Junebug waited, she was nervous, you would have to be insane not to be, but she was also a veteran. One of the many things you learned in a career as a professional killer was that you had to transmute your neves into something useful or you would drive yourself crazy. Rather than appearing jumpy, her breathing slowed and her motions became precise, her eyes and expression as cold and colorless as a snake. Looking up she saw Saxon watching her with unusual interest. There was no way for her to read the lizard like aliens expression, they deviated to far from human norms for that, but his long tongue flickered out as though tasting the air and the scales beneath his neck seemed to bulge and redden. 

Another tremor rocked the structure, this one was bad enough that a thin crack appeared in the odd ancient ceramic. The bodies continued to float in status. York was scanning the room with some sort of handheld electronics, a short wand with a spherical attachment. Junebug guessed it was some sort of multispectral scanner that was recording everything that was going on though she couldn’t pretend she really cared. York watched over Neil’s shoulder engrossed in the strange glowing runes that flickered above it, filling the room with an unsteady orange light that reminded Junebug of distant fires.

Taya stood beside Junebug clearly unable to decide what to do and clearly terrified.

“How do you stay so calm,” the girl whispered. Junebug shrugged her shoulders, the armor she was wearing exaggerating the motion.

“Practice,” she replied, sounding nonchalant.

“Had much practice being killed by ancient space gods?” the girl all but chirped. Junebug smiled in spite of herself. Taya was young, but if she could manage to be sarcastic at a time like this, there might be a future for her. Junebug regretted she hadn’t had time to teach the former aristocrat more, but it wasn’t like they had enjoyed a lot of downtime in the past several months.

“I’ve seen alot of different types of death,” she said seriously.

“I can honestly think of worse ways to go than being incinerated when the planet tears itself appart.” There was a sudden sound like a torrent of water breaking a dam and the stream of symbols became a flood, lighting the chamber like noontime in the desert. Neil stared wide and unblinking into the sudden flood of symbols, his hand pulsing with its own inner light.

“What is happening?”