Page 39 of Lorran
“You have compassion for this soldier who boarded this ship intending to slaughter the crew, females, and children,” he said.
“Well, I know he’s the bad guy, but he was still a person. It’s wrong to just leave his body to rot on the floor.”
“Debatable, but yes, it is unhygienic to leave the body.” He scanned down the hall and then assessed the body again. “Once the ship is secure, I will see that the body is handled correctly.”
“Is that code for venting him out the airlock? Because treating this guy like a piece of garbage is just as bad as leaving him.”
“It is code for cremation.” He’d have to explain to Mylomon why he used the shuttle’s limited storage space to haul a Suhlik body to the nearest hospital, but it was worth it when his mate nodded.
“Okay,” she said, sounding relieved.
The corridor opened into a large space. Frosted glass had created a partition, but the glass had been shattered. The lab stood exposed and ransacked. Shelving and tables were overturned. Delicate equipment smashed. Anything breakable had been broken.
Mylomon already sifted through the wreckage, crouched down by an overturned table and destroyed tanks. He looked thoughtfully up at a row of suspended heat lamps that threatened to collapse. In his hand, he held a piece of what looked like broken pottery with a golden iridescent sheen.
“Did you find anyone in the cabins?” He stowed the pottery shard into a pouch.
“No one, but I believe the crew held no more than four. Ulrik and his mate, a son, and another adult warrior who I must assume is this Caldar the warlord informed me of,” Lorran answered. “Have you discovered anything useful?”
“Useful. Unknown.” Mylomon stood and toed the broken equipment.
“The helm was also damaged. Computer components, specifically.”
“Anything retrievable?”
“What was not destroyed was removed,” Lorran said.
Near a desk, Wyn set a chair upright. On the floor were various binders, notebooks, books, and loose paper scattered across the floor. She cleared a spot and sat with her legs folded, then sifted through the papers.
He was surprised at the primitive method of information storage. From what remained of the lab, it had advanced equipment. Why record everything digitally and then transfer it to paper and put it in a binder? That made no sense.
Nothing about this ship made sense.
Navigational records and communications had been destroyed or removed, which was not standard procedure before evacuating a vessel. The lab had been demolished, yet papers had been left behind. Standard procedure was to destroy research to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, which usually meant initiating a program to wipe drives.
Or take a hammer to equipment.
He saw no computers, tablets, or other devices—smashed or whipped—in the debris. The lab seemed almost destroyed as an act of rage, not just to protect research.
“What were they researching?” Lorran asked.
“I do not know.” Mylomon picked up another pottery shard. This one looked malformed with ripples across the surface. “Use the average range of an escape pod to establish a search area.”
Pods could travel for some distance, but three people on board would tax the environmental support, decreasing the range. Even with that limitation, the search area would be massive.
“One shuttle for such a large area…I believe you wanted to return to your mate as soon as possible,” Lorran said. He very much wanted to finish this mission, return his mate safely back to theJudgment, to his quarters and to his bed.
Wyn sorted through the papers, making tidy piles. The suit hid her curling hair and expressive face but hugged every curve. No skin showed, yet everything was displayed.
He felt his member strain against the front of his armor.
Yes. In my bed as soon as possible.
Lorran stepped in front of her, blocking her from Mylomon’s view. The male tilted his head but made no comment.
“What about this?” His mate held out a tattered piece of plastic-coated paper, the edge curled with age.
“Such material has not been used in a century,” he said. He did not see how this would help him recover the missing data or locate the escape pods.
