Chapter 21

"Oh." Sophia said. Then she ran out of words.

"None of the internal systems have been tested." Banks said, his voice unusually diffident, "The Captain's been too busy to check them, and the rest of us don't know enough about vanships to do more than basic repairs."

"We had a hard enough time putting the hull back together. I don't think there was any panel that didn't need to be reworked flat." Seth looked upon the Warlock with obvious pride.

"We refilled the impact foam reservoirs too." Naylor added.

"Shut up, Tully." Banks said in a low aside.

Sophia was still staring at her ship, and the only way anyone could tell that she was still breathing was because the medical bed's alarms hadn't gone off yet.

There was a long silence. Sophia was peripherally aware of the mechanics fidgeting, wanting reassurance, afraid they'd upset her.

"I can guarantee that it's the first time the Warlock's been painted in at least ten years. I certainly never bothered." Bren was the first to speak, and his mild voice didn't even disturb the reverent silence.

"He's perfect." Sophia said softly. She couldn't look away, barely realized that she'd spoken at all. The Warlock was parked in its own space, gleaming brilliantly under the blinding lights of the flight deck. Every surface had been repaired, refinished, painted and polished until the eighty-year-old vanship looked new. The mechanics had chosen to paint it the same vivid red that was on the Silvana's flags. The ship glowed wetly, like fresh blood spilled on the unpainted metal deck.

"Maybe we should have painted it blue like you said." Naylor muttered to Banks, eyeing Sophia's face uncertainly. Sky blue was one of the Anatorayen flag's colors.

Sophia knew she was crying only because she could feel the tears run down her cheeks, making her skin itch. She might have been pumped full of drugs keeping her physically and emotionally stable, but no drugs could suppress her reaction. The viewscreen on her bed showed no increase in blood pressure or heart rate, but the tears still ran down her face. She didn't even raise a hand to wipe them away.

"He's perfect." She repeated.

Then she cleared her throat and wiped her face and fussed over the bed's controls while the mechanics stood around awkwardly waiting for her to compose herself. Through it all Bren just stood there, as levelheaded as ever. She took a deep breath. "So when can I fly him?"

He shook his head in disgust, but she could tell he wasn't really angry. He was proud of the work that the mechanics had done. They must have worked in shifts the entire time she was unconscious.

"When you can walk across the flight deck to your ship, then I might consider letting you work on it. Don't start badgering me for flight privileges until you can stand on your own two feet." He said in his soft voice.

"We laid new wiring and replaced tubing where it was obviously broken, but we haven't fired up the engine yet." Banks shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the emotional scene and wanting to get back to his work.

"It can't be too damaged." Sophia said in a more normal voice, gesturing for Bren to move her bed toward the Warlock, "It's not like I could have burned out much of anything, since I was running on air instead of Claudia. I'll isolate the engine and start it up so I can see what needs to be done."

Instead of jumping to assist her, Bren signaled the mechanics to turn her bed around. "Hey!"

"Time's up. You can come stare at your ship another day." He opened the doors of the lift. Sophia knew she wouldn't be able to dissuade him from taking her back to the med deck, so she didn't try. Instead, she turned her attention back to the three other men.

"Thank you." She said sincerely, looking at each of the mechanics before the lift doors closed, "Thank you."

The lift doors hadn't quite closed, so Bren heard Naylor speculating that maybe now Sophia would want some Disith brandy and a nice dinner. He gave a short sigh of annoyance and made sure the bed's viewscreen was still displaying stable values. When he looked up at Sophia, who was giving him a knowing smile.

"He's a good mechanic." He said, defending the man.

"I didn't say anything."

When Sophia didn't say anything else, he looked her over more carefully. Her gaze was blank, and her eyelids were starting to close. She was exhausted. While he hadn't wanted to drag her down to the flight deck the moment she was roused from her forced coma, he knew that Banks and the other mechanics would have hounded him until he did. So he'd simply made arrangements to move Sophia in her medical bed.

He was glad she was awake again. It meant that soon he could sleep in his quarters again. The bed he'd commandeered in the med bay wasn't as comfortable as his own bed, and he hadn't been sleeping well. Part of that was because of the nightmares of what would happen if yet another Anatorayen princess died on one of his ships.

Damn the woman. Even the most basic emotion he felt toward her — fear of her death - was alloyed with political concerns. Bren was still furious about the whole thing, despite being glad she was alive. Once Sophia had healed a little more, the two of them were going to have one hell of a fight. He was perversely looking forward to it.

The lift stopped and the doctor's aides were waiting outside to move the bed back to the med bay. Bren followed along at a slower pace since Sophia already fallen asleep. He watched Gareck check the viewscreen's vital signs and then order the aides to put the bed back into its cradle of wires and machines.

The doctor turned to him, "I don't show any complications from the short trip to the flight deck, Captain. All the tests from earlier today show very little trauma other than what you'd expect from blood loss and impact. Very little brain damage. She's sturdier than we both thought."