Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 33/?] (Patreon)

The size and scale of the caves soon became a subject of much internalized debate. Something of this scale clearly wasn’t the work of the local civilization, that much was obvious given the evidence of their capabilities we’d seen thus far. That left two other options on the table that were plausible, but were in equal measures pure speculation and abject fantasies at this point.

The first possibility was that this was merely a natural structure, a cave system formed either by the moon’s former past as a tectonically active body, or perhaps the result of some acute geological anomaly somewhere deep within the astronomical records. Though geology wasn’t my field of expertise, the explanation shouldn’t be left off the table. The only glaring flaw in this argument, however, was just how consistent the cavern’s dimensions actually were. Despite the outwardly unpolished and unrefined surfaces, the inherent consistency in the 100 by 100 foot dimensions were a glaring flaw in what I was quickly dubbing the geological anomaly hypothesis.

The second possibility, and one that certainly took a dive towards the realm of further speculation jumping off from the anomalous nature of the inherent consistency in the cavern’s dimensions, was that the structure was entirely artificial. When considering what we knew with what we could observe from the local civilization’s capabilities, we could ascertain that this entire structure was more than likely an artificial construct belonging to some other advanced civilization not native to this system, or perhaps… a prior civilization native to the system that had simply vanished from the archeological and geological topsoil. The latter two terms being something of a common phrase thrown around the Vanaran xenoarcheological community given the timescales we generally worked with; the terms essentially referring to the small window of opportunity that exists between the fall of a civilization and its eventual erasure from the fabric of reality.

It was with this in mind that I had the rest of the drones redirected to this one cavern, with the rest of the teams converging on this one space, each taking samples, scanning every square inch of the room, and combing every possible space in an attempt to determine what it was we were looking at.

I turned to Vir, as I laid out my hypotheses. “So-”

“Either a strangely consistent natural geological formation, or the remnants of a civilization before the one the signal belongs to right?” Vir blurted out in an excitable, albeit tempered manner.

“Yes. My thoughts exactly, Vir.” I returned with a small nod. It shouldn’t have surprised me that the AI had more or less come to the same conclusions.

“Right, the data’s coming in now on the composition of the cavern, take a look, is this anything you might be familiar with?” The AI asked, pointing to a near perfect replica of the cavern currently being superimposed onto a 3D grid pattern on the holotable in front of us.

I knew I didn’t have to, but I took several long walks around the table in an attempt to look at the structure from every possible angle.

“You know you can just manipulate the image using your hands right?” Vir offered.

“It’s part of my whole process, don’t worry, I need to keep moving, it helps me think.” I responded with a tired smile as I attempted to draw parallels to the first possibility, as unlikely as it was.

The fact that it might have been a leftover of some Vanaran observation post or military base.

As the Earth observatory had shown us, there was no shortage of Vanaran facilities that had been lost to the ravages of time as a result of the inconsistencies of each hibernative episode. Earth’s first ecological collapse, after all, occurred as a result of an executive decision to perform the unthinkable: ecological desaturation, in an attempt to stave of ecological malignancy. Yet this knowledge was completely lost to time, with all traces of the facility in orbit having likewise been completely erased prior to my arrival above Earth.

The fact of the matter was, there was a distinct possibility this could have been a very old, very unusual Vanaran design. It certainly didn't look like it given its sheer scale, but that could’ve mean that the facility was built to house something else for some military application for some long forgotten war in some far off conflict completely lost to time.

“What are you thinking?” Vir asked, noticing how I’d gone silent for the past few minutes.

“Just doing what we always tend to do with these sorts of things. Consider if we had anything to do with it.” I responded succinctly.

“Well, does it match anything you’re familiar with?”

“Not particularly.” I sighed out. “But we can’t completely dismiss that possibility. There is a very real potential for the sheer timescales we’re working with to have completely removed any discernible markings of what this place was. However, just from the current scans alone, I highly doubt it. The scale and the location just doesn’t match up. Though, again, I don’t dismiss that it’s a possibility.” I explained, before shifting my attention to the litany of data currently being transmitted by the rest of the drones.

“Well judging from the readings I’m currently being fed, and just basing this off of some reference material here on astrogeology, it looks to me like the composition of these rocks don’t correspond with what you’d expect from the cooldown of magma to solid rock. In fact, nothing in here indicates that there’s even any hint of tectonic activity, at least nothing that would have resulted in a cavern of this scale and likeness. The rest of the teams are still going down the cavern, but it seems like what we’re facing with here is just a straight line 2 kilometers in either direction, with a precise 45 degree incline consistent throughout, and with little in the way of any deviation that can’t be attributed to just wear and tear. All in all, I really don’t see how this entire space can be naturally-forming.” The AI explained, filling in the gaps in my expertise as I nodded along, before he quickly added. “But then again, I am working off of the reference material left to me on the ship’s databases. So who knows, maybe in the time between the ship’s era and now, there might have been some breakthroughs in the field that could explain all of this away as a rare natural phenomenon!” The latter was clearly meant as a tongue in cheek jest as to the know-it-all, repository-of-information role Vir had clearly found himself in as he attempted to backtrack any expectations on his perceived universal expertise.

“Well, expert or not, that reference material is our best bet at determining what it is that’s going on underneath this moon. Besides, what constitutes an expert but a capable mind with the knowledge of reference material on hand?” I attempted to match the AI’s humor, though with questionable degrees of success as the AI regarded me with a smile that I could tell was forced even as it took the form of a scant few pixels across a digitized faceplate.

We spent the next hour pouring over the data, as kilometer after kilometer went by, as we went deeper and deeper still into this mass of white rock. Eventually, we were met with something completely unexpected, as about a few kilometers ahead of us were the first signs of anything even remotely present in this tunnel system so far.

Teams one and two, having gone ahead, had discovered stacks upon stacks of the same supply boxes we’d seen scattered across the facility. What’s more, these crates weren’t empty, but were still relatively stocked with the weapons missing from the armory we’d encountered earlier. Kinetic weapons and some primitive energy weapons were piled up here, though in relative disarray.

Moving forward still, rows upon rows of ammo crates were strewn about, with some of them even knocked over, as if being placed there in a rush.

The next half a kilometer were small arms and ammunition scattered about, before we finally discovered something entirely missing from the facility until now.

Immediately in front of us, was a scene frozen in time. A massacre by any other name that had been preserved save for the organic material that had decayed due to the passage of time. Skeletal remains in armored spacesuits remained fallen where they’d once stood, weapons clenched tight in their hands, primitive comms held close to their mouthpieces, and gaping wounds clumsily held shut by emergency field patches that now barely clung on to the suits they were supposed to seal up.

Every square foot of the space was a final monument to an unknown battle that no longer held any meaning. Whatever creed, whatever cause, whatever scuffle no matter how grand or petty it was, was now lost to history.

It was clear they fought for something.

The fact that there were two, very distinct groups of bodies made it clear as day that there was a skirmish between two parties.

The first party had clearly come in from the facility above, though they were armored and equipped in a manner that clearly wasn’t meant for battle. Their space suits were unarmored, their air regulators were out in the open in front of their chestplate, indicating that these suits were meant for a non-combat role, perhaps engineering or something that didn’t involve frontline service. Indeed, it was clear that the scattered and barely organized weapons caches we’d passed were more than likely raided or perhaps even brought here by this group, or perhaps I was starting to look at it with an inherent narrative in mind.

The second party however, comprised a group that were clearly meant for combat. All of their suits were armored, their air regulators weren’t exposed and wiry hoses, but were instead fitted within armored subsections of the suit. Indeed, even the weapons they were outfitted with were different, though it was clear that they were paradoxically less well armed than the first party. Many of them had sidearms, and only a few were equipped with assault type weapons.

Indeed it was clear the second group wasn’t expecting the arrival of the first, as they were practically huddled up against a sealed door, held shut by hermetically sealed clamps, seared closed by plasma torches, and reinforced by metals of every imaginable variety.

Some still even had what was more than likely the very plasma torches that had been used to seal up the doors, still clenched in their hands.

It was clear there was some sort of greater narrative we were just starting to gain a glimpse of here.

The first group clearly attempted to seal something away, and more than likely sealed the rest of the facility’s inhabitants in the process as well.

The fact that both groups in total only accounted for fifty aliens in total just didn’t correspond with what we’d already discovered within the facility. The number of sleeping quarters, administrative areas, and most tellingly, the massive armory, clearly hinted at a facility that was meant to be staffed by at the very least thousands more personnel.

Whilst it was possible that much of the facility was evacuated or simply had not been present on the moon itself, that didn’t explain why the entire armory was missing, and why it was that there were a litany of scattered small arms present within the entrance to the facility.

Indeed, while it would be foolhardy for me to construct a narrative out of nothing, it was clear to me that all the signs lead to the same, troubling, gut wrenching conclusion.

It was only logical to assume that the rest of the aliens were behind that door.

A door that only led to more questions than answers given how it was being hastily sealed off before this skirmish broke out.

The aliens had clearly meant for that door to remain closed, and yet, it was only through that door that we would get the answers we were looking for.

The question was.

Did we want to find out for ourselves?