"So, am I ever going to hear how you managed that?"

"A true magician never reveals his secrets."

"If you're a magician, the only trick you have is pulling stupid out of a hat."

"I find that your pop culture knowledge Is annoyingly sufficient enough to insult me with it, and I am not sure how I feel about that."

Sunny snorted softly lying ack against the pillows. She had one set of hands behind her head and her right arm hooked through his. Adam lay next to her in a similar position both of them staring up at the ceiling.

"No seriously though, how'd you do it/'

Adam smiled wanly.

Sunny had been surprised last night when he showed up with Dzara out of the blue, and somehow had managed to gain the respect of the Drev, a Drev so uptight that her clenched but might just have broken the stick up her ass. Sunny was still having trouble accepting her new sister. She had even gone so far as to ask Yeb to run a DNA test, which had, come back positive to Sunny's.... what? Annoyance? Pleasure?

She wasn't entirely sure.

It was hard for her to admit that she didn't like Dzara much at this moment and she felt bad about it, but there was just something about her that rubbed Sunny the wrong way. Adam shifted to roll onto his side and she had to let go of his hand, though he offered her his right arm instead as he rested his head against her arm, "Did you know that the star above that particular planet has been experiencing a period of highly volatile solar flares?"

Sunny turned to look at him and did her best impression of a human raising an eyebrow, "Oh really."

"Yes, its been on the GA advisory board for the past few weeks. They're worried that it might cause an EMP power outage on the surface of the planet."

"Uh huh. An EMP you say."

He nodded.

She eyed him, "An EMP that could short out both your leg and your eye and the ship, but would also be fixable considering every ship has tools to recover from EMPs?"

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, "Perhaps."

"So that's it then, you pulled your leg off in front of her? Or did you pop your eye out."

"it was the leg, though the eye would have been hilarious."

"She was surprised?"

"Yeah didn't seem to have caught on that they were both fake until I told her."

"How did that go over."

He shrugged, "Better than I thought. We had a bit of a talk. I don't think it completely changed her, you know there was no magic realization or anything, but I think I at least got her thinking. I played hard into the idea of what her people deserve, and how she can better do what is right for them." He scooted a little closer resting one hand against her chest carapace, "Say what you will about Dzara-"

"Uptight, humorless, pole up her ass."

"Say what you will, but she does care about her people and that is something I can respect. I think she had good intentions to start out with and things just went to far as a.... protective measure for her and the others."

"Maybe.' Sunny grumbled

He sat up and looked down at her with his head tilted, "Anyway, I should have started work half an hour ago, and Simon is probably dancing with anger." He leaned down and kissed her forehead before standing up, quickly dressing and stepping out. Sunny followed more slowly grabbing her spear and following him into the hallway.

She wend down the little stairway onto the administration deck with Jeffery strung around her neck like a scarf. He usually would have gone with Waffles, but today he didn't seem as inclined. She patted him on the head and let him off in one of the ship's air vents into which he vanished with a chirp.

He would be looking for the Celzex.

For some reason he got along with them rather well where no one else seemed to, and she knew that they fed him more snacks than Adam would . She didn't really have anything to do today. As the chief weapons officer on board the ship, it was her duty to run weapons during combat and make sure that they were all up to snuff, though yesterday she had ordered a full detailing of some of their larger rail guns, and was still waiting back to har a report from the Celzex who did most of the maintenance.

She wasn't worried about the getting done in a timely fashion.

If there was anything a culex knew how to do, it was keep weaponry.

So she wandered for a little bit stopping by the medical bay where Krill was lecturing some marine or another on the proper use of some mundane object or another, like a fork. The marine looked rather amused as he listened but did not interrupt the doctor. Twenty bucks says they had been set up by Ramirez and were recording the whole thing.

The marines had taken to recording and putting Krill up on the internet to share with the human population. Krill's videos were actually rather popular on earth, and people thought they were hilarious. By now Ramirez had millions of followers on his Omen channel, enough that he was raking in a large enough side income to buy stupid thing for the crew. Hopefully none of the brass ever found out about it.

Adam already knew, but he would never say anything, mostly because he had been bribed with a new pair of heelies as hush money to keep it on the DL as Ramirez had said.

However, dr krill wasn't the only one in the room, and she inched forward in curiosity as she saw Dr. Katie talking with one of the Forsaken. This Drev was ttall like her brother, and one of his arms was curled permanently into a painful looking rictus at his side. The hand itself was partially malformed, missing one finger leaving him with only three in total.

Sunny inched forward as she saw Dr Katie motioning to a little screen that she held in her hand.

"So what you have is an extreme tightening of the tendon right along here. Now if Dr. Krill and I were to go in and cut that tending stretch it out and sew it back, we could actually give you a better range of motion in your arm, and if you want, I cant talk with Nairobi and see if we can't get something working for your hand if you wanted. She's been learning about prosthetics recently as the Admiral has his leg and eye, and on a few occasions trying to find someone else to fix them has been a real hassle. She is an engineering genius, so I have no doubt that she is going to be able to help you."

The Drev was nodding a bit nervously, looking up suddenly as Sunny's shadow passed over him.

Meeting her eyes he almost looked guilty.

He stood quickly, "I uh.... D-"

Sunny held up a hand, "Its alright, I'm not going to tell Dzara."

He looked down at his hand with a melancholy expression, "Maybe.... Maybe just the tendon first. I don't mind the hand so much. I can do everything without that last finger. Its just, its so tight it hurts and its only getting worse."

Katie smiled and patted him on the shoulder, "That's quite alright, and feel free to come back and talk to me any time and we can consult on other ways to help you. For now I'd really like to prescribe some muscle relaxants. The tendon is tight, but you have been straining a lot of muscles in compensation for that, and it think it would help ease the pain just a little.

He nodded his head and seemed to brighten up a bit, "Thank you Dr. Katie."

She beamed, "Any time, you can send some of the others in if you would like."

The Drev nodded and then stepped out of the room leaving Dr Katie and Sunny alone.

The doctor turned to look at Sunny and shook her head, "Those poor Drev. Dzara has them scared halfway to the moon and back that she's going to disown them if they get help for their injuries I have half a mind to go down there and give her a piece of my mind."

Sunny smiled, she liked the thought of Dr. Katie getting all righteous indignation on Dzara, "As much as I like the sound of that, there might not be any need. Adam had a word with her yesterday."

"Oh did he now, was it the eye or the leg."

"The leg."

"Mmm fine enough, but I think the eye has better shock value."

Sunny laughed in agreement and then lapsed into silence as she turned and sat on one of the cots. Dr Katie stepped over to stand next to her and took one of Sunny's arms, moving it gently through a range of motion poses.

"Did you find anything on the scans.'

Dr Katie sighed, "Unfortunately Dzara is right, the disorder does come with unstable and loose joints. It's a wonder that you have never dislocated anything." She pressed the elbow of one of Sunny's arms back and she watched as it bent, "You see that/'

Sunny shook her head.

"Drev arms don't usually bend like that/"

"Oh, they don't."

Katie shook her head, "It shocks me that it has taken you this long to figure that out."

Sunny dropped her hand back onto the bed, "Is there anything to do about it?"

Katie shook her head, "Not really, and if it hasn't caused you trouble before now than I wouldn't worry about it. Whatever you have it is a very mild case of it, unlike your sister...." Katie paused and looked towards the door, "I do wish she would come in to see me. We could get a consult about her leg, could probably do surgery, maybe fix her up with a brace like Kanan."

Sunny snorted, "Good luck getting her to do that, Adam might have gotten through to her a little, but it could take months if not years for her to let it go that much."

Katie shrugged.

I suppose that is true.

She turned and looked over as another shadow darkened their doorway. This Drev was a few inches smaller than the first with a silver sort of carapace. It wasn't the pretty kind of silver and Sunny noted the strange shape that many of the armor pieces took. Her armor was lopsided and sort of heavy on one side dragging hr right shoulder down towards the floor. It looked very uncomfortable for the health of her spine, and she looked almost defeated as she limped forward. There was nothing wrong with her legs, but each and every piece of her carapace showed a marked overgrowth past where it should have been, giving her lumps, bumps and protrusions on every piece of armor.

The armor of her thighs was bogged down with thick sheets of chitin that protruded and rubbed against each other forcing her to walk in a strange way in order not to catch the ridges against each other. The armor on her thighs had been rubbed and battered from years of this abuse, one of her feet was rather uneven with the overgrowth. One of her shoulders was at least three times larger with chitin than the other causing the tilt in her body.

Her right forearm was also much larger and she had a ridge of protrusions and bulges that went from the top of her head and down her back.

It was the most uncomfortable thing that Sunny had ever seen.

She stepped back so Dr katie could take a look.

Krill came over to observe right along with her.

The Drev had trouble looking them in the eyes clearly embarrassed.

There were a few things that Drev culture valued. Fighting prowess, carapace color and form, and height. Thid Drev had almost nothing going for them, which made Sunny sad to see.

Krill gently tapped out the outer layer of chitin on one of the Drev's forearms, "Clearly some sort of cellular overgrowth of the cells non malignant of course."

Katie turned to look at Sunny, "And you said carapace doesn't grow back after the initial hardening during adulthood."

Sunny shook her head, flipping her arm over and exposing the armor plate that Adam had made for her after she had lost much of the carapace on one of her lower arms, "No, it doesn't.'

Krill was nodding as Dr Katie examined the Drev.

"Ah I see what you're saying. You think we could shave most of this off, perhaps shape it?"

Katie was nodding thoughtfully. It would b something we wanted to plan in advance, take imaging and make sure we are cutting in the right spots. If we go to deep we worry about hitting connective tissue. My biggest worry is that its not the carapace itself but the connective tissue under the carapace.

Krill was nodding, "I will order some imaging."

He looked up at the Drev, "This could mean that we can shave most of that off, take away a good portion of the discomfort. If its not the chitin and soemthing else than that is less of a possibility, but I am sure there are still things that we can do to help.

The Drev nodded looking hopeful but in that cautious sort of way that some people get when they have been disappointed one to many times.

Sunny Stepped out to follow this Drev, pulling her aside as she exited the door.

She looked quickly up and down the hallway to make sure that Dzara wasn't listening. If she didn't like the ide of assistive surgeries or technology, than she really wasn't going to like what Sunny said next. She wasn't even sure if it was ok what she was about to suggest, but she thought she might as well let her know.

The Drev made an awkward and lopsided sort of bow nervously stuttering, "S-saint Chalan."

Sunny patted her shoulder doing her best not to acknowledge the strange deformations on the other Drev's armor. It was hard to know how to act around them. Did they want to be treated the same, or different. Should sunny acknowledge the deformities or ignore them all together. She had decided to take a middling sort of ground where she acted completely normal, but offered her help when it seemed that help was needed.

Adam had urged this was a good idea, though instructed that she ask before helping.

He said there was nothing more annoying that someone imposing their help upon you when you were disabled. Sometimes you needed and wanted to do soemthing yourself even though it would be easier with help. He had always gotten annoyed when someone would randomly come up and start pushing his wheelchair, when he had used one, they didn't ask, just showed up and started pushing.

That was annoying.

He didn't mind people offering to help as long as they asked first, especially when he had to go up hill or navigate some rough terrain, but to just show up and take charge of someone's physical movement or private space was bullshit. She imagined people who were blind had the same feeling about people walking up and steering them around like they weren't perfectly capable of navigating on their own.

Verbal directions are nice, and a warning about obstacles is cool, but it is not advised or appreciated to grab the blind or visually impaired and steer them around like they are some sort of tug boat.

In this case she wasn't sure if her suggestion was going to be out of line, but she thought she would say it anyway. She would rather apologize for being too forward than let this Drev go without letting her know.

"I'm sorry, what was your name."

"Rantana."

"Rantana, a pleasure to meet you. I wanted to ask and see how you are, see how you are enjoying the ship."

How was she going to bring this up?

Rantana smiled sort of sheepishly, "It been very nice, thank you. Everyone here is so polite. Though I.... ive never been around other drev much." She looked down, "It's hard."

Sunny nodded and walked with her to sit somewhere out of the way.

"that I understand."

Rantana looked down at her hands, "I just feel so out of place, so in the way.... So, so ugly." She quickly looked away, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be putting this on you. We just met I..... Dzara would be unhappy if."

Sunny rested a hand over hers, "Hey, its alright, I won't say anything. Besides, all of us have thoughts like that on occasions. You have the right to feel the way you feel, but I am sure that dr krill and Dr Katie will be willing to help you out."

Rantana smiled but didn't look so convinced.

"If you do still feel that way.... I do have a suggestion, and please I'm not trying to be insulting."

She smiled, "You couldn't insult me more than I have already been." She shrugged, "I'm used to it."

That gave sunny a bit of a pang in her chest but she continued.

"In the marine's quarters there is a Marine named Jackie. If you find her, you can go ahead and ask her about nail polish.'

"Nail polish."

"Uh yeah, its something humans use to color the nails on the ends of their fingers, sort of like our armor. A lot of Drev are using it these days. It isn't permanent of course, but it might give you some options that you didn't have before."

Rantana perked up a bit and smiled, "Really, that sounds interesting."

Sunny smiled, "Look into it if you want but don't stress." She rested her hand on the other Drev's shoulder and let her go.

She hoped some of these Drev would follow through. Not all of them seemed inclined which was fine, but there were more than a few who could really use a win right about now.

And sunny hoped to see it for them.

Here was to hoping that Dzara didn't backslide