Lost in Space: I Eat Metal

He cannot command a metal he has not swallowed. That is the entire rule. The Crucible sits at the edge of his sight like a salvaged foundry panel — Melt, Dross, Heat. Eating metal charges the Melt he shapes with. It also raises Dross, the toxicity meter, and red Dross means seizure. Purging clears it and empties everything he was saving at the same time. Ivo Lindholm boarded the Resolute as an unlisted stowaway who bribed his way into cargo. Now he is on a planet that was never meant to have anyone extra on it, in a camp of colonists counting their own supplies twice. Alien alloy tastes like a migraine and a nosebleed. He keeps going back for more of it. The Robinsons need a hull mended before the weather turns, and mending on that scale costs more metal than a human body can hold. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Lost in Space: I Eat Metal — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠