"Almost there, just hold still."

When the SE exoskeleton finally connected , Adam was granted with the rather odd sensation of having two bodies at once, his singular brain struggling to process doubled sensation through his limbs beginning at the base of the skull and traveling its way down through the joints of his SE exoskeleton.

Luckily for him, the sensation passed, and he moved to sit up, but was pressed back down by Sunny, Krill and Narobi, "Hold still, just one more adjustment."

Adam huffed, staring down at his body as Dr. krill, in conjunction with his two assisting engineers installed the monitoring system that would make sure his newfound organs were working properly. Adam had tried to make the argument that regular transplant patients didn't receive medical care that was nearly this overprotective, but he had been quickly shut down by sunny who said.

"Normal transplant patients aren't as stupid as you either."

Adam shifted uncomfortably, but this time the group pulled back, looking at him expectantly.

"Go on, give it a try."

They stood in a cluster in the open dining room of Adam and Sunny's Arcadia home. Sunny Krill and Narobi clustered around him, while Red and Kay sat over on the couch. Usually Adam would never have trusted the smuggler with his son, but as it turned out, Red had a certain knack with small children, and was now engrossed in a game of make believe with toy action figures that either had a complicated system of rules, or no rules whatsoever.

Adam move to slowly sit up, but instead of feeling the muscles in his body make the move, he was almost distressed to hear the sudden whirring of the SE exoskeleton, which almost exclusively did the work as he sat up.

"Not bad." Nairobi said reaching up to tighten the knot on her hair scarf, brightly out of place in their apartment which was a primary wash of cool colors and open steel.

Adam clenched his fist, feeling the the SE armor contract at his command.

It felt

Wrong.

Though he couldn't have said how.

He took a long, deep breath, and when he did, he couldn't help but notice the soft whirr and then click of the chest sensors as he did so.

Whirr click

Whirr click

Whirr click

In time with his breathing

"How do you feel?" Sunny said, resting a hand on his shoulder.

He stared at the back of his hand and the little bands of metal that now served as his primary movement system, "I am not sure I'm comfortable with this. I can walk just fine."

Krill's antenna buzzed with annoyance, "Yes but you SHOULDN"T be. You should be on bedrest until your injuries heal. The more your body works the higher likelihood something in there is going to rupture or burst."

Whirr click

"Maybe in an ideal world, Krill, but Kazna isn't going to stop just because I had a bit of an accident."

"An accident." Sunny seemed almost scandalized, "Adam, she stabbed you in the chest, resulting in a double organ transplant, that isn't an accident. She WAS the accident"

Whirr click

"Can you make this thing any quieter?" He huffed placing a hand over the sensor array, and looking back up to Krill and Narobi, who both stood, looking at him with some annoyance.

"That's the best I can do at such short notice." Nairobi said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Now let me go ahead and tell you a few things before you go and do anything stupid." despite her annoyance, she was unable to keep the excitement from her voice as she explained her process, "SE armor was originally intended to augment signals that were already being received by the limbs, transport them more quickly and act on them with greater intensity. Both the SE armor and your nervous system receive the same signals from the spinal column beginning right here at the base of the skull. What I have done, is I have used the SE's existing system to switch the input fully over to the SE armor. Basically right now, your body is receiving no movement signals, only sensory signals. The SE armor will move for you, it will take all the weight and do all h the work. The sensor array is just going to help monitor your bodily condition, and send the information directly to a handler, who will be able to intervene if anything goes wrong."

Adam rolled his eyes back, "Are we done mother henning me now?"

Whirr click

Nairobi glowered at him, "Not quite."

Just then Sunny stepped into the room, and with her, she brought a pile of what appeared to be SE armor.

Adam Frowned, "I Can't live my life in bubble wrap."

"Shut up and let me finish." Nairobi said, and Sunny stepped forward, kneeling down to begin placing the boots. The first boot clicked into place around Adam's human calf whirring into place. She then moved onto his prosthetic leg, and as soon as the SE armor connected with the Leg's power source he felt another jolt run through the armor.

Whirr click.

"Now this is going to put a strain on the SE system that we haven't tested before, so we wanted to add a few failsafes. Ideally we would have kept all the SE armor, but I am concerned about overloading the SE exoskeleton, so we did what we considered to be second best.

In the end adam was armored with boots, gauntlets, chest and shoulder plating, and eventually, his helmet which Sunny plunked down in his lap.

Adam frowned.

Whirr click.

"This is overkill and all of you know it."

"Put on the helmet" Sunny ordered, and adam sighed in compliance, slotting his helmet in place. As soon as he did, the SE schematics appeared on screen, adjusted by the partial fealty armor to match their new partial armor configuration . As if understanding what Narobi had intended, the fealty armor had an entire HUD panel dedicated to vitals.

Whirr click

Spurred on by annoyance, Adam stood, causing the others sto step back to look at their handiwork.

Whirr click.

He was basically more machine than human now.

Well that wasn't entirely true.

He had done the math, and if he was going off the way they calculated burn severity, one leg was eighteen percent, the front of the body was eighteen percent and the back of the body was eighteen percent.

Adam was missing a leg and half his torso front to back which he argued was around thirty six percent, plus his eyes which was a generous one percent. All together he was 37% not human, and now with his overprotective family members, he was a half robot, monstrosity surviving off of partial armor, and a life support system that made annoying noises every time he...... wait

His brooding came to a sudden halt, and in a moment he was frantically clicking through his voice modulating system rapidly adjusting levels, and installing software he had been dying to use, but hadn't yet had a reason.

The room looked on at him in partial confusion as he went suddenly quiet.

Sunny took a step forward, "Adam are you okay."

He took a step back holding out a hand.

Whirr click, "You don't know the power of the darkside." When he spoke his voice was no longer his own, deep, metallic and reverberating from the speakers of his helmet. He watched as Sunny's eyes roll back up into her head with a deep and abiding sigh.

Whirr click

The smile was growing on his face now with every moment Sunny grew more resigned, and with a sudden flourish he snagged a blanket from where it lay on the couch and tied it around his shoulders to give himself a makeshift cape. He then glanced over to kay who looked up at him with wide green eyes in a mixture of interest and confusion.

"Kay, I am your father."

Kay slid off the couch short legs taking a moment to reach the ground.

Once there he waddled over looking up at Adam with his head tilted to the side.

Adam held out a hand, "Come with me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son."

Kay smiled and hugged Adam's leg.

Nairobi snorted

Adam paused for a long moment staring down at Kay who had both sets of arms wrapped around his human leg, "It is..... Acceptable."

And then Sunny smacked him lightly in the back of the helmet, "Alright stop screwing off. You're no more lord vader than I am princess Leia. Besides, this whole scenario implies that my mother is emperor palpatine, I am padme, kay is luke, and you are the chosen one."

"Your lack of humor disturbs me."

"Okay that's enough." Sunny reached forward and plucked the helmet from Adam's head retreating across the room with it

"Hey." Adam protested watching as Sunny retreated with his toy.

He looked down at Kay who was still holding his leg, "Your mother is hell bent on taking all the joy out of my life." He said reaching down to pick kay up for what felt like the first time in months.

Whirr click.

He turned to look at Narobi, "How about a lightsaber?"

This time it was her turn to roll her eyes up to the heavens, "I am not building you a lightsaber."

"But it would be awesome."

"You're a dumbass."

"That is an established fact, yes, but it still doesn't change my request."

In the end Narobi did not agree to build him a lightsaber, and sunny only grudgingly returned the helmet as they followed red out of the spiral tower and down towards the spaceport. Adam only regretted that he didn't have enough time to put on a cape.

All of these childish antics to cover up his real and abiding worry about what they were going to find when they followed this lead.

What was General kazna up to now.