The young man chuckled and winked back at her. He lifted his arms and a third chair grew around him, but the transformation didn’t end there. A transparent, flexible tube descended from the ceiling above him. When it nearly reached his head it stopped and the end split into a dozen thin fibers that whipped around Nathan’s body, connecting to his arms, legs, and neck.

Nori and Lana jumped from their seats and the abandoned chairs sunk back into the floor. “Nathan, what’s going on?”

The young man looked at them in surprise. He was so caught up by whatever he was doing he didn’t notice their reaction. He held up one arm to reassure them and the fibers disengaged from the limb.

Nori looked at Lana.

The younger woman shook her head. “I have no idea what he’s doing.” She looked at Nathan and frowned. “Just … be careful, alright? I know it comes naturally to you, but this thing is still alien, it could be dangerous.”

Nathan smiled at her and nodded reassuringly. Of course, he intended to be careful. He could feel the ship calling out to him, her systems wide open for his control. But there was an underlying layer beyond that. An ominous, instant presence that was the Tec itself. Yes, he would be careful. The young man eased in his seat and concentrated.

“That was the best piss of my life,” Bulco announced as he entered the bridge and froze as he saw the state of the young man. “Holy shit. If one of those things snakes up your ass, all those crazy abduction stories will seem much more plausible.”

“Ugh, gross.” Lana scrunched her nose.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, kid.” Bulco moved past Nathan and stood next to Nori, who was back again in the pilot’s chair. “How’s it looking?”

“Not great,” the Navigator confessed, glancing at the smaller displays on her left. “There are multiple hull fractures all over the ship, and The Null Tunnel drive is busted, as you said. The main thrusters still work, albeit at about fifty percent capacity. Whatever it was that interfered with their controls is fixed and I think I can lift us off, but we can’t go into space in our current condition - we’ll leak out all the atmosphere. The only reason the ship survived the crash was thanks to its atmospheric shields, which are now busted, by the way, so re-entering Earth’s atmosphere is going to be even slower than on the shuttle. All in all, I say, not bad for our first full-sized alien spacecraft.”

Bulco nodded. “I agree.” He pointed at one of the small screens. “My Path’s score is just high enough to decipher that one. It’s an analysis of the hull fractures. At the current rate, it will take me five days to fix all the damage and make it spaceworthy again.