Page 45 of I Married A Syllen

“You got it,” Maeve replied with a wink before marching towards the hidden door.

She placed a small box with illuminated symbols on its face then tapped multiple times on it. The bigger device Mirella had called a biometric lock beeped, and the red lights on it turned to green. Moments later, the heavy metal door blocking the entrance opened with a soft hissing sound.

A mix of triumph, worry, and anger swelled within me when we peered inside a properly engineered room complete with metal plated walls and flooring. A couple of machines sat atop a long table against the side wall. The front half of the table was inclined almost like an architect’s table. A chair with wheels indicated someone frequently worked there. Above the machines multiple dark, rectangular glasses hung on the wall. I recognize them as the screens the Settlers used to communicate, display moving images, or even talk with people remotely.

On the left corner, next to the gaping hallway, they had left a couple large floating platforms like the one used by the human in the garden to bring us the water buckets. Except these carried huge crates.

To my surprise, both Maeve and Mirella cursed as they took in our surroundings.

“What is it?” I asked.

“These are heavy duty hover carts used to carry these crates to a ship,” Mirella said angrily. “They were definitely strip-mining to export the goods off-world.”

“So you guessed correctly,” I said to Mirella, my anger rearing its head again.

“Unfortunately, yes,” she replied dejectedly.

Maeve approached the table. To my shock, as soon as she touched it, the entire table lit up with all kinds of luminous squares and texts. She placed a small object in a location that seemed carefully chosen instead of random. Her fingers moved at dizzying speed on the illuminated panel. Then she paused to look at me over her shoulder.

“Would it be okay for me to send a few snitches inside the tunnel?” Maeve asked. “They are small mechanical eyes that will allow us to quickly explore the inside. Otherwise, it will take hours if not days to cover such an extensive network.”

Despite my instinctive reluctance every time they mentioned the use of technology, time was of the essence. And in this case, the fact that she was mated to one of our off-world brothers and that she had clearly been welcomed by the land of her own world made me more confident that she wouldn’t do anything that might be harmful to Mazeria.

“Go ahead,” I said.

She gave me a grateful smile laced with empathy that indicated she understood my discomfort. That mollified me further.

Maeve opened the pouch hanging on her hip and retrieved a handful of small spheres. After placing them on the flat section of the table, she held her bracer in front of them and tapped on its glass. Seconds later, the screens on the walls came to life, and multiple images that I couldn’t make out appeared on them. Only once the spheres started hovering did I realize the images on the screen were the reflection of what those mechanical eyes were seeing. Previously, they had been too close to the table.

The ten ‘eyes’ flew into the tunnel. I felt faint as I watched on the screens the completely gutted underground of the valley. This had indeed been performed deliberately by an advanced species. They had evenly positioned sturdy metal pillars throughout the space. On top of them, large metal plates supported the ceiling to prevent it from collapsing.

It wasn’t fancy work. Clearly, no one intended to build housing here or other work facilities. The ground and side walls were still made of dirt and rocks. The snitches flew for what felt like an eternity. As they had split to cover a larger surface, my eyes flicked from one screen to another to see the different sections being explored. Each screen had been divided into four to show the display from as many snitches.

“I’m so very sorry,” Maeve said. “Whoever did this was methodical. This has been going on for a very long time. But I can promise you that we will find who did it, and they will answer for it.”

“Thank you,” I said, the sincerity of her tone appeasing part of the sense of helplessness I felt.

“Wait!” she suddenly said, tapping again on her bracer.

The images on the left screen refocused on the bottom left of the four quadrants. It blew up, filling the entire screen, hiding what the other three snitches were seeing.

“What is it?” Mirella asked.

“The dig isn’t as clean as the previous areas,” I said pensively.

“Correct,” Maeve said approvingly. “This last part was a rushed job. I suspect it was done very recently. Maybe they found out your people were about to awaken, and they raced to grab everything they could before your return.”

“That would make sense,” I replied. “The land would eventually have warned us of their presence if they pursued their activities.”

“What’s that?” Cedros asked, pointing at a barely visible green glow.

“It’s melia stones… or at least some residual fragments. It’s what allows the land to thrive. But they’ve taken everything,” I said angrily. “No wonder the land is dying. It will take decades to rebuild the reserves. The Goddess only knows how badly it will harm our flora and fauna until then.”

“What if we manage to track down the stolen melia and bring it back?” Mirella asked. “If we return everything, or at least a good portion of it, would it fix it?”

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “From what I can see, they took the two bottom layers, which are the melia stones, and the melia sap. The stones take the longest to create as the trees push the melia nuts further into the soil. As they absorb the iron, they turn into stones, while expelling the sap. It forms a thick, nutrient rich layer between the stones and the soil. You cannot just inject the sap back.”

“I see,” Mirella said with a frown.