Origins of an Icer

Chapter 3

Iron Maiden's hangar bay

Akifa groaned softly, looking up at the tall head medical physician, wrapped in a silver, metallic uniform of her home-world as the willowy alien offered a hand. She resembled a human but with a touch too tall of a neck and no hair with two wide eyes of molten gold, but often narrowed in concentration and methodical thought, turning them to the Icer who stared back. His legs held inverted knees, letting him stand at her height with ease while his talons clicked on the tile floor in anxiety.

"I haven't seen one of you in the flesh, only in the memory archives of my elders' libraries. May I have the honor of examining you personally? I promise not to record if you do not wish me to, but I would be very honored to help you adjust to the life of the ship here. Protocol demands every newcomer on the ship to be decontaminated and made sure they aren't too injured to be able to adjust here. Would you like to be examined here or in the infirmary where it's quieter?" she asked, the Icer widening his eyes as he inclined his head, seeming glassy eyed at the offer.

(I would like to be examined elsewhere... I need time to adjust.) His voice seemed quieter, almost choked up in Akifa's mind as the pilot frowned, watching the Icer walk away with the doctor.

"Poor guy..." he whispered, rubbing his arms before being sprayed from all directions by the med techs, causing him to growl and groan.

"I fucking hate this shit..." He cursed loudly, switching from Universal to his Settic tongue as the medics swept him over with wands that pulsed for new radiation, swabbing his ears, mouth, and nose while using a laser to strip off the nanites into a jar to be cleaned.

"Are we done?!" he snarled, scaring the new techs as the older ones waved him off, more than used to his snarls as they joked about the "big, angry cat" of the mercenary squadrons. Akifa huffed, tugging on his coat over his chest before stomping off to the infirmary wing, ignoring the chuckles from the med techs. He glanced around, finding the door to the head tech's office as he knocked gently, the door hissing open.

Inside was a dimly lit room with a bath bubbling away where the Icer sat in, making a strange, low purring noise as the doctor sat behind her desk, typing on a holographic keyboard, using an orb to switch through the reports.

"He likes you... you should be happy. Anyone else in his condition that he wouldn't know, he would've attacked out of anxiety. He's extremely malnourished, scarred, and recovering from a long, cryo-sleep. These scientists, as they love to boast, practically destroyed him in the process, so he essentially kept his thoughts to himself, turning almost inside out with his sanity. You're the first person he's talked to since before the glacier melting... that was nearly 500 years ago, Dbakarem. I would suggest having him follow and staying with you, he won't want to be near anyone else in his state right now. I do have him scheduled for more therapy sessions with me, since my species can also do telepathy, but not as widely advanced as he can," she explained, pulling up pictures she had taken of scarring over the Icer's body, depictions of thin, sallow skin, atrophied muscles, and even chunks of scale missing from the wing stubs and tail. His claws were curved too long, his teeth broken into pieces, and his ribs revealed too much against the pale skin.

"Damn... he's in worse shape than I thought," he whispered, looking through the pictures with a grimace. She nodded solemnly, shunting away the pictures into a file as she printed out a file, showing a diet plan.

"This is what I heavily recommend here and now, for at least the first month. Get him back onto a similar diet he would've grown with: primarily crustacean or high protein fish. Try some swordfish, tuna, shark would be best but I know they're hard to get. He definitely needs shellfish, and I mean the whole shellfish, the shells and organs inside will give him the minerals and vitamins he needs to recover. For a little extra at least a week, I've prescribed some multivitamins he can take every morning. After that week, we will begin some stronger exercises: cardio, muscle building, getting him back to swimming condition with the pool we have in the sub-level. Technically a coolant tank, but it'll be big enough to let him stretch and start swimming around at higher speeds," she explained, pulling out a bottle of multivitamins with Akifa's name in the sponsor name for pickup.