Chapter 83: The Grave of Dreams II

  Marcus watched as Hammond and Carlos retrieved a stack of mechanical objects from one of the Mules. It took him a second to realizes that it were quad-copter drones. He walked over to them and as he did, one after the other the drones started into the air. “Is this how we are going to scout the ruins?” Marcus asked and Carlos shook his head “They are useful to get a good read on an area but they have limited range and flight time. We just try to see what is what around here and then we will get going.”

  Marcus watched the drones vanish through the various paths and looked around who was controlling them. “They are AI controlled, basic scout tasks of flying drones are actually some of the easiest things for an AI. Well, underground makes it a bit more difficult.” Carlos explained and showed Marcus a large tablet with the camera feeds from all drones. It became clear that all but one path ended very quickly. A few rooms of various sizes, rubble and red dust was all that was in there.

  “Okay everybody. We are moving out.” Grace shouted and everybody went into their position and the raid moved towards the only path that seemed to lead further into the underground structure. They descended several meter over the next ten minutes, and passed through rooms filled with degraded objects. Marcus had seen this before, in the bunker with the nasty centipede. With enough time anything turned into unidentifiable rubbish. Although, compared to the bunker the objects they saw looked a bit more coherent. Maybe the ruins were not as old?

  Eventually they stepped through a collapsed wall into, what looked like a very large room. Their lights could reach the ceiling maybe 50 meter above them but.. “Careful! Here is a deeeeep drop.” Janette shouted and her voice vanished into the darkness. They pointed their lights down and saw nothing. They took out the drones again and started to scout the room but very quickly it became clear it was not so much a room as a large cavern. “I think this might be the interior of a gigantic hollow structure. Maybe a sphere. Look! There are other levels beneath us.” Grace said and pointed at the video feed of one of the drones. “But how bloody large is that thing?” Achara asked and they watched as one drone flew ever further into the darkness.

  After about two kilometers they finally found something. It looked like a massive wall or pillar. “That is not the other side, looks more like the middle?” Grace said and Kou whistled “If that is the middle pillar that holds this whole thing together than it is… let me calculate...fucking huge.” Achara laughed and Kou seemed satisfied with his little joke. Suddenly the feed of the drone vanished and the signal said “lost”. A sound echoed through the darkness and let everybody’s skin crawl. “That sounded like a monster, or several monsters.” Rita said and the ranged class holders readied their weapons. “Maybe we should not hang out too long in the open space.” Marcus pointed out and everybody agreed.

  They moved forward and eventually back into the structure itself. “But for real, if this is some kind of hollow sphere with 2 km radius than we are looking at a surface area of 50 km2. That is enough for a small city. A raid or even ten can barely cover this kind of area. The structure might be something humanity is going to explore for years. A real find.” Kou said while walking next to Marcus and Rita. “If it is a city than it means most of it will be residential area and that means most likely useless for us. We need to find special areas like energy, weapons even food production. Anything that could offer loot or potential technologies.” Rita said and Marcus agreed with her analyses.

  For several hours they slowly moved through rooms and hallways, steadily descending towards the lower levels. It seemed rational that infrastructure like energy generation was at the bottom. They got attacked twice more by small packs of Maken but thanks to Janette they had plenty time to prepare. “Uh, I got a level up!” Candis said with a smile after the last fight. “Congratulations.” Lord Cromwell said but Candis gave him a look and just walked off. “It seems our priestess does not like me very much.” He said and Marcus had to agree. Candis got along with everybody, this was the first time he had seen her being this cold to somebody. He decided to ask her at an opportune moment.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  As Rita had predicted most of the areas they moved through looked like residential. Small housing units of the same design. “I wish we had the time to tear the walls down.” Kou said looking around in one of the dead rooms. “Why is that?” Achara asked. “Because the technology and engineering needed to make something like this, this whole structure, work is insane. You need to manage heat, water, air, waste not to talk about the needs of the inhabitants.” Kou said and Marcus thought the same. Even if they would find not one cool weapon, item or treasure the place itself was invaluable for scientists. “I think I got something.” It came from Hammond over com.

  Everybody quickly gathered around Hammond’s position and the large reinforced gate, he had found. A wide well preserved hallway lead to the massive gate and got everybody’s hopes up. “Looks important. Well fortified.” Grace said and knocked at the metal gate. The well crafted metal surface showed a lot of grooves and scratches as if something or many things had wailed at it for a long time. “No monsters.” Janette said and Marcus walked to the opening mechanism and made some halfhearted attempts to open the door. To his surprise the mechanism turned.

  “It is not locked, and actually I don’t think there is a lock here at all.” Marcus said and after he got the okay from the team leaders slowly pushed the gate open. It moved far easier than he ever had expected and as soon as the first gap appeared a sucking noise made Marcus hesitate. Air was sucked into the room and as he opened the door further he saw the first impressions of the interior. Rows and rows of corpses, mummified remains of people, on the floor and leaned against the walls. His brain needed a second and then he shut the door close as quickly as he could.

  “Marcus?” Rita asked. Marcus shook his head. “This is not a treasure vault or something like that. It is a shelter, full of dead people.” The news caused some excitement but also fallen faces. “Okay, but why did you close the door?” Rita asked again. “Because we need to preserve this as best as we can. I already let air in but the place needs to stay sealed until our scientists can take a look at it.” Marcus explained and several people still did not understand. “There is hardly anything in there for us but for our scientists this is a god send. Actual remains from an intelligent alien race. Maybe even DNA if we get really lucky. I promise you, this find alone will provide a lot of fame.” Marcus said and Rita looked to lord Cromwell who nodded. “Marcus is absolutely correct. We should mark the place and once we are back inform the UN about it. If anything it will be good PR.”

  They left the depressing graveyard behind and slowly continued. “They must have been under attack if they went into the shelters. We might find more of these in this underground city.” Rita said after a while. “Good thinking by the way.” She added and Marcus nodded. “My father is a scientist and I absorbed the thinking since I was a kid.” Marcus said and the woman gave him a look.

  As they moved on Rita fell back until she walked next to Grace. “And? Did I promise too much? He is not what you expect.” Grace said with a smirk under her helmet. “Indeed. But how will he perform if things get tough? When he has to make hard choices.” Rita said and Grace gave her a serious look “Let’s hope you don’t have to find out.”

  They walked for while, as Grace was waiting for Rita to say what was on her mind. “His firepower is insane for a tank.” she finally said. “Fighting him is worse than fighting a Berserker. The Berserker has only one attack that can kill you, every attack Marcus fires off can be lethal if you do not manage it carefully.” Grace said with a smile on her face, fighting Marcus was never dull. Rita inspected Grace’s face under her helmet “You look happy. And even stronger than before.” she said and Grace laughed. “Yeah, turns out being true to yourself has this effect. You should try it too Rita.” The other woman did not say anything to that remark and walked back to her own team.

  Eventually the raid moved out of the structure into the open space once again. It was not by choice but by necessity. The various levels were connected by large elevators but those were beyond broken and often just gaping holes. To move on, they had to go into the open space, that connected various districts and levels with large staircases. The darkness around them was absolute and quickly devoured the light beams from their small hand held torches. Strangely enough, Marcus would have preferred a tight corridor over this endless nothingness. And he was not alone with this feeling, as they moved through broken remnants of a collapsed building, Marcus could see that his allies were tense and their weapons were ready. “FLYERS!” was the only warning they got from Janette, before all hell broke lose.