"Oh, hell." Cora stepped aside to let the rest of the team enter the chamber. Zed and the others had found a hatch and tunnel similar to the one leading to the Peacemaker, but this room was cavernous. The walls were lined with monitors and panels and consoles filled the center.

And the floor was littered with bodies. Some wore spacesuits of an unfamiliar design and were organic, from what she could see through the helmet visors, and others appeared to be robots. The organic aliens had holes burned through their torsos, apparently from directed-energy weapons, and the robots had been blasted into pieces.

Kim sighed. "Robot uprising?"

"Maybe. They could've also been the good guys defending this place from hostile aliens. Or a police team taking down a criminal operation."

"I hope it was something like that."

"Me, too." Cora kneeled beside one of the organic bodies while the rest of the team fanned out across the chamber. "We can't rule out the possibility that these aliens weren't as lucky with their development of AI as humans were. If these guys insisted on treating their AI as servants instead of nurturing them and treating them as people like humans did, it may have led to the scenarios we've seen repeated in fiction so many times."

"Hey, Timmy." Kim motioned at him. "Be sure you get a shot of everything in here. Just don't push any buttons like Drew did."

"Heh. Yeah, I'm not gonna touch anything."

"Boss," Zed called from across the room, and Cora looked up to find him pointing at a bank of long, narrow rectangular windows and staring at her with his glowing green optics open wide. "Check this out."

She hurried over, amplified the available light, and found each window covered a space just big enough for one of the aliens to fit into. Each one had a panel on it that had probably displayed information at one time, but now all were dark -- except the second from the top over on the left.

"Some of these are open," Zed noted. "Others are occupied but are powered off and the occupants are dead. Looks like some were hit by whatever type of weapons these people were using, and others don't have any apparent damage but failed anyway."

"They could've simply broken down over time." Kim shrugged. "We have no idea how long these guys have been here."

"Or their systems shorted out from the energy discharges. Same result, either way." Cora moved over to the single active window, leaned closer, and scanned it with her sensor suite.

The alien wore an armored spacesuit like the others, minus the helmet. It had two digitigrade legs and two pairs of arms. The head had a mouth that wasn't too different from a human's and four eyes, two side-by-side on each half of the face. It didn't have a nose, just four slits between the eyes and mouth that could've been used for breathing. The top of the head was hairless and formed a crest. Each hand had two large fingers and a thumb.

"Huh. The skin texture and some of its features suggest it evolved from something similar to an arachnid."

Kim peered through the window. "The facial structure looks feminine. Whether that means the same thing for this species as it does for humans, I couldn't begin to guess. Probably shouldn't make any assumptions."

"Wonderful," Timmy grumbled. "I was hoping we were gonna find hot alien women somewhere out here, and when we actually find a female, she's a spider." He shivered. "Spiders make my skin crawl. I can't stand 'em."

"I won't tell her you said that." Kim grinned and then cocked her head. "Hey, I'm detecting power fluctuations."

"So am I. It's like the power is fading and coming back rapidly." Cora winced. "I hope we didn't find her just in time to see her stasis pod malfunction and kill her like the others." The readings changed and Cora held a hand up. "Hold on, it's stabilizing. Pulse and respiration are increasing."

"Whoa, is it waking up?" Timmy approached and pointed his cameras at the window. "Let's just hope it's one of the good guys."

"Fade back a bit, everyone." Kim rested her hand on her holstered pistol. "C'mon, Timmy, keep back. I shouldn't have to remind you that the team's safety is my responsibility."

"Yeah, yeah. It's just, well, we're making history."

"Only if we survive. Be ready to haul ass if she starts shooting."

Everyone stared at the alien as the minutes passed. Finally, its eyes opened and blinked several times. They had a red-orange bioluminescent glow and double pupils. They flicked around, taking everything in, confusion evident despite the nonhuman features. Finally, the alien's eyes settled on Cora and opened wide, as did its mouth. This expression was just as clear as the previous one.

Fear.

"Uh, Cora?" Kim motioned for her to back off a little more. "If her people were fighting these robots, she might think you're one of them. A newer model, maybe."

The alien's eyes shifted again, aiming at the destroyed robots and the other dead aliens. The fear in her eyes gave way to rage and she snarled, displaying two-centimeter fangs. Her helmet unfolded from the back of her armor and closed around her head. She braced both left hands against the window and pushed.

Cora took another step back and held her hands up.

"Fall back to the shuttle!"