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"Then obtaining the parts needed for a luminetric barrier is out of the question." Drax peers down at the tablet in his hand. "Maybe the rooms down the hall will yield something we can use to contain the specimen tube."
"Two males should remain here and keep watch on the creature," I order, "while the rest of us quickly explore the remaining rooms."
"You still have that comm I gave you earlier?" Drax asks Rooke.
Rooke pats one of his many cargo pockets. "I got it."
"You and Bruke stand guard—"
"With this!" Rooke abruptly interrupts Drax, holding up his small blade. "I don't fucking think so, techy."
"Neither one of us are armed well enough to take on that thing if it wakes up." Bruke's gaze is wide with alarm.
"Well, we can't just fucking leave it here unguarded." Slye cuts his hand at Bruke. "You swore you saw it move."
"Then you hang out here with it, Slye," Bruke snaps. "Be my guest!"
"You're the one that saw it move!" Slye fires back.
"Enough!" I shout. "Arguing with each other gets us nowhere and we're wasting time."
"Then what do you suggest, Lita Comtra?" Bruke rounds on me. The fear reflected in his purple gaze is the only reason my fist hasn't connected with his face.
"Unless two males want to volunteer, then we pick two at random." I nod to the tablet in the techy's hands. "Drax, does that tablet have access to an arbitrary picker?"
"Yes."
"Then put all our names in and have it generate two," I say.
Drax taps on the smooth screen, waits a moment, then announces, "Slye and Bruke are our two lucky winners."
The two males curse up a storm but eventually accept the task of guarding the creature. I hand Slye my sword, trading his alope sticker for it. "It's dull from hacking my way through the forest, but it's better than what you've got."
Slye hesitates before accepting my sword hilt first as if he isn't sure he trusts the trade I offer.
Rooke gives Bruke his comm and claps both males on the shoulders. "If that thing so much as twitches, alert us and we'll come running back."
"You fucking know we will," Bruke barks.
I secure the door to the lab we came through, making sure it's locked. Just in case Bruke did see the thing move, I would lessen the danger to the females.
Drax recalibrated the keypad with his device. A short, narrow corridor is revealed, the closed door at the end making it yet another entrapment area. With so many precautions in place to safeguard against escape, it defies logic how every creature created by the scientists broke free.
Rooke and I follow Drax down the corridor. After a short pause for the techy to recalibrate the keypad, we enter a wide hall with several rooms lining either side.
The first few rooms are sleeping quarters for the scientists. We explore each one but find nothing useful beyond garments and bedding. The next is a storage room full of laboratory equipment, but it's what we find in the last room that makes my heart race.
A trove of advanced technology left to gather dust. Imagers, heat signature scanners, portable energy shields, comms, and stunners. As we leave the hidden part of the lab, our arms laden with our newfound arsenal, I can't help but feel a flicker of hope. Once all the lab created creatures are dead and the lifers caught and returned to their cell pods, Zune will finally be safe enough for my lula.
"You won't believe what we found!" Rooke is first inside the lab, but before any celebrating our good fortune can commence, the creature's body suddenly convulses, its twisted form jerking to life. Panic surges through me, my heart pounding in my chest.
"Watch out!" I drop all of what I carry except two stunners.
The creature thrashes violently against the tube's confines. The liquid surrounding it churning with the force of its movements.
"We have to kill it!" Drax shouts, his eyes wide with horror. "We can't let it escape!"
"It doesn't look like it can get free of the tube," Slye speaks too soon; a crack forming from the top of the tube to the bottom. Dread grips me around the throat as I watch the crack rapidly spread, a loud hissing sound following it.
