Free The Awakening: Book 1 of the Evaran Chronicles by Adair Hart

this region before and have information from this time period,” said Evaran.
    Jay snorted and shook his head. “Great. Now we gotta deal with these assholes on top of everything else. Where can we score some weapons?”
    Evaran narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. “The handheld weapons on this ship are designed to only work for the Krotovore. I will deal with them if we run into them. We should head to the engine room now.”
    Jay flattened his lips and cocked his head. “Awesome, man. No weapons. Mercenaries with weapons. Dangerous creatures. Yeah, this’ll go well.”
    Dr. Snowden slapped Jay on the back. “C’mon.”
    They followed Evaran as he exited the main bridge entrance. They walked the length of the main bridge concourse over the next hour without any issue.
    Dr. Snowden observed the security drones throughout the main bridge concourse. They milled about, but kept their distance. He noticed they were spraying a gel of some type on the dead draug. The gel converted anything it touched into a gelatinous substance. The drones then shot a vaporizing beam at the substance. It seemed to be an efficient cleanup process.
    There were other dead non-Krotovore aliens lying about. He had seen them earlier but didn’t have time to investigate them closely due to being chased. He wondered what they were doing there and what relationship they had with the Krotovore. Maybe they were researchers from other civilizations. He planned to ask Evaran about it later. He noticed it seemed a bit brighter, but that may have been due to the mist not being as heavy. The stench was bad before, but it was much worse now. The smell of raw flesh wafted through the air. He jumped a few times at the random noises that filtered into the area. His pace quickened as they approached the entrance.
    They exited the main bridge concourse back onto the walkway in the large cylindrical area. V flew out and then down into the open area. As they approached the elevator, V flew back up from outside the railing and toward them. V hovered by Evaran and then projected a display before them. “Observation. Life-form detected on level 283.”
    The projection showed a large canine-looking creature. Black chitin-like armor punctuated the creature’s silver fur. It had a large head and jaw. The head was mostly mouth, with a set of four eyes. The ears stood up on each side of its head. Dr. Snowden thought it looked like a large hyena with black plate armor. The creature’s body was very muscular. It looked up curiously with a tilted head when V scanned it.
    Evaran looked at the display, deep in thought. He then interacted with his ARI. “Interesting. It appears we have a krall on board. That would qualify as a dangerous creature. That may be the quadruped the Krotovore was referring to.”
    “You’ve seen this before?” asked Emily.
    “Yes. This one is a little different, but a krall nonetheless. Krall are sentient creatures. They are not quite as intelligent as your species, at least from the time period this one is from. The Grimlyn Empire used them in the front lines, and sometimes used them for entertainment in pit fighting. Their descendants are still around in this time period, unlike the draug. They have a sizable population spread out across the Andromeda galaxy. This is not something the Krotovore should have probably picked up either. The krall would see them as a threat. Come, we need to head to level 285 and go down a major hallway and then up a few levels in another central area like this one,” said Evaran.
    Evaran placed the UIC on the wall console and interacted with his ARI. The doors opened, and they all boarded the elevator. Evaran grabbed the UIC off the wall console as they got on. The elevator doors closed, and it began to move. When it stopped, the doors receded back into the wall, revealing dead bodies strewn about. Dr. Snowden noticed that they were not all Krotovore, similar to the main bridge concourse. He did recognize the