The radiant blast wave from the destruction of the three Coronal Devourer Platforms slowly faded away across the magnetic walls of the crucible basin. That left behind a field of rapidly cooling alien wreckage. Most of the bio-clockwork hard shell had boiled away into blazing bright star-fire. But as the golden dust settled, Arthur’s magnifying glass caught a sharp, anomalous energetic pulse drifting five miles off the Aethelgard’s starboard bow.
It wasn’t a piece of scrap metal. Drifting through the multi-million-degree solar empty pocket was an object about the size of a human torso, perfectly ball-shaped and glowing with a deep, crystal-clear amber light that pulsed with rhythmic, heartbeat-like care.
“Echo, spatial recovery!” Arthur ordered, pointing with his cutting-open probe toward the glowing strange flaw. “Szabo, prepare the magnetic holding cradle in Bay Three!”
Bloop!
Echo poked his head out of his nutrient sphere, his pink dorsal gills fanning wide. The small axolotl blinked his lidless eyes, and with a gentle flick of his tail, the three-space-folding fabric of space folded like an origami crane. A shimmering ripple appeared right beside the drifting object in the void, swallowing it whole.
A split second later, a corresponding ripple opened directly above the open holding cradle in Bay Three. The amber sphere dropped into the padded magnetic cradle with a soft, metal clunk.
