Zac stood in front of the door to Level U4. He had cheated death to arrive here. For his circle. He desperately needed the medical supplies to be here.
He took a deep breath and opened the door. Or rather he tried to because it was locked.
I have an armoured suit, no door can bar me. Zac grimly steeled himself and clenched his armoured fist. He lifted his fist above his head, jumped up, and swung down at the handle in a diving aerial punch. The handle broke easily, exposing the locking mechanism. Zac pulled out his phaser, set a lower power and then heated the lock into molten metal with a single blast.
There we go. Zac pushed the door and smiled as it loudly creaked open. The Citadel needs better locks if they're going to give us phasers and exosuits.
The moment Zac stepped through the door, he froze.
Before him was a large tunnel, tens of metres high that extended into darkness.
Nearby was a portable workstation: a metal frame bolted into a concrete slab, with walls made of glass. The workstation was illuminated by portable flood lamps from outside and he could see scientific equipment inside, presumably to study the minerals brought back from mining.
But that wasn't why Zac froze. He remembered the advice from his communications diary saying to never go to Level U4. And now he could see why that was for good reason. Because attracted to the sound of the door opening were innumerable monsters, crawling from the depths of the massive tunnel to swarm the entrance. The same monsters that plagued them before, except these were bigger. Faster.
They rifting live in the mines. Zac swore. We almost died to their babies.
Zac shut the door to the stairwell, with him on the other side. The pulse of sound was like a beacon to the monsters, informing them of an outsider's presence. Wave after wave of monsters promptly scurried over, exploring the beginning of the mining facility.
Some monsters ran through the path that flood lamps illuminated, and Zac could finally see his predators.
They looked like giant spiders the size of elephant legs with multiple limbs ending in feet with opposing thumbs. Their digits ended in small but sharp claws, which were used to easily grind up rock and push out the earth. Their limbs were covered in overlapping plates of hardened green scale, but their torso and head appeared like a giant mutated rat's with patches of matted hair, long snout, and spiked spines poking out of its back. Their head had no eyes and instead featured giant holes on either side of their head that opened and closed like a muscle and rotated, listening intently to their surroundings.
The air filled with a low echolocation hum, made by thousands of monsters, each with their own sound signature.
One monster open its mouth and Zac saw two sets of teeth on the top and bottom, made entirely of incisors.
Zac gulped down saliva. He did not dare speak or move. He didn't want to test the limits of his invisibility here as more monsters came scurrying from the depths of the mine until they filled every open space.
The air smelled intensely of sulfur, burning Zac's nose despite the filtration from the suit. Zac took slow and shallow breaths, hoping he didn't smell, but the familiar feeling of craving for oxygen returned. As much as he wanted to stay still and wait for them to leave, he couldn't. Zac took a deep breath with his mouth, armed himself with phasers in both hands and took a step forward.
The monsters that prowled near him pounced and Zac freaked out. He turned and quickly shot one. The visor was effective and the phaser blast flew true and beheaded his aggressor. Behind him, more monsters jumped on the spot where he left and their jaws met with air. Zac moved, this time not stopping, and turning his steps into a sprint. The monsters scurried around him and attacked the small plumes of dust that he kicked up.
It was the same with the monsters as it was with the recruits. They couldn't see him, but could see his actions indirectly, and they attacked the foreign intrusion with relentless fury.
Zac was disturbed that the monsters trailed his every step, biting at his feet. It would only be a matter of time when one of them would accidentally take a limb.
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Shrill cries and faster, harder snaps signalled that they were frustrated with no meal.
Surprisingly, the low drone and shrill cry sounded the same as the noise at the quadrangle, except this was far less intense.
Zac watched as the monsters continued to find no prey and then they rounded on the monsters near them, pinning one down and chomping heads off.
Zac opened fire with one of his phasers. The phaser blast flew true. Boom.
Whenever he brought the sights in his visor onto the target, the phaser never missed. Zac was certain, there was some AI aim assist going on. Thankfully one shot at full power was enough to make the monsters' heads disappear.
Zac let loose and shot 10-20 monsters.
In the confusion, the monsters began to viscously tear into each other until a giant brawl started and more monsters joined the bloodbath.
The air soon turned thick with the smell of rotting meat.
Zac stored his phasers away and ran to the research facility, unusually calmer in the chaos he had created. This was his element. None of the monsters snapped at his ankles anymore. There was more than enough sound to attract their attention elsewhere than focus on small dust plumes left behind by him running.
Zac approached the research facility. He didn't have much time. The air was too stale without proper ventilation. The door was unfortunately passcode protected. Zac opened the diary and quickly skimmed through all the entries. No passcode seen. But that's okay, Zac clenched his fist again, because he had a universal key. Actually no he didn't. Zac looked around at the monsters. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself.
He looked at the glass door and easily spotted the locking mechanism: giant magnets around the edges of the door frame. It would take a few blasts to get through the lock. Zac decided it was too risky and instead aimed in the middle of the door and shot the glass itself, burning a hole large enough for him to squeeze through.
The cacophony of noise dulled and from inside the glass container, Zac looked back to see the giant brawl continuing with more and more monsters coming from the depths to join in.
The air in here was no better. Zac heaved, lungs working to extract any oxygen out of the air. Zac looked around. The glass room was mainly filled with lab equipment: fancy analysers, faded signs that read "Do Not Touch!" It definitely wasn't the medibay. His heart sank. As he looked through the glass, there didn't appear to be anymore facilities deeper in the mine. This was very much it.
Frustrated, he all the cupboard doors and found a small red first aid kit. Opening it he found 3 small spray bottles and a box with 5 tablets.
The spray bottle looked very familiar.
He took out 1 spray bottle changed back to his default armour and sprayed his arms. The numbness and shaking slowly stopped.
This wasn't the medibay, but at least he found something. He just hoped there was enough actuations for everyone. Zac zipped up the kit and carried it back out.
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Thankfully the brawl continued to draw the attention of all the monsters and the ground shook as monsters pushed past him.
Zac carefully walked around the peripheries of the fight.
Zac walked back to the stairwell and pulled open the door. It creaked open and suddenly the world was silent. Zac looked back and saw all the monsters had frozen. Their heads were lifted in the air, earholes angled towards him, opening and closing rapidly. The low droning hum intensified. They were listening for him.
Rift. He closed the door and it slammed shut as the horde of monsters swarmed and hit the stairwell shaft from the outside. The whole shaft shook at the intensity of the hit. The metal door, significantly thinner than the manhole, immediately deformed from the force. The monsters were ramming the door one after another, frantically trying to chase after Zac.
Thank goodness this door is a pull and not a push. Perhaps that was the only saving grace for escape.
Zac needed to get out of here and fast, otherwise he would inevitably draw the monsters back to the rest of the recruits.
He jumped on the guard rail and pounced diagonally to the landing above. Forget about nerves or failure. This is about survival. He couldn't afford to dilly dally. He grabbed the rail of the landing above and kicked off again, zigzagging quickly up towards Level U3 and higher.
Boom. Crash. The Level U4 door smashed open and flew across the stairwell, hitting the other side before falling down the central hole, making noises as it fell down to lower levels. Zac froze and looked down. Monsters were piling into the stairwell, but instead of climbing up, they followed the sound of the door as it clattered down into the depths.
Like a broken tap, monsters continued to shoot through the door, invading the lower levels of the mining facility. Zac was already a ways up but he thankfully couldn't see any monsters following him.
Don't stop Zac. He looked up and pounced off again. He had to quickly get out of there.
Zac jumped past one hundred odd recruits on their way down to Level U4. They had only now made it to Level U1.
"Hey guys I found a door!" They were talking casaully and loudly, not knowing the dangers below.
Zac stopped in his tracks as he saw them. If he left them, the monsters would hear them and they would die, unprotected. Eventually the monsters will reach ground and everyone would die while they slept.
Or. If he somehow convinced them to go back to the ground floor, the monsters might hear and be attracted and his circle might die before he arrived back. How do I even convince one hundred people to turn around? I'm invisible!