Indigo took the medical device back. “Sean,” he said, and I saw Tamara’s brows lift at the casual address, “I will need you to hold her arm in place after I set the bone.”

Tamara braced her arm with one hand and held it out to Indigo. He came forward and slid the fabric of her overlarge uniform jacket up, exposing her forearm. She watched his hands on her arm, not his face. I shifted closer until I was at Tamara’s other side, knees digging into her hip, and smiled reassuringly at her.

Some emotion disturbed the rigidity of her expression, like a stone thrown into water, and before I could find out whether she would face me with dislike or welcome, Indigo moved the bones of her arm sharply back into position.

“Ow, fuck,” Tamara said through her teeth, impassiveness gone.

“Sean, put one hand here, and the other hand here,” Indigo said. “Make sure not to move your hands or her arm.”

I did as he said, leaning over Tamara to hold her arm steady in front of Indigo. I could feel her slightly rapid breaths against the side of my neck. Indigo reached down and picked up the medical device with the huge needle.

“You probably don’t want to look for this part,” I told Tamara.

“Why wouldn’t I want to look?”

“Because I don’t want to look.” The needle was significantly wider and longer than anything I willingly stuck into my arm.

“At what, the big needle he’s about to stick into my bone? You didn’t see this comi—ow, FUCK.”

Indigo, one hand holding the medical device steady with the needle jammed deeply into Tamara’s forearm, tapped a few keys on the screen. “Wait,” he told us, “and don’t move,” and he reached into the same pocket and pulled out a small square of gauze. Red was trickling over the curve of Tamara’s arm from around the needle, and he dabbed at it with the gauze, staining a quick bright red.

Tamara breathed through her teeth into my ear for another minute, until Indigo set the gauze aside and carefully pulled the device out of Tamara’s arm. The needle was bloody all the way down.

“Keep that arm still for about fifteen minutes, and use it lightly for the next two hours,” Indigo said, cleaning the blood off the needle with the same indifference as he’d cleaned blood off his sword. “After that, you should be fine.”

Tamara was still breathing unsteadily as I set her arm down in her lap and leaned away. “I’d love a closer look at that machine,” she said to Indigo.

Indigo retracted the now-clean needle. “No.”

“Aren’t you going to fix your hands?” I asked him. Indigo was putting the device back in his pocket, but he still had cuts on his palms.

“The device has supplies for only a few more injuries,” Indigo said. “Fewer than that, if the injury is severe. My hand does not need fixing. Explain your plan to go through the engine, lieutenant.”