke at her and ask her questions over and over again.

So far her prognosis was good. The leg would heal with time and Gareck's excellent management. She had some short-term amnesia that had frustrated her greatly when she was answering questions, but the doctor said that was common and not usually indicative of any real brain trauma. She would regain her memories in the next few weeks, although at first they might be a little confused.

Bren had left early on, for which Sophia was glad. She didn't want to fight with him just yet, but it was obvious that a fight was coming.