Darien felt his heart racing as he stared at the massive central screen, its structure alive with displays of alien language and structural depictions of the city. The information changed at wild, irregular intervals, as though the machine was trying to run through some kind of reboot process. Given the thousands of years it had lain dormant, this seemed like a reasonable assumption. At first all he could do was stand there, basking in it, letting a sense of youthful excitement he had not felt for years come surging back to the fore of his mind.

His earpiece buzzed with an incoming message but for a moment he ignored it. He looked around at the other members of Hammerhead Squad, and they were all equally spellbound by the ancient machine's display. Not only that, but on all the satellite stations surround them the consoles had come to life. More and more screens lit up, with alien knowledge gushing out of them at every turn.

It was Amber who broke the silence, grabbing him by the shoulder with a whoop. "We did it! We hit the jackpot: real, working alien technology!"

"It sure is," he answered. His earpiece buzzed again and this time he relented. "This is Hammerhead. Go ahead."

"Darien...Operative, is what we're seeing accurate? Are those consoles operational?"

He fought down a chuckle at Chuchwood's enthusiasm. "Indeed they are professor. Shame you're not down here to see it."

"I'll get my chance," the man replied. "We mustn't waste a second of this valuable time. My team and I have been doing our utmost to catalogue and translate the inscriptions you and the other teams have come across. We may be of some assistance."

"I'll take all the help I can get," Darien agreed. "Where do you suggest we start?"

"We've identified a symbol present on every console and door panel – we believe it is their command for 'start' or 'initialise'; something along those lines. It should be located on the far right of the panel's controls, in the top corner. It is made up of two interlocking squares underlined three times."

He glanced at the specified place and sure enough a fat rectangular button was inscribed with the symbol Churchwood described. He pressed it and a dim clunk. For a moment it seemed like nothing had happened, but then the whirling chaotic garbles of data churning on the central screen seemed to solidify into a single, pulsating image. Darien squinted at it, cocking his head to one side.

"Okay..." he murmured. "What are we looking at?"

"This may require some...trial and error," Churchwood admitted apologetically. "We're still building a database of unique symbols to run through our own translation software. Just bear with me."

Darien gave a wry smile. "I've got nowhere to be."

Slowly but surely, with Churchwood guiding him through the earpiece, Darien worked through a series of basic commands on the main console while the others watched. He managed to access some kind of data base, with rows of entries written in the alien language. While he couldn't read them, they'd worked out enough to scroll through and access the individual entries. Some of them were simply filled with more text that he couldn't read, but he accessed them anyway and let the symbols feed through the mono-rig.

The others spread themselves out around the satellite stations and began initialising the other consoles. With all the visual data being relayed back through to the Manitta-Vanna, Churchwood and his compatriots on the sub tried their best to direct the efforts of the operatives. It was slow work, but they identified a handful of other symbols and their respective functions, speeding up the process of digging through the archives. Darien also noted on the physical structure of the console, what looked like external ports, presumably where remote units could be plugged in.

Accessing another menu, he discovered a series of what looked like structural schematics and instantly his interest was piqued. While he couldn't understand the labelling around the images, he could digest the visual information easily enough as the cross-shaped screen created three dimensional models of rooms in front of him. He recognised the architecture, and even some areas that the squad had made their way through during their exploration of the city.

Then he stumbled over one file that turned out to be the mother-load.

Filling the entirety of the enormous central console, a three dimensional depiction of the city burst into life so suddenly that he actually stepped back in surprise. His eyes widened as he took in the emerald-etched model, currently zoomed out far enough to encompass the whole structure. He recognised the outer architecture from their pass-by on the submarine. Peering close, he could see that even at this level of magnification the imaged was immensely detailed, showing every window and turret; every crack and crevice. What's more, it seemed to be real time. There were areas marked in blue that corresponded to the flooded sections his team had traversed not long ago.

"Now we're getting somewhere," he said. But his elation was short-lived.

"Eh...Darien," Amber called from across the room. "You might want to take a look at this."

The uncharacteristic waver in her voice immediately drew his attention. He pulled his gaze away from the image and looked over to find her and Brannigan standing opposite what appeared to be some kind of hologram. The image towered over the young operatives, standing at least eight feet in height, staring over their heads at the normal height of its species.

And it was speaking.

Even from the distance between them he could hear the strange, guttural, sharply accented language grinding its way out of the hologram's visage. He jogged down the ramp leading to the other platform and came to a halt alongside Amber, looking back at the thing.

It was vaguely humanoid in shape, but oversized and out of proportion in a way that made him feel instantly uneasy just from looking at it. The head took on a roughly triangular shape, with two pairs of eyes arranged symmetrically on either side of the point that appeared to mark the front of its face. He noted the three fingered hands hanging by its sides, confirming their guess about the city's operating systems, and it had similarly shaped feet, with long toes encased in some kind of plating. A vertical slit of a mouth opened and closed in conjunction with the baroque sounds that echoed through the room. All in all, it looked very alien.

"Churchwood," he said quietly into the radio. "Are you seeing this?"

"Remarkable," the scientist breathed. "Truly...remarkable."

Darien found he had to agree. After all the thousands of years that the city had lain undisturbed beneath the waves, this message had survived. His eyes narrowed as he studied the speaker.

While he couldn't understand any of the words, he thought he could recognise the inflections in tone it used, crescendoing and diminishing in peaks and troughs of anxiety and calm. Whatever the message was supposed to convey, it didn't sound good. The clunky, jagged syllables rang out with an urgency, like some kind of frantic warning. Every now and again the figure would gesticulate wildly at a particularly loud point in its speech.

Beside him Amber squinted at the creature and he could see the unease on her face as she listened, trying to make some sense of the alien language. Darien knew over a dozen dialects from across the colonial spectrum, but none of them even approached this one in structure or sound. In amongst the sharp accents there were clicks and hisses woven into each phrase. But as alien as it was, he couldn't shake off the sensation of horror that seemed to emanate from the recording. A rumbling sound cut the figure off for a moment, then it said a phrase.

"Le va toc, naga! LE VA TOC NAGA!"

Then the figure disappeared, leaving a shimmering green pyre where it had been standing. Darien took a cautious step forward, looking to the console behind the image. It was still humming with power, still projecting.

Niamh let out a nervous laugh. "Well that didn't sound good."

He was about to agree when the machine projecting the image suddenly unleashed a blinding sphere of emerald light that illuminated the whole room. Darien raised his carbine reflexively as the light washed over him, but as it did, the source seemed to register his presence. A direct shaft of green glare zeroed in on him. He glanced around and saw that five more beams were shining over the other operatives too. It didn't feel like the ray was doing him any harm, and after a moment he let the barrel of his carbine drop.

"What's happening?" Brannigan whispered.

"I think we're being scanned," Amber offered. "It's like the console is examining us."

Darien didn't answer. Whatever the machine was doing, it seemed best to just wait and let it do it. A full minute ticked by before the green beams finally vanished. Then the alien figure reappeared with the suddenness of a popping balloon. Then it started to speak again.

"This is Pelorat Dultengar Anovorra, Acting Protector of Populace Three," the guttural voice boomed and Darien almost reeled back when he realised he could understand the words.

"Hey..." Amber murmured. "Can you-?"

"The scan," he said, pre-empting her question. "It must have been some kind of translation program, examining us and filtering it through the recording." Any further musings were driven from his mind as the alien continued talking, and he listened with a growing sense of dread about what it might reveal. The voice was hard to place – he considered it to be male simply because of its impossible depth, but he knew nothing about the alien species. For all he knew they didn't even have genders.

"I do not have long," it continued, "The fools on the Triumvirate have doomed us all. They have delved too deeply into the heart of the planet and awoken...things. We have lost contact with Populaces One, Four and Seven in the last week. Our death is marching upon us.

This will be my last act as Protector – I pray to the Waves that it will be enough to save the people entombed here. If it is not, then I pray damnation visits the Triumvirate before our time is done. We will flee through the Coring Well. Already I have ordered the mass-haulers to transfer our remaining vessels to the Well in preparation for the evacuation. Waves console those that we leave behind.

Should this recording survive, I leave this warning to any who may come after us. You must leave. This planet no longer tolerates our presence; it will not tolerate yours. Leave now, while you are able. If you have come this far there is still a chance for you to escape the catastrophe we have suffered. If you ignore these words, then the planet will decide your fate."

The alien broke off for a moment as the same rumble sounded on the recording. Then it uttered its final phrase again and Darien could almost feel the room get colder:

"The Leviathan comes! THE LEVIATHAN COMES!"