Reiana woke up in her pod with her feet on the ceiling and her head dangling in the air. She always hated this upside down feeling as it gave her vertigo. It must have flipped upon nding and lodged itself deep underground. She could see part way into an open area, like she’d punched right through the ground into some cave. The ground must have been soft, she thought to herself. She looked at the pod’s statistics and screens to find out what happened, but it was hard to make out with everything so damaged. Seeing the front window cracked, she grew concerned about the atmosphere; at least until she realized she was breathing normally. She was relieved but being upside down was making her uncomfortable, and her various new bruises weren’t helping.
As she shifted around, she could feel her pod shake lightly with her movement and thought to herself that it wouldn’t take much to fall out. She smmed her fists on the side a few times. On the third, the pod slid out of the roof and crashed to the floor below. She hit the door release and stumbled out in a slight daze.
The cave was dark except for the light that the pod was giving off. Rei couldn’t see very far but the walls she could see were some sort of soft, bck sludge-like substance that the floor also seemed to be made of. Not wasting any time, she pried the seat out of her pod to get to her survival gear. She grimaced at some of the choices Captain Williams had made but everything seemed to be intact, including her custom TR-9K Anti-Armour psma rifle. It was technically very illegal but her past history working with the United Space Corps(USC) let her obtain a permit.
Psma weapons were outwed by most “civilised” races because of how extremely dangerous they could be on a starship. Even a low yield shot could melt through all but the toughest armour, and then the ship behind it. Psma was a perpetual self feeding heat that if left unchecked would continue to grow stronger and stronger, eventually colpsing in on itself and tearing a hole in space. The TR-9K got around it by shooting a second round of hyper dense matter behind the psma to cause the two to detonate prematurely causing immense destruction inside the target. It was a thing of beauty and she loved it. She had ten shots, to her chagrin, but that would have to do. Thankfully it was biocoded to her and her sister, not that Zarine wanted anything to do with it.
Her heart fell when she thought of her little sister, they were nearly always together and that girl always seemed to find a way into trouble. Rei took the role of elder sister pretty seriously, usually helping her clean up whatever mess she’d gotten into, or consoling her when things didn’t go as pnned. She loved her so much and even loved the trouble they got in, things were never dull when the two teamed up. “Hold on little sis, I’ll come get you soon,” Rei said into the inky cave, encouraging no one but herself.
She moved onto preparing her travel pack, holstering the small gun included at her hip, while slinging the bigger rifle behind her back, next to the small backpack. Soon though, she heard something approaching in the darkness and looked to see a creature clicking and chittering along as it approached, seemingly oblivious to her presence. It sent shivers down her spine and she quickly checked her scanner before silently moving around another corner just out of sight from her pod. It gave a red hazard symbol indicating high threat level that just read “Rot”. She cursed under her breath. They were creatures that ate metal and reproduced extremely fast. They were universally listed as “destroy on sight” by all the major powers after an incident during a major war, which fortunately led to a ceasefire from all those involved.
The creature itself approached the pod. It was taller than herself, with two sets of long thin legs that ended in powerful cws. Its torso was insectlike and its arms, long and thin but with strong pincers next to dexterous thin digits. Its head was wide and oval with several rows of jagged teeth and a strange liquid drooling out, occasionally making hissing sounds when it dripped onto the pod. Its huge sets of eyes made it look like two giant voids, and atop its head there were two antennae that pointed forward only to immediately go backwards sharply.
A warrior, she thought. To think that her first encounter would be with one of the more deadly variants. The creature inspected the pod briefly before taking a bite out of the frame, its teeth going straight through the reinforced armour. A few moments ter the creature spat out a gross bck substance and reached up to the ceiling, applying it to the hole she had made. She almost gagged but barely held it in, keeping herself quiet. This entire pce was made of regurgitated metal puke. A short while ter it finished its repairs and easily picked up an end of the pod before dragging it off into the darkness.
Rei kept quiet in the darkness for several minutes before allowing herself to exhale and rex. There was no doubt, she had nded in a Rot Hive. Individually, lesser rotlings weren’t much of a threat but a hive like this would have hundreds, maybe thousands if she was unlucky. She had been briefed on them during her time in the USC. They drilled in the need to destroy them at any cost as even a handful could cripple a starship or urban centre in a very short amount of time. Either way, this was way over her head and she needed to escape.
