“Combat report? So that rumbling was us being attacked? Are we boarded?” asked Brighand, worried that another scavenger team discovered this ship and had a ship capable of taking everything apart instead of having to go inside and negotiate with the computer like he had.

“No, the rumble was from the discharge of a plasma blast at a pirate ship,” said the computer.

A pirate? Brighand rushed towards the bridge as there were no pirates in these systems. Most likely another scavenger did show up but went to check on his ship unaware of the stealthed military ship nearby. That or there really were pirates in this system and he never knew as he had always been in the less cluttered areas. Lots of large asteroids meant that the occasional piracy could probably happen and kept quiet. If it was his fellow scavengers, he had to save them if they were still alive.

Back on the bridge, he realized that saving his fellow survivors was underestimating the weapons on this ship. All that he could see in space was a bunch of scrap metal near his ship. Either the shot was extremely powerful and blew most of the ship or it was surprisingly small. As was stated before, most of the scavenger ships were a few sizes bigger in this area, nowhere near the size of this stealthed ship. However, the destroyed ship appeared to be the same size as his ship.

"Can you recreate what the ship looked like before it blew up somehow? I want to make sure it wasn't just some innocent scavengers checking up on my ship," said Brighand, hoping it could draw an outline similar to the one on on the computer that showed what the ship's general shape when stealthed.

"Innocent scavengers? I simply went off your definition of pirate. Weapons with a ram modification to the ship. Here is the recorded video," said the computer as the screen changed to a recording.

It showed a small ship similar to his own but with a ram and gun turrets on the front. On its side was the symbol used by the security team back on the station. Before he could even panic over the deaths of security team members over his blunder, he noticed them behaving oddly. Instead of coming closer to his ship for inspection, they were moving away while still facing towards it. Then suddenly they sped off towards his ship, trying to ram it. That's when a blast of energy came out of seemingly nowhere and tore their ship apart with no survivors.

"We have a problem computer. That was the security team that protects the scavengers main base of operations out here and they were here to kill me. I truly was sent here to die," said Brighand.

"So the scavengers are to be all designated as enemies and killed on sight from now on?" asked the computer, disturbingly with the same tone as usual.

"No! This is all from a misunderstanding. The crew I previously were with all died from a cold while I survived. However, the medical team on station covered things up and made it look like I had an unknown disease for more funding and I went along with it as it gave me some benefits as well. Problem is that everyone's so paranoid about the disease that even when the medical team says I'm cured, they think I still have it and are trying to off me before it spreads. That or the security team found out about the ruse and wanted to silence me over it," said Brighand.

"There are bioweapons designed to resemble normal diseases that evade primitive medical technology's sights. Report to medbay while I'll send out a drone to clean up the mess outside," said the computer as a drone ship slightly bigger than his old one came out and began collecting the scrap metal left by the destroyed security ship.

"Primitive? Isn't this ship hundreds of years old? Would its technology really be better?" asked Brighand.

"If a doctor assumed you had the common cold, I would not be shocked if the methods used were thousands of years old. This is a state of the art military ship with prototype top of the line tech. Such technology during peacetime is probably only available to the richest people even after so many years. Plus we have special equipment specialized for any bioweapons used during the war by both sides," said the computer.

Convinced by the computer's logic and his own paranoia, Brighand descended down two flights of stairs and followed the signs towards the medbay. Unlike the floor with the crew quarters, there were only a few far spread out doors while the hallway was just as long. The door to the medbay was off to the left and the door was already open. Every other door Brighand had seen so far was closed. He walked inside to see a strange cylinder shaped slot with an open human size tube sticking out of it.

Next to it was a person. They were completely covered head to toe in an exosuit with a doctor’s labcoat wrapped around their body, tearing at the seams from being forced on. Without a word, this man or more likely machine, opened up the tube and motioned for him to get inside it.

“Are you a robot or a living person?” asked Brighand.

It tapped the labcoat’s upper right part, which had a pin saying “Medical Officer” instead of saying anything. Then it reached up and tapped on the mask of the exosuit where the mouth would be twice. Its meaning was straightforward, ‘I cannot talk and the fact that I’m a part of medical is more important than if I’m a human or a robot.’ Brighand decided to trust it and climbed into the tube. It closed the tube, slid it into the slot and then began operating medical machinery.

Brighand felt a stabbing pain as a needle was inserted into his wrist. Then the tube started filling up with fluid rapidly. It had the same texture as the liquid food he’d eat, thick and viscous. It was a pinkish color and was very bubbly. There was very limited space to move around in the tube so he had to just endure the itchy feeling it gave him as the level increased higher and higher. When it hit his neck and showed no signs of stopping, he started to panic.

“Hey, you can stop the fluids or whatever they are now. I’m not gonna be able to breathe if it gets any higher,” said Brighand.

“Just relax captain. This tube is soundproofed and airtight so you’ll suffocate if we stop now. These fluids are special in that you cannot drown in it. It is oxygenated and will transfer oxygen to your cells in place of your lungs during this process. Just continue breathing normally and try not to swallow too much of it,” said the computer from a speaker next to his ear.

Brighand could not respond as the fluid flowed higher than his mouth, making him lift his head up and try to breathe through his mouth until everything was full. He held his breath and closed his eyes. All he wanted was a medical exam to see if his disease truly was a cold or a military grade bioweapon in disguise.

His body forced him to breathe and he choked and gagged on the fluid until his body finally relaxed. As the computer said, he could breathe the fluid in and experience an odd feeling of being unable to expel it from his lungs. This caused his body to panic as if it was drowning buy none of the light-headiness when holding breathe came. It truly did convey all the oxygen the body needed without having to even cycle the fluids.

As nothing happened for awhile as he sat in fluids not breathing and only able to focus on his heartbeat, he tried opening his eyes. He felt no burning sensation but everything inside the tube had a pinkish tint. Then a strong itchiness came all over his body. He wanted to lift his hands up to scratch, but at some point restraints were wrapped around his wrists and ankles. This itchiness turned into outright pain then numbness.

After what felt like hours, the fluid began to drain from the tube. Even the fluid in his lungs seemingly crawled out of his lungs by its own accord. Brighand cared more about being able to breathe air again than to bother thinking about anything that just happened. That was far more extreme than a medical exam.