8-420: Shipwreck Habitat Section, Deck 3

The flakes come in various thicknesses and sizes, as large as Lia’s hand to as small as a fingernail, from 3-4 mm to 3-4 cm thick.

The flakes are unlike anything she’s seen before.  Closer inspection shows the flakes themselves are made up of tiny oval plates, 3-5 mm in diameter, like tiny tiles on a flexible mat.  They seem to be some sort of metallic alloy bonded with a flexible substrate that has an irregular mesh-like structure and allows the flakes to bend and warp.  Visually, the metallic side looks like mother-of-pearl, with a similar iridescence that changes colour as Lia turns it in the beam of her helmet light.  The mesh side is a grey-white, with the bumps of hundreds of inter-crossing mesh strands visible.  Weight-wise, the material seems quite light.

Karmen says, “this guy has a couple of big burn marks on him, arm and chest.”