"We failed, didn't we?" He didn't recognize the broken, almost lifeless voice as his own.
Pat lifted her head. She didn't need to speak, not when her blue eyes were so eloquent.
"Dead-Eye?" Wing asked.
"Don't you fret, Captain. I'm all in one piece, even if Elizabeth did give me six nasty powder burns on my leg."
Curt Wing wearily turned his bandaged head, beheld a mound of bandages sprawled atop the bed beside him.
"You sure look like a hangover, Dead-Eye," Wing observed. Then: "Was it bad, Pat?"
She nodded. "Only a half dozen out of all those hundreds escaped. Most of them were killed in the explosion. The medics don't know how any one came out alive—especially you and Dead-Eye. You were right in the center of the blast."
"Well," Wing observed, and it was an effort to speak lightly, but something had to be done about the horror in her voice, "I don't feel the least bit alive. Maybe I'm a ghost."
Her laughter was a relief, but a little too full for such a flimsy joke. So he said:
"I suppose the shadow-thing wasn't harmed." It was more a statement than a question.