Admiral Stonefist tried to rehearse an apology in his mind, but it wasn't working. He could get the words lined up well, sounding properly remorseful and poetic, but as soon as he imagined actually saying them, he'd falter.
Kinnit followed along with him, earnest and helpful as he struggled to find a place where they wouldn't be interrupted or start rumors.
Suddenly, he heard a scuffle, she yelled "Sir!" in a panicked voice that red-lined his adrenaline, and then he heard the most awful sound he'd ever heard in his life.
Kinnit shrieked in fear and pain, her voice echoing loud and long off the bare steel of the hallway. The shriek trailed off in a gurgling sound.
Grimthorn turned, in slow motion it seemed. A figure in shabby clothes stood over Kinnit, his hand wrapped around the handle of a knife buried fully in her chest.
Grimthorn reached for the figure, who tried to yank the knife free. It remained lodged, and all he managed was to yank her body around, causing her limp limbs to flail and twitch.
Admiral Stonefist had never before known such fury and terror. Then the figure looked up.
Utterly black eyes with a scattering of shining sparkles in them, like a universe contained within, met Grimthorn's. A chill shot through him.
Qhall. The assassin species. The unstoppable killers.
The Qhall released the knife and skipped backwards out of Grimthorn's reach. Grimthorn's hand closed on empty air. Kinnit tried to draw another breath, gasping, her eyes wide and staring unseeing at the ceiling.
The Qhall reached into his drab clothing and drew another knife. Admiral Stonefist aimed a blow like a freight train at the assassin, but the Qhall hopped away, faster than a blink, leapt onto the wall, bounced to the ceiling, then launched himself at the admiral, knife-first.
Grimthorn threw his arms up in front of his face to block, and the knife sank into his right forearm. The Qhall landed on Grimthorn, feet on his chest. With a grunt, Grimthorn twisted his arm, trying to pull the knife from the Qhall's grip, but the assassin yanked the blade free, trailing a slash of blood.
Admiral Stonefist charged forward, aiming to smash the Qhall into the wall, but the slippery assassin leapt off him. Grimthorn crashed into the opposite wall and immediately pushed himself back.
The assassin had already launched another attack aimed at Grimthorn's back. His unexpected movement threw off the assassin's aim. The blade crunched heavily into Grimthorn's left shoulder blade.
Grimthorn spun, grabbing for the assassin, but only catching empty air. His left arm hung loosely by his side. The Qhall backed off and stood in a ready crouch, catching his breath. He stared at Grimthorn with those starry eyes and no expression whatsoever.
Grimthorn, heaving, tried to lift his left hand, but it meandered through the air useless. He winced and shook his shoulder, apparently trying to get it to respond as red stains grew on the arm and back of his powder blue uniform.
The assassin shifted right and launched himself at Grimthorn's left side, aiming low to take advantage of Grimthorn's useless hand.
Grimthorn's left hand snapped up and caught the Qhall neatly by the throat, snatching him out of the air.
"Didn't get my shoulder as well as you thought," he growled. The Qhall lifted his knife, but Admiral Stonefist lifted the Qhall and slammed him into the ground with bone-shattering force. And lifted and slammed him down again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
Grimthorn lost count in the haze of his fury. But his wounded shoulder blade finally gave out and refused to lift his arm again. The Qhall assassin-- what was left of him-- was a crunchy mush.
Admiral Stonefist came back to himself, and the first thing that filled his vision was Kinnit, lying on the floor, her chest hitching weakly as she tried to breathe around the Qhall blade.
"Emergency med to level 26, all priority!" he shrieked into his scanner as he dashed to her side. "Bring antitoxins!"
He knew better than to touch the blade. The Qhall blades were famous for their deadliness. Barbed, so that they caught in the flesh, and with poison vacuoles that the Qhall could activate to inject the venom into their victim.
The barbs were the reason the Qhall couldn't get his blade out of Kinnit. And his backup knife had been a regular blade, without poison or barbs.
And that was why Grimthorn Stonefist was not dead. At the first touch of that blade, the assassin would have injected the poison.
The Qhall hadn't injected any poison into Kinnit, thank the Emperor, or she'd already be dead. But there was no telling what would activate it. He dared not touch the knife.
It couldn't have been more than a minute before the medics arrived at a dead run, crash kits in hand. They clustered up to Grimthorn.
"Not me! Kinnit!" he pointed at his Assistant. "Put her in the biopod!"
The medics stepped back uncertainly. "Sir?"
"Kinnit! That's a Qhall blade! Get her in the biopod!"
"Sir," said the lead medic, "there's only one biopod, and you're wounded."
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"I'm fine!" he roared. "Take care of her!"
"But sir, you're the Admiral, and she's just--"
Admiral Stonefist lifted the medic with his good right arm and slammed him against the wall.
"You don't want to finish that sentence," he growled. "She just saved my life. And if she dies, I will hold you personally responsible."
"But sir--" The medic paused as he gazed into the pitiless eyes of the Admiral of the Ninth Fleet, the hero of Arcturus, captain of the Swordheart, and he got a very, very clear picture of what his life would look like if the Assistant died.
"Stabilize her!" he called to the other medics. "And get her in that biopod!"
"And don't touch that knife!" Grimthorn warned.
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Admiral Stonefist sat in the cheap folding chair, leaned forward, his hands folded under his nose.
He was in the med chamber with the biopod. It was the peak of bleeding-edge Imperium technology. There were only a couple dozen in the whole Navy, but naturally the ISS Swordheart had ranked one.
If properly used, it could heal miraculously and completely. It actually read the patient's DNA in order to rebuild damage to the body, literally as good as new, without scarring or permanent damage.
When Kinnit had arrived at med, they'd put her into the biopod, but the machine struggled to force her body to heal around the knife. She'd undergone a long series of delicate surgeries to try and remove the blade. Dozens of scans had been performed to identify any switches or traps that might release the poison. The blade could only be safely gripped in a few areas, and each surgery was complicated by the biopod having grown more of her flesh around the barbs. It took nearly two weeks for surgeons to finally remove the blade completely.
The day it had finally come out, Grimthorn locked himself in his office and drained his secret stash of Terran whiskey.
It would still takes weeks of healing before she could be woken from her medical coma. The biopod vastly accelerated healing, but the knife was so huge, and she was so tiny, that the blade had done catastrophic damage to her lung and heart.
But the medics assured Grimthorn that she was receiving the absolute best medical care possible in the Imperium. They told him her chances of survival were better than even. That she would be back as good as new.
None of which he could believe until she opened her eyes again.
The machine would heal her completely, but only if she could only survive.
For Grimthorn's part, the doctors had fussed at him, cleaned out his wounds and patched him up. The cauter-seal had fixed up his arm fairly well, but the wound in his back was too deep, and was going to have to heal on its own. The docs left him with a strict cleaning, repacking, and re-bandaging schedule for the wound in his back, which he ignored completely.
Since the biopod was occupied, he would end up with more scars. Which was fine, if only she would live.
He ignored work, mostly. He would show up for a couple hours a day and idly tool around his console, but eventually he would wander over to medical, sit in the world's most uncomfortable folding chair and watch the biopod.
It had a small window that he could use to look at her, but he could not bear to. He could only be nearby and listen to the soothing hum of the machine, the gentle blips and pings of the sensors tracking her vitals, alert to any anomaly in her heart rate, breathing, or oxygen levels.
He slept poorly, when he slept at all, and frequently he'd bolt awake, her final gurgling shriek echoing in his ears. The knife wound in his back hurt more and more as the days ground on, but he ignored it.
All he could do was wait until she healed. Or didn't.
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Kinnit lay wrapped in warmth. Pale waves of sound and light surrounded her. She wasn't conscious, but she wasn't unconscious either, precisely. She caught occasional snippets of what was going on around her, discussion about a biopod, or re-growth factor, or other medical details.
Sometimes, she'd drift, able to think a little. But her thoughts were slippery and indistinct, nothing like the sharpness and clarity she was used to.
And sometimes, she'd dream. She had nightmares about the attack often, and sometimes she'd have nightmares where she didn't react in time, and watched Grimthorn Stonefist die in front of her.
Sometimes, she'd dream about the past.
During one of her dream cycles, her mind took her back to her last shore leave. After she'd been assigned to Admiral Stonefist, but before she boarded the ISS Swordheart, she'd taken a few weeks to visit her home.
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"Kinnit! It's Kinnit! It's Kinnit!" Piles of Kobolds yelled and tumbled and leapt as she arrived in the cozy cave of her home. "She's back from the stars! Kinnit!"
"Hi, everyone!" she cried. She leaned forward and fell into the Clamber, the traditional greeting of Kobolds. The mass of kobolds caught her and drew her into the pile. She laughed in delight as she was squashed and carried and rubbed against all her old friends and neighbors. Hands quickly emptied her pockets.
"What's this? What's this?" a hundred voices asked as everything was removed from her person.
"I need that back when I go," she called, still laughing.
"She needs it back later, she needs it back." The words passed from ear to ear. Nobody needed to shout, as the message was passed through the whole Clamber.
The sharp, nostalgic smell of the Kobold cave filled her nostrils, the smell of tightly packed Kobolds, old fires, and food.
"What's been happening since I left?" she asked. All the excited Kobolds frenetically tried to answer her at once.
"They gave us juice to spray on the miteflies, and they all died!" "They put things on the dirt and our growing season is bigger and better than it ever has been!" "All the warriors have blasters now, and the predators haven't been able to eat a single Kobold yet this season! Not one!"
"They built fences! They brought us food and spices! They taught us to make medika!" And on, and on, and on.
"That's wonderful!" she cried, her heart swelling with gratitude. "The Imperium has blessed us!"
"Tell us about the stars!" they cried. "Tell us about the constellations! What does Ulther the hunter actually look like?"
The Clamber quieted down as she spoke. She didn't have to speak loudly. Everyone who could hear her would tell somebody else, and they would tell someone, so her responses went out through the Clamber in waves. The Clamber constantly shifted and shuffled, so she was always in new hands, cuddling with different friends, speaking into new ears.
"When you're off the planet, the stars look completely different," she said. "They're the same, but they're all rearranged. I can't see Ulther from a starship."
A wave of disappointment went through the crowd at this news.
"But that means that our world is the only one blessed by Ulther. He watches over us and protects us from the predators."
"That's right, that's right!" cried the Kobolds. "Ulther watches over the Kobolds."
One of the younger Kobolds wriggled close to her and snuggled under her arm.
"But Kinnit, if Ulther's watching over us, who watches over you when you're in a starship?"
She smiled warmly at him.
"Well, the Imperium watches over me. And the captain. And here soon, I'll have Admiral Grimthorn Stonefist watching over me."
Appreciative "oooh"s circled the Clamber.
"Tell us again about Admiral Stonefist. Tell us!"
"Well, I'll be helping him. As his Assistant." She couldn't help but hoot with pride as she said it. "He's the most accomplished Admiral in the Imperium. He's a great hero, a great explorer, and a great warrior." She smiled.
"He will be my Ulther."