Upon Vestia: Chapter Twenty-Nine

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Ivor was pretty thankful for Tala's quiet thoughts, if her unshielded thoughts were anything like her speaking voice, he'd have had a headache already.
He nodded slowly.

The doctor bowed her head. "I will be in touch. And I will alert you as soon as the molt begins."

Kay nodded. [Thank you.]

Kooshie wrote:Ellie nodded. She sorta saw Shane's point, even if she thought it was a little weird. Oh well, dragons were just nothing like her. They were aliens, after all. "Do you think we'll get to visit my parents on the way by my home planet?" she asked. "Cause then you can meet my weird people too."

"I would like to meet your people, even if we can't tell them what I am." Shane said with a smile

"Do you need me to do anything?" James asked the doctor. He really did want to be helpful for Armin.

~~
Ellie smiled. "I told them I was dating a guy who was half human, so they'll sorta know. They were super shocked at first, but they're totally coming around!"

"for now, the best you can do is wait and let him rest. He must conserve his energy for what is to come. I will stay with him, we will finish the rites to the Weaver together, pray for a safe molt." The doctor bowed her head. "When the time comes, I will call for you."

Kay nodded slowly. [Vestia, keep us informed.]

Shane smiled at that and nodded "Good, I hope they still like it when we all show up there."

"All right, thank you. I'll stay here on Vestia so I can come quickly if I'm needed," James said. He smiled weakly. "See you later."

"I'll be listening," Vestia told Kay reassuringly.

~~
"If they don't like you, I'll literally get mad at them," Ellie said. "Man, parents can be so stubborn though. I don't know if I recommend them." She did love hers though.

Shane chuckled and shook his head a little "I was thinking more like the other people in the colony or whatever it is they live at."

"Oh yeah," Ellie frowned. "That might be a problem." She wasn't entirely sure she wasn't going to be excommunicated from her church the moment she set foot on the planet, so they probably wouldn't be cool with her dating a half-dragon. "We'll just avoid telling them anything, or having anything exciting happen," she decided.

The doctor bowed her head once more. "rest, and try not to fret. Your friend is in good hands."

Kay nodded. [Thank you.] and moved for the door. He'd let Asher know what was going on.

The doctor would return to Armin's room to sit with him and pray.

James smiled at her. "We'll try not to. Easier said than done though." He followed Kay, he was still feeling serious and responsible, and didn't want to go off duty just yet.

Asher was in the med bay, checking over some files on his computer.

Kooshie wrote:"Oh yeah," Ellie frowned. "That might be a problem." She wasn't entirely sure she wasn't going to be excommunicated from her church the moment she set foot on the planet, so they probably wouldn't be cool with her dating a half-dragon. "We'll just avoid telling them anything, or having anything exciting happen," she decided.

Shane nodded and smiled "I hope it is uneventful." He agreed and smiled "But that's in the future, what are we going to plan for today?"

Ellie looked thoughtful. "Well, we could start by checking Hydroponics. Or training together or something."

Kay nodded to Asher and explained what the medic had told them,and that James would hopefully stay to observe the process in case they needed to do all this again.

Honestly, after hearing the description, he was rather relieved he wasn't going to be present. It sounded pretty unsettling. He wasn't sure he was quite ready to watch someone peel their own face off.

Shane nodded and smiled at Ellie again. "That sounds good. I like seeing how your plants are doing."

Asher frowned a bit at the description, but nodded. "Thirty-six hours. That's not long until the molt happens at all."

"Yeah, I guess we barely called the doctor in time," James said. "Man, this is gonna be a weird experience."

"It sounds rather surreal," Asher agreed. "I'd help you, but well," he patted one wheel on his wheelchair, "I think you're the best suited to help with this job, James. At least it won't be like Heny giving birth."

James made a face. "Yeah, that was just nasty. I think I can handle someone taking off their skin better than I can handle blood. It'll be okay."

~~
Ellie finished her bagel, gulped the last of her latte, and took her dishes to the bussing area. "Right. Let's go visit some plants, huh?"

Kay smiled softly. [Nothing can be as traumatic as childbirth, i'm sure of it.] And he'd dealt with amputations and plasma burns and all sorts of horrifying injuries of war. Yep, childbirth was worse. Still, the alien-ness of this molt wasn't something he was that keen to witness first hand.

He looked to Asher. [Was there a deadline for the pickup of this part from Mars?] He was concerned about that as well, not just because he rather selfishly wanted Asher back on his feet.

"That day was awful. People pushing babies out is one of the most horrible things ever," James said with a slightly dramatized shudder. He was still grateful that Ethan had taken his place. Yeah, it was horrible that the guy was so desensitized to pain and blood, but it had sure been useful that day.

Asher smiled wryly. Yeah, delivering babies hadn't been his favorite medical job either. He hadn't been as traumatized by it as James had been, but still, thoroughly unpleasant.
He looked more serious at Kay's question. "I think the pickup expires at the end of the month, so that's a bit over a week away. We can put down a deposit to extend the deadline though, if needed." He'd kind of rather get his legs back sooner than that though, not being able to use them kind of sucked.

Kay looked thoughtful. [Could we send the Silver Devil?]

"Well the Silver Devil isn't exactly Terran Disability Act compliant," James mused, thinking of all the ladders and stairs on the ship, "But I'm sure Rigel would be fine with doing a quick run to Mars to pick up the part."

"Technically I don't even have to go along," Asher said. "It might make it easier to check that the part isn't defective, but they could just go pick it up and bring it to Terra, and bring it back to Mars if it doesn't work."

James nodded. "True. It'd probably work better for you to just go to Mars too though, saves fuel and time if the part doesn't work for some reason."

Asher nodded. He didn't like the idea of leaving Kay and his medical duties for a few days, but it might make things simpler. And with all that acid damage to his internal components, who knew what sort of difficulties they might have getting his body fully working again. Ugh. "We'll need to discuss this with Rigel, he might have some useful insights on this."

Shane drank his drink, taking the cup over to put with hers. "Yeah, let's go."

"Thanks again, Sawna!" Ellie grabbed Shane's arm again and dragged him off toward Hydroponics.

Sawna smiled and waved to them. "See you later." She said and went to clean the dishes.

Shane chuckled and walked with Ellie to go to hydroponics

Kay chewed his lip. [It's probably better for any parts to be fitted by someone who knows what they're doing... ] He mused, but he wasn't happy about the idea of Asher going into the megabrain HQ, if they even suspected he was free, they might wipe his memory, destroy him, who knew what. It made him nervous.
Mourn was good at this sort of thing wasn't he? Could he do it? [How likely is it the part is defective?] Yeah, the further from Mars Asher was, the happier Kay would be. [And how difficult will it be to fit?]

Ellie hauled Shane down the hallway, to a teleporter, and to the level where Hydroponics was. Most of the hydroponics basins were still empty, since Vestia's crew was still pretty small, but she'd upped the scale of production some in the past few months.
The plants moved a little closer at her approach, apparently they liked her.

"Do you wanna help me check the nutrient readings?" she asked. "It's pretty easy, I totally have notes on what all the readings are supposed to say."

~~
"The part itself is unlikely to be defective, and it's not all that hard for a trained mechanic to install," Asher said, looking thoughtful. "The more likely scenario is that some of my other systems may have sustained damage which I can't detect due to the missing part. Even with careful scanning ahead of time, there are so many connections and parts that could have sustained almost completely undetectable, but still crippling, damage."

James nodded. "Assuming the signal relay replacement works, he'll be able to detect issues with other damaged parts once it's installed. Most of them should be possible for Mourn or us to replace without buying anything else from the manufacturer, but some of it could be a real nuisance to fix, and MegaBrainTech could probably find and fix any of those problems way faster and more durably than we could."

"Exactly. Acid damage isn't very predictable, and even if we can fix any other issues ourselves, we could end up looking at a situation like James's shoulder: Damage that can be repaired pretty well by us, but that could be prone to recurring problems." Asher frowned a bit at that thought.

Kay looked wary. [How likely is it that they won't ask questions?] This was what really worried him. [It's not exactly a normal thing to have damaged is it? And if they figure out you're lying, then what?]

Asher frowned. Yeah, that was a good question.

James fidgeted with his arm panel as he considered that. "I mean, it's not a common part to get damaged, but it isn't all that rare for a robot to get severely injured in day-to-day life either. I mean, like we know, there are some assholes who really don't like robots."

Asher winced. "Yes, they'd probably buy it if they were told I'd run afoul of another anti-robot gang, and that the gang had attacked me with acid of some sort. It's unusual for an android to survive two attacks like that, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility."

"It's a hell of a lot more plausible than a freed android getting spat on by an acid dragon in the thick of a battle," James said. "I think they'd buy the simple explanation first."

Asher looked distinctly uncomfortable, but nodded. "I don't know how likely it is that they'd ask, but I don't think they'd have much reason to question a story about surviving another attack. There's just nothing about it that's really unusual."

Kay still looked nervous. [Speak to Rigel, see how practical them picking the part up would be.]