Five days since Madeline had led Yulik away, no one had seen hide nor hair of them. The survivors were nervous, and the pirates were scared. They were so nervous, in fact, that they had begun talking with one another about what exactly they should do.

The passengers did not enjoy conversing with those that had blown them out of the sky, but as Madeline had often told them, this was survival and needs must.

They had three basic ideas of what to do; if Yulik returned, the survivors would stay put and hope that the rescue squad could deal with them.

The pirates agreed to surrender if Madeline returned and take the prison sentence on the nose.

If neither of them returned, the pirate would surrender to the human soldiers.

Diduk, however, knew which outcome he wanted.

"Doctor, please, check my head?" asked Surt.

"I've checked it every day for five days; you are fine," stated Diduk.

"I was hit by a human; who knows what long-term damage she might have inflicted," argued Surt for the fiftieth time.

"It was a light tap to make Yulik think you had not turned traitor," said Diduk.

"Could have given me a little warning, though; I thought she was going to kill me," replied Surt, gently caressing the spot where Madeline had struck her.

A pirate emerged and said, "my turn Surt; go get some rest."

"I would be best you keep up the ruse until Madeline gets back," whispered Diduk.

"You mean if she comes back," she corrected.

"No," stated Diduk.

The pirates' guard duty had become more of a formality now, a smokescreen for Yulik so that he did not execute them for treason if he returned.

So the man slumped beside a tree and sat there, ignoring everyone present.

"I have to use the bathroom," one of the hostages said. The pirate grunted, stood up and led them away to a secluded spot; as they melted into the forest, the hostage said, "You look a little fatigued; did you sleep alright?"

"Someone nicked me pillow, and I will find them and make them squeal," they replied.

***

Click sat alone, eating a small reptile she had caught a few hours ago. Like most people here, she found the idea of killing her food to be somewhat unsettling at first, but she had quickly gotten used to it. It was sort of like pirating, she supposed; it was nothing personal; the little crawler just had something she wanted.

Still, the meat was tough and stringy, filled with what was most likely collagen or some similar protein to give the animal more structure. At least in prison, Click would get something approximating real food.

Click was of the opinion that Madeline and Yulik were dead, having killed each other in their scuffle; it was probably quite the sight; she envisioned the two Deathworlders tearing great chunks out of one another and still battling. Like those kaiju movies, she had enjoyed as a child and still did.

She wondered if humans had giant monster movies; they were probably hardcore, like everything they did.

Click heard something crack behind her. She turned around, expecting an animal or one of the crew coming to find her. Looking into the trees, she could see nothing, but that was the last thing on her mind, and something grabbed the back of her neck, it was not painful, but the grip was firm.

"So pirate, how is this going to go down?" the unmistakable voice of Madeline asked.

"You're alive?" asked Click, utterly bewildered.

"Surprised?" inquired Madeline, her breathing hard and shallow.

Click dropped her weapon and quickly found her composure, "Easy, it's going to be easy," Click explained.

Madeline had been expecting a little more resistance than that, but she rolled with it.

"Where's Yulik?" asked Click.

"Working his way through a digestive tract," answered Madeline.

"You ate him?" Click asked in horror, her words were barely a whisper, and she was beginning to shake.

"I said a digestive tract, not mine," Madeline stated bluntly.

Click calmed; yes, that made much more sense; if the human was here, Yulik was almost certainly dead, and the local fauna would not have wasted a moment.

"Far too chewy," added Madeline, a faint smile on her face as the pirate's legs shook nervously.

Despite her nerves and the situation she was in, Click could not help but ask, "How did you get behind me so fast?"

Madeline did not respond; she just held onto Click's neck; the insectoid woman wondered if Madeline had misheard her, not understood the question or was just being stubborn.

Click was a pirate, however, and one did not become a pirate by logically thinking through the consequences of your actions. So she asked again, "I heard a noise behind me, turned, and then you were there; how did you do it?"

Madeline was rather impressed by the woman's defiance and explained, "I threw a rock to distract you; I was never behind you; I was hiding behind a tree."

That was as much distraction as she was willing to tolerate, however, and Madeline increased her grip on the woman's neck.

"No more chit-chat; take me to my friends, or heads will pop off," Madeline stated bluntly. Click decided, true or not, to believe Madeline's threat, leading her towards the non-hostages.

They passed a few other pirates on their way, Madeline tensed, reading to dive into the woods or use Click as a living shield, but to her surprise, they attempted nothing.

"Not very loyal, your compatriots," Madeline stated, whispering into what she assumed was Click's ear.

"Actually, they are," Click croaked, "We all agree that if you came back, we would surrender, and that is what we are doing; if Yulik could not beat you, we've got no chance against the rescue party."

Madeline found she respected this attitude, even if it did reek of defeatism. She also decided she should not look a gift horse in the mouth.

They emerged into the clearing containing the other passengers, and Madeline quickly scanned the area; she could not recall all their names. Still, she did recognise the faces, or in some instances, what they had in place of faces, performing a headcount as she did so.

They were all they, every single one, and none of them had any extra injuries than when she left.

It took a while for everyone else to acknowledge her presence, and Madeline was not surprised in the least when Tazil realised it first.

"MADELINE'S BACK," he roared, and everyone immediately got to their feet, dumbly threw their heads from side to side until they caught sight of her and charged.

Then their brains processed precisely what they were looking at, and everyone screamed, "DIDUK, GET DIDUK."

Madeline looked awful; her hair was streaked with mud, he eyes were heavy, and her skin was discoloured. She visibly shook, as if it took everything she had just to stand upright; her clothes were torn, and dried blood coated much of them.

It did not take long for the good doctor to reach her, "Madeline, I need you to sit down while I examine you."

Madeline did not sit; she fell to the earth. Diduk ran to her side, "someone cut this bloody rope!" he ordered, waving his still-bound hands in the air.

Click readily complied and removed the binding as quickly as she could.

Diduk's attention then fell back onto Madeline, "How do you feel?" he asked, trying his best to remove the dirt that covered her skin without pushing it further into her wounds.

"Tired and in pain," Madeline wheezed, Diduk knew that just from looking at her, but he realised that he would most likely not get much more out of her.

"What happened?" asked Tazil, approaching Madeline's supine form; he gingerly reached out with his arm but then pulled it back.

Diduk was about to reprimand him, but Madeline began to speak, "Yulik clawed my leg, shot me in the arm and then shot me in the back." Madeline realised that it was not the precise order in which things had occurred, but she was too apathetic at this point to care.

Diduk made a mental note to thank the young man, as it would have taken far longer to discover Madeline's back injury on her own. Madeline had taken quite the shine to the Nimuteru and, even in her current state, still had the common courtesy to answer him. Diduk carefully turned Madeline onto her side, who, for her part, put up no resistance.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

It did not take a doctor to see that this was by far the worst injury; the shot had boiled the skin and fused her clothes to it. There was also a great deal of swelling and a build-up of a yellowish-white substance, most likely pus, implying that Madeline was currently fighting an infection.

The doctor did not believe for a moment that the bacteria that had invaded her system had any chance of killing her. They had no defence for her macrophages and neutrophils, which were no doubt massacring them, as he thought.

Yet her body did not know this; it would be treating this as it would any other invasion, and that meant Madeline was no doubt in even more pain than would be expected by her injuries, and her injuries guaranteed a lot of pain.

As Diduk gazed at the laser burn, he wondered why it had done such minor damage, Diduk was well versed in firearm injuries, and he knew for a fact that even with Madeline's thick skin, muscle and bone, it should have left a massive, festering cavity in her back.

Unless Yulik forgot to increase the power per shot on his rifle, the Ponu'kild must have been so desperate to catch her that he never bothered to check his weapon. Leaving the gun at a level that would fillet a Habitableworlder, but on a Deathworlder just left terrible burns.

Madeline had escaped death by sheer dumb luck.

Diduk knelt beside the woman who had quickly grown to become one of his dearest friends and realised something terrible; there was nothing he could do for her.

Her injuries were awful, even for a human, and she would need surgery once rescue came, but in the meantime, all Madeline could do was wait in agony.

Yet what sickened him more was that even if he had the equipment and materials at hand, he would still do nothing. Madeline would survive and, with human doctors and medicine, make a full recovery, but everyone else here was simply not as durable as her, not as solid or enduring.

This was triage, and despite everything Madeline had done and all the pain she was in, she was still at the bottom of the list. Diduk needed to ration what little he had for those who needed it. Now all Diduk required to figure out was if he dared to tell her.

***

The Spring’s Aura punched through S-41234 (DW-4)’s atmosphere, making a b-line for the coordinates provided by the ship doctor, who had thankfully survived the attack. It was always good to have a medical professional on hand.

It was also beneficial that all ship officers had special codes they needed to memorise and could not store on any medium. This meant Lieutenant Agrawal knew that Diduk had sent the transmission and that he was not being held hostage, as there was a second set of codes for that.

Agrawal knew the situation; their priority, Madeline Bahn, was alive, though she was injured and needed immediate medical treatment. Something The Spring’s Arua was more than capable of providing, as she was essentially a cargoship-sized hospital with guns slapped to the hull.

Most of the passengers had survived, though many were now suffering from the effects of living on a Habitableworld for so long. Dr Diuk had given them a list of all their conditions. The one that stood out to Agrawal the most was a Nish, a centipede donkey-looking thing with an unpronounceable name, suffering from this world’s equivalent of cholera.

The doctors and nurses aboard were all made aware and prepped for treatment.

The one thing that Agrawal had not been expecting was that the pirates had not only survived but had located the passengers, as a tussle had occurred between their Captain and Ms Bahn, after which they had all surrendered.

Even so, Agrawal and his unit were not taking any chances. Diduk had been asked to send photographs of all the pirates and informed him that any pirate who did not want to be torn to ribbons would be lying on the ground when The Spring’s Arua touched down.

Agrawal sighed; he had only passed his officer training six months prior; by all rights, his captain should have been leading this mission. Unfortunately, she had needed gallbladder surgery and had been forced to step down.

At least this should be the wake-up call the woman needed to change her diet, steak and potatoes with virtually no vegetables every single day, washing it down with beer and coke. That was just asking for gallstones.

“We should be there in one minute,” the pilot stated.

“Do we have a suitable landing zone?” Argawal asked, gazing through the armoured viewing ports.

“The drones have found a spot, though we may need to clear some of the trees,” the pilot explained after glancing at one of their screens.

Argawal did not like that; the idea of flattening an area of forest just for an LZ had never sat right with him. Ever since he was a little girl, he had loved trees and tree analogues. But people were higher up on the priorities list, so if they needed to knock down a few plants, so be it.

Argawal said his goodbyes to the flight crew and departed the bridge; Argawal and his marines may have been military, but this was not a military operation. The crew and medical staff were highly trained and professional civilians, but civilians nonetheless. This meant everything onboard the Aura was far laxer than he was used to.

The hanger was a large section of the ship and would typically contain a dozen ambulances, but they had been deemed unnecessary and was now occupied with over one hundred beds for preliminary treatment and noncritical individuals.

Argawal left the doctors to their jobs, doing his best to stay out of their way. Like the rest of the ship, the hanger was impeccably clean; drones hummed all around and inspected every nook and cranny for even the tiniest contaminant. Given that they would soon have habitableworlders aboard, he did not fault these extreme measures.

As part of the briefing he had been given, Argawal had seen what the first delegates to Earth had suffered when the environmental suits had failed.

His platoon was waiting in the hangar, also doing the damnedest not to interfere with the professionals, and Argawal felt his stomach lurch as the ship rapidly descended.

“Nearly showtime,” he whispered; from everything he knew, this was going to be easy, walk to the targets, cable-tie the pirates, escort the survivors to the ship, let the doctors take over and go home. Simple, both tactically and morally.

Despite this, Argawal was still nervous, he had never had sole command before, and he scratched the back of his hand, hoping the repetitive movement would calm his nerves.

Taking one last breath, he approached his platoon and said, “Ok, people, you all know the job.”

The Platoon sergeant called, “Officer on deck!” They all stood to attention. The doctors and nurses stopped what they were doing to look at the sudden source of the noise.

“At ease,” Argawal stated calmly.

“We depart the ship, secure the LZ, and then we locate the survivors,” explained Argawal.

“Does anyone have any questions before we depart?” he asked, scanning his platoon. Everyone remained silent.

“Good, let’s get to it!” ordered Argawal.

***

Madeline shifted against her rock; her laser burn stung in protest. She liked to think that the pain had receded in the previous two weeks; she also had a sneaking suspicion that it was just wishful thinking on her part.

“It’s ok Madeline, the rescue party will be here soon, and they can get you the care you need,” Tazil said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

Madeline gave an eyeless smile which was quickly replaced with a wince. For the most part, Madeline had grown numb to her misery; but no matter her emotions, her wounds would often remind her of her state.

“I do hope them come soon; I’m getting tired of laying in the mud,” stated Surt, a milky ooze weeping from her eyes; she too, had come down with an infection during their stay on DW-4. Diduk had treated her as best he could, but he had run out of antibiotics and was now spending all his energy keeping everyone alive until his colleagues arrived.

Madeline smiled at her attempt at humour; it was good to see that the slug woman could stay so chipper, despite what was undoubtedly an uncomfortable condition.

Someone squealed, and Madeline's attention was drawn to the noise. Even though she knew the rescue party was coming, she still needed to be wary of the local fauna.

When she saw powered exoskeletons and laser rifles, she was reasonably sure that these were not mesopredators looking for an easy meal.

Madeline slowly hauled herself to her feet, propping herself up on a nearby tree.

“Madeline Bahn?” asked the marine.

Despite her pain, Madeline could not help roll her eyes. “No, I’m a local; we shoot one another all the time for shits and giggles,” she replied.

The marine did not respond, but she was pretty sure that their compatriots were snickering.

A paramedic in a full biohazard suit took over from the marine. Unlike the soldiers, Madeline could see their faces. She had not seen another of her kind for over two months; it was an odd feeling, a mix of indifference and joy.

Madeline also found her mind wandering to how pretty she was. She tried to shake it from her mind, despite her hands attempting to flatten her greasy hair.

“Ok, Madeline, my name’s Ishi. Do you know what's wrong? Do you recall what Dr Diduk diagnosed you with?” the paramedic asked.

Madeline found that her tongue would not work correctly, “Damn girl, you must be thirsty,” Madeline thought as she slurred out a word that might be charitably described as laser burn.

“I can fill you in on that one,” Diduk said, interrupting the conversation. He began to spout off some medical jargon that Madeline struggled to understand, something about cauterisation and subdermal something or other.

Madeline could see marines restraining pirates and paramedics seeing to the survivors; Surt was being led away when a medic stopped them, insisting that she needed treatment. The soldier tried to argue, but the paramedic politely reminded them that this was a rescue mission, first and foremost.

The snake man and the horse millipede were carried away on a stretcher, masks and tubes inserted in and on their bodies. It was hard to tell who was in what exoskeleton. Still, Madeline was reasonably confident that the marine assisting the paramedic was a man, and Madeline also concluded that they had a very nice backside.

“Ok,” Ishi said, looking back to Madeline. “We’re going to get you back to the ship and then start your treatment. Do you need anything?” she asked.

Madeline held up three fingers, “I want drugs, I want a shower, I want to eat something I have not personally killed, and I want to sleep in a bed.”

“That was four things, dear,” Ishi explained.

“I got shot; I think you can cut me some slack,” retorted Madeline, there was more bitterness in her words than she intended, but she was also too tired to care.

Ishi did not seem to mind, probably hearing far worse from people in worse conditions.

As Madeline followed the medical professionals towards rescue, she looked back to see Tazil staring with wide-eyed joy at what he was seeing. Madeline could not help but snicker, “the boy’s probably going to pop,” she thought.

***

Tarin and Tarit rested on one of the beds; it was lovely not to sleep on mud for a change. They were both running a slight fever, but the doctor explained that they would make a full recovery.

Tazil, who somehow had gotten through the whole ordeal without so much as a scratch, was fully geeking out.

“We’re on an actual Deathworlder ship,” he whispered. He saw one of the cleaner drones glide past, and he looked at his parents, “Look! Look at that!” he said with a squeal.

“Tazil, we have cleaner drones at home; three of them remember”, Tarin explained.

“Yeah, but these were built by Deathworlders”, he replied and went back to watching the little robots.

They left their son to his fascinations, it had always seemed odd to them when he was growing up, but now they were both glad for his eccentricities. It had made him durable, and they were happy about that.

A new doctor approached them, “How are you feeling?” the human asked; the pair found it difficult to tell the difference between humans, primarily relying on nametags.

“Better doctor… Baako,” said Tarit.

“Technically, it’s Mr Baako; we don’t use Dr past the consultancy level,” the doctor replied with a smile.

He sat down in the chair, his environmental suit squeaking slightly as he did so.

“You said better, not perfect,” Dr Baako pointed out.

“I’ve been hungry, hunted, held prisoner, watched by friends suffer and suffered myself, more than I could ever imagine,” explained Tarin after a few moments of gathering her thought. “I just want to go home and pretend this was just one big nightmare,” she added, covering her face.

“We’ll put a recommendation through that you receive counselling once you’re back home; if you don’t hear anything in seven days, I recommend you chase it up,” Dr Baako explained, tapping away at his P.D.A.

“What an odd expression, chase it up,” Tarit mused.

The doctor asked if they had any immediate concerns, pain relief, or any new symptoms to their illness, but the Nimuteru explained that they would be fine.

As the doctor left, Tazil approached his parents; they did seem to be doing much better; perhaps their condition was stress-induced rather than an infection.

“All in all, I’d say we came out of that very well,” he said with an upbeat tone.

His mother snorted and replied, “I fail to see how it could have gone worse.” His father looked at him as though he had said they should all grow wings tomorrow.

“It could have been a lot worse, dad,” explained Tazil.

“How?” asked Tarit, not believing a word of it.

“Madeline might not have been there,” Tazil replied.