The loud crash of the giant spider-bot was forceful enough to knock Dizzy and Reaper to the floor. Momentum had been lost and now the swarm was bearing down on them too quickly for their rifles to have an effect. They crawled before getting back up , trying to keep moving through all the chaos any way possible. Tracers smashed into the walls above them as someone was shooting indiscriminately . White flares raced up to bath the armory in a white glow , revealing the monsters hiding in the shadows.

The metallic sheen of their bodies merged into the pulsating flesh of the parasite that grew out of them. Warped jaws extended out from their chests with the hosts head peaking out above like a crocodile's eye above water. They could see the rows of teeth on the mouth reciprocating with anticipation. Did they eat to survive or was it all just to terrorize them? Dizzy wanted to know but her body wouldn't allow it. Instinct had taken over, with her hand firmly on reapers collar, pulling him back up while he fired two carbines akimbo.

Instinct would only get her so far. There was nowhere to hide, no extraction point, no evac helicopter waiting for them. No escape. All that was left was to fight, to the death. The pit of Dizzy's stomach felt heavy upon that realization. Her legs burned as she raced from corner to corner trying to stay just a few steps ahead. Then the rumbling approached.

The spider was tearing the ground apart. It was purposefully digging through; it was obvious it was trying to cause the floor to collapse. Dizzy yelled out through her comm, her voice exuding with pained exhaustion. "Its trying to tear the floor apart. Its trying to collapse the whole damn thing!" she said in rapid succession.

She could feel her legs wobble. Behind her was Reaper, running as hard as he could. No ammunition left to fight back. Running was only leading them closer to a sure death , Dizzy thought. Her feet began to grow heavy . The burning in her legs were replaced with sharp, stabbing pains. Balancing on such weak legs proved transient. She tripped over the leg of one an armored thinktank, smashing her knee into the ground. A howl of pain erupted from her as the shock raced up through her knees , the pain streaming directly into her neck and shoulders.

While she remained stunned by the pain , her eyes caught the sight of an open hatch in the thinktank. "Ah frak it!" she yelled. With Reaper in tow, she jumped into the cramped spaces of the tank.

The crew compartment wasn't built for relaxation. Even though there were enough seats for three people, the chairs were wedged up together like slices from an apple. The majority of the crew cabin was filled with electronics, logistics computers and electronic warfare consoles. The air seemed to suck out as the hatch sealed shut behind them.

"Ok ok ok ok. I hope this thing still works" Dizzy spoke with exasperation. Once the holographic displays came online she saw that the systems were very similar to the Zephyr mechs. It was awfully familiar, like a slightly modified copy. There were little bits and pieces that were different, the slight hue , the panel shapes, the opacity of the holograms. It seemed just different enough to be disconcerting. The master system status popped into view ,glowing a deep green. She sighed and closed her eyes. Her hands jittered against the control sticks. Sweat sauntered down her forehead as she marshalled her concentration.

Down went the foot pedals, launching the thinktank forward at high speeds. The sudden acceleration surprised her , causing her to clip a stack of crates as she regained control. She slammed into the armored foot of a heavy mech before finally bringing the thinktank back in line.

As she became accustomed to the machine, Reaper hailed everyone for their status. He could hear them fighting , each one trying just to stay alive against the onslaught. Ryuki's orders had just come in after Reaper had confirmed that Wasp had gained control of a mech. It was three simple words that had the force of a detonating shockwave. Brace for impact.

Only a few moments later , the ground began to quake. The thinktank's squat stature helped it maintain its balance but the surrounding mechs began to tip precariously. Even with the webbing, designed to keep the mechs steady under the gravity shockwave of a ship exiting from an Alcubierre bubble, was not enough to keep them standing. The ground began to whine and tear like paper as the mechs toppled over. The giant strider looming over them fired off a massive red beam of energy down into the ground , with the surrounding area erupting into giant orange and yellow explosions. Ammunition dumps cooked off in the intense heat of the blast and set off a chain reaction of secondary explosions. Metal shrapnel flew up into the air like fireworks as the ground began to give way.

The red and green beam of energy that shot out from the maw of the strider splashed onto the ground, a river of energy coursing through the armory and melting away all that came in contact. The ground melted around the epicenter and began to liquefy into puddles of molten metal.

The underlying support structure gave way almost immediately. No engineer would have envisioned such intense heat to be contained within the hull of the ship and never thought to use heat resistant metals. Thus the super-structure collapsed as the load-bearing beams withered in the super hot plasma that flowed over them.

Ryuki dashed for the closest girder he could find that was still standing. There was no time to gather the others as he watched to floor ripple under him. Rows of supply boxes disappeared into the ground in front of him. Another shockwave passed under his mech, lifting it up into the air and slamming it against the wall behind him.

Giant strider platform began to slowly disappear into the ground as it fell through the hole its plasma cannon created. On its way down, it grabbed hold of the floor with its blade like limbs and cut open the sinkhole. The floor suddenly dropped away completely into the darkness underneath him. Immediately his radio began to blare out. His team ,yelling as they fell down into the chasm.

His own mech was losing its grip on the girder. Below him he could see jagged spikes formed from a busted pile of machinery. As his grip slipped, he quickly tried to gain momentum to launch himself away from the spikes. He kicked his legs forward to propel himself backward. The mech's feet slammed into the wall , allowing him to kick himself forward. With a burst from the thrusters , he leapt across the pit onto a toppled stack of supply crates. He crashed through them until finally he landed on solid ground. The impact rocked the pilot seat hard enough to cause sudden onset of vertigo.

The displays turned to static, flashing in and out of existence. The compartment had gone dime , leaving only the red self-powered emergency lights to illuminate. Water dripped in through unseen cracks and sparks flickered around him. Chromatic fluid seeped through the pilots deck as the damage control nanofluids set out to repair destroyed electronics. A small holographic image popped into view showing the progress of repairs. Thankfully the mechanical rigging systems were still intact. None of the ferrohydraulic lines were damaged meaning that the limbs should still be functional. The primary navigation computers came back to life with a whirring click followed by a map hologram showing Ryuki's approximate location.

It didn't seem right. The inertial compass showed he had fallen nearly a hundred meters down. That would mean that the strider had ripped open a gaping hole down the inside of the ship, incredibly close to the auxiliary reactors. One poorly aimed shot would have pierced the containment vessels which would have caused a massive radiation leak, one that would have been able to melt right through the thick hides of their armor.

The mech slowly came back to life. Automated start-up had successfully restarted the microfusion reactor from its emergency shutdown mode. Ryuki flexed the robot's arm to see the extent of the damage. The elbow actuator seemed to be slower than usual but there was no indication that there were any faults. The knees were banged up but aside from scuffs and gouges running down its shin , the legs were functional.

Weaponry though was another matter. the plasmathrower fuel cannisters were automatically purged when he jumped down. The munition holsters though were still in one piece though it would be more difficult to know if they still worked. The rockets were sealed tight inside the pods and racks , hopefully protected from the sudden drop.

As he regained his wits , Ryuki began to realize the reactors had been running when the floor caved down. Structural breaches would force reactors to shut down to prevent anti-matter from leaking out and damaging the entire level. But these were humming along as if the world was rock-solid.

Something was forcing these reactors to stay online. His Lionheart was unimpressed. Its computers booted up in a slow, painfully slow , process. Machines didn't have the human urgency that the pilots had. It was doing its own damn thing and didn't care about anything else. It almost seemed to be mocking his frustration and exhaustion. Another headache to go along with the one throbbing at the center of his brain. Ryuki coughed as he shouted at the damn thing . It was all he could do as he came to the slow realization that whatever was controlling the reactors had the intention of leaving this iceball.

The radio systems didn't turn on as quickly as he yelled for. It needed to pass through fuel line integrity checks and battery mode cycles before it was satisfied to let him to scan the radio channels. He dialed in the short range channels, pressing the glowing orange up and down triangles in the clear-screen display at his fingertips till he picked up something other than static.

They were coughing, bleeding and hurting. He could hear their voices calling for help , each retransmitting the same basic feeling of hopelessness. No one was in shape to offer any rescue. He could feel his consciousness drifting with only hunger pangs keeping him from slipping under. A small trickle of blood dripped down from under his helmet.

His body was bruised and tired. His voice cracked as he attempted to hail his team. Breathing felt like a chore. Quick and short breaths weren't enough to keep him conscious. He took his helmet off, gasping for air. The biometric telemetry monitor that hovered above his head showed his oxygen levels lower than normal. His pulse was laboring to keep up. He breathed in deep then coughed up again. In the silence between his coughs he could hear the fluid in his lungs stirring.

He cleared his throat as best as possible, spitting up whatever he dredged out onto the dimly lit cabin. When he was done excavating all the mucus that jammed up his lungs , he set out to broadcast on the multifrequency widebands. "If you can hear me, call in" he said.

Then silence. Maybe they hadn't heard him. Or maybe their radios weren't functioning properly. They could have passed out. Or maybe they were dead. At this point it seemed to matter little. What was there to do even if they could hear him? Everything was wrecked, most importantly their minds and bodies. Willpower wasn't going to be enough to rejuvenate them. It could barely repair their machines.

"Copy, this is Dizzy. Ive got Reaper with me", she called in. Ross radioed back ,confirming that Karin survived along with him. Finally, Ross and Wasp both jostled with the radio, yelling at each other , perfectly fit to continue arguing.

He sighed. There was no relief though. Squad discipline would be essentially phantom thoughts now that everything around them had collapsed and not just figuratively. Already they were bickering, at least between Barry and Wasp. Soon enough everyone else would have something to complain about.

But that hum of electricity was what worried him most. It was a bad omen, a sign of something worse waiting for them. In all this time that he spent fighting these monsters , he had never wondered why they were here. What was their purpose. And why was this ship still active. There were too many questions. And not enough of stamina left to consider them.