Hey again everyone, welcome back to Worlds collide, I'm your host, TheDailyRabbit, and as you can tell, I'm writing Daily. Anyway, welcome back and here comes chapter 5 of Worlds Collide. So, without any further delay, enjoy chapter 5: Aftermath
Rated T for light gore and swearing
Miles held his sister for what seemed like an eternity as they made the journey to the Station 7 medical ring. Somehow, she was more upset about him losing an arm than he was. And he'd been the one who lost the arm. His shoulder ached and his nub of an arm was bandaged in a clean white gauze wrap. Still, he was doing better than initially. After he'd slipped from his rappelling line into the gorge, he'd been sure he would die. His shattered arm had ached and bled, his pressure suit ripped open at the shoulder joint and his skin slowly freezing as the atmosphere around his compressed his joint until it nearly shattered. Hoping to die, he'd crawled along into a visible spot and lay down in the recovery position, leaving behind a trail of fresh, red blood. His father, who had brought the starjetter in to deliver a load of supplies to the remote weather station and sat uplink, had seen Miles' torn rappel line and the shimmer of blood at the bottom of the rocky gorge and had immediately rappelled down to find him. Miles had lost a lot of blood to internal bleeding. His artery, being crushed by the external pressure and frozen by the atmosphere, had frozen and burst, leaving his arm without a blood supply. He'd passed out afterwards and only remembered his father laying him in his chair in the small shuttle as they prepared to leave that godforsaken exoplanet. He passed out again, and after landing aboard the Stellosphere, had had his arm removed. Shaking himself from his recollections, he felt Loretta curl up under him and drift off to sleep, her shirt stained with tears. He gently laid her on his bed and then picked her up over his shoulder one-handed, then carried her to her room and tucked her into her own bed, kissing her forehead and leaving silently. As he walked down the corridor to the galley, he felt the ship drop of out warp and immediately ran to the bridge. Jumping into his station, the crew, minus Loretta, went into a well-rehearsed set of checks and adjustments. Phoebe opened a radio channel with Station 7 STC (space traffic control) and negotiated a docking bay and medical suite for Miles. Within Minutes, Miles was walking down a connecting ramp into the hallway leading into the main ring of the station. Flanked by his parents, the trio walked down the long corridor and into the main hub of the station. A robotic nurse named Baymax lead the trio a small room off the main hub. Miles was set upon by a team of human and alien nurses alike as he entered the room. They immediately started examining his nub, and the rest of his body, for any other injuries, and peppering him with questions. Leo tapped the head nurse on his shoulder, got his attention, and gave him a quick sit-rep, or situational report, on the extent of Miles' injuries from his 300-foot fall. The pressure suit had taken most of the fall, but had burst on impact, leaving miles in his space suit, its right arm ripped open. Once the nurse team had finished examining him, they told miles to change out of his shirt and into a gown, as they would be fitting him for a robotic arm which would require surgery to implant. As he lay back in the bed, he drifted off to sleep, waiting for it all to be over. He began to dream. First, of his life before the accident, and then of his younger years. His various vacations to Allarvis, Luna, Earth, the different exoplanets and moons he'd been to, and many other events he'd been witness to. In the midst of it all, he felt a searing pain in his dreams, but didn't awaken. And then everything faded to black as he slipped out of REM sleep into a deeper unconsciousness. While he slept, a team of surgeons went to work, expertly cleaning diseased tissue out of the wound and removing fragments of bone, plastic, and rock, and fitting him for an electronic sleeve. The sleeve would sit between the raw tissue and the arm, directing electrical signals from Miles' brain to the arm, so that he'd be able to control it like it was his original arm. The surgeons worked as Miles slept, and for the next 16 hours, they worked tirelessly to attach hundreds of microscopic electrical cables and synthetic nerve wires to his raw tissue and new robotic arm. Finally, after 17 hours of operation, they finally bridged the gap between man and machine, and secured the new mechanical appendage in place. They wheeled Miles back to his room on a gurney, where Loretta had waited patiently for him ever since she had woken up. 16 and a half hours later, he came back to the world, and Loretta literally jumped on top of him seconds later. Trying to push her off of him so he could sit up, Miles lifted his new arm and stared at it. Coated in a removable layer of synthetic flesh, he couldn't fully control it yet and over-extended it, sending a small zap of pain up his arm. However, he did succeed in pushing Loretta off of him. As she stood up, he joined her and the two embraced, as time seemed to pause around them.
Well, that's it for chapter 5. We'll get to chapter 6 tomorrow, but don't worry. There is still plenty left to see. Ta ta for now! Enjoy!
