Flames licked the edges of the shattered bathhouse window. Shards and fragments of glass littered the ground, some snapping or crunching underfoot as I went. Captain Hetnys lay on her back, awkwardly, under Sword of Atagaris. A strange, misshapen fin protruded from between the ancillary’s shoulder blades, and I realized that it must be a large shard of glass that had embedded itself before Sword of Atagaris could completely raise its armor. Its reaction had been fast, but not quite as fast as mine, and it and Captain Hetnys had been some twenty meters closer to the window than I had.

I knelt beside them. “Sword of Atagaris, how badly injured is your captain?”

“I’m fine, sir,” replied Captain Hetnys before the ancillary could answer. She tried to roll over, to shove Sword of Atagaris off her.

“Don’t move, Captain,” I said sharply, as I tore open Kalr Five’s medkit. “Sword of Atagaris, your report.”

“Captain Hetnys has sustained a minor concussion, lacerations, an abrasion, and some bruising, Fleet Captain.” Its armor distorted Sword of Atagaris’s voice, and of course it spoke with the expressionlessness typical of ancillaries, but I thought I heard some strain. “She is otherwise fine, as she has already indicated.”

“Get off me, Ship,” said Captain Hetnys, irritably.

“I don’t think it can,” I said. “There’s a piece of glass lodged in its spinal column. Lower your armor, Sword of Atagaris.” The medkit held a special-made general-purpose corrective, designed to slow bleeding, halt further tissue damage, and just generally keep someone alive long enough to get them to a medical facility.

“Fleet Captain,” said Sword of Atagaris, “with all respect, my captain is unarmored and there might be another bomb.”

“There’s not much we can do about that without killing this segment,” I pointed out. Though I was sure there had only been the one bomb, sure that blast had been meant to kill one person in particular, rather than as many as possible. “And the sooner you let me medkit you, the sooner we can move you and get your captain out of danger.” Uncomfortable and annoyed as she clearly was, Captain Hetnys frowned even further, and stared at me as though I had spoken in some language she had never heard before and could not understand.

Sword of Atagaris dropped its armor, revealing its uniform jacket, blood-soaked between the shoulders, and the jagged glass shard. “How deep is it?” I asked.

“Very deep, Fleet Captain,” it replied. “Repairs will take some time.”