Nate awoke in a warm, damp metal chamber. He was lying on his back staring up into the sickly green glow of a chemical light stick taped to the ceiling. He coughed, sending waves of pain rolling across his ribs. His helmet was filled with a string of softly pulsing red damage icons. He looked at the top icon and blinked, struggling to focus on the blurry red shape. Eventually the shape resolved into a broken line, a suit breach, under that was a hollow lightning bolt, the suit’s barriers were depleted. Next was a shield with a jagged line running through it, the ceramic armour plates were broken and finally a hollow square with a solid circle in the center, damage all across the reinforced fiber layers.

A huge figure knelt down next to him. “Nathan,” said Onyx. “Are you conscious?”

Nate nodded. “What happened?” he asked, his voice coming out in a dry croak.

“The entrance contained an anti-personnel mine. I have cleared further traps, moved you and Damon into this chamber and sealed the door behind us, we are safe for now. I have done what I can to treat any injuries I can see. Do you have any further wounds?”

“I don’t know. My rig is pretty well destroyed and my ribs hurt. But I think I might be okay.” Onyx helped Nate up off the floor. He wavered for a moment, but remained on his feet. “How’s Damon?”

Onyx chuckled. “His hardware is mildly more robust than yours. Damon was forced to discard most of his exo-suit but he is relatively unharmed and scouting the next tunnel.”

Nate looked over at the other end of the room where a pile of charred parts sat in a smoking heap topped with a cracked and blackened helmet. Onyx handed Nate the laser repeater and the two of them headed off down the tunnel, following a trail of green chemlights dropped in intervals on the tunnel floor. The tunnel eventually opened up into a high ceilinged room filled with row upon row of glass fronted cylinders. A swarm of thick cables ran across the floor, connecting each cylinder to a panel on the far wall. Damon stood next to the nearest cylinder, shining a small light through the glass front. Nate walked up next to him. The inside of the cylinder was cushioned along the back with several needles, tubes and cables poking out from the sides.

“Wow,” said Nate. “What do you think they’re for?”

Damon shook his head. “Hard to say. They look almost like suspended animation pods. You ever read about that? Way back in the early days of exploration research?”

Nate nodded. “Yeah, it never fucking worked though. Just made a lot of flash frozen corpses.”

Damon shrugged. “Never worked for us. Maybe it did for them.”

Nate walked up to the panel on the back wall. Dozens of cables were slotted into the wall each with a small dusty label next to them. In the corner was a panel full of switches and one large lever. Nate gripped the lever, someone shouted at him, he flipped the lever anyway. Everyone froze. A low hum came from somewhere behind the wall and a row of bright lights snapped on the ceiling. A soft voice spoke a string of hissing words full of long ess sounds and guttural vowels. The voice paused and repeated itself, it was clearly some kind of pre-recorded message.

A panel in the floor popped up and slid forward, revealing a dust covered metal staircase. Onyx rushed to the stairs drawing a laser pistol out of a compartment built into his thigh. Onyx's antennae perked up and he swept his head back and forth slowly. He motioned the others forward and stepped cautiously onto the stairs. The ancient staircase creaked under the war machine’s weight as they descended deeper into the compound. At the end of the stairs they emerged into a spacious room with several strips of bright white lights and four rows of tables. The tables were piled high with beakers, chemicals and a strange array of lenses that could be a form of microscope. A single computer struggled to life in the corner, fans cycling years of dust out of its case. Nate wandered slowly over to the computer system, there was a keyboard but no monitor. He brushed some of the dust off the top of the case and a light fixture above the computer jumped to life, projecting a fuzzy blue humanoid hologram into the space in front of the computer.

“Hey Onyx?” said Nate. “Can you reach up and wipe the dust off this projector?”

Onyx gently brushed off the lenses and a hologram snapped into focus revealing a translucent blue alien ghost. The ghost was tall and slender, with broad flat features. It had two small slits in the center of its face in place of a nose and two pairs of eyes, one large set in line with the nostrils and one smaller set up where human eyes should be.. As Nate took in the strange being it extended a long three fingered hand towards him. It looked like it was waiting for a handshake. Frowning, he slowly reached out and shook the holograms hand. As he made contact the hologram tightened its grip and peeled its thin lips back over a set of small needle teeth in a predatory grin. With its other hand it drew a wicked, serrated, blade from its hip, stepped closer and plunged the blade to the hilt into Nate’s ribs. Had the hologram been solid or real, he would have been dead. He jumped back, away from the violent projection. Damon and Onyx slowly circled around the hologram, eyeing it curiously. The hologram remained fixed on Nate, its empty eyes boring into him.

“You piss in this thing’s cornflakes or something?” asked Damon.

The three men all jumped as the hologram opened its mouth and spoke. “Get out.” it said, words dripping with hate and resentment.

“Jesus!” Nate exclaimed. “How does it know english?”

The hologram pointed its knife towards Nate. “Leave!” it shouted. “No more will you disturb the tomb system.”

Damon frowned. “Tomb System? What the fuck does that mean?”

“Perhaps it is a translation error?” ventured Onyx. “An idiom in the local language that does not relate properly? In any case, we cannot comply with its wishes. The entrance is sealed behind us, we can only press forward.”

“Then let’s do that,” said Nate. “This thing is creeping me out.”

They found a doorway at the end of the room that led into another tunnel. The tunnel came to a four way intersection and the trio pressed on forward, eventually coming to a long storage room filled with sealed containers. Curious, Nate opened the one nearest to him and found a set of clothes stored inside. The clothing was thick and made from warm looking material, it was all drab, plain colours and made too long and skinny for most humans to wear. Nate waved Damon over and passed him a knitted cap.

“It’s going to be cold when we get outside, you’ll be freezing without your exo-suit,” said Nate. Damon reluctantly pulled on the hat and moved to the next container, opening it carefully, inside were more clothes. He found a coat that fit well enough and pulled it on.

“Looks like they were packing up for a trip or an evacuation maybe?” said Damon.

“Or they could have been storing supplies for the occupants of the suspended animation pods above us,” said Onyx. As he finished speaking a wave of nausea rolled over Nate and he fell to one knee. Another vision suddenly filled his mind. He was being sealed into one of the suspension pods. The door hissed shut with an air of finality and he set his jaw in grim determination, the supplies had been prepared, the math checked had been checked and rechecked, but sitting in the pod still felt like being sealed into your own coffin. As his eyes drifted shut, he knew he would never wake, this facility would be his grave.

He awoke to see Damon standing over him, shaking him gently and repeating his name over and over. Nate frowned, fighting to remember where he was and what he had been doing. He struggled up into a sitting position and told Damon everything he had seen. Nate rose to his feet and wavered for a moment, until everything snapped back into focus and he reached out and placed an arm on the wall to steady himself.

“Nathan,” said Onyx. “Your exo-suit reported you deceased again. How do you feel?”

“I think I’m okay,” said Nate. “I saw another memory I guess, from the past, I was being loaded into one of those suspension tubes. I died.”

Onyx flattened his antennae slightly in what Nate had come to recognize as a frown. “That does not sound okay. You are certain you feel fine?”

Nate nodded, he felt rested, alert. “I feel great actually,” he said. “But I don’t think things worked out for the aliens here. I think their cryogenics failed. I think they died.”

The team left the storage room and backtracked in silence. Nate led the way but he could feel the others watching him intently, probably expecting him to go berserk or drop dead at any minute. He led them back into the intersection and turned right. This tunnel opened into a massive, empty chamber with high vaulted ceiling and red runes slithering in wavy lines on the floor. At the end of the runes sat a pillar of chrome with a jagged top, surrounded by scaffolding. Nate breathed a heavy sigh as he gazed at the unfinished pillar. A wave of serenity washed over him and he began to walk forward slowly, following the gentle waving line of runes. Someone called out to him but he could not make out what they were saying, the voice was muffled, like he was underwater. He inched forward slowly, moving stiffly on legs that didn’t feel like his own. A crimson specter materialized in front of him, firing a heavy rifle. Nate wanted to stop, to leap out of the way, but he couldn’t. Some other force was in control. Panicking, he tried desperately to move his legs, to change directions but he could not. The force controlling his body steered him to the end of the runes and made him kneel. Looking up at the chrome pillar, Nate was overwhelmed by a deep cold ache coming from all his joints at once. Through the pain a static filled image overlaid itself on top of the real world. Through the static he could see himself leading a congregation of worshipers. They were gathered in a long metal hall with pews riveted to the floor. Behind him stood a high definition screen pretending to be a window. It was showing a single orange star orbited by four planets.

Nate was suddenly yanked backwards roughly. Something was pulling him out of the room. They stopped and Nate laid on the cold steel floor of the tunnel feeling oddly relaxed. Gingerly he pulled himself to his feet and stumbled down the only tunnel they hadn’t explored yet. He felt odd, his body felt fine but his brain was struggling to keep up, like he had been awake for too long and his sleep deprived body was running on muscle memory. The last tunnel sloped upwards gently and opened into a small room full of long narrow cots, shelves of trinkets and decorations and a long low shelf in an alcove on the right hand wall. The shelf was topped with several small statues that looked like miniature versions of the monoliths they had seen. There was a glossy black rectangle, a hand hammered silver pillar, a twisting statue that ended in two pointed tips, and one pyramid carved from rough dark stone. Nate stumbled over to the alcove, brushing the dust off the statues.

“Hey, Nate,” said Damon. “You’re not looking your best. There’s little beds here, why don’t we lay down for a while?” Nate nodded absently, waddled over to one of the cots and flopped down on his back.