Nova The Dark Reach Wars Vol I by Lora E. Rasmussen

Author:Lora E. Rasmussen [Rasmussen, Lora E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Avara and K’llan completed the journey at a fairly rapid pace, with the echo of their armored feet and fingers moving from rung to rung sounding eerily in the relative noiselessness of the ship, reverberating throughout the maintenance shaft like a mischievous child copying their actions but never showing himself.

Reaching the bottom–most section of the chute, the Quorum Shield Operative stood poised with pistol trained as Z’arr pulled the manual hatch–release. Yet once more, no sign of a living person or attack occurred. Stepping into the dimly–lit corridor, the two women were faced with an entry–way immediately to their left at the hall’s end.

The alternate choice was taking a right and traveling down the main thoroughfare to explore a series of doors on both sides. Deciding to investigate the closest area first, they made for the center–doorway and with Avara standing at the ready, K’llan activated the open–control.

The Human and the Vosaia found themselves in a fairly open, stark room that in function was primarily a shower area. The floor consisted of plain white tiling with inset drains placed at fixed intervals. At the leftmost portion of the room were several large inset drawers, undoubtedly intended to hold supplies. The use was exemplified by one jutting, open drawer, brushed with muted color by a haphazard spill of tan one–piece suits hanging over its edge.

Only too quickly, the Captain realized that the jumble of clothing escaping the confines of storage to fall in a shapeless heap on the slick–tile floor, was both foreshadow and symbol for the casual horror that knifed through any sense of normalcy that such a domestic setting typified.

No matter which direction she turned her head, Avara’s eyes were assaulted by a scene of brutality and unforgiving death.

On the far right were two Human and one Irdoi bodies, all slumped together under the still running, sporadic spray of the tilted shower–head above. It was hard to say where each individual ended and another began, so mangled were torsos and limbs, with the slick–white of bone bursting through viscous crimson, and melding with mud–colored blood and water soaked cloth.

Just a foot and a half or so away lay a Vosaia, face down in the sweep of shallow water, her skull a concave of pale skin, delicate bone, and oozing salmon–colored soft–tissue. With one arm draped over the Vosaia in what resembled a cruel–parody of a lover’s embrace, was a red–uniformed Karukai. The bent and bloodied rifle–haft that had caused the Vosaia’s skull–crushing injury still in the Karukai’s fingers despite her riddled left collarbone and death’s grip.

To the left and towards the drawers was a young Gorath, damp chocolate–brown fur matted, right leg so shot up that only a ropy train of sticky sinew still attached limb to body. Given the state of decay, Captain Serros was immensely grateful for the helmets that the two Nova members wore. Gear that provided contained air and protection from the smell of putrefying death that she knew surrounded them like a persistent cancer, waiting to bleed into senses and soul alike.

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