Episode 6: Activation (Notes)
Is it shielded?
(50/50 | 10[d10]) Yes, and...
... and it has automated defenses ...
Who constructed it? Aliens?
(Likely | 10[d10]) Yes, and...
And, it's still active.
There was no whirring sound to give warning in the still vaccuum of space. No faint whisper of ball bearings bespoke death as the long, smooth, deadly-looking device pivoted smoothly out of the closest pillar and pointed at them. Behind the energy dome, there was only a quick flicking motion and then the silvery tube or barrel was staring at them blue light glinting off its surface.
"Get down!" Karissa shouted and slammed into Pvt Dummond, throwing him to the ground as... as...
She looked up when nothing happened. She rolled off of Dummond and rolled over on her stomach remaining prone.
"What was that?" he asked.
"Gun," she frowned. "Alien gun. Anti personnel."
When the humans arrive do the automated defenses go off?
(Likely | 4[d10]) No
Interesting...
It had to be anti personnel turret Krissa rationalized. It was certainly too small to do anything to vehicles or ships if it contained anything comparable to the power level a human gun of the same size could. But who knew what power level it used? She realized she didn't know crap and that it could shoot holes through planets for all she knew.
"Why ain't it shootin'?" Pvt Dummond asked.
"Dunno, but I ain't stickin' my head up," Krissa replied. "You're ugly enough that a hole in your face wouldn't make any difference, so why don't you look," Krissa said.
"Sure boss," he said with a stupid grin that had been on his face for the last minute.
"Why you grinning like an idiot?"
"I was just thinking that you can knock me down anytime you want."
"In your dreams," she said.
"About those, you'd be surprised at what's in those."
"I doubt it, knowing you. But trust me, I don't want to know," she rapped his helmet, disappointed that sound didn't carry in a vacuum, but she knew that he'd at least hear the vibration through the air in his helmet. The idiot was a walking hormone. "Now check it out."
"Right," he nodded and cautiously raised his head and then went into a crouch. The thing tracked him, pinpointing on his center mass with deadly accuracy but...no green balls of energy, or whatever they should have been, came at him. Krissa was mildly disappointed.
"What's wrong with it?" Dummond asked waving one hand at the automated turret. "It ain't no fun."
"You got stupid for brains," she grimaced. "I think it's broke."
Her comms crackled. "What's you're status?" Ensign Ardelle Leath asked.
"There's still the energy barrier ma'am. And there's an anti-personnel weapon. Might be more."
"Weapon?"
"It looks broke ma'am."
"I'm coming down."
"Weapons. There might be more of them," Krissa repeated.
"I'm coming down." Ensign Leath said flatly.
"Yes ma'am."
---
Five minutes later Ardelle, Jackston, and Elliot had gathered around the marines on the floor of the cavern by the invisible energy shield. The pilots were still with the shuttle. Ardelle had told them to keep the shuttle on standby power in case a quick lift-off were needed.
But are Aliens there?
(50/50 | 6[d10]) Yes, but...
But?
Ruin / Investment
I see. They're not there in any biological form. Just ai defences and decaying automated robotics. It's in a state of decay and dis-use.
Given that the facility is failing, explains the erratic gravitational readings. The gate flickers off and on, powered by what?
What is it powered by? It must be gravity. Right?
(Likely | 9[d10]) Yes
Kinetic (gravitational) energy... drawn from Spenalk 3.
When the humans arrive do the automated defenses go off?
(Likely | 4[d10]) No
Interesting... Probably because things dilapidated and fell apart over the centuries.
"What's powering that shield?" Elliot asked.
"We think it's gravity," Jackston said. "Probably gravity from its nearest neighbor, Spenalk 3."
"That's some pretty nice tech," Winter nodded.
Ardelle traced her finger on the shield and watched the blue energy coalesce around her finger. The shield vibrated slightly under her finger. She pressed her palm against it, and saw the same blue energy and felt the same vibration. She rapped her knuckles against it softly. The shield flickered under the soft blow, but it felt as firm as the hard stone beneath her. Ardelle raised her hand, and the blue energy slowly disappeared. She rapped the shield again and the blue energy again reappeared only to dissipate after a few seconds. All the time the gun-like device tracked her.
"Dummond's head is pretty hard," Krissa commented. "If it couldn't break through it, I doubt your gloved love tap will do much." Winters sniggered and elbowed Dummond who seemed to take her joking as a compliment.
Ardelle ignored then and swung the bottom of her fist down on the shields in a wide powerful overhead swing. Her hand did not contact with the shield. It passed through the shield, and a surprised Ardelle stumbled a few steps forward beyond the shields' boundaries, carried forward by her follow through. She turned around and faced the others. They all looked at each other and then back at her, eyes wide.
Do the shields flicker and go down momentarily?
(50/50 | 8[d10]) Yes
"I guess my head ain't so hard after all," Dummond whispered.
"Umm... is it off?" Jackston asked.
"Hurry! Come on!" Ardelle commanded and the others quickly step forward and grouped around her. No one wanted to be where the shield was if it came back on. Ardelle then took a few steps to where it should be and reached her hand out to touch it. Her hand passed through. She turned around and looked at the column with the gun-like protrusion. It didn't track her at all now. "The shield is either uni-directional, currently off, or both. But I think it's losing power at the moment."
Slowly, they turned and stared up at the massive platform with it's gleaming metal. Ardelle approached, followed closely behind by the others. She climbed the platform, and the metal gleamed in the blue light. Blue symbols shone out of the material.
Slowly the symbols began to dim and after a few moments, they were left in complete blackness, aside for the light from their helmets or the built-in night-vision scopes the marines battle armor used but their helmets also had external lights. They slowly walked up the ramp the lights casting shadows about them. Around the base of the platform and even atop the platform, lay scattered hardware and strange devices, some appeared to be in a disassembled state. Power indicators, if any were visible, were either dormant or dead.
"Don't touch anything," Ardelle said when Elliot became a little too engrossed in a ring like device that lay atop the platform.
"It looks... old," Elliot said, standing up and looking around the huge platform.
"How can you tell?" Ardelle asked.
"The dust," He replied and pointed to the ground.
"Dust?" She said, looking at him askance.
"Space isn't as pristine as you think. Meteors, comets, geological activity. The moon has plenty of dust on it."
"I know that, but how would that dirt get down here as dust, under all that?" she waved a hand at the ceiling and the mountain of rock above her. "There's probably been very little wear and tear down here from the ravages of space: radiation, particles, space debris would all be on the surface..." she paused and stooped and swiped a gloved finger across the platform floor and her face mask revealed small sharp dust particles. "It'd take a long time for dust to down here, through all this rock...probably hundreds of thousands of years...." her voice trailed off.
"Or millions," Elliot agreed with a whisper.
She knelt and swiped her finger across the floor and lifted it to her face plate. The light reflected off of the little dome of super-fine dust on her finger. She knew the dust would be jagged, sharper than dust on earth. She brushed it off and it slowly drifted to the ground. She examined the dust on the platform.
Are there any foot prints in the dust?
(50/50 | 4[d10]) No
Does the shield come back up?
(50/50 | 4[d10]) No
She felt relieved that there weren't any footprints in the dust. Whomever had built this facility was long gone.
"Ma'am, over here," Dummond called, and Ardelle moved over to the marine who was stopped over a hatch with a ladder that extended downwards into the darkness. "It goes under ground," he said. Ardelle could swear there was excitement on his face. Marines were all crazy.
The shaft led down into yet more confined spaces. More tons of unyielding rock above and about her.
How's she feeling about going underground again? Is she gung ho enough?
(Unlikely | 2[d10]) No
It was too much. Ardelle stepped back from the shaft and nearly stumbled in her haste to back away.
"Ma'am?" The marine looked up.
"Sorry... Krissa," she called. "Go... you and your team go ahead and check it out," she managed to croak out. "I'm going to give a report to Captain Alestranda."
"Yes ma'am," Krissa responded and she and the other two marines descended into the shaft.
Ardelle then called over the comms to the pilots. "Give me tight-beam connection toThe Oracle, encryption settings at maximum."
"One moment ma'am..." She heard the tapping of keys through the pressurized cockpit of the shuttle. "Sorry, ma'am, but our signal can't get out so far underground. It's too weak."
Can they get a signal out under all this rock?
(Unlikely | 5[d10]) No, but...
She frowned. She didn't like not having comms. "Move the shuttle out of the cavern. Hover in the canyon, and try again."
"Yes ma'am. We'll patch you through when we're ready."
Minutes passed with Jackston and Elliot using their suits computers to take pictures of every device. What would be the fallout from all of this? They had discovered remnants of an alien civilization! Humans who had long thought they were sole occupants of the universe were not alone. An alien species. Alien technology... What was she doing in the middle of all this?
Finally, Krissa's voice broke in on her thoughts. "Ma'am, we've mapped all the tunnels and rooms. It extends underground but unfortunately, we couldn't get very far. A lot of rock has collapsed down, collapsing rooms and hallways. There's a lot of smashed and half buried equipment. I think the zit phase this planet is going through has done a real number on the gear. Earthquakes and the like."
Can they get a signal out now, from in the canyon?
(Somewhat Likely | 3[d10]) No
"That...could explain why things are functioning erratically," Ardelle said. She felt suddenly uneasy. The planet was seismically very active. A giant quake in here would surely kill them all and bury them under tons of rock. "Thank you. Get your team topside, we're pulling back to the shuttle soon," Ardelle told her.
Krissa barked an affirmative and disconnected.
Right after, the pilot's voice crackled in her ear. "Ma'am, we're hovering in the canyon. Still no connection. We need to move out of the canyon. We're still down too low."
"Nevermind. We're done here. Meet us where you landed before. We'll meet you there."
In a rush, the symbols began to illuminate with energy and she felt a vibration in the platform. She stepped back and looked around wildly. The circular device with it's four open arcs that floated above the platform started to shift and unfold pieces of metal swinging into place. With little warning, one of the arcs swung towards her with startling rapidity.
Does the power come back on and does the device do its thing?
(50/50 | 7[d10]) Yes
Are Jackston or Elliot in the way of the the unfolding pieces of metal?
(50/50 | 2[d10]) No
Is Ardelle?
(50/50 | 10[d10]) Yes, and...
... and she has little warning when the device's arcs form and swing into position. One of the beam-like arcs is coming towards her!
She tried to move out of the way, but a metal arc slammed into her midsection and at the same instant a second one batted into her helmet. She felt a cracking sensation in her ribs and on her helmet. The sudden violence propelled her from the platform. She was still conscious. She saw the floor and the ceiling twisting around her in the now blue light as she was flung from the platform. She twisted in her arc as the ground floated up to her. She managed to hit the rock with her feet and tuck into a semi-somersault then rolling end over end before lying on her face on the ground. She saw rock and fine dust reflected in one of the lights from her suite helmet. The other light wasn't working, sending sparks into vacuum. Sparks? That didn't make sense.
"--lright? Ardelle?" A voice crackled in her ear.
With a groan, she rolled over onto her back. There was a hissing sound, and she saw a large fracture in her face plate. The hissing sound...
TN of 6 to avoid.
3 = 3[d6]+2-2
She gets hit. This is her suit's damage:
(13 = 16[d20]+-3) Moderate Damage: Hampers functionality significantly; will require repair/mechanical attention.
Ardelle takes 1d3 damage.
1 = 1[d3]
"No!" she gasped, seeing the pressure escaping and involuntarily gulped in more air. Now the sparks by her face late made sense. Her suit had been clubbed with sledge hammer force and was showing the signs. Her HUD on the inside of her helmet flickered off and on in lurid red and orange warnings:
WARNING: SUIT BREACH
OXYGEN LEVEL: 10%
POWER LEVEL: 15%
Is she losing oxygen?
(Likely | 9[d10]) Yes
Are her suit levels critical?
(50/50 | 6[d10]) Yes, but...
But she still has some time...
Her suit power had been at 70% before this! Her suit power and oxygen levels were dropping rapidly. She looked at her chest and saw that her power pack was damaged pieces on the ground in front of her and wires poked out uselessly. She pushed herself up to her knees and put her glove to her face plate, trying to stem the outgoing flow of oxygen.
She had to get to the ship! She turned around and felt dizzy as warm sticky blood trickled down into her right eye. She put her hand attempting to touch the wound but felt only the hard case of her helmet. The crack in the face plate already obscured her vision, the blood in her right eye stung and she shut it.
In the distance she made out the far wall where the rough-hewn stairs were that lead up to the ship. She turned and looked back toward the platform and device. The metal arcs had all come together forming a massive oval shape that crackled with a sheet of blue energy. The oval shape was arcing with electricity and nameless blue energy. She stepped back a pace.
OXYGEN LEVEL: 8%
POWER LEVEL: 12%
There was no way she'd have time to make it back to the shuttle! Her heart stampeded inside of her, and she sank down to her knees as another wave of dizziness hits her and she felt the bite of pain in her ribs and the sting of salt in her eyes.
Is it shielded?
(50/50 | 10[d10]) Yes, and...
... and it has automated defenses ...
Who constructed it? Aliens?
(Likely | 10[d10]) Yes, and...
And, it's still active.
There was no whirring sound to give warning in the still vaccuum of space. No faint whisper of ball bearings bespoke death as the long, smooth, deadly-looking device pivoted smoothly out of the closest pillar and pointed at them. Behind the energy dome, there was only a quick flicking motion and then the silvery tube or barrel was staring at them blue light glinting off its surface.
"Get down!" Karissa shouted and slammed into Pvt Dummond, throwing him to the ground as... as...
She looked up when nothing happened. She rolled off of Dummond and rolled over on her stomach remaining prone.
"What was that?" he asked.
"Gun," she frowned. "Alien gun. Anti personnel."
When the humans arrive do the automated defenses go off?
(Likely | 4[d10]) No
Interesting...
It had to be anti personnel turret Krissa rationalized. It was certainly too small to do anything to vehicles or ships if it contained anything comparable to the power level a human gun of the same size could. But who knew what power level it used? She realized she didn't know crap and that it could shoot holes through planets for all she knew.
"Why ain't it shootin'?" Pvt Dummond asked.
"Dunno, but I ain't stickin' my head up," Krissa replied. "You're ugly enough that a hole in your face wouldn't make any difference, so why don't you look," Krissa said.
"Sure boss," he said with a stupid grin that had been on his face for the last minute.
"Why you grinning like an idiot?"
"I was just thinking that you can knock me down anytime you want."
"In your dreams," she said.
"About those, you'd be surprised at what's in those."
"I doubt it, knowing you. But trust me, I don't want to know," she rapped his helmet, disappointed that sound didn't carry in a vacuum, but she knew that he'd at least hear the vibration through the air in his helmet. The idiot was a walking hormone. "Now check it out."
"Right," he nodded and cautiously raised his head and then went into a crouch. The thing tracked him, pinpointing on his center mass with deadly accuracy but...no green balls of energy, or whatever they should have been, came at him. Krissa was mildly disappointed.
"What's wrong with it?" Dummond asked waving one hand at the automated turret. "It ain't no fun."
"You got stupid for brains," she grimaced. "I think it's broke."
Her comms crackled. "What's you're status?" Ensign Ardelle Leath asked.
"There's still the energy barrier ma'am. And there's an anti-personnel weapon. Might be more."
"Weapon?"
"It looks broke ma'am."
"I'm coming down."
"Weapons. There might be more of them," Krissa repeated.
"I'm coming down." Ensign Leath said flatly.
"Yes ma'am."
---
Five minutes later Ardelle, Jackston, and Elliot had gathered around the marines on the floor of the cavern by the invisible energy shield. The pilots were still with the shuttle. Ardelle had told them to keep the shuttle on standby power in case a quick lift-off were needed.
But are Aliens there?
(50/50 | 6[d10]) Yes, but...
But?
Ruin / Investment
I see. They're not there in any biological form. Just ai defences and decaying automated robotics. It's in a state of decay and dis-use.
Given that the facility is failing, explains the erratic gravitational readings. The gate flickers off and on, powered by what?
What is it powered by? It must be gravity. Right?
(Likely | 9[d10]) Yes
Kinetic (gravitational) energy... drawn from Spenalk 3.
When the humans arrive do the automated defenses go off?
(Likely | 4[d10]) No
Interesting... Probably because things dilapidated and fell apart over the centuries.
"What's powering that shield?" Elliot asked.
"We think it's gravity," Jackston said. "Probably gravity from its nearest neighbor, Spenalk 3."
"That's some pretty nice tech," Winter nodded.
Ardelle traced her finger on the shield and watched the blue energy coalesce around her finger. The shield vibrated slightly under her finger. She pressed her palm against it, and saw the same blue energy and felt the same vibration. She rapped her knuckles against it softly. The shield flickered under the soft blow, but it felt as firm as the hard stone beneath her. Ardelle raised her hand, and the blue energy slowly disappeared. She rapped the shield again and the blue energy again reappeared only to dissipate after a few seconds. All the time the gun-like device tracked her.
"Dummond's head is pretty hard," Krissa commented. "If it couldn't break through it, I doubt your gloved love tap will do much." Winters sniggered and elbowed Dummond who seemed to take her joking as a compliment.
Ardelle ignored then and swung the bottom of her fist down on the shields in a wide powerful overhead swing. Her hand did not contact with the shield. It passed through the shield, and a surprised Ardelle stumbled a few steps forward beyond the shields' boundaries, carried forward by her follow through. She turned around and faced the others. They all looked at each other and then back at her, eyes wide.
Do the shields flicker and go down momentarily?
(50/50 | 8[d10]) Yes
"I guess my head ain't so hard after all," Dummond whispered.
"Umm... is it off?" Jackston asked.
"Hurry! Come on!" Ardelle commanded and the others quickly step forward and grouped around her. No one wanted to be where the shield was if it came back on. Ardelle then took a few steps to where it should be and reached her hand out to touch it. Her hand passed through. She turned around and looked at the column with the gun-like protrusion. It didn't track her at all now. "The shield is either uni-directional, currently off, or both. But I think it's losing power at the moment."
Slowly, they turned and stared up at the massive platform with it's gleaming metal. Ardelle approached, followed closely behind by the others. She climbed the platform, and the metal gleamed in the blue light. Blue symbols shone out of the material.
Slowly the symbols began to dim and after a few moments, they were left in complete blackness, aside for the light from their helmets or the built-in night-vision scopes the marines battle armor used but their helmets also had external lights. They slowly walked up the ramp the lights casting shadows about them. Around the base of the platform and even atop the platform, lay scattered hardware and strange devices, some appeared to be in a disassembled state. Power indicators, if any were visible, were either dormant or dead.
"Don't touch anything," Ardelle said when Elliot became a little too engrossed in a ring like device that lay atop the platform.
"It looks... old," Elliot said, standing up and looking around the huge platform.
"How can you tell?" Ardelle asked.
"The dust," He replied and pointed to the ground.
"Dust?" She said, looking at him askance.
"Space isn't as pristine as you think. Meteors, comets, geological activity. The moon has plenty of dust on it."
"I know that, but how would that dirt get down here as dust, under all that?" she waved a hand at the ceiling and the mountain of rock above her. "There's probably been very little wear and tear down here from the ravages of space: radiation, particles, space debris would all be on the surface..." she paused and stooped and swiped a gloved finger across the platform floor and her face mask revealed small sharp dust particles. "It'd take a long time for dust to down here, through all this rock...probably hundreds of thousands of years...." her voice trailed off.
"Or millions," Elliot agreed with a whisper.
She knelt and swiped her finger across the floor and lifted it to her face plate. The light reflected off of the little dome of super-fine dust on her finger. She knew the dust would be jagged, sharper than dust on earth. She brushed it off and it slowly drifted to the ground. She examined the dust on the platform.
Are there any foot prints in the dust?
(50/50 | 4[d10]) No
Does the shield come back up?
(50/50 | 4[d10]) No
She felt relieved that there weren't any footprints in the dust. Whomever had built this facility was long gone.
"Ma'am, over here," Dummond called, and Ardelle moved over to the marine who was stopped over a hatch with a ladder that extended downwards into the darkness. "It goes under ground," he said. Ardelle could swear there was excitement on his face. Marines were all crazy.
The shaft led down into yet more confined spaces. More tons of unyielding rock above and about her.
How's she feeling about going underground again? Is she gung ho enough?
(Unlikely | 2[d10]) No
It was too much. Ardelle stepped back from the shaft and nearly stumbled in her haste to back away.
"Ma'am?" The marine looked up.
"Sorry... Krissa," she called. "Go... you and your team go ahead and check it out," she managed to croak out. "I'm going to give a report to Captain Alestranda."
"Yes ma'am," Krissa responded and she and the other two marines descended into the shaft.
Ardelle then called over the comms to the pilots. "Give me tight-beam connection toThe Oracle, encryption settings at maximum."
"One moment ma'am..." She heard the tapping of keys through the pressurized cockpit of the shuttle. "Sorry, ma'am, but our signal can't get out so far underground. It's too weak."
Can they get a signal out under all this rock?
(Unlikely | 5[d10]) No, but...
She frowned. She didn't like not having comms. "Move the shuttle out of the cavern. Hover in the canyon, and try again."
"Yes ma'am. We'll patch you through when we're ready."
Minutes passed with Jackston and Elliot using their suits computers to take pictures of every device. What would be the fallout from all of this? They had discovered remnants of an alien civilization! Humans who had long thought they were sole occupants of the universe were not alone. An alien species. Alien technology... What was she doing in the middle of all this?
Finally, Krissa's voice broke in on her thoughts. "Ma'am, we've mapped all the tunnels and rooms. It extends underground but unfortunately, we couldn't get very far. A lot of rock has collapsed down, collapsing rooms and hallways. There's a lot of smashed and half buried equipment. I think the zit phase this planet is going through has done a real number on the gear. Earthquakes and the like."
Can they get a signal out now, from in the canyon?
(Somewhat Likely | 3[d10]) No
"That...could explain why things are functioning erratically," Ardelle said. She felt suddenly uneasy. The planet was seismically very active. A giant quake in here would surely kill them all and bury them under tons of rock. "Thank you. Get your team topside, we're pulling back to the shuttle soon," Ardelle told her.
Krissa barked an affirmative and disconnected.
Right after, the pilot's voice crackled in her ear. "Ma'am, we're hovering in the canyon. Still no connection. We need to move out of the canyon. We're still down too low."
"Nevermind. We're done here. Meet us where you landed before. We'll meet you there."
In a rush, the symbols began to illuminate with energy and she felt a vibration in the platform. She stepped back and looked around wildly. The circular device with it's four open arcs that floated above the platform started to shift and unfold pieces of metal swinging into place. With little warning, one of the arcs swung towards her with startling rapidity.
Does the power come back on and does the device do its thing?
(50/50 | 7[d10]) Yes
Are Jackston or Elliot in the way of the the unfolding pieces of metal?
(50/50 | 2[d10]) No
Is Ardelle?
(50/50 | 10[d10]) Yes, and...
... and she has little warning when the device's arcs form and swing into position. One of the beam-like arcs is coming towards her!
She tried to move out of the way, but a metal arc slammed into her midsection and at the same instant a second one batted into her helmet. She felt a cracking sensation in her ribs and on her helmet. The sudden violence propelled her from the platform. She was still conscious. She saw the floor and the ceiling twisting around her in the now blue light as she was flung from the platform. She twisted in her arc as the ground floated up to her. She managed to hit the rock with her feet and tuck into a semi-somersault then rolling end over end before lying on her face on the ground. She saw rock and fine dust reflected in one of the lights from her suite helmet. The other light wasn't working, sending sparks into vacuum. Sparks? That didn't make sense.
"--lright? Ardelle?" A voice crackled in her ear.
With a groan, she rolled over onto her back. There was a hissing sound, and she saw a large fracture in her face plate. The hissing sound...
TN of 6 to avoid.
3 = 3[d6]+2-2
She gets hit. This is her suit's damage:
(13 = 16[d20]+-3) Moderate Damage: Hampers functionality significantly; will require repair/mechanical attention.
Ardelle takes 1d3 damage.
1 = 1[d3]
"No!" she gasped, seeing the pressure escaping and involuntarily gulped in more air. Now the sparks by her face late made sense. Her suit had been clubbed with sledge hammer force and was showing the signs. Her HUD on the inside of her helmet flickered off and on in lurid red and orange warnings:
WARNING: SUIT BREACH
OXYGEN LEVEL: 10%
POWER LEVEL: 15%
Is she losing oxygen?
(Likely | 9[d10]) Yes
Are her suit levels critical?
(50/50 | 6[d10]) Yes, but...
But she still has some time...
Her suit power had been at 70% before this! Her suit power and oxygen levels were dropping rapidly. She looked at her chest and saw that her power pack was damaged pieces on the ground in front of her and wires poked out uselessly. She pushed herself up to her knees and put her glove to her face plate, trying to stem the outgoing flow of oxygen.
She had to get to the ship! She turned around and felt dizzy as warm sticky blood trickled down into her right eye. She put her hand attempting to touch the wound but felt only the hard case of her helmet. The crack in the face plate already obscured her vision, the blood in her right eye stung and she shut it.
In the distance she made out the far wall where the rough-hewn stairs were that lead up to the ship. She turned and looked back toward the platform and device. The metal arcs had all come together forming a massive oval shape that crackled with a sheet of blue energy. The oval shape was arcing with electricity and nameless blue energy. She stepped back a pace.
OXYGEN LEVEL: 8%
POWER LEVEL: 12%
There was no way she'd have time to make it back to the shuttle! Her heart stampeded inside of her, and she sank down to her knees as another wave of dizziness hits her and she felt the bite of pain in her ribs and the sting of salt in her eyes.
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