"Nak! Jakish! Look!" Kay used two of his small hands to point at the holoscreen turning to look at Martha Vir in excitement, desperately needing her to know that his mother was on that screen.

Martha smiled, "I know." But the smile on Martha's face was somewhat subdued as she turned her head to look up at Sunny, a knowing expression on her face. As much as she liked knowing they had returned, they had returned earlier than they said they would and without the results they had hoped for. She knew something was wrong.

Kay craned his neck upward, "Tak?" When Sunny didn't answer initially he repeated himself, "Pappa?"

Kay did not see the expression that crossed Sunny's face, but Martha certainly did, and her blood ran like ice through her chest. That expression could only mean one thing. She clutched Kay tighter to her chest, and the little boy squirmed in annoyance, "Momma?"

Sunny did her best to stay calm and collected, keeping whatever agitation out of her voice, "He's not here right now, dzhalka, he's.... Sick." She made eye contact with martha, and saw the woman' shoulders visibly slump in relief. Injured was better than dead but still she got the message.

The prognosis wasn't good.

Kay frowned, "Pappa get bedder." He seemed pretty resolute in that command, and disappointed he would not be able to see his dad.

Sunny took a deep breath, "He will. We're going to do that right now. I'm sorry I don't have more time. I miss you, "

"Miss you." Kay repeated lower lip sticking out in a great show of displeasure to have his mom go. Martha resituated him on her lap, and though it seemed she wanted to ask more questions, questions specifically about her own son, she knew it would not be proper in front of kay.

Sunny had to let them go, and as she did the ramp opened, and they were ushered out into the busy night air of the Tesraki home world, alive with voices and noises and the roaring of vehicles. Neon light glowed from everywhere, while overhead a thick layer of clouds blanketed them in darkness. It was a strange sensation, it had been so long since they had operated in GA friendly airspace. And now here they were amidst the colorful trappings of a tesraki night.

The building that they had landed on had its own private landing pad, and waiting for them were two figures, one human and one tesraki. The man was human with short cropped dark hair and a well tailored suit made in a style and fashion that sunny did not recognize. It must have been the newer fashion circulating from The Europa circuit.

He stepped forward to greet them with a wide smile.

Krill, Ramirez, Maverick and Conn stepped forward with her.

The man looked them over raising an eyebrow, "There are more of you than I thought there would be." He even smiled at Conn, which surprised Sunny. Usually the starborn put people on edge. Any creature that could read their innermost thoughts was more of a threat than an equal being, but this man seemed perfectly at ease, "I remember you saying that this was a matter of life and death, so we can make this quick. Go ahead and follow me."

He turned on his heel and stepped into the building, with the Tesraki quickly hopping at his heels, "It was a heart and a lung you were looking to replace? We have several matching models that you might consider, what kind of activity levels are we considering for the patient?"

"High intensity, very durable...." krill was saying.

"What do you mean by durable?"

They all exchanged a look, "Stab resistant...." Sunny trailed off, but the man did not seem in the least phased by her explanation.

"Ah yes, stab resistant, you will want our combad model than. Please come this way." He motioned them to follow him down a hall and into a set of showrooms. The lights were on but they were the only people in the room. Sunny had a suspicion that the man had opened up just for them. He might not have done it for anyone else, but their explanation that they were, in a hurry, and willing to pay in direct credits was an offer he was unlikely to pass up.

Inside the showroom, they found themselves surrounded by several dozen fluid filled cylinders with various sets of organs floating inside. Sunny starred in mild awe at the selection running the length of the walls on either side. He lead them past a line of matching lungs and stopped at a couple of tubes specifically selected for a one heart one lung combination. The organs floated inside their clear fluid the heart beating visibly as the lung expanded and contracted.

"Obviously these are for show nly, but these are your options. The combad models are far more durable, the material we have developed is a sort of complex biomechanical biweave that incorporates both metal and standard human genetic material augmented with adapted DNA which, as you know completely illuminates the possibility of organ rejection."

Krill nodded rather eagerly.

"The heart, just like a human heart has its own electrical system, which includes a build in restart if the heart is ever to stop or cause trauma to knock it out of the correct rhythm. Due to the biomechanical biweve, the heart is resistant to stabbing and crushing. Crush it and it will just pop right back up. You see, unlike regular human flesh our biweve is tear resistant, and because of its machine nature it is almost impervious to viruses, and other bacterial related diseases. Additionally you won't have to worry about heart attacks with this model. We do have some built in safety features to suppress the likelihood of clotting or plaque buildup, but there is only so much we can do on that account."

Kril was busy reading the description next to the heart and Conn was staring at the man with an expression of pure concentration.

The man simply smile at him, "Read all you want Mr. Starborn. You will find only that our products are sound and well designed. There is a reason they are so expensive." He motioned back to the lung, "The lung is similar, it is resistant to collapse, though it is still possible, in that case it has loaded safety mechanisms in place to inflate if that is ever to happen. I won't get into the details. You can read them on the table there. Now assuming the lung is damaged, it has built in features to shunt blood from damaged areas and into parts of the lung where oxygen saturation will be increased. At a certain point ou can't saturate blood any more so we didn't go to far with that little bit of technology.

Sunny glanced at Conn who seemed almost frustrated, but not in a necessarily bad way.

She would have to ask him about it later.

She turned to look at the man, "Okay, but what's to stop any emp blast from causing instant death?"

The man simply laughed, "This is a combat model, you don't think we didn't consider that? Did you know most pacemakers have a moderate to high likelihood of surviving and EMP because of the way they are built? Well it is the same for our tech except for the fact you are 100% likely to survive." He motioned to the heart, "No signals ever need go in or out of the heart itself, everything that needs to e done can be done inside a closed system. Additionally the biomechanical structures are resistant to EMP already since most of it is flesh anyway. For all the stuff that isn't we already added a faraday microwave that will block EMPs." he patted the side of the tube. "There's not much that can take this out. I mean you can, but at that point you would just be blowing the person up anyway."

Krill tapped his foot on the floor, "And how about simple flesh, muscle fiber, skin, connective tissue, bone/"

The man simply waved a hand, "All of that and more, if you don't mind me asking what are you looking to replace?"

Krill shifted, "The entire right side of a thoracic cavity all the way up to the dermal layer."

The man's eyebrows raised, "You would need an incredibly skilled surgeon to preform an operation like that. Such a feat would take.... Well.... If you planned on doing everything at once, it would be a longer surgery than I could possibly recommend."

At his side, the little Tesraki nudged him in the leg, and he looked down, glancinga t a proffered tablet.

He paused as his eyes widened and he turned to look at krill, "My apologies, I was unaware we had a celebrity physician in our midst." he glanced around at the rest of them, and the way his eyes lingered on Sunny at least he knew who one of them was, "Knowing your credentials Dr. krill, I would still estimate that a surgery like that would take you well over 48 hours were you to do it in one sitting."

Krill waved a hand.

"It is not an easy surgery." The manwarned

Krill waved a hand again, "Some might even consider it impossible. That is the one thing about our models. Some of these have never been implanted in more than one human considering that it can take up to ten surgeries and several months to implant one of these. It also take a team of expert surgeons that only work on the premises of this building."

Again Krill waved a hand, "I am not worried about the difficulty of the surgery, just its possibility of success."

The man pursed his lips into a tight line, but he did not seem eager to argue with Krill and potentially lose a sale, "Alright, the entire left side of a chest cavity it is then. We do have a lovely selection of synthetic skin, or you can grow your own. Now as far as the ribs go, they are not exactly completely damage proof, but they are incredibly flexible and if you go ahead and get the combat package, I'll make it a deal."

Sunny glanced over at Conn who was still frowning deeply as he regarded the man.

He caught the look and continued to smile, "You are free to read my mind all you want. I promise you I believe in our product, and I would have to be stupid to try and upsell you with a starborn here, so lets cut to the chase. I want to sell you this lung and heart, but." He held up a finger, "I also believe in the integrity and quality of our product." he tapped his own stomach, "Got myself a liver actually,. I can enjoy my alcoholism in peace without cirrhosis bothering me." he gave them a smile, what do you say."

In the end their decision was quick.

Conn reported that he found no reason not to trust what the man said.

There were few if any people that could hide anything from conn, and he had looked thoroughly through the man's head.

He had no qualms letting Conn know that he wanted to make a massive commission off the sale, but he wasn't wrong about the product. They had high ratings and none of them had failed yet.

Conn had also seen the man's memories on product testing and had to admit what he saw was impressive.

Now was only a matter of if Krill could perform the operation.

They were soon to find out.

Back on arcadia, Krill had put together one of the most complicated and well stocked operating theaters in all of the universe, but even so he did not choose to do the operation there, for one simple reason.

The Empyrean wasn't there.

And so far she had done a better job than anyone could have hoped at keeping Adam alive. He would need all the help he could get if he was going to do this. It was with some trepidation that he invited a few members of the company's surgical staff to assist, as well as many of his own including Dr. Katie. The entire medical wing was cleared out and opened up for the operation.

All the while Sunny sat helplessly on the side

Waiting.

The empyrean gave them a 51% chance of success even despite all of their fancy technology.

Now was simply a waiting game.