James Ironwood stepped back as the canopy swung away, gesturing for his soldiers to sling their weapons. Even if the girl had an awakened aura, she was clearly too injured to pose a meaningful threat. It looked like both of her hips were broken, on top of the shoulder, and while she didn't look outright skeletal, she was definitely suffering from atrophy.
Once the canopy was fully clear, Ironwood carefully stepped up onto the side of the craft, leaving room for one of the summoned medics, Captain Leister White, to mount the other side of the vehicle. White was not "just" a medic, but an experienced trauma surgeon, and James was more or less the "guard" and a second pair of hands for the doctor.
The girl watched them closely, and after his years in a mixed-sex military, James only felt the faintest twinge of embarrassment over the fact that she was apparently naked aside from the safety harness keeping her strapped into the pilot's seat.
"Follow the light with your eyes," White ordered, waving an LED slowly in front of the girl's face, she tracked it for a moment, before looking at him with a questioning expression.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" White asked.
"O psn'r wnpuhmranp," the girl replied, her words as incomprehensible as they'd been before.
"Either she's speaking some kind of language we thought was dead," White said, shaking his head as he gently leaned in to begin feeling around her throat and head, "Or her language cen—What the fu-!?!?"
"What is it?" Ironwood asked sharply, his hand going to his sidearm, but carefully not drawing it.
"Sorry," White said, letting out a long breath, and visibly relaxing as he did so, "Lean around and get a look behind her head.
Ironwood did so, leaning further up along the sloped rim of the cockpit, meeting the girl's eyes briefly as he moved. Once he had an appropriate angle, he could see what had caused the doctor's reaction; there was some sort of cabling jacked into her the base of he skull, and on top of the couple of surface sensors visible stuck to her skin, there was one major and a number of minor tubes jacked into her back.
"What is all this?" Ironwood asked, pulling back so that he could look the girl in the eyes again, a worried frown beginning to form on his face.
"I think it's some kind of life-support system," the doctor said after a moment, "If you look down, you'll see she's got a fairly comprehensive catheter setup. I think she's been in this cockpit for a long time."
"How long?" Ironwood asked, eyes still locked with those of the girl, who was starting to look somewhat nervous.
"A much more thorough examination would be necessary to be certain," White said, shaking his head, "But looking at the skin around the interface points, months at a minimum."
"At a minimum?" Ironwood asked sharply.
"Depending on what sort of systems are supporting this," White said, shaking his head, "This kind of setup could theoretically support someone indefinitely. Her emaciation suggests quite some time."
"Gjar ahu qsw psone?" the girl asked, interrupting their discussion of her, "Ahu qsw esone rs dur iu swr?"
"Is it safe to get her out of here?" Ironwood asked.
"I don't know," White said, shaking his head, "This'd be the point where normally, I'd ask the patient for more information about what led up to this point, but given the language barrier..."
"Then let's get her unstrapped," Ironwood said, "And see what she does for herself."
"Yes sir," White said with a nod, and the two spent a moment studying the array of straps carefully, before starting to release them.
The girl winced a few times as she was jostled, and White noted that both hips were definitely broken, and probably during the landing, going by the still-developing bruises.
I was happy to be free, even if the longer I was awake, the more my body hurt. Or, maybe the more aware I was of the pain my body was already in. Once all of the safety straps were removed, the two men, the Officer and the Doctor as I'd started to think of them, both pulled back a little, and just watched me. After shifting around a little, then deciding that was a bad idea as my hips hurt terribly, I looked down and winced, both at the bruising forming around my hips, and at the disorienting tugging at the back of my head.
"Computer," I said after taking a deep breath, my voice a little less scratchy than before, "Retract neural interface."
I shivered as something moved where my neck and skull joined, then winced as that provoked fresh pain in my hips. Then the interface withdrew into the back of my chair, and I breathed a sigh of relief. After gathering myself for a moment, I started pulling the sensors off of my skin; It only took one try to decide against using my right arm at all, and to realize the shoulder was definitely broken. When I leaned forward to start detaching the umbilicals from my back, I couldn't quite contain a small sob, and my eyes started to water.
Gentle hands caught me by my good shoulder, and I looked up to see both of the men leaning in again. The Officer helped me balance, while the Doctor reached around behind, and started decoupling the umbilicals from the ports in my back. They exchanged a few words, and even though I didn't understand them, I could recognize the concern in the Officer's eyes, and I mustered up a smile for him. It still hurt, but he reminded me of papa, and it felt so good to be held by another human again.
"Dammit," Ironwood said, his voice a bit rough as he stared at the girl supported by his arms, "If I ever have kids, I will be ruined for command."
She didn't understand him, of course, but she just kept smiling at him, even as tears flooded down her face. There was something in her expression that tugged at him, he couldn't tell what, but something there struck a cord with him, making him think of… he wasn't sure what.
"That's the last one," Doctor White said, "Let's lift her out; be careful about it, her aura isn't awakened, and she already has three major bone breaks. We're just lucky none of them are compound."
"Shoulders and knees?" Ironwood asked.
"Should work," White said with a nod, "Davis, Greta, get the stretcher up to the front of the ship here, we're not going to want to try to carry her down."
"Yessir," the two junior Warrants replied, moving forward to position the stretcher to receive the girl.
"Alright," White said, gently slipping his left arm under the girl's knee, then his right behind her shoulder, "Remember, the shoulder on your side is the one that's broken, so be very careful."
"Like she's made of glass," Ironwood said with a nod, gently lifting the girl's left arm up to sling over White's right arm, before slipping his own arms into position.
The girl raised her left arm to sling over his without prompting, even if she winced while doing so, and after a moment of silent coordination, the two carefully lifted her up out of the cockpit. Her legs started trembling only moments later, obviously unused to actually supporting her weight, but even taking moving slowly, it took them less than thirty seconds to carefully shift her forward, then around and down onto the stretcher.
She was breathing hard, and had gone pale by the time they'd released her.
"Doc?" Ironwood asked meaningfully.
"Probably the pain," White said with a wince, "She was putting part of her weight on three different breaks. Davis, Greta, let's get moving; I want her in the hospital wing ASAP."
The two Warrants gave no verbal response this time, instead just starting a fast walk out of the hangar.
"She's in your hands now," Ironwood said, "Keep me appraised of any change in her condition."
"I will," White said, jogging after the warrants, "With the combination of issues she has, I might end up calling on you to Awaken her Aura."
"Is she that bad?" Ironwood asked sharply.
"I don't know," White said, shaking his head again as he followed the warrants out of the hangar, "We'll see when we get her to medical."