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Swallowing the bile in her mouth, she gave him a fake salute. She knew if she opened her mouth, something rude would come out. Something vulgar.
With that, she turned about face muttering out loud. “Watson, get me a blasted transport to Maudlin.”
Yes, Captain.
Backtracking to the ladder, her mind wasn’t clear. The cloudiness made her believe her best bet was to head back the way she came. Which meant a jump to catch the ladder and a pull up to get her the rest of the way up to it. A good few feet of leaping, and she grasped it, but when her left hand tried to grasp the next rung, it all went to hell.
The fall back was comically done. Her hands flailed due to slowed reflexes, and a word slipped out in Praetorian akin to a four letter word on Earth that would cause mothers to cover the ears of their children.
Laying flat on the ground, staring up at the hole of the chute, her mind wasn’t full of regret, or thoughts about her past transgressions. It was mainly full of the idea that her bottom was going to be bruised and her ankle throbbed. If she looked down, that would mean facing the fact that it felt like it faced the wrong angle.
Therefore, staring at the ceiling seemed like the right move.
Watson, being blocked from the area still, only heard her outburst, but he did not know the result of it. Her heart rate spiked but was already stabilizing. Captain?
“Watson,” she replied. Warmth flowed through her leg, and pain, but she ignored the latter.
Quinn appeared over her after a short tick. Kira, later, when her mind could string together a coherent thought, considered that his drones probably caught the whole thing on camera.
His unpolished Irish accent did her no favors as he said, “Ya broke yer fekking ankle.”
“Is that what I did?” She asked feigning shock.
He started muttering so low she couldn’t hear him. It didn’t surprise her, but she’d yet to look down. It would be difficult in the current position she laid in, and she really had no desire to do so.
“Aye, ye broke yer ankle. I am reading up on how ta fix it now.”
Quinn scratched his chin and shrugged. One of the large cargo lifting robots came over, lowering and sliding lift bars beneath her which emulated a bridal style carry. Surprisingly gentle, the ride did not jar her as she came off the ground. Quinn led her out of the reactor room, towards the med bay, pulling out his communicator as he absently blew and popped a bubble.
“Did ya think I wouldn’t let ya leave by the door?” Another bubble popped.
“You know, it was questionable.” Leaning back, long tresses swayed beneath her, a breeze simulated by movement. Her vision flipped upside down, so she giggled. Honestly, to her, the situation wasn’t funny. It was clearly just the end of a long few weeks that she’d not taken the time to sort properly.
“I feel like explaining that my goal is ta be left alone. Therefore, I would not, in fact, have stopped you from leaving in the most expedient way possible just to piss ya off.”
“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it, Quinn.” Inhibitions were down still, clearly. “But if you want to be a lonely little man, that’s your business.”
Letting him read for a moment since he didn’t decide to immediately have an issue with her correcting him about pissing her off, she didn’t know how to control herself like this and she’d add, “Good taste in music, though.”
Shifting in the drone’s arms to bring her head upright, Kira decided she needed to look at the leg. That was clearly a mistake because she’d not been fully feeling it before but once she glanced down at the appendage, and the angle it protruded at, she let out a groan of irritation at her own self and the true throbbing set in.
“I do want ta be a fekking lonely little man,” Quinn muttered after her groan, evidently deciding that the drunk Kira was worth a little triad. “Because when you are around enough people, they keep ya in a gilded cage. They take what you build and claim it’s their own. You give them the key to galactic peace, and they turn it into a bomb to nuke a fekking planet.”
Despite the obvious grief and anger in his voice, he wasn’t yelling. His tone had fallen flat, nearly emotionless, but the anger was there just under the surface. “So yeah, maybe I am not polite and cordial and all the other fekking shite ya might want from others, but frankly, I don’t care. I’m done with all of you and you can all fekking burn a million fekking light years away from me. . . and music is about the only use I’ve found fer people.”
Food for thought, Kira mused. Enough to chew on at least until they entered the medical ward. She let out a slight hiss as the drone literally dumped her without the politeness or cordiality that Quinn had spoken upon. Before anymore choice words slipped out, Quinn got to work. She knew it was unlikely the man had ever done anything like this before, but his hands were quick, confident, and professional. He scanned the cabinets visually, found what he was looking for, to temporarily numb the limb, broke it free of the package and jammed it into her leg. The pain vanished rapidly under the anesthetic.
Evolving from injections that required needles now they worked through air pressure, uncomfortable but not painful. Kira couldn’t watch, so she took the opportunity to wave off the medical drone after it activated and floated over. It was an assistant only and required direction directly from a physician registered to the ship itself.
Quinn grabbed the medical scanner and moved it over, making minute gentle adjustments to her ankle until it faced the correct way before engaging the 3D printer. Medical technology had come a significant way, but Praetorians required a cast with advancements. Their bones were thicker than humans, built of something akin to calcium, but with a density unmatched by their counterparts. She’d be in a splint for a few days while it reconnected.
For her part, she allowed him to work without speaking. It seemed kinder than interfering, but something in her wouldn’t allow what he’d said to just be dropped. Watson remained quiet, but listening. He is always listening; she thought.
When he finished she said, “Quinn?”
If he looked at her or not, she wasn’t certain. She tested the muscles in her calf flexing.
She swung her leg over the side. “Thank you.” For that statement, she’d look up at him. Arguing semantics at the moment didn’t help either of them. So, she let it go. Rather magnanimous of her in a current state, but she was slightly more sober than she’d been when she’d came down the ladder.
