Just as he reached for the hand offered to him the scene and everything in it became immaterial and slowly broke into component pixels that randomly drifted away as if borne on a slight breeze.
Wherever Brenton was now hurt. His breathing hurt, his eyes hurt, hell even his brain hurt. He could, just on the edge of perception hear someone talking to him. Maybe.
"See dad, I got the triceptor by closing the entrance and defeating the elisquitron that slid out of the wall when I touched it," Mike said holding the game PADD in front of his dad so he could see it.
"Is daddy awake yet?" asked Nick as he and his mother, Andrea Hawking, came down the hall and entered the recovery room.
"Naa, I was just showing him what I had done on Krylers Catafalque," Mike said sitting back down in the grav-chair that had been his home for the three and a half weeks since Brenton Risque's body had washed up on the beach below the observation deck of the Taylor Oceanographic Institute.
The first week of May 2386 Brenton and the crew of the research vessel, Serendipity left the Institute for a fortnight of specimen collecting across the waters of Serenity. Three days into the venture Brenton and crew prepared for the first night dive of the expedition. Brenton was going to launch the Repartee a three man submersible to explore one of the many blue holes that dotted the planet. At the midpoint of the seven hour dive the Serendipity crew noticed some anomalous readings from the Repartee at the same time all electronic contact was lost. The order was immediately given to retrieve the Repartee. During the ascent there was some type of malfunction that resulted in, what was thought to be an implosion of the Repartee. A search of the wreckage secured showed no sign of Brenton or anything that could have been him under normal conditions. Several days later the search was called off and Brenton's next of kin was notified to care for Mike and Nick. Less then three weeks ago the unconscious body of Brenton Risque washed up onto the beach beneath the observation deck of the Taylor Oceanographic Institute, 375 nautical miles from the site of the accident. Witnesses verified sighting several pods of native dolphins in the area at around the same time, in groups larger then normally seen.
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