Whatever it was had hurt her. No wonder Eli had lost his head. I sighed and pressed my fingers to the spot between my eyebrows. My head hurt, my knee hurt, and my rage had burned out, leaving weariness behind.
“A week’s extra cleaning for everyone involved, including the spectators. This ship will damn well sparkle by the time you’re done. Kee, take Eli to the medbay and patch him up. Havil, take Varro. After that, all of you are confined to quarters until dinner. If I see you out of your room, you’d better be on your way to the head.”
I looked at each of them. “I will not tolerate insults and fighting on my ship. If you have an issue, come to me. If you want to spar, that’s fine, but you will take appropriate precautions to prevent injuries. You won’t duke it out like meatheads in a bar fight. Next time, I won’t be so lenient. Am I clear?”
One by one, they nodded. The Valoffs had the slightly distant look they got when they were communicating. Their expressions remained impossible to read, but I didn’t see any open mutiny. Kee and Eli both looked abashed, but they didn’t argue about the punishment. They were my family, but they knew that a captain had to run the ship, and they’d fucked up.
“Clear out. I’ll send an alert when dinner is ready. I don’t want to see any of you again until then.” I glanced at Kee and Havil. “Let me know if these two are more hurt than they let on.”
They nodded, and the room slowly cleared. The plas blade packed a punch, and both Eli and Varro moved with careful deliberation. They nodded warily at each other on their way out the door. They weren’t bosom buddies by any stretch, but their shared pain bonded them in that strange way common to soldiers. I set a reminder to check on them both in thirty minutes. I didn’t want them in pain just because they were too proud to ask for help.
I closed my eyes and heaved a sigh. This was going to be a very long trip.
“You were reckless. You could’ve been hurt,” Torran said from directly behind me.
I nearly jumped out of my skin. I thought he’d left with the others, and I hadn’t heard him move at all. I spun and my already tender right knee send a bolt of pain lancing through my leg. I gritted my teeth against the urge to curse. And the urge to tell him exactly where he could shove his commentary.
Torran took one look at my face and his brows drew together. “You are hurt.”
“Just an old injury acting up from when I landed wrong. Did you need something, General? Perhaps you’d like to undermine my authority again?”
Torran’s eyes went distant then cleared. “Havil will look at it once he’s done with the other two. And I did no such thing.”
I waved off the offer. “There’s nothing to look at. And you did.”
“Havil will look at it,” he repeated, voice firm.
I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t have the energy to fight him about it. He was a client. If he wanted his medic to look me over, then I could spare the five minutes it would take for Havil to find nothing wrong that ice and time wouldn’t fix.
“Would you have preferred for me to let Varro hit you?” Torran asked, genuine curiosity in his eyes.
“No,” I said honestly. “I appreciate that I won’t have a bruised shoulder. But then I gave you an order and you argued with me. If you don’t respect me, your team won’t either.”
Torran’s mouth flattened. He looked like he would like to argue again, but finally he dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “You are right. I apologize. I will ensure that my team understands that my failure should not be emulated.”
Torran spoke flawless Common, but sometimes his phrasing was oddly formal. Still, I got the gist. “Thank you.”
I walked in a slow circle. My knee throbbed with each step, but the pain didn’t get any worse. I could walk without a limp if I focused, but it wasn’t super fun. Getting old sucked sometimes. At thirty-four I wasn’t exactly ancient, but after more than a decade of war, I felt old. Minor injuries that wouldn’t have phased me at twenty now took me days to recover from.
Torran watched me with his arms folded across his chest. On my second lap, he said, “I did not expect you to include your crew in the punishment.”
I talked while continuing to walk. “It takes two people to fight, and one of them was mine. Kee could’ve stopped Eli, if she’d been thinking straight. Your team could’ve stopped Varro. No one did, so they will all share the punishment. If nothing else, it’ll give them something to complain about together.”
“Varro didn’t know he was attacking you.”
I glanced back at Torran and found him scowling, whether at me or Varro, I didn’t know. “I gathered that,” I said. “If he’d knowingly thrown a punch at me, his punishment would’ve been far worse.”
“He could’ve hurt you.”
I chuckled drily. “This wasn’t my first fight, either as participant or referee. I know how to take a punch. Of course, I’m not as young as I once was. Or as stupid, I hope. There was a time when I would’ve waded in with bare fists. Now I let technology shoulder some of the burden.”
“You stunned him even though I had him contained.”
I shrugged. “He deserved it, especially after throwing a blind punch. As you said, he could’ve hurt someone. And the shock was the extra punishment he and Eli got for being the ones stupid enough to start throwing punches. Maybe next time they’ll think first.”
A grin tipped up the corner of Torran’s mouth. “Maybe.”
The grin transformed his face, and I ordered my wayward pulse back to its normal rhythm.
A whisper of sound from the door announced Havil’s arrival. Kee popped her head in behind him. “Eli is fine. We’re headed up to our quarters. Anja is down in maintenance if you need something. I sent her an update.” She looked meaningfully between me and the two Valoffs in the room.
“Thank you. I will see you at dinner.”
Kee gave me a solemn nod and disappeared.
Havil stopped next to Torran. “Where are you hurt?”
“Right knee. It’s an old injury that I aggravated. I just need rest and ice.”
“I would like to examine it, if that’s okay with you,” he said quietly. “I may be able to help.”
I sighed. I just wanted to go to the bridge, put my leg up, and stop moving, but I said, “Let’s go to the medbay. I’ll have to take my boots and pants off.”
The two Valoffs froze.
“Is that going to be a problem? If so, I’m happy to just head upstairs. I would prefer it, actually.” I started edging around them, intending to do exactly that.
“No, it’s not a problem,” Havil quickly assured me. “But you shouldn’t walk on the leg until I get a chance to look at it. There’s no reason to injure yourself further.”
“I’ve been walking on it for five years. I’m fine. As I already told General Fletcher.”
“Udwist,” Torran muttered under his breath. Before I could ask what it meant—because it didn’t sound like an endearment—he bent and swept me up in his arms.