Chapter 2
Tomb World
That's what they were calling it now. Vanessa wasn't sure who on her crew had said it first. May knew better, at least in front of their subordinates. It wasn't Doctor Priest, he wasn't that morbid. Reda Sertos didn't care about planets beyond how the gravity well affected her vector calculations. Amine Abargil was so easily embarrassed by the banter between XO and CAG that he wouldn't dream of speaking so unprofessionally. Malac Garo would have translated it into French. Penelope Aster might have come up with it, given her acidic tone. Or perhaps Duy Liem. 'Tomb World' had an air of poetry and melancholy that suited the quiet but gifted tactical officer.
Regardless, if Vanessa had known about it, she would have put a stop to it. The crew didn't need to be thinking that way. The excitement of finally achieving part of the REF's mission, and reaching the border of the Masters' empire, was now tempered by the confirmation of the cold brutality of the wider galaxy. The Earth's near destruction, traumatic as it might be, was not an isolated incident. That made their mission to spread humanity across the stars, and to avoid a second Rain of Death, even more urgent. Dwelling on the death and devastation, as disturbing as it was to Vanessa, was a distraction none of them could afford. What they needed was information and data. The Pioneer Mission needed a direction, not the vague stab in the dark that they had been forced to pursue for the last four years. Still, it was difficult for her to resist brooding on the matter, as she and her squadron of shuttles descended toward the Tomb W- she shook her head in annoyance - toward the unnamed world's surface. She had continued to maintain her flight officer qualifications, and so she took a jump seat behind the pilot and co-pilot of her own shuttle for the flight. Through the viewport, the planet looked no more inviting. The near featureless tan surface she had seen at a distance was now broken up by brown, dead forests, bleak and barren rock formations, the craters left by the impacts of mega-weapons and fallen orbital constructs, and of course, the gray of ash wastes and empty, burned cities. Enough. She activated the auxiliary comms panel at her station.
"Any insights to share, Colonel Kravshera?" she murmured into her headset. She was wearing her pressure suit, but wouldn't put on her helmet until they touched down and prepared to disembark.
"Insights regarding what, Captain?"
The voice that crackled back through her headset was not what one would normally expect of a UEF Marine officer. It was pleasant, urbane, and carried a hint of amusement. In truth, Vanessa was glad for the distance and distortion added by the comms channel to the marines' hulking dropship, because Lieutenant Colonel Kaden Kravshera always made her uncomfortable. It wasn't his fault. How could Vanessa hold the commander of her ship's contingent of marines responsible for his name and physical appearance? She believed everyone deserved a chance, which was why she had pushed aside her own misgivings and granted his request for assignment with Task Force 2, when none of the other Pioneer Mission commands would accept him. His prior rank and experience in the Zentraedi Armada more than qualified him, and his performance had met every expectation. If only it weren't for that unfortunate name.
Colonel Kaden Kravshera. Courteous, witty, and polished. A battle-hardened, capable field officer. Handsome, refined features, with a sharp chin, elegant nose, and determined eyes. Skin of lightest lavender. His thick, pale blue hair hung almost to his shoulders, and stopped just short of covering his eyes. A Zentraedi from the Kravshera clone line. A perfect genetic twin to Khyron Kravshera. Khyron the Backstabber. Khyron the Destroyer. The man who smashed his burning warship into the helpless, depleted SDF-1. Who took Vanessa's left eye and two of her limbs. Who took from her Admiral Gloval, the man who had become a second father to her, and Claudia, Kim, and Sammie, the women who had become closer to her than her own sisters in the crucible of war. For almost a year before that, the Robotech Defense Force hunted Khyron from the North American wastes to the jungles of the Southlands. Vanessa analyzed every sighting and intercepted transmission. She watched every scrap of archival footage, over and over. His mannerisms, the timbre of his voice, were all imprinted on her memory. So she reminded herself every time she spoke to Kaden Kravshera that he was not that man. She just never imagined doing that would prove to be so difficult.
"Captain, do you copy?"
Vanessa's face colored. She was distracted. This landing, her first on an alien world, was a critical mission and an important personal moment. She should be better than this. "I apologize, Colonel. I was asking, do you have any insights about what happened on the planet?"
"Hmm." Vanessa could picture him rubbing his chin with thin, graceful fingers, like a musician's. "I'll know better of course, after we've seen the surface firsthand, but I can tell you now, I'm skeptical that the Zentraedi did this."
"Oh? The derelict Zentraedi ships imply differently."
"I disagree. There could be any number of reasons for their presence, but the damage we've observed of the planet is not consistent with how the Zentraedi would carry out an attack."
Vanessa frowned. "As someone who watched Earth be destroyed, and was part of the rebuilding, I might beg to differ."
"As someone who participated in many planetary invasions, I can tell you that there are… subtleties you may not be aware of."
"Subtleties?" Vanessa felt her stomach turn. "I see nothing subtle about wanton destruction and mass murder." She was growing angry with the colonel, and tried to keep her voice under control.
"Forgive me," Kaden said, picking up on the shift in her tone. "My phrasing may have been indelicate. I mean that Zentraedi battle doctrine is rather structured and inflexible. This attack deviates in some significant ways."
"Such as?"
"The use of crude atomics for one. The Zentraedi Armada never used nuclear devices. Directed energy weapons are just as powerful, and much more precise. Where would the Zentraedi even acquire a stockpile of such weapons, and how would they have delivered them?"
"You have a point." The cold logic of his statement cut across Vanessa's anger and disgust. "What else?"
"The attack was sloppy, unworthy of Zentraedi warriors."
"Excuse me?" This was too much. She respected and cared for the Zentraedi as a people, but she had nothing but contempt for the monstrous war machine that had created, indoctrinated, and unleashed the Zentraedi upon the galaxy.
"Zentraedi doctrine calls for two methods of attack." Kaden spoke two phrases in the Zentraedi language. Vanessa had studied the language for many years now, and practiced it with her Zentraedi crew members. She recognized the words.
"'The Targeted Strikes,' and 'The Annihilating Blow'." Vanessa repeated.
"Indeed. If the objective is to cow, to occupy, to pacify, then the preferred method is the strike. Identify the military targets, the logistics hubs, the hidden reserves, the command and control, and reduce each of them in turn. The enemy is left prostrated before Zentraedi might. This is how a non-compliant world was forced into the Masters Empire."
"And 'The Annihilating Blow'?"
"If a foe is too dangerous, too unpredictable, or if an example need be made, then the choice is total destruction."
Vanessa felt cold. "Like the Rain of Death… but there were survivors on Earth! Some cities even made it through nearly intact."
"The Rain of Death was imperfect, and incomplete. Supreme Commander Dolza ordered a hasty bombardment, because Admiral Breetai's fleet of mutineers was moving into attack position. Should the Grand Fleet have been victorious, the bombardment of the Earth would have continued for as long as was needed to turn it into an airless, cratered moon."
Vanessa regretted beginning this conversation, but she needed to solve the mystery of what happened in this star system. She kept her tone neutral. "Your point then, Colonel?"
"If the Zentraedi were behind this attack, the damage to this planet would have been much less, or much greater."
"So do you have any idea who was behind it?"
"None at all. I know nothing about this area of space, Captain. When on campaign, we received our fold coordinates from headquarters, our list of targets, and our instructions on whether to subjugate or entirely destroy our enemies. What more could we require? Learning about our foes might lead to messy complications like empathy, hesitation, negotiation. We were just tools, after all."
A pang of sympathy rose in Vanessa's heart. His tone was light, but she was no stranger to forced cheerfulness. Underneath the charm and bravado, was the pain of a true believer who learned too late that their faith had been placed in something that was hollow and grotesque. Who whipsawed between disillusionment and desperately grasping at the hope that there might have been something admirable, something grand, about the cause they had been part of.
"Thank you for your assessment, Colonel. I'm sure we'll speak more after we've landed."
"I am yours to command, Captain."
The assault shuttle carried a number of all-terrain vehicles, which were trundling down one of the fourteen meter long ramps that had lowered from the craft's immense flanks, but Vanessa descended the flight of steps at the ramp's edge under her own power. She wanted to feel the planet's soil under her pressure suit's boots. The suit was sealed and climate controlled, so she breathed the same recycled air that she did on the Jeanne d'Arc, and the temperature remained at a comfortable 21 degrees Celsius, regardless of the atmospheric conditions around her. Her helmet muffled the noise of the outside world, and the constant murmur of the communications channels in her ears dampened her hearing even further, making her breath loud in the confined space. Touch was the only meaningful way to interact with this world, even through the thin skin of her pressure suit. She reached the bottom of the ramp and stepped off the thick metal plate. Dry soil crunched and shifted under her boots.
An armored ATV rolled past, sending up a cloud of fine dust, and Vanessa walked a few paces away to clear the path, then knelt. Her suit was cut more snuggly than she would have liked, limiting her mobility. She looked over her shoulder at Doctor Priest, noting again with annoyance that the men seemed to have no such trouble with their suits. With a shrug she reached down and scooped up a handful of soil, rubbing it between her fingers. It was gritty and slick at the same time, crumbling away loosely, like ash, and joining the particles that were blowing away on the wind. She stood, and dusted herself off.
Doctor Priest joined her. Behind them, Colonel Kravshera's colossal destroids shambled down the ramps to join the already disembarked AFV's and armored infantry, but they kept their eyes on the horizon. Above them, a squadron of gold and emerald VF-4 Lightnings left pure white trails across the pale pink sky, disappearing for a moment in the harsh yellow glare of the planet's sun. Vanessa had chosen a vast open plain for the score of shuttles to land on, but to the north was a snow-capped mountain range, and on the southern horizon a darker brown smudge could be seen that was the edge of a decaying forest. To the east she saw crumbling spires, domes, and wide terraces like immense stacked saucers.
Vanessa made sure she was on a private channel before speaking. "It's dead, isn't it, Doctor? This planet? Beyond recovery."
Priest inclined his head. "I believe so, Captain. The Xenobiology section of the Robotech Research Group is making some very promising advances using samples of the organic material taken from exhausted Protoculture generators, but this level of damage and contamination is beyond anything we can treat with our current terraforming technology."
"I'm sorry for wasting your time down here."
"It's not a waste. There's still so much we can learn from samples and climate readings. There may be flora and fauna that have managed to survive, and studying them could be an incredible boon to humanity."
"Then I imagine careers could be made off of our discoveries here."
Priest shrugged. "You're not wrong, but I would hope that the opportunity you gave us with the Pioneer Mission will allow myself and my colleagues to take a more philosophical view than 'Publish or Perish.'"
"Thank you for coming, Doctor."
"I wouldn't miss it, Captain. Now if I may, I'll join the rest of the field research team and help them set up our equipment."
The scientist moved off, and Vanessa watched the well rehearsed activity of the UN Spacy and Marine units as they deployed from the shuttles and established a defensive perimeter with destroids and hovertanks. Temporary structures were already going up, and teams of
scout ATV's were fanning out, kicking up rooster tails of dust under the watchful air cover of the fleet squadrons. The shuttles themselves would serve as ground-side armories, barracks, maintenance hubs, and headquarters. Little direction was needed on Vanessa's part until the initial reports began filtering in.
Vanessa found her eye drawn back to the sky. It really was pretty, that delicate, flower petal pink. It was just that, in her imagination, that first alien sky stretched above a lush landscape, filled with life and natural beauty. And she shouldn't be standing alone, looking up at it. The ache inside her, from that missing piece in her heart, could well up at any moment, triggered by any number of things. A half-heard chorus from one of Minmei's songs, echoing at the far end of the veritech hangars. The scent of the perfumed air around the small space given over to growing flowers in the hydroponics bay. Her gaze landing on her well-worn hard bound copy of Gulliver's Travels on the bookshelf in her quarters.
She remembered the conversation between her and Bron, seven years ago, lying on their backs, side by side in Founders' Park, gazing together at the sky after their first picnic. She'd told him about her dreams of journeying to the stars, and looking up at an alien sky. He told her he hadn't seen his fill of Earth's yet, and then apologized for speaking without thinking. On an impulse, he'd run and bought her a bouquet from a Zentraedi florist gathering wildflowers nearby. I'm finally standing on that faraway shore Bron… and you're not here, she thought, sadly.
They had achieved things beyond their wildest imaginings. Bron Nantes, the soldier and spy, first living out his days in meaningless, violent servitude to the Zentraedi's uncaring, power-hungry masters, eventually led his people, first into exile, then into an imperfect promised land, like some Old Testament prophet. And now the freshman senator led one of the most influential voting blocs in the UEG assembly, pursuing an agenda of rebirth and equality for his people, and healing for humanity as a whole. Meanwhile, Vanessa had made her way from being a wounded junior officer, a lone survivor, struggling to hold onto impractical dreams and broken in body and spirit, to leading a prestigious command at the vanguard of Earth's bold venture into deep space.
Their separation, Vanessa and Bron each wholeheartedly devoting themselves to their hopes and responsibilities, had not become easier as the years passed, but harder to endure. Since the completion of the dry-docks at Space Station Liberty, the Jeanne d'Arc's last return to Earth to undergo a refit at the Lunar Yards had been… almost three years ago. Three years since she had felt Bron's arms around her. Every message they shared, every scrap of news she received from Earth about his accomplishments, had just made her miss him more, made her love him more. To walk away from that love, to spare herself that longing, was simply unthinkable.
Vanessa had seen such wondrous things as a starship captain. She had found fellowship and family among her loyal crew. She didn't regret her path, or resent Bron's- their integrity had demanded the choices they made. But seeing the chaos and destruction that had followed in the wake of the fall of the Zentraedi armada had turned this moment, standing at last on a new world, from a bittersweet one, to one of dismay and dread.
"C'est l'heure, Capitaine," Ensign Garo, whom she had brought along as aide, liaison, and comms technician, told her, bringing her thoughts back down into the bustle of the landing zone. "The convoy is ready, if you still plan to accompany it."
"Yes. Thank you, Ensign."
An hour later, the convoy rolled to a halt a kilometer outside the ruined city, after passing through withered farmland criss-crossed by extensive irrigation projects that were slowly crumbling away, and over canals half full of stagnant water. Here and there were the blasted hulks of tractors and harvesters like giant land crabs or goliath beetles, big as destroids, though more inhuman in shape. The divide between urban and rural was far sharper than Vanessa was used to. She saw no suburban neighborhoods leading up to the city, and no small towns or villages dotting the countryside. There were what looked like sprawling depots, grain elevators as big as small plateaus, and once, the coiled, jumbled wreckage of a massive cargo conveyor, its containers each connected in a chain, like the carriages of a freight train, but many times more massive than even the new super-magrail back in North America, and with no sign of any rail system.
"Do you think the farmers commuted? I didn't see anything that looked like homes," Vanessa asked Doctor Priest, who was seated in the armored ATV's second row of seats, just behind Vanessa's.
"Possibly," Priest answered. "Of course, it's equally possible that all of the operations were fully automated, from planting, to growth, to harvesting and shipping, with teams of technicians only driving out as needed to conduct maintenance. The theoreticians I've been following hypothesize a hyper degree of specialization and urbanization in a mature, Protoculture-powered and Robotech-equipped society. Imagine the potential improvements to quality of life on Earth, just from studying the agricultural techniques used in the Masters' empire!"
"Captain," the ATV's driver interrupted, "Colonel Kravshera's destroids have moved into the ruins of the city. He won't give us the green light until he is satisfied that the district we're planning to enter through is secure."
"Understood." Kravshera could have contacted Vanessa directly. He must have picked up on her hostility and discomfort, and was either trying to avoid her ire or was trying to spare her feelings. Either way, she berated herself for not having a better reign on her emotions. She was the Captain. "I'm opening the upper hatch and taking a look," she told the driver as she stood, her cybernetic arm allowing her to easily undog and lift the heavy mechanism.
Under the thin patina of dust covering every surface of the city, the alien material the individual structures were built from had a dull sheen, almost like bronze. From a nearer distance, domes, spires, and terraces still seemed to be the prevailing architectural style. All of the glass had been shattered by the conflict that ruined the city, leaving the windows to gape at her like sightless, empty eye sockets and hungry maws. The olive drab armor of the marine destroids stood out starkly against the decaying cityscape. Hulking, apelike Spartans advanced cautiously along broad, rubble-choked thoroughfares, covered by the heavy beam and missile batteries that studded the deadly Tomahawk units that followed.
Vanessa glanced from side to side, seeing the staggered line of ATV's, each nimbly balanced on four articulated sets of oversized, solid rubber wheels. Combined with the pair of angled whip antennas tied back on each hull, she thought of a group of lean jackrabbits, ready to take off at the first loud noise. Further away were the boxy forms and distinctive sloped prows of the Spartas hovertanks, more compact than a destroid, fast, tough, and well armed. About half of the squadron were standing by in gladiator mode, with their thick, stubby feet supporting the heavy, large-bore cannon that jutted out ahead them. She could just make out Colonel Kravshera, standing atop one well armored hull in his khaki and green pressure suit and helmet, watching over his troops through a set of electronic binoculars.
It was a lot of firepower for a potential First Contact mission, and if the situation had been different, Vanessa would have organized a much smaller landing force. But the planet did seem dead, it's potential dangers were completely unknown, and the Admiral was very cautious. Besides, 'tomb world' or not, there was no shortage of volunteers ready to feel solid ground under their feet again. Tension gave way to boredom as Vanessa waited, and just as she decided to lower herself back through the hatch and give someone else a turn, she felt a gentle tap on her knee.
"Nous roulons, Capitaine," Ensign Garo told her. "I've been monitoring the convoy's channel. We have the green light to enter the city. We have been cautioned not to enter any building until it has been inspected by the armored infantry."
"Thank you, Ensign." When the hatch was secure, she slid back the shutter between the passenger and driver's compartments. "Do you see that pyramid structure?" she asked the driver.
"Big building, about a klick out? On the other side of the elevated highway? Yes ma'am."
"Signal the rest of the convoy. We'll make for that one. It looks different from the rest of the architecture. Could be a government building. As good a place as any to search for answers."
"Aye, Captain."
At Vanessa's command, a pair of hovertanks, turbo fans howling, took up a leading position, and then, two by two, the ATV's reformed from line to column and rolled on into the city.
The going was not easy, with all the rubble obstructing the streets. The convoy stuck to the widest boulevards, and nevertheless, frequently had to navigate around deep craters, large enough to swallow an ATV, and great jagged shards of the dully shining, bronze-colored material that most of the buildings were composed of. Countless wrecked ground vehicles, mostly sleek hovercraft and some type of bulky, high-tech cargo sled, were scattered about. Here and there, sections of bridges, walkways, and elevated highways had come down, and a quarter kilometer in, one such fragment blocked their path.
"The lead hovertanks will divert north at the next intersection," the comms crackled. "There'll be a two block detour, then the convoy will return to the main boulevard. There are destroids positioned at each turn to guide you through."
An olive-drab Spartan waited at the corner. The machine glowered down at them through the lime green visor shielding its sensor cluster, then ushered the convoy around the corner with a wave of one colossal metal gauntlet. Vanessa had yet to see a single building that had escaped the damage, which appeared to have primarily been caused by seemingly random explosive blasts. There was no sign of destroyed battle mecha, and the city clearly hadn't taken even a near miss from Reflex weaponry or nukes… though maybe the city had been shielded against weapons of mass destruction somehow. Occasionally she saw a skeletal corpse lying in rubble, or draped across the console of a smashed vehicle.
"Have recovered remains for analysis," one of Priest's scientists reported. "Remains appear to be human or near human. We'll need to get back to the field lab at the LZ for a full autopsy and DNA sequencing."
So many unanswered questions! Vanessa thought as the convoy rejoined the main route. The Zentraedi were genetically human, with a few distinctive DNA identifiers that made it possible to distinguish between them and humans born on Earth. Presumably that was the case for the Zentraedi's creators as well. What other genetic source for the clone lines could there be? So were these dead citizens of the Masters' empire? Micronized Zentraedi? Were the invaders intermixed with the planet's inhabitants - a civil war over dwindling resources?
"This is Storm Four. Hold tight, this next stretch is going to get bumpy!" one of the tank drivers warned, and then the pair of hovertanks smashed straight through a barrier of rubble and wrecked hovercraft blocking the street ahead. Vanessa shook her head to clear it of the riddles preoccupying her and gripped the handles welded around the edge of the ATV's upper hatch more tightly. A second later the vehicle lurched, rocking her, as they went over a taller piece of debris, and each articulated set of wheels rose and fell in turn. With the superhuman strength in her cybernetic limbs, there was no chance of her losing her hold, but she still had to be careful she didn't allow her body to slam painfully against the hull as they crossed the roughest terrain.
"Almost through. All vehicles, halt, and we'll take care of that last obstacle up ahead," Storm Four signaled. "Going to battloid."
The tankers expertly let their veritechs swing around ninety degrees to bleed off speed, then reconfigured, components and modules shifting until they towered over the rest of the convoy, nearly as tall as the destroids, and far more agile. The bulky armor shields mounted on their upper arms and their inhuman heads made Vanessa think of war-masked samurai. The pair stood shoulder to shoulder and bent down to roll three immense broken pieces of a fallen pillar out of the street, then smoothly changed back to hover mode and led the ATV's forward again.
Up ahead, the pyramid loomed larger, far out massing all the other buildings but for the half dozen multi-terraced arcologies that stood like giant stacks of saucers above the cityscape. Vanessa could see, now that she had a clearer view, that the pyramid was more reminiscent in shape of an Aztec temple than an Egyptian tomb. It was stepped, with three distinct tiers, and with a colonnade at the apex. As for its physical composition, the pyramid was a cyberpunk fantasy of megalithic plates, esoteric ornamentation, and thousands of faux windows that glittered turquoise where the sunlight caught crystalline shards of shattered glass. An open plaza big enough to accommodate landing spacecraft surrounded the pyramid, and at a distance from each of its corners was a dome-topped, hightech pillar of cyclopean scale, standing as tall as the pyramid itself.
"Captain, one of the Spartas teams is transmitting video from the industrial district in the southern edge of the city," Priest told Vanessa. She dropped inside, dogging the hatch behind her, and leaned in for a better look at the video being shared to the tiny screen set into the front of the compartment. She patched the audio through to her helmet, squinting to make sense of the blurry, shadowy image.
"Big building, at least four hundred meters across," another of Colonel Kravshera's hovertankers transmitted. "The damage isn't random, they cut a hole in the outer wall big enough to walk a destroid through. Storm Eight is providing overwatch. Storm Nine now making entry. There!"
She activated her battloid's spot lamps and cautiously entered the hole in the bronze colored wall of the lozenge shaped industrial building.
"Almost empty," she narrated as she panned her lights across the room. "I see a few small personal vehicles, and overhanging control booths. Some huge mounting plates along the far wall and extending two thirds of the way across the room, but the machinery is gone…"
Vanessa saw something, and patched into the Marines' frequency. "Storm Nine, hold there. This is Captain Leeds. Please focus on the angled section of that mounting plate. I want to get a look at that connecting equipment."
"Acknowledged."
The image zoomed in, wobbled, and then focused. Vanessa nodded. As she expected she recognized the hookups for power, monitoring devices, and shielding. This chamber had held Reflex furnaces, identical to the ones on the Jeanne d'Arc, and to the ones on the SDF-1 that the Jeanne d'Arc's had been copied from. She looked over her shoulder at Doctor Priest, who nodded his understanding. Vanessa sighed.
"More evidence that your theory is correct, Doctor. All this destruction, just to steal energy supplies."
The ATV jerked to a stop. "The convoy has arrived at the pyramid, Captain," their driver called out. "Our infantry are dismounting and will have the entrance secured in a few minutes."
Up close, the pyramid was a staggering edifice, enveloping the entire convoy and its escorting tanks and destroids in hard shadow. Vanessa was no stranger to mega-constructs, and the pyramid indicated engineering more on par with the Zentraedi than anything built by pre-First Contact Earth, though it was scaled for typical humans, not giants. Vanessa flipped the toggle for her helmet's tiny lights and ascended the steps, accompanied by Doctor Priest, Ensign Garo with his backpack mounted transceiver, and a heavily armed and armored squad of Marines. It took several minutes to ascend the steps to the first tier, where there was a double-doored entrance nearly big enough to drive a tank through. Inside, she found a great hall with thirty meter ceilings and endless rows of columns disappearing into darkness. The floor was a nearly mirror sheen under the thick coating of dust she and the other members of the landing party were leaving fresh footprints in. Far away in the murky black, the lights of the initial entry team were tiny willow-the-wisps, catching the corners of columns hundreds of meters deeper into the hall.
"Anything from the teams on the level below us, Ensign?" Vanessa asked Garo, who was monitoring several different channels at once.
"Oui, Capitaine. It sounds like empty mecha bays. The entire perimeter of the building on that level consists of concealed launch bay doors. Also some enormous cargo bays, hoppers, storage tanks, and anti-grav lifts for moving thousands of mega-kilos at a time to the levels above us. It goes much deeper. Magnetic resonance scans indicate vast catacombs stretching many square kilometers."
Vanessa meandered deeper into the hall while she listened, noting the ornate fixtures and grand scale of the space, but also the lack of artwork or accommodation for visitors. "What about the level above?"
"More cargo bays and equipment for moving around containers. Those areas are a mess- sounds like the place was looted. There's nothing left but empty pallets, wall fixtures, and containers. There are also offices and servers for data storage, but there's no power to let us recover the data yet. The lift shafts go all the way up through the third tier to that colonnade at the pyramid's apex."
Vanessa nodded absently. A picture was starting to form in her mind, one she didn't like. "I think I took us the wrong direction, Doctor."
"What do you mean, Captain?"
"I assumed a building like this would be a government or cultural center, somewhere we could learn about the people living on this planet, and about the full story of what happened here. But I'm sure now that's not the case. This building is-"
Ensign Garo took hold of her upper arm, and she could feel the tension running from his fingers to her body like an electric current. "Channel seven, priorité! Priorité!"
Cold claws of anxiety sank into Vanessa's chest as she tapped her wrist console.
"-movement! Movement in the sublevel! They're coming off the walls!" There was a strange sound underlying the Marine corporal's transmission, a continuous whirring of metal against metal. Rolling? Vanessa wondered. But she had no time to ask for more details. "CONTACT! HOSTILE CONTACT! THEY'RE-!"
The floor shook underneath their feet as a muffled explosion echoed through the cavernous chamber, releasing dust in a torrent from the ceiling that dampened their lights in an impenetrable gray murk.
Next chapter… contact, thunder, and a world turned upside down…