Warren Field was a smaller man than we had imagined. By the time he died naturally, he was already a hundred years old, his body so shrunken it was barely recognizable. The aged starship commander sat quietly in the only chair in the small storeroom, covered in a layer of white frost. His beard and hair were completely white, deep wrinkles crossed his face, and his skin was dark, making him look like an old farmer who had spent his life working in the fields. The only thing that still proved his military identity was the crisp officer's uniform he wore. It fit him with meticulous neatness, though it was now somewhat loose, yet he still looked imposing.
The old man's hands were frozen stiff against his chest. Beneath the frost, he tightly clutched a small Data Terminal.
Sandora stepped forward, but hesitated when she reached for the Data Terminal. Then she carefully placed her fingers on its casing and used an exceptionally precise spatial teleportation to transfer the palm-sized machine directly out. I could tell she was trying to protect the fragile remains. Though the environment in the storeroom had kept Warren Field's corpse lifelike to this day, he had not become immortal like the Progenitors. Perhaps even the slightest touch would turn those remains to dust.
"It still works." Sandora roughly checked the Data Terminal's condition and nodded slightly. After completing the initialization authentication, the little device, which had been powered down for tens of thousands of years, lit up again. She found the special code used to awaken the Shipboard Mainframe, activated it, and waited quietly. About a minute passed before we heard faint noises seeming to come from deep within the ship. Then the rising hum of equipment activating and high-power circuits coming online began to