Page 21 of Alien Guardian's Vow

I followed, keeping a careful distance between us. The bond hummed with proximity, steadier now that we were together again. I pointed to prominent glyphs etched above the main console.

"These are warning symbols. Different from those at the entrance. More severe."

Rivera barely glanced at them. "We need information more than we need warnings right now."

"The warnings exist for a reason."

"So does the instability threatening to collapse this entire system." She ran her fingers along the console edge, searching for an access point. "Can you read any of these?"

I reluctantly approached, studying the ancient script. One symbol caught my attention - a curved line intersecting with three vertical bars, enclosed within a circle.

"This symbol means..." I hesitated, searching for the right translation. "Planetary Balance. Or Environmental Regulation. The translation is archaic."

"Environmental regulation?" Rivera's hands stilled on the console. "That would explain the energy signatures, the facility layout." She looked up at me, excitement breaking through her professional demeanor. "This isn't just some random ruin. It's a control center."

I stepped back, taking up a guard position near the entrance. The chamber felt wrong - too intact, too powerful after so many centuries. My people had learned painful lessons about meddling with the ancients' technology. The Great Division had nearly destroyed us. Yet here I stood, watching a human commune with the very machines that had broken our world.

Her resilience was... notable. Despite the dangers, despite her fear which I could sense faintly through the bond, she pushed forward, driven by her need to understand, to solve. A warrior's focus in an engineer's mind.

The bond between us thrummed steadily, stronger here among the active systems. I turned away, scanning for physical threats, but my attention kept returning to the human engineer and the glowing console beneath her hands.

Hours passed. I patrolled the perimeter of the chamber, examining wall inscriptions, deciphering fragments while Rivera worked. The hum in the chamber had grown stronger, vibrating through my boots. The air temperature fluctuated subtly, another sign of failing regulation systems.

"Got it," Rivera called, her voice hoarse from dust and lack of water.

I approached the console where she hunched, exhaustion evident in the slope of her shoulders. The display before her glowed steadily now, forming coherent if fragmented patterns of light and data.

"What have you found?" I kept my distance from the console itself, unwilling to trigger any further reactions from the ancient technology.

"This facility..." Rivera pushed back from the console, rubbing her eyes. "It's not just some random ruin. It's a key node in a regional environmental regulation system."

"Explain."

She gestured to the display. "It controls atmospheric composition, seismic activity, even weather patterns for this entire region. Or it did, before it started failing."

The implications hit me like a physical blow. "The tremors at the settlement."

"Just the beginning." Rivera pulled up another display - a chart showing a steadily declining curve that suddenly plunged downward. "Look at this decay curve. It went exponential three months ago."

Cold dread pooled in my stomach. "The Elders sensed something was wrong, but this..."

"It gets worse." Her fingers danced across the controls, bringing up a map of the region. A pulsing red zone spread outward from our location, encompassing both the Nyxari settlement and the human encampment. "If this goes, it takes everything with it. Both settlements."

I stared at the projection, horror growing with each moment. The facility regulated the planet itself? And it was failing at an accelerating rate?

"How long?" I asked, voice low.

"At current decay rates? Weeks, maybe days before catastrophic failure."

The weight of responsibility pressed down on me like a physical force. The Elders had sent me to monitor, to prevent human interference. Instead, I'd found myself facing a threat that could destroy everything my people had built since the Great Division.

Through our unwanted bond, I felt Rivera's urgency, her fear mirroring my own growing dread. For the first time since meeting the human engineer, I sensed complete alignment in our purpose.

"We need to understand the cause," I said, moving closer to the console. "What triggered the acceleration?"

Rivera nodded, already turning back to the display. "I'm on it."

She worked frantically, cross-referencing data streams, searching for patterns in the chaos of information. I helped interpret the glyphs she couldn't read, translating ancient Nyxari script into concepts she could understand.

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