"It's a place to start," Torin told him, peeling off the medical shift.

"Excuse me!" The doctor snapped his beak again, the dark green feathers of his crest now at full extension. "This one just said you shouldn't be out of bed! If you'd been in Susumi space for any longer, you would have taken irreparable damage."

"I are having told her that already," Presit murmured.

The doctor ignored her, continuing to glare at Torin. "This one has only just been able to clear the radiation from your system and repair the effects."

Torin nodded once in his general direction. "Thank you."

He blinked, translucent inner eyelid sliding across, then back. "There may still be small amounts of damage at the cellular level."

"Small enough amounts for me to survive them?"

"Yes, but…"

"See any sign of molecular gray plastic aliens while you were in there?"

"No, but…"

"Then again, thank you." Pushing head and arms through the correct holes of her sweater took longer than it should have, but eventually Torin managed it.

"You seem to be deliberately misunderstanding me. You're not completely recovered. You need rest."

"Or else?" she asked as Ceelin guided her feet into the leg holes in her underwear. Time spent in the close quarters of the Corps conquered nudity taboos; not that either Katrien or Rakva, with fur and feathers, would have cared had any lingered.

"Or else you will recover more slowly."

"I can live with that." One hand on Ceelin's shoulder, she stood and used the other to drag her trousers up over her hips.

"This one cannot allow you to leave until the Wardens arrive." He turned to the med tech, who checked her slate and shrugged.

"This one has no ETA."

"I don't have time to wait." Slate on her belt, boots fastened, Torin took a careful step, didn't fall flat on her face, and counted it a win.

"The Wardens will want to take your statement."

"Presit can record it and send it back to the station." One bright pink hand on the bulkhead and one on Ceelin's shoulder, she could walk at almost a normal speed.

"Where are you going?" Presit demanded, scrambling to catch up.

"Do you have a ship?" She touched the top curve of the plastic chair as she passed by.

"Yes, I are having a ship, but…"

"Then that's where we're going."

Crest still up, the doctor stepped between her and the hatch. "This one objects," he began but stopped at the expression on Torin's face.

"Did the Wardens tell you to detain me?"

"No, but…"

"Do I owe you for my treatment?"

If he'd had a lip, he'd have curled it. "Health care is a basic right for citizens of the Confederacy."

"That's what I thought. Move."

He'd never been in the Corps, or he'd have moved a lot faster, but he still moved.

"This one needs your statement that you are released from this facility without this one's approval," he grumbled, slate held out.

"I understand that I am released from this facility without my attending physician's approval," Torin said as clearly as possible as she passed him.

"You are best letting her go," she heard Presit say behind her. "She are not being a very nice person even on her good days. Ceelin!"

His shoulder tensed under Torin's hand.

"I are hoping you are planning to come back for the camera?"

"Go on, kid." Torin nudged him back toward the room, wondering just how much of her regaining consciousness he'd recorded. "I can manage."

The long hall leading toward an open hatch with a red exit light above it seemed to be tilted forty-five degrees. Torin took a deep breath, got the hall straightened out about twenty degrees and figured fuk it, close enough. The series of open hatches along both sides of the bulkhead nearly defeated her, but her arms were just long enough to bridge the gaps.

Most of the facility's other patients watched with interest as she lurched past their rooms. One shrieked. Torin ignored them all.

"The only reason the Wardens are not asking the medical facility to be detaining you," Presit told her matter-of-factly, "are because they are assuming any reasonable being are planning on staying right where they are until the Wardens arrive."

"Waste of time," Torin grunted, swayed slightly, and found Presit's shoulder suddenly under her flailing hand. She looked down to find the reporter looking up at her, teeth showing.

"You are assuming, in turn, that I are allowing you to use my ship."

"I'm giving you one hell of a story."

"Your opinion…" Her muzzle wrinkled. "It are not buying me hurinca."

Torin neither knew nor cared what hurinca was. "Your biggest stories have all involved me in some way." And the polynumerous polyhydroxide alcoholyde shape-shifting molecular hive mind. There was a chance that the pirates were another one of their social experiments but, bottom line, who the fuk cared. The pirates had Craig. "This story is about the pirates, and it'll be huge."

"I are not seeing how."

Torin pulled her lips back off her teeth in an expression that, in no way, resembled a smile. "I'm going to destroy them."

Presit reached up to pat the hand on her shoulder. "Of course you are."

She didn't sound condescending-or no more condescending than usual. She sounded pleased.

Stumbling toward the docking ring, Torin learned that her patch had affected the equations and Promise had emerged from Susumi space close enough to the station to set off the proximity alarms.

"It are being a good thing, too," Presit said, steering them around a corner and along the outside curve of the central hub. "They are finding you fast, before you are being dead. Ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr are dead are being a story, sure, but not enough of a story for me to have been dragging my ass out to the edge. Ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr are removing the pirate scourge from known space, now that are being a story. A better story than merely an observational piece about pirates are being bad," she added, turned, and waved off two people hurrying across the concourse toward them. "Yes, this are ex-Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr who are helping to discover the little gray aliens and are helping to be ending the war. Yes, she are smaller in real life. No, her hands are not usually being pink. Yes, she are being in a hurry right now, but my assistant are giving you my burst and you are watching Sector Central News for what she are up to next. Presit a Tur durValintrisy are having the whole story. Ceelin!"

Torin concentrated on walking and taking the slate off her belt at the same time. After three tries to input the codes, she finally managed to access the Promise's data storage. Requested as evidence by the Wardens, the ship had been tethered to a buoy just off station.

"What are you doing?"

Actual Federate syntax out of Presit's mouth sounded wrong. "I'm copying everything from the last three tendays to my slate."

"What are you going to be doing with Craig Ryder's ship?"

"Nothing. It'll be here, waiting, when I get him back."

"You are being sure about that?"

"Given the speed the Wardens work at? Yes." If she couldn't free Craig any faster, if wouldn't matter what she did with the ship; he'd never be returning to it.

"He are not going to be happy about the hole," Presit said thoughtfully.

Torin would kill to hear Craig be unhappy about the hole. Literally.

Presit's pilot was also Katrien, his fur paler than both Presit and Ceelin, the markings around his eyes extending down into his ruff. He was sitting outside the air lock chewing a stim stick when they arrived.

"Merik a Tar konDelasinskin are being at your service." He tapped his index fingers together, a gesture Torin had never seen before. "I are being a big fan. I are watching your vids a hundred, no, two hundred times."