Page 72 of I Married A Syllen

She tapped frantically on her bracer before pointing at the ghostly images still floating in the air.

“You see these things over here,” Maeve said as the images gave us a closer view of a section of the wall near the queens. “These are motion activated explosives. It is a highly intelligent model that very few people can access. It is meant to go off only when a specific type of target comes within range.”

I recoiled with sudden understanding.

“It will go off only once a Syllen approaches?” I asked in a dangerously low voice.

“Until I get my hands on one of them to verify their programming, I cannot swear to it. But I’d be willing to bet just about anything that it is indeed the case,” Maeve said carefully. “If you hadn’t mentioned the smell, I wouldn’t have scanned for camouflaged devices. That’s why Mirella couldn’t pick them up on her bracer. My scanner is more advanced.”

“So those fuckers hid those explosives!” Mirella exclaimed angrily.

“Yes,” Maeve replied with the same angry expression. “And if my suspicions are right, whoever did this knows that only a handful of you have awakened. They’re trying to kill you so that the others will not rise, and the land will die.”

“Who could possibly do this?!” Athusa spat, his face tense with fury.

“Someone who wants your lands and resources,” Mirella said grimly.

“We will find out who the culprit is,” Maeve said forcefully. “This is actually a blessing. I will be able to reverse engineer these explosives to try and pinpoint who’s behind this. And now that I can have direct access to one of the queens, I may be able to find traces of DNA or other useful evidence. Please, give us a few moments to disable the bombs, and then we will help you retrieve the queens.”

Athusa, Orian, and I exchanged a look. It wasn’t truly necessary as we all understood the logic of her words. Still, we couldn’t make a decision of this nature without making sure everyone was aligned. As one, we gave Maeve a stiff nod. The same relief she expressed was on full display on both Mirella’s and Lily’s faces.

Maeve retrieved a different type of device from her bag. It looked like the snitches but with a different design. Once again, she tapped something to program whatever task she wanted it to perform then released it into the cave. She stared at the floating holographic screens while moving her fingers over the glass of her bracer. It took me a moment to realize her fingers were controlling the movement of the device. It approached each of the explosives, hovered for a few seconds over it before moving to the next one. Each time, the red color around the explosive vanished before turning to green.

“There,” Maeve said triumphantly. “They’re all deactivated. But they rushed this job even more than the mining they performed in the Tekere Valley. We have devices that will place the proper support inside the cave to prevent the ground from collapsing further. With your permission—”

“We need to go get the queens,” Orian interrupted sternly.

“And you will,” she replied in a pleading tone. “I promise this is the last request. It will literally only take a couple of minutes to at least stabilize the area over the queens. Then we can start retrieving them while our devices continue to stabilize the rest of the valley that hasn’t collapsed yet.”

“We’ve already allowed this much. Send your wretched devices and let us get our queens,” Athusa snapped.

“Thank you!” Maeve exclaimed.

Both she and Lily ran inside the shuttle, returning seconds later with an endless stream of thick metallic cylinders that rose up to my waist. They were moving on their own, floating above the ground with a soft hum.

We stared with both wonder and unease as they filed inside the cave. On the floating screens, we watched a handful of them take position around the discarded queens, while the rest pursued their journey deeper into the excavated area. The cylinders near the queens dropped to the ground. My jaw dropped when they split vertically in the middle, each side moving a bit farther. In the opening, a series of clawed feet extruded, and sank into the soil, anchoring it.

The now oval cylinder began stretching upward until it reached the ceiling, forming a support pillar. From the same vertical slit, but this time at the top, some kind of metallic pole shot out horizontally towards another of these mechanical pillars. In seconds, they had formed a network. Then a light flashed in the opening between each of the poles, forming a luminous ceiling.

As amazed as I was seeing how their technology was doing in seconds what would have taken us weeks, further unease twisted my innards. The Settlers had possessed deadly technology. Now, I could see how much more advanced off-worlders had become while we slept. One glance at Athusa and Orian confirmed the same somber thought was crossing their minds.

How can we protect our people from this?

Mirella had been right. If the off-worlders had wanted to wipe us out, they could have easily done so while we slept. I had no idea how we could effectively beat back their technology. What did that mean for our future? I didn’t want us to be forced to start developing our own just so that we wouldn’t be helpless should they ever turn on us. But what was the alternative?

Although the land would eventually push any invader away, the Syllen population could be decimated first, not to mention all the damage to the land itself before they gave up. Granted, we had some lethal weapons of our own, but fighting enemies you couldn’t see due to camouflage would be nearly impossible.

“All done,” Maeve said triumphantly. “This light between the poles is an energy field that will prevent the ground from collapsing. It’s safe to go inside.”

We immediately moved towards the entrance, only to have her stop us again. This time, we all bared our teeth at her.

“I just wanted to warn you not to go past the queens,” Maeve said quickly in an apologetic tone. “There’s no ventilation system in the cave. The queens are close enough that the oxygen levels are safe, but I wouldn’t risk going past that.”

“Understood,” Athusa said with irritation before rushing past her inside the cave.

We all but ran to the queens. Anger burned my gut at seeing how they’d just dumped them there. One of the queens was partially crushed under the tree stump as they had placed her face down on the ground.

The light emanating from the energy fields overhead gave us a clearer view of the actual state of the queens. They were dying… Without a living tree, water, and sunlight nurturing them, they were slowly turning into the actual statues off-worlders had believed them to be.