I tried to move, I grabbed at it's joints and tried to extend the different tools I had used to wreck the last robot back in the terminal, but my suit didn't respond.

  CRUNCH

  It pressed it's hand down into my chest and I felt something break as the breath was forced out of my body. A big alert came up over my interface saying:

  INJURY DETECTED, DISPENSING MEDICATION

  Just before it's arms pistoned down again. The first time shock had overwhelmed the pain, this time the pain was definitely present.

  CRACK.

  Ow.

  INJURY DETECTED, DISPENSING MEDICATION

  Something popped in my back and made me see stars as the robot pushed down again, on it's way up I saw more stars, entire constellations really... and something else in the corner of my vision. Or maybe that was just more stars.

  INJURY DETECTED, DISPENSING MEDICATION

  Just as it was about to plunge it's arms down for a third and possibly final time, a steel tendril lanced into the robot from above, knocking it off of me and pinning it to the ground. I felt more than heard the sound of warped metal screaming as the robot was ground to pieces next to me.

  I blinked the stars out of my eyes as the sounds of crunching metal filled the air around me.

  Along with the screams.

  I levered myself up to a sitting position, leaning against the bulkhead, and took in the scene.

  The tendril that had saved me belonged to dog-bot, who was hovering over me protectively, three of it's arms anchored to the walls and floor while it's other appendages took apart a half dozen of the robots that It had caught.

  Cat-bot was doing the same for the half dozen that had rushed past me to the soldiers.

  While dog bot was holding it's ground and keeping the bloodthirsty robots off of me, cat-bot was, for want of a better word, pouncing, lunging forward and tearing apart the robots one by one. It actually seemed to be destroying them quicker than dog bot, which was nice, except...

  It wasn't keeping the other robots from actually reaching the rest of the group.

  One of the robots had Ricky-rekki on the ground in the same position I had been in, and the others were attempting to shoot it without killing Ricky-Rekki while Hwang had been grabbed from behind in a parody of a heimlich maneuver and was presently being squeezed in half.

  I tried to transmit what I could over my suits comms, if there were any left

  PROTECT HUMANS

  I couldn't receive anything back, but Dogbot seemed to bounce in place before picking me up with two tendrils, carrying me over to the rest of the group and slamming it's body into the chassis of the robot crushing Hwang, knocking it free, whereupon Carolina jumped on top of it and severed it's head with the plasma torch in her suit's arm.

  I was really missing being able to use the tools in my suit at this moment.

  Cat-bot swung in from above, using it's tendrils to pierce through two that were attempting to flank Carolina, then snatching up a third and holding it in front of it's main weapon before discharging an achingly bright flash of plasma that instantly melted, and exploded, the robots core.

  Debris rained on all of our heads as we huddled under the protection of the drones.

  I grinned and turned to the Lieutenant and his men.

  “My robots are better than your robots.” I said, unable to hold in the goofyness that had overtaken me. I blame the adrenaline.

  I coughed.

  Also the lightheadedness I thought.

  I panned around, holding my aching ribs, as the Drones methodically dismantled the attacking robots, Dog bot preferring to bash and crush them into submission, while Cat-bot preferred to grab one at a time and ensure it was dead before moving on to the next.

  Once the last of the robots was scrap I forced myself upright with the wall and limped over to Dog-bot, Cat-bot was still well overhead of us.

  “Good dog-bot.” I said, raising my hand to the top of dog-bot's body.

  Dog-bot bounced up and down as I patted it's chassis, and the looks everyone was giving me grew either more incredulous or more disturbed.

  Or maybe they were all disturbed, their faces were all... shiny, and sparkly... but also dark.

  Whew my head felt weird.

  Cat-bot hung from the ceiling and looked aloof, as it swiveled around, it's main camera falling upon me.

  “Good job to you too Cat-bot, even if I know you won't appreciate it, I appreciate you.” I said, pointing a finger at cat-bot, who slunk away into the darkness of the back of the bay, sulking apparently at the praise. Or the attention. Who knows. Maybe it was just trying to to do it's job and I was ascribing way too much feeling to it like old Hook had kept insisting.

  “Uh... what just happened?” Hwang asked, The Lieutenant shot her a dirty look, like he wanted to be the one to ask, but they all looked at me.

  “Dog-bot and cat-bot saved us!” I said, unhelpfully.

  Oh hey, my hud had an alert on it. It said internal medical supplies expended, please seek medical attention before medication wears off. Huh. Oh it has a handy link to the injuries currently being treated by onboard medication. Oh.

  “Oh that probably not good.”

  “What?” Carolina asked.

  “All my internal medical supplies are gone, and my implants seem to think I will drop dead if I don't get medical attention soon... Oh it gave me a timer, why does it say five zero zero... that's can't be right, now it's at four fifty five, I don't think my implants know how counting works... it's probably a little alarmist honestly, I feel great.” I was honestly feeling pretty great right now. I couldn't even FEEL my chest right now despite all the weird noises it was making whenever I breathed.

  Dr. Smith ran up looking concerned. “ I lost sight of you when we were attacked, what happened.” He said, his eyes growing more and more alarmed as they ran down me.

  Thinking back to the violent chest compression's I had been subject to made my throat itch and my chest ache, which made me cough, which somehow made my hands get covered in red.

  Also my jaw and throat felt really warm, like a warm blanket had been wrapped around it.

  Dr. Smith grabbed my shoulders.

  “Your medbay, where is it!” He shouted at me. I think this must have been the third or fourth time he said it. I sortof remembered him mouthing something at me, but the buzzing in my ears made it really hard to hear.

  He was just being overly dramatic.

  I offhandedly pointed deeper into the ship where the medbay way, and in my head told the ship to light up a path to it, which it obliged, lighting a trail of pale purple lights.

  I felt two sets of arms get under my shoulders and heft me up, and then things.... faded.

  ***********************************************************************************

  I didn't truly fall unconcious, but it was really easy to let Megan and Carolina carry me. It struck me as a little odd that some of the smallest members of our merry band were the ones to help carry me, but then I was not exactly the tallest guy around, it was likely easier for them to get under my arms than the larger members of the military.

  Thankfully lighting the way made it fairly simple to reach the medical bay, and I was brought in and deposited on the bed with minimal fuss.

  Dr. Smith immediately began moving purposefully around the room as the giant armature bearing the numerous drills, scalpels, and other implements of medical horror descended over me.

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  This immediately caused the soldiers to go on guard and raise their weapons.

  To which Dr. Smith waved them away.

  “It's an auto-doc, we use them all the time put your weapons away.” He stated matter of factly, his gaze landing on the auto-doc only briefly.

  Ricky-Rekki raised an eyebrow at the Dr. Smith. A flash of clarity showed he was actually limping pretty bad.

  “We do?”

  “Yes, though we tend to wait until the patient is fully under to bring them out. People tend to have your reaction to it. Ship, I am a medical professional and your captain is my patient, would you please provide me with an interface so that I may monitor him and administer treatment.” Dr. Smith said professionally.

  I was about to send a command to the ship to do so when a touchscreen extended out from the table I was on towards the doctor.

  “Thank you ship.” Dr. Smith said.

  I thought to Hook. “What was that about? I thought you only took orders from me?”

  “One, it was not an order, it was a request, and two it was in your best interests captain.” Hook said.

  “So all someone has to do to get you to do something is say please?” I replied jokingly.

  “My records show you told me to work with Carolina in such a manner, and she has always been extremely polite. Responses to such behavior have been worked into this iteration's core architecture.”

  Huh... that was interesting. This version of Hook seemed more amenable to working with other people.

  I was not sure yet if that was a security flaw or a boon.

  “Ribs four seven eight and nine are fractured on the patients left, and five six and seven on the right, his breastbone has multiple fractures, pleural membrane has been punctured in three places, and the right lung has been punctured once and is filling with blood...” I looked over at the doctor tapping away at the screen. He appeared to be far frantic than he was back at the entrance.

  “No, no we can't administer those until we check his heart, if it's been traumatized those meds could cause him to go into cardiac arrest... we need imaging.” The doctor looked around the room as the soldiers crowded in.

  “Lieutenant I need to the room.” Doctor Smith said.

  “My orders are to guard Captain Cofey with my life, he is literally the key to saving our world.” The lieutenant, whose name I still didn't know, said.

  “And I need space to make sure he survives, leave one soldier in the room then everyone else, out!” Dr. Smith said, as two more arms extended from above, both holding what looked like broken pieces of a circle.

  I saw now why He was waving everyone out, despite the upgrades I had done wit the medical bay with this new hoola-hoop of a device deployed there was barely any room, Carolina and Dr. Smith crowded into opposite corners while Hwang took up position by the door, and the other soldiers trooped out at the Lieutenant's order.

  As the doors opened I noticed the telltale tentacles of dog-bot and cat-bot waiting outside. I actually wondered off hand why they didn't carry me.

  I faded out as Dr. Smith directed the armature over me. I felt the first set of injections the most, then the rest of what they did felt just like pressure.

  I blinked my eyes, realizing at some point I had fallen asleep.

  I looked over at Dr. Smith and asked. “How am I looking?” I asked.

  He looked up.

  “Glad to see you are back with us. I believe you passed out for a while there.” He replied.

  “I think so, but I feel much better.” I said.

  “I should hope so, we gave you a LOT of medication. Also you underwent surgery.”

  “Did you fix whatever is wrong with me?” I asked, half joking.

  “'Whatever is wrong with me' the man says. I've patched together your ribs, thankfully this auto-doc has the capability to fuse bones, and I have sealed the punctures in them and patched your pleural membrane. Your heart was traumatized and was bleeding into your peridcardium but we were able to stem the bleeding and get the swelling down. I have not been able to do anything for your particularly specific affliction but I have programmed in the medication that I believe should assist you, however you do not seem to have it in stock.”

  I groaned. “Guess I'm going to have to fabricate it.”I said.

  “I hope you can, otherwise the medication I provided should last for a short time. Now, ordinarily I would tell you to rest and take it easy for the next few weeks, seeing as a robot just tried to strangle your heart with your own ribcage, but...” I could see the doctor was having a bit of a war in himself. On the one hand I was his patient, and his training was telling me to keep me on bed rest. On the other hand, his world was under siege and I was the only one who could lift it.

  “Yeah... can you help get me out of this suit? I need to recycle it.” I said as I looked down, noticing that the suit itself had been cut to shreds around me, presumably for the arms to reach my skin.

  I stood up and started stripping out of my suit, before I noticed Hwang and Carolina still in the room.

  “Well, go outside, no free shows!” I said, trying to be playful but I think it just came out as exhausted. I made a shooing motion with my hand.

  Carolina scowled at me, but trooped out after Hwang.

  Dr. smith helped me out of my suit, leaving me in my ragged and stained undershirt and boxers, also heavily shredded and coated in fluids best left unsaid.

  In my head I contacted Hook.

  “Are there any spare clothes in here?”

  “There are basic shipboard jumpsuits behind the panel on your right” A panel lit up and popped open to my right.

  “I took the liberty of putting some of both your size and Carolina's inside. Or previous me did anyway.” Hook stated.

  I nodded as I moved over to the panel, stripping my underwear as I did, and pulled out a black one piece outfit.

  “Huh... I don't mind the star trek look.” I said.

  “What was that?” Dr. Smith asked.

  “Just an old show, these outfits kind of look like what they wore.” I held it out in front of me and looked at it.

  It did look like a star trek uniform, but it had a dark purple motif to it, very similar to the lighting in the rest of the ship.

  There were also small circuit traceries all over the suit.

  “What's with the circuitry Hook?”

  “Experimenting. Carolina did not want to get augmentations which made her interacting with the ship without her tablet an issue. My previous self was looking through history of how C.O.G. Used to interact with technology before our augmentations reached their current advancement. C.O.G. Crews used to use haptic suits that could interact with their ships systems using gestures.” Hook stated.

  “Interesting...” I replied.

  Dr Smith helped me clean myself off of the worst of the gore using a water sprayer that we found connected to the wall, and I dried with a towel provided near same. Then I pulled on the onesie, wincing as it pulled over the marks over my ribs, I assume where the machine had made incisions to get at my insides. At least I assume there were incisions... I didn't really remember.

  I touched my sides and felt weird little ridges.

  “No sutures?” I asked.

  “Sutures? What are we cavemen?” Dr. smith replied.

  I snorted.

  “I suppose you use, what, hyper advanced super glue to hold the skin together?” I said.

  “Super glue.” He stared at me.

  “You think I put you back together, after life saving surgery, from injuries you sustained fighting psychotic robots, using super glue.” He said again.

  “I mean... how else did you get the skin to stick together?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Dermal regeneration with fluid synthetic skin slurry you nonce!” He said, genuinely angry.

  “Nonce? You aren't from around here are you.” I stated emphatically.

  “No I emigrated when I was fourteen when the empire took over my planet and started putting in dumb sodding laws that kept everyone from doing their jobs.” He said, obviously having worked up a very british head of steam.

  I hadn't noticed any accent before, likely due to my translation software.

  I couldn't help it, I smiled.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  “Sorry, it's just, it's real refreshing to hear someone talk like back home, even if its from a different region.” I said.

  “Back home?” He replied.

  “Earth.” I flatly stated.

  He blinked.

  “RIGHT! You are a super ol... a geriatric patient... funny you didn't seem it when I was looking at your stats over there.”

  “A lot's happened... speaking of which, I should get up and over to the helm and get this whole situation fixed.” I said, moving towards the door. I was actually feeling much better overall. I think the doctor had given me more than just pain medication because I was already walking steadier.

  Or so I thought, before the entire ship suddenly tilted and I was thrown to one side.