Corporal Hawthorne watched the small structure that threatened the jungle around it with civilization. He saw some green lizardkeets flapping around in the trees but nothing else moved around it. Hawthorne had been watching it for the last three hours and there had been no movement from the closed armored door. His passive scanners didn’t show anything, which didn’t mean a thing. If the Etran had left a warbot to guard this entrance to the ruined city chances were it was powered down in passive mode. The door was intact and Hawthrne wagered the bot was probably right inside the door ready to kill the first person that opened it.

Swearing at the Eltran Corporal Hawthorne scooted back into the jungle. There were no tracks around it. Either the Eltran didn’t know about it, which Hawthorne didn’t believe for a second, or they were guarding it another way.

His grav sensor started beeping and Hawthorne slipped underneath a fallen tree and watched the Eltran Hunter glide by overhead. When it was gone Hawthorne slipped out from under the tree and continued his one man patrol. He could hear a Kanosaur crashing through the underbrush not far away snarling viciously.

An hour later Corporal Hawthorne approached the shattered dome. His rad sensor indicated normal radiation levels so he figured they must have hit the city with a mindblazer followed by biological agents, the bastards. Rayerville had been one of the first colonies over five hundred years ago, last month it had sheltered over two hundred thousand civilians. Now it was probably crawling with Eltran warbots left behind to eradicate any survivors.

When he came in site of the dome he didn’t recognize it. The edges, like broken teeth speared the sky where they hadn’t collapesed into the city below which was mostly underground. One side of the dome had collapsed completely creating a slope down into the city where any number of dangerous, wild animals could enter the city and feed on the bodies that littered the dark, sunless chambers.