Moving about on this floor of the ship was rather difficult. There was barely enough room to crouch, and putting any weight on his injured paw was near impossible, so he had to rely heavily on his arms to keep his balance and drag his body through the tangles of old pipes, wires, and debris.

Much to Ryou’s relief, there wasn’t much floor to explore. Before long, he happened across a small compartment that he was fairly certain was the spot he was looking for. His eyes widened with excitement as fingers quickly undid the latches around the bottom edge of the panel that was covering his treasure. Sure enough, underneath the cover sat a guidance cube; a somewhat unremarkable metal cube with glowing blue lines etched into its matte gray surface. It could easily fit in the palm of his hand, that is, once he removed the dozens of wires that sat plugged into its base.

The fox was still unsure if this cube would have recent enough LS Plus protocols. The mere fact that this cube was still plugged in was a testament to how old this ship was. Guidance cubes had been operating wirelessly for at least a few decades by that point, but old and working was worth more of a shot than the non-existent cube is his current ship. The challenge now would be successfully removing it without damaging it, or worse, deactivating it.

Ryou took out his Scanalyzer from one of his belt loop pockets and aimed it at the cube. Hopefully the database he had uploaded a few days ago would have the information required for this old guidance cube. A projected screen above his wrist flickered on and began to scroll through lines of numbers and statistics. Most of it was gibberish to him, but it at least meant the object could be identified, which meant he was in business. His treasure was within his grasp.

• An excerpt from "Eidolon", an upcoming (maybe) novel by Ikodo Moonstrife

A stunning piece of commissioned art from the talented PenguinEX!