Ivan slowly came awake. This was his favorite part of the day. Waking up by stages, warm in bed, brain not active enough yet to start cataloguing the reasons why you shouldn’t be so relaxed. The crappy apartment, the money troubles, the dead-end job…

Maybe today was a weekend. No alarm clock. He would take the kids to the park. They needed to burn off the energy. Banging around in a six-hundred-square-foot apartment just resulted in adult tempers flaring, and children in time-out.

He frowned without opening his eyes. That didn’t sound right. He’d done something, hadn’t he? Joined the Navy? No, joined a mining partnership. He was on the Mad Astra, and they’d just struck it rich, and he had checked Baby Rock, and—

He sat up, immediately sweating with fear. The thing had attacked him, grabbed his arm. But he’d been rescued by the crew, hustled off to sick bay. Everything was fine. His arm didn’t even hurt anymore.

Then, Ivan looked at his arm…

Dr. Kemp burst through the door, his eyes wide. Seeing his face, Ivan realized he’d been screaming; he cut off the sound with a snap of his jaw.

The doctor grabbed a medical kit from the counter and stepped closer to the cot. Ivan held up his arm, and the blood drained from the doctor’s face.

Ivan looked at his arm again, hoping he’d somehow been mistaken. The reality was all but impossible to absorb. The arm was silver. No, not silver, specifically. More of a chrome or titanium. From the tips of the fingers, to about halfway up the forearm, Ivan’s arm appeared to be coated with metal.

The doctor grabbed a box of surgical gloves and donned two layers. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then took Ivan’s hand and began to palpate the fingers and knuckles. Ivan could see the expression on his face change.

Kemp backed away from the bed, and Ivan thought for a moment he was going to run. Instead, he spun around and hammered the intercom button. “Astra, please wake the captain, and request his presence in sick bay with all haste. We have a situation.”

12.Investigation

12.Investigation

“I’ve sedated him. Again. Just a light dose, this time. He’s conscious, but calm.” Dr. Kemp shook his head. “At this rate, I’ll go all the way through my supply by the end of the week.”

“But what is it?” Captain Jennings asked.

“As near as I can tell, it’s a metal prosthetic, seamlessly integrated with Pritchard’s physiology.” Dr. Kemp glanced at Chief MacNeil for a moment. “The level of detail, and the technology apparent in the implementation are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

MacNeil held up some small tools. “I could get a sample.”

The captain looked at Kemp, who nodded.