I stayed with Gleas for two hours. By the time Amanda called me from Adona's medical bay, Gleas was fast asleep and her mind was at ease. I walked at a normal pace back down to the docking ring and saw that the platform had disappeared. I entered the ship and went to the medical bay and saw three metal limbs scattered on the floor. I shook my head and used Presence to gather them and put them into a storage closet.
“How's it coming along?” I asked as I approached the operating table.
“Mr. Landing had some of the best people working on him to give him the highest quality working prosthetic for each limb.” Amanda said. “Nice clean work and they did their best with what they had access to at the time.”
I chuckled. “Apparently that wasn't you.”
Amanda turned and gave me a smile, then went back to work. “The nerve endings in his arm are a mess. I'm actually surprised he could make a fist with the thing.”
“He couldn't.” I said. “That's why the cane was attached and not held.”
Amanda sighed. “I'm working my way back up his nervous system and I'm trying, desperately, to find a good point to sever the nerve endings to bypass the damage.”
“Do you want me to provide a bit of stimulation?” I asked and pointed my finger and let a very small bolt of lightning shoot out the end of my finger and stopped it there. “You can trace it back to where any blockage or damage is.”
Amanda stared at the suspended bolt of energy and then looked at me. “I guess it's worth a shot.”
I nodded and she watched the readouts on her devices, then I lightly touched the bolt to the spot she indicated and the arm twitched slightly. She shook her head and I did it again.
“It's going by too fast for me to get a good reading.” Amanda said.
“Let me try a rapid succession of them. Maybe you can watch the flow, rather than the progression.” I said and then pulsed the tiny bolts as quickly as I could and the arm stump trembled.
“Almost... almost...” Amanda nodded to Herbie. “Another three eighths of an inch. A sixteenth. A thirty-second of... now!”
Herbie made the incision and the arm stopped moving.
“YES!” Amanda yelled. “Excellent work, Herbie!”
“Thank. You.” Herbie said and Amanda jumped out of her chair and fell onto the floor.
“HERBIE!” Amanda yelled.
“You don't have to yell, he's right there.” I said with a grin on my face.
“He can talk!” Amanda said to me without getting up off of the floor. “You can talk!” She said to Herbie, then looked at me. “How can he talk?”
“It's kind of your fault.” I said and she opened her mouth to speak and didn't say anything. “You kind of clued me in that he had a basic AI onboard with how you described him. I didn't get a chance to play around and add some essential components until recently, though.”
“But... but... they don't... it's not...”
“I'm glad your part in the operations are done.” I said with a chuckle and stepped forward and covered Mr. Landing in Presence and lifted him up. “Oh, damn.” I said and saw one of his eyes and part of his skull was missing. “He still has cybernetics in his brain.”
“They are... life essential.” Amanda said as she started to recover from the shock of hearing her longtime friend actually speak. “If they are removed, he could die of an aneurysm within seconds.”
I thought about that for a moment. “I'll have to remove them during the regeneration process.”
I placed the first of the three wooden engraved plaques under him and placed a low quality focusing crystal on it to activate it with Presence. It was just as necessary now to get a magical picture of his body to go along with the electronic one we had. Plus, the magic let me see all of the damage that was inside of him and all of the little metallic and plastic replacements, including all of the new wounds he had just acquired.
When it was done and had dissolved, I replaced it with the second wooden plaque and powered it up with Presence and used a medium quality focusing crystal. This was the cleaning one and would remove any and all ailments and lingering problems that wouldn't have been caught before now. After ten minutes it was done and dissolved, then I put the final one into place.
Since I now knew that I needed to add absurd amounts of Presence and his body needed a lot of nutrients for this part, I nodded to Amanda. She attached the IV bags that were full of everything the patient's body would need as it regenerated and healed. I put a dozen high quality focusing crystals onto the plaque and also surrounded us in a Presence Barrier to contain the resulting light that would be produced from the spell.
The bright white light filled the inside of the barrier as the spell activated and I started to direct the Presence from the focusing crystals into the spell and into the patient. I directed everything to the large wounds on his head, namely the part that was missing, including his eye, and I could feel that his body started to accept the foreign energy. Since I hadn't adjusted the crystals to myself and they were unused, they aligned to him and the energy flowed faster.
Luckily, his Presence core was quite small, so all of the energy went right into the damage. I used Hailey's ability and dissolved the cybernetic parts as his brain was healed, then the attachments in his eye and the reinforcements for his skull as they regrew. The first IV bag emptied and I moved on to his arm. Like Simone's, the marrow spiralled out to the proper length and then the bone grew around it, the tendons and musculature, then the skin.
It was quite fascinating to see as the arm was fully restored and two more IV bags were emptied and he received the essential nutrients to keep the new parts healthy. Since there was so much more to this man to restore, Amanda had arranged ten IV bags to be used. I had to add more focusing crystals to keep the energy flow constant and directed it towards the man's internal organs.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I was glad that I didn't ask what it was that he had gone through, because it was a mess inside of him. I knew what it was supposed to look like and had both the electronic medical scan and the magical scan to go by, then restored the lungs, spleen, liver, both kidneys, and about twenty feet of intestines.
Amanda had been right. If she had removed everything, he would have died. Both she and Mr. Landing had accepted that they would need to leave some mechanical parts, just for basic functions, and I wasn't happy with that. I dissolved the mechanical parts as I replaced them with regrown originals. More of the IV bags emptied as the focusing crystals were rendered inert and I added more as I moved the energy down to his legs.
The best part about doing it this way, using unattuned energy, was that I wasn't forging any kind of bond with this man. Not emotional, not physical, and not Presence based. I knew nothing about him and I wasn't planning on knowing anything. I wasn't invested in his life and I wasn't going to be. Of course, once I thought that, my mind immediately poked into his unconscious mind and found out who he was.
I knew he was just a completely random non-entity. I thought and stopped myself from shaking my head as the man's legs regrew like his arm had. It wasn't as fascinating this time as I added more crystals and drained them, along with the IV bags, and the last step of the skin growing over the exposed muscles finished. It had taken two hours for it to be complete.
The spell ended and crumbled into dust, so I quickly rolled up the sheet and tucked it away with the empty crystals and added another sheet to the operating table, then levitated the man over to the medical scanner with Presence. Amanda stared at the completely restored man, except for the part of his head that had regrown. His hair was only stubble there and would have to regrow on its own in time.
“I leave the rest to you.” I said to Amanda.
“I'll need help putting him into a recovery bed in an hour.” Amanda said and nodded to Herbie, who prepped the medical scanner again.
“I'll be here.” I said and walked away. I'm going to have to remove my involvement from both of their minds before they leave. I thought and the medical bay doors closed behind me. “Adona, restrict all communications made by Amanda and Mr. Landing. Use a barrier to stop all transmissions.” I said. “Opina, I should make that a station-wide condition. If Amanda leaves the medical bay or Adona to call someone, please block it.”
“Are you expecting trouble, Grandpa?” Opina asked.
“No, but...” I sighed as I thought about Mr. Landing only being a horrifically damaged combat soldier. “I just have a feeling the success of what I just did is going to cause us trouble.”
“I'll let you know if either of them tries to send any kind of signal.” Opina said.
“Thank you.” I said and went to the kitchen to make food for everyone. I called Monica and she was more than happy to help prepare it.
*
This is unbelievable! Amanda thought as she watched the medical scanner go through the full cycle and another complete scan of the man before her appeared on the screen. She used a separate datapad to copy the data and compared the two scans. It's like he's a completely different person!”
With that thought, she took out a data chip and plugged it into the second datapad and brought up Mr. Landing's original biomedical scan from when he had entered the military. When she compared the two, she gasped. Not believing what she was seeing, she went to the main console and added the old data and compared them. With the much more powerful computer, she overlapped the two scans and they were practically identical.
The only thing that's different are the brain scans. Amanda thought, surprised. He really restored the body to before all of that damage had happened. It's like he never suffered any damage at all!
She reached into her pocket to grab her communicator to call her contact immediately, then sighed and changed her mind.
I need to wait for Mr. Landing to wake up and verify there's no mental damage.
Amanda remembered the cybernetic parts that had taken hours to install had just dissolved into nothing as the brain regrew the missing parts. She didn't know how that had happened. Hunter had never mentioned the 'spells' doing those kinds of things, so she was a little worried about what kind of mental state Mr. Landing was going to be in when he woke up.
Did his brain really get healed like it was supposed to? Amanda asked herself. What did he lose with the cybernetic parts and what did he gain when the natural parts of his brain grew back, if anything?
She sat there and stared at the data on her screen, made several copies, then put everything away. She would need to keep making medical scans during the scheduled week of recovery to increase her verified data pool. Then she would make the call and tell her contact that it was successful.
*
During the next few days, the other ships came home and docked to the station. None of them encountered another brown dwarf star and I was relieved for that. I greeted them all as family would, then we all gathered for a feast of my own making. They all enjoyed it as much as they could, then I told them we were taking a week off. Absolutely no work was to happen and we were all going to the second planet to spend time at the resort.
Rest and relaxation was the order I gave and nearly everyone responded with positive thoughts to that. Sheph and Peggy were the only exceptions and the both of them were tempted to refuse, because The Wave had so many things going on and they needed to stay on top of it. I took them both aside and did my best to convince them.
“I know you're busy and can't just drop everything for a week. I know that.” I said.
“Then why are you forcing us...” Sheph started to say.
“Because neither of you have taken any time off... at all... since I've been back. Not one day. You are supposed to be taking regular days off and you're not.”
Sheph and Peggy both looked extremely guilty.
“Yes, I know you both love your jobs and you are both very good at them.” I said. “If you don't take a week's vacation with the rest of us, I'll suspend you for a week! You won't even be allowed to monitor everything!”
Sheph and Peggy took in sharp breaths.
“You... you wouldn't!” Sheph exclaimed.
“Oh, yes I would.” I said sternly. “Can you just imagine the mess that will be left here after a week of no one watching the company?”
Both Sheph and Peggy shuddered and exchanged glances.
“I want you to defer all appointments for a week or squeeze them in before the vacation starts. You can tell them that it's a company retreat, because it is, and I'll even delay the start of the mandatory vacation for three days.”
Sheph took a breath and let it out, then reluctantly nodded.
“I want to stay onboard.” Peggy said. “I promise not to work... too much.”
I had opened my mouth to tell her not to lie, then sighed. “Peggy, you've been a huge help to both Sandy and Sheph and you need time off. I don't want to force you into relaxing, because that defeats the whole point.”
“Then don't do it.” Peggy said.
“Peggy...”
“I've spent enough time relaxing on that damn prison planet. You made sure of that.” Peggy said and reached into her pocket and took out the electronic key I had given her for the villa on the surface. “I kept this as a reminder of it. Even though we were all on that hellhole for years and no one cared at all about us, there was one ass of a person that came along and showed us that even hellholes can become nice places to live if the right people are in control.”
I reached out and took her hand with the electronic key and placed my other hand on it to hold her hand tenderly. “I didn't know you felt that way about me.”
“You're an ass.” Peggy said with a stern expression as everyone looked at us. “Are you happy now?”
“I will be in a second.” I said and darted forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Now I am!” I said and laughed as I ran away.
“NO!” Peggy yelled after me and touched her cheek.
Everyone looked at each other and then at Peggy as her face turned to a deep red. She didn't repress her anger at all and a few of them had to turn away to stop from laughing.
“Get back here so I can kill you, YOU ASS!” Peggy yelled.
“I can't die right now. I'm going on vacation.” I said and made my voice echo throughout the station. “I... stole... a kiss...”
“HUNTERRRRR!” Peggy yelled and her voice echoed through the station, just from sheer volume. “You bastard! You held my hand to stop me from slapping you!”
My laughter floated through the room and the others couldn't help it and laughed, too.