She jerked as a shape floated out of the dark, distracting her from her thoughts. The body of a Tsavitee rotated toward her, its face blank and locked in a look of horror, knowledge of its imminent death written there.
The Tsavitee had many forms, depending on its position in their ranks. This one would have been infantry, humanoid in appearance with two legs and two arms, a head with eyes, nose, and mouth. That's where the similarities ended.
This one was larger than any human by at least a foot, its form hulking and muscular with skin the color of graphite. She judged him as in the lower ranks given the visible tusks and the stunted horns curling up from its head.
The horns and fearsome appearance were how they came to be called demons by the human fleet. In a way, they did resemble the creatures of nightmares from old religious texts.
In their own language, Tsavitee meant scourge. That's what they had been to humanity. A devouring horde appearing out of nowhere and decimating humanity with the most bloody and savage war in history.
Like some plague born from the void, they had swept over more than one human colony leaving nothing in their wake but charred remains.
The death toll had been in the millions. Any progress humanity had made in the centuries since they’d started space flight was wiped away in a few years.
Earth was among those hit with humanity's homeworld reduced to a shadow of its former self. Since then, humans had reclaimed Earth but the cost had been great.
This debris field with its hundreds of dead ships had been the turning point. It should have been humanity's end, but instead, by some miracle, they'd salvaged a victory, stopping the Tsavitee and destroying the backbone of their fleet.
There might have been battles after this one, but this was where historians would point to as the beginning of the end.
Many believed the Tsavitee were gone now, never to return to this region of space, but Kira had her doubts. While the Tsavitee had been beaten, they had not been eliminated.
They were a deadly force, almost single-minded in their purpose. Beings like that weren’t going to give up. No, they would withdraw, analyze the data, and then return stronger than ever.
It was one of the reasons the scientists needed to understand as much as they could about Tsavitee technology; Kira securing a decent payday as a result, was a bonus.
Half an hour ticked by as she twisted her way through the corridors, many of which had collapsed into a floating obstacle course. Luckily, she was small, and her suit was among the best, giving her an advantage other salvagers lacked.
She passed several more corpses on her way, careful not to disturb them. They might have been the enemy, but this was their tomb. It was best to leave the dead to their restful peace.
Large tears in the wall gave her glimpses of the wreckage floating outside.
When she finally found the engine room, it was in shambles. Her hopes the crew had spared the engine were in vain. There would be no recovering a fully functional engine, the holy grail for any salvager.
All was not lost, however. The crew would have been in a rush, knowing death was imminent. They wouldn't have had time to do a thorough job.
That's where Kira came in. She was good at finding the spots they'd missed.
She pushed off the floor, floating up as she checked the fuel cells first. Just one of those in half-decent condition would keep her solvent for months.
She worked through the room, her hopes falling further and further as she moved.
"Couldn't have made things easy for me, could you?" she asked the body of an engineer as she pulled it from where he’d been wedged in a small recessed part of the engine.
So far, she'd only found two cells semi-intact. Not quite the score she'd been hoping for.
She gave the engineer a push, sending him floating in the opposite direction before moving into the tight spot.
"What's this?" she asked herself, staring at an intact compartment.
She got out her tools, careful as she took the compartment apart. Surprised pleasure suffused her as she revealed what was inside. A fully intact piece of their engine drive. Rare and valuable. She suspected there were three more like it in the compartments to her left, each one slightly bigger than her fist.
She studied the first with a frown. In its casing, it was stable, but removing it without the proper shielding would cause it to degrade. If it degraded past a certain point, it would cause a catastrophic failure resulting in an explosion.
Good thing Kira planned for everything.
She pulled a glass-like tube off her suit, removing each piece of her find and dropping it into the tube before closing it and pressing the button on top. It lit with a soft blue glow.
The cylinder had been developed specifically for this purpose. It would keep the elements inside from destabilizing long enough for her to get it to her buyer.
