The observatory

Here's a chapter that was missing because of [ǘ̶̼̫̿̀̓̓͘n̷̮͔̞̯̽̈́̓̂̋̔̀̔͝k̵̢͍̺̖͙̳̯͕̥̟̉͐̀̎͌͆͝ṉ̶̻͎̳̼̃̀̅̍̈̊̏õ̷͕̻̗͉̲̥̽w̶͔̮̭͎̯̘͚̜̟̳͂̑͋͛̈́͝n̴̫̐̃] reasons, please forgive me for being an airhead.

They wandered around but most of the artefacts near the entrance had already been found by previous explorers. The further they went, the more lights and holograms were illuminated, a reassuring sight for people that lived their entire life inside a well lit bubble.

Having come across multiple rooms with desks, machines or skeletons, all covered by either stone formations or moss made the couple once again comprehend the age of this place.

Was it a shelter… or just a tomb ?

Both of them halted after they heard a buzzing sound.

Slowly advancing forward they were met with the sight of two scraper machines eating an old printer. They looked just like what they had been taught, a dog-like machine with drills instead of teeth that had a tendency of eating other machine carcasses or relics from the old ones.

Whispering to Astrid, Matt explained his opinion "We could just continue on our way but we will have to pass through here again sooner or later. So let's just get rid of them silently."

Even though she wasn't the best at stealth, unlike her hubby, Astrid knew that there was no reason to refute him and go for a frontal assault.

Quietly and carefully stepping forward, each of them positioned themselves behind a scraper and attacked. The machines noticed the surprise attack too late, their drills had made enough noise for the two humans to ambush them while they were feasting.

Matt's great knowledge of robots and agility gave him the opportunity to easily destroy an essential component hidden under the machine's neck, keeping it mostly undamaged. Astrid however completely destroyed the scraper's head with a powerful downward axe attack.

After salvaging the most valuable materials from both carcasses, both of them continued on their way. Having come across a circular room with multiple monitors, Matt decided to try and get at least one of them working. Tinkering with a server that was standing to the side, Matt was able to get the room working again.

The screens didn't turn on, the center of the room did.

A giant hologram appeared showing a map and information on the place they were in.

"Sector : Observatory… This place is like a maze. What were they thinking while making this ?" Matt said

"I don't know, there are little dots everywhere. Should we press them ?" Astrid said curiously

She waited for him to nod his head before pressing on a dot called 'Security room'. The hologram transformed into a small circular room with two characters looking towards the center.

Astrid was the first to exclaim, "Is that… us ?"

Indeed, the two characters did the same movements at the same time as them. Pressing on an arrow symbol made the hologram change again.

This time they saw a room where they had killed the two scrappers… except they weren't there anymore.

Matt noticed the anomaly but thought that another scrapper must have found the carcasses and scavenged them: They continued looking through the cameras, a corridor, a canteen, another hallway and finally what looked like a large server room, except this one had strange red and black cables covering the walls and hard-drives.

These cables seemed to go somewhere beyond that room and continuing to look through the security system they were able to find multiple rooms in a similar condition all connected to one place.

"Why can't we look at the viewing deck or the other rooms nearby, what is over there?" Astrid asked, not expecting an answer.

"Probably what caused all this, let's go over there and find out." Matt said

They noted down a rough map of the sector and made their way to the central part of this place.

Sadly or luckily for them, they weren't able to hear the rustling noises inside the security room's walls after they closed the doors…

They walked up a few stairs, climbed an empty elevator shaft and almost got crushed by a thick door that suddenly closed when they walked through a hallway.

There were a lot of closed hallways covered in stalactites and stalagmites on the way as well as a few holes in the walls but what felt strange was the lack of any scavenger machines, they heard some noises but didn't particularly want to check what it was.

"This is it. We don't know what to expect so let's advance carefully. Don't disobey if I tell you to do something we don't have time for that. " Matt ordered seriously and Astrid didn't complain, she blushed slightly and nodded.

Opening the door and walking forward a few steps made them see a surreal sight.

A complete but small dome of glass was around them giving them a full view of the surrounding terrain.

Matt and Astrid had never seen what was around their clan, the great dome only had glass at the top to let sunlight in which gave them a sight of the sky and stars but never let them see their "holy land".

The vast mountain chain covered with snow and pine trees, the numerous streams that descended the mountain and froze before they could reach the rivers downstream, the vast expanse of forests, plains and ocean that they could see around them made for a mind-blowing panorama that literal cave people like them had never seen before.

Animals cohabiting with their robotic counterparts, deers, fishes, birds, insects…

Motherf-ing insects…

While the wonderful view did indeed draw their eye, the mass of bowl sized robotic insects crawling around the center of the circular viewing deck made for an even more eye catching nightmare.

A grotesque nest made out of cables fused with scolded metal was standing in the middle of these pests and a big robotic bug was laying on top of it..

It seemed to be some sort of a leader, probably a queen as it was feasting on multiple metallic and organic carcasses and dropping little balls of metal from behind.

One of the things that this queen was eating were parts of a human body with brown skin and black hair that the couple quickly recognised as their friend Nicolas.

Neither Matt nor Astrid moved or shouted, they saw shards of glass next to the nest and looking up they saw a hole in the glass dome. These bugs had managed to break through glass that had survived hundreds of years and kill Nicolas, a good fighter, and considering their number and the fact that there might be more of them, they had to be carefull.

Matt did feel strange however, he didn't feel much for his friend's death, it almost scared him more than the mass of big crawling insects.

He felt completely indifferent as if they weren't from the same species, the same family even though they had grown up together.

And yet somehow his mind disregarded his previous thoughts, like a machine considering them to be useless, Matt was now completely focused on the threat in front of him again.

'Scan'

[Tersmith workers : Small insectoid machines that can build giant nests out of any materials they eat. Keep away from energy sources or they will multiply exponentially. Very weak with bad detection capabilities but possesses a great power in numbers.]

[Tersmith queen : Controls the tersmith workers and creates them through consuming matter. Weak but has decent resistance. Priority threat.]

"Their nest probably goes through the entire sector and connects up here, we must have been lucky to have reached this far without meeting any of them." Matt whispered, "We need to kill the big bug on top, if we manage that the others might die as well."

"Understood." Astrid whispered back coldly

He took out two of his grenades that weren't finished yet and slowly positioned himself in a throwing position, making sure he wouldn't aggro the robotic bugs.

He had to kill them all in one go or they would be swarmed by them.

Astrid understanding his plan got ready to fight any bug that might escape the bombs.

He threw the first bomb but it didn't blow up as intended, instead it released a spray of cold liquid that managed to freeze a few of the Tersmiths before bursting and freezing half of them.

The other half had now noticed the intruders and rushed towards them.

Quickly throwing his last grenade, Matt hoped that this one would work as intended.

It flew in a beautiful arc, straight in the middle of the swarm.

This time the explosion did happen and destroyed all of them with the shockwave alone, surprisingly, the glass dome did not break at all, once again proving how much damage those bugs mandibles could do..

Only a few insects and the queen were now left in the observation platform, a situation that didn't last long as very loud buzzing sounds came from a hole hidden inside the nest and under the large queen.

Astrid didn't wait and dashed towards it, splitting it in half the termites on the way.

The queen seeing the intruder that killed a lot of its brethren rushing towards it tried to flee down the disgusting hole but three of her legs were cut off from Astrid's battle axe who proceeded to lift and swing her blade into the queen's head.

The buzzing sound immediately died down giving the couple a moment of relief. But that's what it was, a moment.

Clinking sounds appeared from the door they entered from and the sounds kept on getting closer.

1600 words