“Crewman Hwang, if you wish for the spacer upgrades we can perform the surgery immediately. The surgery itself will be a minimum of twelve hours with automated systems, and recovery time will be several days. More extensive surgeries, including dermal plating, blood-vessel sheathing, organ cushioning, and bone metallization will require extensive upgrades to our medical suite.” Hook stated.

  I paused.

  “Do we have enough material to perform the upgrade?” I asked.

  “Yes, though the extensiveness will empty the remainder of our stores. With the extensive modifications to the ship to allow for the new hangar, the large drone fighter along with it's more recent modifications, and repairing damage incurred to the ship, our raw material bays are looking more than a little lean.” Hook said.

  “Even with the transport we caught to take apart?” I asked.

  “Keep in mind that transport was ninety-nine percent empty space by volume. It's meant to carry hydrogen.

  Hwang looked crestfallen.

  “Well...” I began, as I had another ripple-flash of the environment around us.

  “I think I know how we can fix that.”

  I withdrew from Hwang's camera's, though I felt her accessing more information about the spacer upgrades in the back of my head.

  The rest of my attention was on the wrecks around me, and how we could get to them.

  I said we were surrounded by them, but it wasn't like they were a severe navigation hazard... well they were, but not in the fact that we were at risk of impacting them. The closest was a kilometer away.

  Which meant that using drones to grab pieces and bring them back was out. Their fusion drives would set off every Lindwurm in the area...

  Though, it was strange, I couldn't detect any in the slow pulses around us.

  I was feeling extra nervous about this, but... Couldn't just sit here forever.

  I counted down to the next pulse,I had gotten good at timing them, and fired a maneuvering thruster just before one would go out.

  The pulse went out.

  And nothing changed.

  I held my breath, mentally of course, until the next pulse occurred.

  Still nothing.

  I judiciously fire my maneuvering thrusters again, moving closer to the wreck nearby, It appeared to be a small 'corvette' class ship, so less than half the size of hook. More like a third with the manufactory unfolded.

  We drifted over towards the wreck, though I discovered something interesting.

  We lost speed rapidly.

  Apparently wherever we were behaved a lot more like a fluid than it did open space, we didn't maintain our momentum, I had to fire the maneuvering thrusters almost the whole time.

  “That... is going to be an issue.” I said to Hook, indicating our gas thruster reserves and the distance we had traveled.

  “That is concerning Captain. This environment we find ourselves in does not seem easily navigable using normal methods.”

  “No, no it does not. Can we unlatch the manufactory?” I asked.

  “I will jettison the remains of the freighter. All that is left is mostly hull metal, not worth carrying.” Hook replied.

  Hwang buzzed me through her tablet.

  I opened a line, looking up at Hwang through the camera in her tablet.

  “Yes Crewman Hwang?” I asked.

  She made a face.

  “Just call me Mei, unless you need me to act like a hardass sergeant to someone. I've had enough military life that I'd prefer to drop titles.” She said.

  I chuckled.

  “Okay, Mei. Wait, your name is Mei Hwang... like...” I began.

  “Finish that sentence and it'll be YOUR wang on the line captain.” Hwang snapped out her interruption.

  I chuckled.

  “Brayden, please, if we're dropping honorifics. I admit I am not too comfortable with them myself, but Hook insists on using it.” I said.

  “They're important when you are talking to people outside of your direct chain of command, it shows discipline and order to people outside. It's less important within any particular unit.” Hwang said off-handedly.

  Huh, that made sense.

  “We're about to start chewing on a new ship, but just getting over here ate up nearly a quarter of our cold-gas reserves. That means we should be able to upgrade the medbay, but...” I started.

  “Fuck... Where the hell can we get cold-gas?” She asked.

  “Crewman Hwang, Captain Cofey, if I may. We can restock cold gas through electrolysis of our reserve water supply. This will also provide us additional hydrogen fuel if we ever get short on that.” Hook said.

  I was wary

  “Don't we need that to drink?” I asked.

  “Also as coolant, and for many other operational activities aboard the vessel yes. However, needs must captain. We do maintain a considerable stockpile of water specifically for converting to cold gas and spare hydrogen in emergencies, however the process is relatively slow, and water is more difficult to come by in space than hydrogen.” Hook continued.

  Hmm... Water... That twigged something in my head.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Hwang... coordinate your augmentations with Hook. I have something I need to think about.” I said.

  I let my consciousness drift away from Hwangs room and thought.

  The Lindwurm's moved like they were swimming...

  But the void in transit space otherwise acted like space...

  But this place didn't, or at least it didn't seem to.

  I needed to discuss this with someone, I felt the tickle of an idea forming, but...

  I looked through the different rooms. Carolina was nowhere to be found, and Doctor Smith appeared to be in a call with Hwang.

  I checked on Megan's room.

  She was hunched over a fold out table , looking closely at... something. I couldn't see it past her.

  “Watcha doin?” I asked.

  She started, dropping what looks like tweezers and a screwdriver to the ground.

  She hurriedly turned around, keeping her body between my camera and... whatever it was she was working on.

  “Nothing! Don't worry about it, what's up captain?” She asked, trying to be nonchalant.

  My stomach dropped out.

  Shit, I was worried about this ever since I found out about her brother.

  I cautiously began venting the sections around her hab unit, and sent a message to Rekki-Ricky to head to the bridge and Hwang to report to medical for prep for her surgery... that would empty the hab section.

  Except for Carolina.

  No idea where she was. Her datapad's signal was in the walls near the Manufactory, but it hadn't moved in awhile, which made me think she had just left it somewhere.

  Seriously, she needed a bell.

  I waited for everyone to leave the hab section before I continued talking. She was just squirming in her seat.

  “You don't have to do this Megan.” I said.

  She paused.

  “What?” Megan said.

  “Your brother wouldn't want this.” I continued, trying to talk her down.

  I wasn't sure if she was finished whatever she was working on, but if I could get her to stand down before it detonated... that was ideal. I had signaled Cat-bot to come down at my first suspicion, and they were settling in right outside the door.

  She looked up at the camera with an eyebrow raised, and a perplexed expression on her face, before she looked down at the tools in her hands.

  “Oh! Oh no, no that's not... I'm not doing anything like that Captain Cofey.!” She said, holding her hands up, both the tools still in them.

  “Move away from the table.” I said.

  “I just... I... Yeah okay.” She said, and got up, hands not coming down from where she held her tools.

  She stepped away.

  And I was left looking at... something.

  It looked like a stand or brace, a bunch of metal joined together with metal braces and screws that looked like you could lay a staff on, or something similar.

  Thankfully, there was nothing more complicated looking, other than the datapad on the desk, recording... something.

  “Megan what am I looking at... And put your hands down, I obviously jumped to conclusions.” I said.

  “Um... I was just... kindof... investigating something.” She said.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  I zoomed in the camera.

  I just... I couldn't figure out what was there.

  And then I had another one of my slow flashes, and as my awareness washed over that area, I got the impression of... a claw?

  “Is that...” I began.

  “It's a piece of the Lindwurm that got aboard.” She said.

  “Holy crap, how did you find it?” I asked.

  “Tripped over it.” She said, deadpan.

  I paused a second.

  “Wait does that mean the rest of it is just sitting in the corridor somewhere?” I asked, alarmed.

  “Maybe? No one else has noticed it, and I don't think anyone has slipped in its blood... the explosion probably incinerated it, but this piece survived. I think it's a claw... or maybe a tooth? But if it were a tooth I think the Lindwurm would have been too big to fit in the ships corridors, so probably a claw. Definitely not a bone, unless it's bones are razor sharp for some reason.” Megan continued, holding up a cut on her hand to the camera.

  “You should get that checked out, we don't know what could be on the claw!” I started.

  “That's just the thing, I don't think it can infect us. At least not with anything from it's own local reality.” She began.

  “Okay why?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Okay okay, look, we know we can get liquids on it and it makes it temporarily visible, or at least it's outline is.” She said, and took out a can of what looked like... wd-40? Or it's future equivalent. Had the red straw nozzle and everything.

  She sprayed a generous amount over the claw, and, yep, there it was, being held by a variety of detritus she had scrounged from who knows where.

  “Now watch carefully.” She said.

  I zoomed in.

  The visualization didn't last long, and soon the claw faded away.

  “So did it evaporate?” I asked.

  She shook her head no.

  “No, I don't think so, I can't even smell most of it, I got the magnetic version of the lubricant, so it SHOULD be pooling beneath it as it slowly drips off, but...”

  “Huh... does that you mean the claw has holes in it? It's not completely solid?” I asked.

  She shook her head no.

  “No, from my physical explorations it is completely solid. I think it's phasing in and out of contact with our reality. Not all at once, but different parts of it go out of sync with our reality, like two waveforms that occasionally destructively interact.” She said.

  I would have narrowed my eyes if I had them currently.

  “When you say destructively... do you think that's dangerous?” I asked.

  “I mean, no? It just seems to let things pass through it.” She began.

  “Have you checked? Has the fluid ACTUALLY passed through the claw, or did it just get deleted.” I began.