"We found him about a thousand yards away from the warehouse, Commander," said the guardsman. "He looks pretty beat and his clothes are burned a little. I think he must have been caught in the blast of that ship we heard take off."
Walters looked down at Astro's big frame, sprawled on the ground, and then at the medical corpsman who was giving him a quick examination. The corpsman straightened up and turned to Walters and Captain Strong. "He'll be all right as soon as he wakes up."
"Shock?" asked Strong.
"Yes. And complete fatigue. Look at his hands and knees. He's been doing some pretty rough work." The corpsman indicated the big cadet's hands, skinned and swollen from his labor in the mines.
"Wake him up!" growled Walters.
"Wake him up!" exclaimed the corpsman. "Why, sir, I couldn't allow—"
"Wake him up. And that's an order!" insisted Walters.
"Very well, sir. But this will have to go into my report to the senior medical officer."
"And I'll commend you for insisting on proper care for your patients," Walters stated. "But in the meantime we've got to find out what happened. And Cadet Astro is the only one who can tell us."