"Well, sir. I see my favorite patient is coming around." He was a tall, stout physician with a shocking mass of unkempt white hair crowning his head, moist blue eyes and a quick smile. Rage looked up at him groggily, the effects of the anesthesia fading slowly.
"What did you do to me?"
"Do for you, I think you mean." His smile broadened and he reached down and wiggled one of Rage's sheet-covered toes. "You were closer to death than you think, ole boy."
"What?!"
"Yeah, you had quite a wound, a few millimeters deeper it would've severed your spinal chord... lost a lot of blood. How you landed that bloody ship of yours in the semi-conscious state you were in was beyond any of us." The doctor patted his lower leg softly. "But that was then. And I am here to announce a complete recovery for you, my man. Give it a coupla weeks recoup time and you'll be back in the deep black yonder, fit as a fiddle." Rage could only nod. A week even sounded like too long to lay around in this sanitary prison but he was in no condition currently to argue. The doctor read the acquiescence in his patient's eyes and with a nod turned to go, then pulled up short and spun back around. "Oh, one little disappointment, I'm afraid."
"What?"
"We were not able to save your cybernetic implant. Completely destroyed I'm afraid. So sorry. Hope it didn't cost you too dearly." And he was gone, leaving a very confused Texan behind.