Rules of Redemption (The Firebird Chronicles #1) - T.A. White Page 0,4

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.

Inside, she danced a little victory dance. A score like this would keep her floating for a good year or more.

Next, she moved to the other end of the engine compartment, removing some of the electronics and stripping the wiring. The metal would fetch a nice price even if the original purpose was fried.

Each item she removed was stored in a bag at her side.

On this first trip, she was mainly doing reconnaissance, cataloging items of value and identifying the equipment she’d need to salvage when she returned. Only small items, or those considered too valuable to leave behind, would be salvaged on this expedition. A find like this could take years to adequately strip.

When she judged the engine room sufficiently deprived of the things she could carry in the small sack at her side, she headed for the command center in the foredeck. Buried in the most protected part of the ship, each command center looked and operated a little differently.

One thing remained the same—it was the military and strategic mind of the ship, a source of valuable intel if the Tsavitee ever decided to return.

This command center was in the shape of a hexagon with no exterior windows. On a human vessel, there would have been countless screens keeping track of conditions and data as circumstances changed. Not so for the Tsavitee. Another mystery to go along with all the rest. No one knew exactly how they flew their ships or sent orders out to their troops.

Kira floated to a stop at the door, careful now she was here. She wouldn't put it past the Tsavitee to set traps for the unwary. She'd seen it before.

She peered inside, her headlamps illuminating the large room. Parts of the space shimmered, giving her a glimpse of a strange, silvery cloud of dust floating inside.

Razor ash. Damn.

The captain of this ship had been smarter than she'd given him credit for. He'd read the signs of where the battle was heading and then deployed defensive measures to secure the information housed in this room.

Razor ash wasn't anything to fuck with. It was diamond-hard, capable of cutting through damn near anything, including her suit.

If even a few specks attached to her, she would decompress within seconds. The suit might be able to repair minor tears, but once the ash got inside, it would eat away at the lining and destroy any electronic circuits–to say nothing of what it would do to her flesh.

It wasn't a pleasant way to go.

The captain and his officers were buckled into their seats, their clothes ragged and their flesh pockmarked from the razor ash.

Kira hovered in the corridor as she considered her options.

The ash didn't have the same tracking system as the eel. It was meant to stand sentry, forever sweeping through the room on the lookout for intruders. Otherwise, it would have locked onto her already. As long as she didn't disturb it, she should be safe enough.

A smarter person would have turned around and left. The haul at her side was plenty.

She pushed off the wall behind her, plotting a course through the room to maximize the chances of avoiding the ash. Lucky for her, it had settled against the far-left side before snaking along the ceiling above, leaving an open path from the hall to the captain’s chair.

Kira wanted whatever the captain had deemed important enough to set the ash as a permanent