I started thrashing and convulsing violently during my encounter with the Coeus and the subsequent absorption of the Gift, as they called it. Tiff and CJ had rushed back into the med bay, fearing that something drastic was happening. There was mounting concern about what effect the pills I had ingested would have on me, but My friends were more than a little worried about my deteriorating mental state, and rightfully so. Tiff knew it would be an uphill battle, even with the prosthetics Elvis was currently fabricating for me. In addition, time was not on our side, with the Level 1 dungeon starting in a little less than 7 days.

  As my two friends stood there watching Elvis tend to me, CJ suddenly shouted and pointed at my now mutilated arms, “What the hell are those?! Tiff, are you seeing this? There are…things…coming out of his wounds, Oh God….I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  Tiff lifted my right stub of an arm and inspected it as black, thread-like tendrils began snaking out of the wound. “Elvis, what is happening? Are you doing this?”

  “Elvis not doing anything, Elvis only hydrating and stabilizing, Captain,” Elvis responded defensively.

  Tiff and CJ continued to watch as the tendrils began to form what looked like a forearm, then a wrist, then a hand, and eventually five fingers on both hands. The formation was crude at first but eventually formed into a perfect representation of what appeared to be my lost lower arms. Other than the fact that they were black and appeared made from the same material as my armor, they were perfect. Tiff and CJ were completely taken aback. Tiff had never heard of the spontaneous reproduction of limbs in a humanoid. Sure, some beings were capable of it, but even then, it would take time and an increased intake of resources to facilitate the regrowth. This, on the other hand, was unheard of. As they both looked down in shock, my eyes opened, and I shot up in the bed, immediately raising my hands to inspect them.

  “I…I thought it was a dream,” I said as I turned my hands, inspecting them front and back. I flexed my fingers and rolled them, testing the dexterity of the new hands. “This…How did…” I looked at Tiff, “how did this happen?”

  Tiff reached out tentatively, placing her fingers against my open palm, “Andrew, this shouldn’t be possible. How is this possible?”

  “I went to sleep...and...” I started to say.

  “Went to sleep, my ass. You almost killed yourself, you asshole!” CJ shouted, anger and disappointment evident in his tone.

  “I what? I mean, I took a couple of extra sleeping pills, but I didn’t mean to do that. I swear, I just wanted to sleep longer,” I said, lying to myself as much as my friends.

  “Captain was told to take no more than two. Elvis was very clear on the maximum dose. That medicine was modified from a medication created for the Havokium. The dose you took would have been lethal had Elvis not been monitoring your vital signs,” Elvis said.

  “I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t think… I didn’t know,” I stammered the words, trying to say the right thing. “You need to know that I wouldn’t do that ever. It was a mistake. One I won’t make again.”

  Tiff and CJ looked at each other, as if agreeing that the situation was not intentional on my part.

  “Look, I know you guys are worried about me, but something happened while I was asleep, something I don’t fully understand. We need to talk about it.” As I spoke, I turned and dropped my feet off the side of the bed. Bracing myself with my new hands, I squeezed the frame of the bed, and it crumpled under my grasp.

  “Jesus, bro, you just broke the damn bed!” CJ exclaimed. “Are you some sort of cyborg now or something?!”

  I quickly pulled my hands away from the bed frame, “Sorry Elvis, I will have to get used to these new hands.”

  “It is nothing! Elvis will have A-ganger repair bed…Captain is strong, Captain is mighty!” Elvis shouted, seemingly relieved that I was whole and healthy once again.

  As I stood up, Red and Loren entered the med bay. I had honestly forgotten about their entire group. They came back to the Bloodhound with us when Princess Denae brought us back.

  I looked at Tiff and CJ as the two newcomers walked up, their surprise evident on their faces. “We need to have an officer’s meeting ASAP on the bridge,” I said, trying to get some privacy to discuss what I had just been through.

  “Now?” Tiff asked.

  “Now. You will need to contact Princess Denae. Is the Retribution still tailing us?” I asked.

  “Yes, they planned on following us to Alcara to see if they could be of assistance.”

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  “Five minutes, meet me on the bridge. Red, Loren, I need your group to hang out on the lower deck for now. We can discuss your joining the crew permanently later. Is that okay?”

  Red and Loren looked at each other, obviously caught off guard by the whole situation. “Sure, but we do need to talk. Elvis ate our entire ship, so we don’t really have many other options,” Red said.

  I stopped and turned to face him. “What do you mean he ate your ship?!” I looked at Tiff and CJ.

  “Uhhh, yeah, you missed some things, man. Elvis eats ships.” CJ looked at me and shrugged.

  “Elvis is mighty destroyer of puny vessels…” Elvis grumbled.

  I took a deep breath as I tried to take in what I had just heard. I was in and out of consciousness for several days and had been wallowing in self-doubt and depression after that. They were right; I had some catching up to do, but it could wait a little longer. “We need to have this meeting first. When that is done, I will meet with your entire team to discuss options, Red.” I looked up at the ceiling, “After that, you and I will have a discussion, Elvis, understood?”

  “Elvis did nothing wrong; Elvis simply did what comes natural…Destroy!” Elvis replied defensively.

  “Okay, simmer down there, buddy. We will talk soon. Until then, try not to destroy anything without my approval.”

  “Understood, Captain.” Elvis snapped.

  A few minutes later, me, Tiff, and CJ were gathered on the bridge as Princess Denae appeared on the main bridge display. I sat in my chair and addressed her directly. “Hello, Princess Denae. I didn’t get the chance to do it after our escape, but I wanted to personally thank you for your assistance. Without you and your team, I never would have made it off that detention facility. I am sorry about your men; they were brave and didn’t deserve to die the way they did.”

  Denae visibly cringed at the mention of her men and shifted in her seat. “Thank you, Captain Dawes. That is very kind of you. I hope you understand now that we will not abandon you and your crew in your time of need. There will be an opportunity in the future for you to repay this debt, I assure you.” As she finished speaking, she noticed my arms. I hadn’t had time to get a new uniform top and just wore a white t-shirt, so my arms were fully visible. “Captain Dawes, would you care to explain what has happened to your arms?” Denae asked.

  “What I’m about to share with you is highly sensitive, and I would request that it be for your ears only for now, Princess. Is that acceptable?”

  Danae took a deep breath and glanced off screen before pushing a button to close the door to her quarters. “I am in my personal quarters on a private channel. There is no need for concern, Captain,”

  “Okay, you may all want to sit down for this…” I went through the entirety of my dream, or vision, or whatever it was. I explained the entity I spoke with and told them the gritty details of what it said to me. When I explained that the entity claimed to be the Coeus, Tiff, and Denae both looked shocked and perplexed. I explained what the entity said about my armor being a gift and that it showed me, at least in part, how to use it more effectively. “And that is where my new arms came from,” I said as I finished. “I was able to use the gift to form new arms for myself. Apparently, it isn’t a suit of armor; that was just a cover for what it really is.”

  Denae stood up from her chair and was now pacing in her quarters, talking to herself. Tiff was leaning over, holding her head in her hands, deep in thought. CJ, like me, was pretty clueless about what all this meant and just sat in silence. Denae finally sat back down and spoke up first. “The Coeus don’t communicate with beings outside of their galaxy. They have communications relays setup to communicate with the Council just so they don’t have to communicate directly. This doesn’t make any sense. If what you’re saying is true, then that means the Coeus were secretly allied with the Havokium before the fall of Havok Prime. They weren’t only allied; they were supplying weapons.”

  Tiff sat up straight, suddenly having a thought, “What does it mean that everything will change after the Red Moon of Alcara? What are the Coeus planning on doing?”

  “I don’t know.” I replied with a shrug, “I was hoping that you two would have some insight. All I know is that I have their gift. They want me to use it, and they want me to get stronger. The Coeus are fed up with the Council just like we are, and they are ready to do something about it. From what I can gather this gift is somehow tied to the Coeus. They were able to contact me directly, in my subconscious, at that. I was ready to give up guys, but now? Now I have a revitalized hope, and not just that I have confidence that we can accomplish our mission. We can strike a blow to the Council and bring hope to anyone in this galaxy they have stepped on in their pursuit for more power. Granted, I still don’t know how we’re going to do that, but I believe the best thing we can do is to continue on to Alcara and just try to survive that nightmare. I have a feeling that we will have a better idea of what to do next once that is done,” I said, sitting back in my chair with a sigh. “We still have a lot of work to do, but we hopefully have more members in our crew that can help now. Princess, can we count on your assistance once we arrive at the moon?”

  Denae shook her head and frowned. “Unfortunately, not. The dungeons will be closed to everyone who isn’t a drafted participant of the seeded world or anyone who didn’t register in advance. My presence here is still unknown to the Council and I will need to keep it that way. The Retribution will stay cloaked and in a deep orbit until you complete the level. We can assist with an escape if it comes to that.”

  I turned and looked at Tiff and CJ, trying to appear confident. “Okay, it’s just us then. We need to get to the moon and get ready to fight with everything we have. I know we lost some time when the Bloodhound detoured to save me, but hopefully, we can make it in time to prepare in advance.”

  CJ perked up in his chair, “Uhhh, you don’t know?”

  “Know what?” I asked, raising a concerned eyebrow.

  “When Elvis ate that other team’s ship, he got a bunch of upgrades. One of them was an upgraded warp capacitor thingy. I don’t know the technical term, but basically, we can jump a lot further and a lot more often,” CJ said with a wry smile. “We’re already here, bro. We’re at the Red Moon of Alcara.”