The only light was the light from our helmets, enough to avoid to hit the wall, not enough to be sure no ghost is beside you.

The ship was the dimensions of a destroyer, something for a crew of 30-40 (human scale), a first look made us thinking that his owners were organized just like us. At last, they shouldn't be bizarre like the heereen, considering that their corridors wasn't full of some kind of sticky fluid. Looking at the ceiling they had to be taller than me.

"It's all huge here" said Jeremhia. If it was big for me, for a Rafkin being that place should be like the house of a giant.

"The bridge should be upstairs, says the eco-mapping" I said, pointing the lights of my suit to an hole in the roof. I de-magnetized my boots, took a little leap and entered it. As I hoped, inside it I found a ladder, useful to climb to the upper deck. "This should be the way. Let Cassandra be the first after me, please"

As I thought Cassandra had some difficult to center the hole and all the Rafkins had to help her. At last I could grab her hand and pull her out of the tunnel, in a corridor very similar to the one where we came from.

"You are very good in the open space" she said, private channel, while we was waiting for the others.

"I grew up during a war. Everyone since 3 years old had to do EVO training every day. An EVO suit could save your life if the place where you live explode. Plus, I applied as a cadet before starting my studies as diplomat. In the academy you have to learn to do anything with the suit on"

Though I became a diplomat, someway, I still considered myself a soldier and I was proud about how I was good in open space.

"Impressive" Cassandra said, but she wasn't impressed at all, probably considering the use of the EVO a skill with little value.

"The head of the ship is in this direction" Jeremhia said, reading the map Sot'quan instruments made for him.

"Why do you think we have seen no corpse yet?" I asked, while keep walking.

"If they wanted to bomb the heereen ship it's possible they had just crew enough to operate the attack. A lot of people could be useless for just an hit and run mission"

"This means there're more of them, somewhere else"

"Somewhere else near us"

The corridor ended with a big round door, closed. Jeremhia put both his hands on it, analyzing the situation, while his two friends looked on the walls, trying to find any clue about the lock.

"No writing samples for now" stated Cassandra, private channel as always.

"Just service corridors, few rooms or other things accessible. My only target is the bridge, behind this door. I wasn't expecting to find something interesting before. If you'd be an alien you'd find also our corridors quite boring"

"Well, i'm not bored"

Jeremhia said "We made it", the door had a loud whistle and then it started to open. It was the bridge, as we expected. Five big screens, eight stations. A captain's chair in the middle and the other seven men of the crew around it everyone with a desk to use. They were all in their positions, according to the theory that the death caught them fast. It was like being in a museum or in front of a diorama for children: "Let me teach you how to drive a destroyer"

"We will not need your analysis, Cassandra" I said, public channel, when I saw the corpses.

"Who attacked us is a mystery no more" added Jeremhia, slowly walking to the captain, his body frozen in an angry position, the hands firmly around the armrests of his chair.

The vision of the bridge of that unknown ship was squeezing my guts and it was not for the corpses, considering that I saw a lot of dead body in my life, most of them less clean than those ones, but for the meaning of all of that.

I came near one of the men of the crew. He wasn't on his chair, but on his feet, leaning on his console like an old, tired man, frozen in an expression of astonishment. 10 feet tall, green reptile skin, six fingers for hand, an almost human face.

A Teculpa.