The clatter of boots and equipment echoed down the corridor as the excavation team arrived. The eight in the lead were Vrass, kinetic rifles shouldered in caution as they bounded on digitigrade legs over debris. Each one had a boxy snout and was covered in scales with long, thick tails. They tittered and chirruped to one another in clipped chatter. Following them were four Terrans, their pale skin in stark contrast to the earth-toned markings of their reptilian comrades. Two Terrans carried sensor arrays and tools. The other two wore powered armor and rotary cannons. Only a handful of the squad matched the height of the elbow of Igglovaniax's forelimb. One of the burly Vrass carried a smaller Particle Beamer akin to Igglovaniax's weapon, nimble fingers working knobs on its side.
One of the Vrass approached the mewling New Blood dragoness. Igglovaniax watched them kneel. Upon their back were two white canisters, each marked with the Draconis Caduceus. Five Old Blood dragon heads snaking in a helix around an ornate winged stave, a red diamond shape set atop it. The Vrass bowed her head, nimble, clawed hands dancing in the air, drawing the rune of Igglovaniax's Sundered Death—a draconic skull split in half cleanly, the same Draconis Caduceus pierced through one eye socket and out the other.
A cloudy stream of nanites buzzed from the canisters on the Vrass medic's back, landing on the degloved limb. The Scavenger whimpered as they began sealing the wound, eyes going cloudy underneath the goggles as painkillers flooded her system. A thick heat sink jutting from either side of the Vrass's neck turned a dull red as her systems ran the program. "Secure her, and await me here," Igglovaniax said, turning and stalking away.
A chorus of affirmations from the Terrans and Vrass echoed as Igglovaniax turned to the remains of the door he had used the Rune of Unmaking on. The debris and door leading to the bridge had finally been reduced to thick waste blocks on either side of the door. The tattered remains of an ostentatious rug lay on the deep steps of the stairs leading up onto the bridge. The nanites used to destroy the door buzzed around Igglovaniax like a second cloak, awaiting his commands.
He strode up the stairs, stepping around the command dais where it sat at the back of the bridge. Arrayed before it were several shallow pits filled with buzzing monitors and empty seats. Some sparked through shattered screens. Old cargo manifests, security footage stuck in a short loop of the vessel's final moments, and frozen radar screens alive with enemy air and landships. It was as though the ship still fought on.
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A pile of even more archaic cybernetics lay on the command dais. A mess of synthetic muscle fibre bundles, bone anchors, and cybernetic eyes. The Warlord's grave. The screens at the front were shattered inward, like she had slammed into them when the vessel had struck the mountain it was now half buried in.
Another rush of excitement ran down Igglovaniax's belly as he spotted a full replacement cybernetic arm lying intact. Its cables extended from the shoulder joint and into dusty computation matrices. Dusty neural-filaments still glittered in the low light. "Tharith, we've got it. Numaeclus's computation matrices seem intact. All the secrets she hoarded." He said giddily, bouncing on his claws a moment, tail swaying from under the cloak. The cloak of nanomachines billowed like smoke as he bounced, his focus flickering across data-panes as he captured high-fidelity scans of the room. "The cybernetic arm might even have bio-ident data!" he tittered joyously.
Tharith's words were undertoned with an amused chitter.
Igglovaniax paused to think, going still as quickly as he had begun jittering with excitement. "She may have her uses for labor. And information. Interrogate her. Then integrate or excoriate," he mused. "Give her a chance at redemption. The Scavenger's Path is a nasty one."
Tharith asked.
"Yes. A good plan. We shall prize into Numaeclus' secrets once that is complete." Igglovaniax purred. He turned his gaze from the remnants of Numaeclus, stalking over the crew pits, peering at their screens. One even was a jittering loop of a battle within one of the hangars of the , dragons and humanoids locked in an unending skirmish. Blazing tracers and maliciously dull particle beamers flared across the grainy screen.
Igglovaniax watched it loop a dozen times, delving for secrets as he watched. Numaeclus' forces were skilled, and it showed. Beating back the foe. Their deaths came later, most certainly, when the ship crashed. He was pulled from his focus by more boots clanging against the deck. More Vrass and Terrans flooded the bridge. Half of the twelve-man team descended on Numaeclus's remains like vultures, carefully placing each piece into large crates. The moment they let go, the crate's stasis field kicked in, freezing it midair within its walls, enveloped in a deep thrum felt only in the bones of those around them.
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