"What is this place, anyway?"

Yosip looks at Han before answering the youth. "Still trying to figure that out. We need to look for scientific equipment in the mining ships parked outside. Maybe we'll be able to learn something that way."

"It's an anomaly," announces Zek from behind us. "You've described to me the size of the structure from the outside, yet just this chamber alone accounts for most of that space."

"To say nothin' 'o the tunnels," adds Gelly, walking up to join us.

"True," grunts Yosip. "That gonna be a problem if you set up in here?"

"Not at all," replies the dust eater. "The unique architecture of this place causes the background radiation to be higher than expected, but we can bring in a few Jurers to correct the issue soon."

"Alright, fine. You two keep Han company while I go fetch some tools to get his gear fixed up."

"You might not need bother, Merchant. The soldiers have uncovered the remains of some aliens, including their equipment."

Yosip squints suspiciously at her, but nods. "Good. Lead the way."

Somner Zek slides off and he follows, leaving Han and myself behind with Gelly. The youth looks up at the gray operative and sighs heavily.

"This way, kid," Gelly declares. "The nervous lookin' Squiver that way's Drev. He's got the food on him."

It's true that there are more ionizing particles here than there should be. I don't have to actively worry about protecting my charges, however. The gear carried by Bruen's squad absorbs most of it in their vicinity, freeing me from the task. I never had reason to suspect that my weapons did more than allow me to kill more proficiently, but with my new senses I can tell just how much they do.

Well, it isn't like I had been given leisure time to wonder about such things. Unlike now, where I have little else to do.

They come upon the officer tending to a pot of stew over an array of heating runes. With the abundance of raw materials, Zek has wasted little time preparing the place for habitation. Stacks of stone make crude foundations upon which sheet metal rests to form tables. Drev offers them each a bowl when we approach.

They sit down to eat, placing the helmet through which I currently see upon the table. Directly in the view of the camera is a block of text that my translation software makes quick work of. The words are gibberish, but I recognize them as inventory codes similar to those used aboard the Resurgence or Kalibern Station.

"Gelly," I ask, interrupting his meal. "Do you recognize this serial number?"

He looks around, and I highlight the area in blue light. "Ah. Aye, but what's an Imperium shuttle doin' here?"

"Yosip might know if any had gone missing recently, but this looks like it's been in here for a long time. The chrome finish is etched away."

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"Yer right," agrees Gelly before taking another bite of stew. "But why that shuttle and none 'o the ones ye say are outside?"

Han interjects, asking, "Too big to fit through the airlock, maybe?"

"Maybe," Gelly concedes grudgingly, "but the tunnels are too small for a shuttle to fit through."

"Yeah."

Gelly pulls out a much-battered pad of paper and copies down the order numbers. "Anythin' else seem out 'o place, Denn?"

I can only see a limited section, that at which the helmet aims, but I contemplate what I can see.

The monstrous corpse of this cavern's previous inhabitant is off in the distance. In front of it are stacked the remains of the crystalline abominations. Soldiers work tirelessly clearing away debris and separating the organic components from the electronic ones.

"I'd need to look at the components that have been recovered to be sure, but I would imagine that much of those are from the same source as our table here. There should be a matching segment in the order numbers, right?"

"To make it easier to identify after a crash," agrees Gelly somberly. He pushes his empty bowl aside and grabs the helmet. "Have another bowl, Han. We'll check while ye eat."

Han agrees and takes both bowls back to Drev. Gelly, helmet under one arm, walks down the cleared path to where the soldiers work.

They greet him politely and he responds with a nod. When he doesn't issue any orders they return to work, with Gelly observing from a few steps away. They extract lengths of wiring from a muscular tissue from which silver nodules sprout in clusters of six. The wires are formed into loops, then tied together into bundles.

Gelly follows when one soldier carries off the collection of bundles. She leads him to a cleared area where the various components have been gathered. We stay behind when the soldier returns to her duties.

"Now, let's have us a looky," exclaims the operative as he slowly rotates the helmet to provide me with an adequate view.

Numerous plates of metal, such as could be used for hull plating or interior structure are stacked in one corner. Next to the sheets of metal are bundles of wires, electrical as well as fiber optics cables. Integrated circuit boards and sealed modules form a row of small piles, sorted as best the soldiers could by size and color.

"That," I say, lighting up the component in question, "looks like the type of power cell that a shuttle would run on."

He takes notes, adding to his quickly growing list of serial numbers. "Looks right if ye wanted to build a shuttle from this mess," he admits after a while. "And I do no see much that would no be part 'o one here."

Admittedly, there is still much more to remove from the walls of this strange structure but what has been collected does seem to indicate that a shuttle had been disassembled and repurposed to construct this place. The rocks would be simple enough to gather from the clouds of minor asteroids. The organic material is harder to explain but could be partially composed of ice and minerals gathered from space.

I radio Yosip to inform him of our discoveries. He responds with his own findings.

"These are definitely Tserri remains," he declares. "Bones and fur, at least. One of them had some medical equipment, and I've taken tissue samples to confirm. The creatures defending this place have a warped version of the Tserri genome, but there are enough similarities to be sure. We were fighting clones of the miners, mutated by the monster that made them."

"I'd like you to take samples from the creature, if you haven't already."

"Right. But without a baseline to compare it to, I'm not sure how useful it will be," he grumbles.

"I'm sure Pale will appreciate them," I reply, earning a grunt before he ends the communication from his end.

That explains some of the organic material, at least.

When we rejoin Han, Yosip is already there. The Supply-Master is busy stripping the damaged components from Han's armor, but acknowledges us with a quick nod of his head.

"He said we'll be staying here for a few days, Mos," announces Han. "And when my suit's fixed, we're gonna go pick out the best ship out there for our own."

"The rest'll be returned to Gelen's fleet," adds Yosip distractedly. "But we're due a finder's fee, considering the owners are in no state to complain."