INTERSTELLAR NIGHTMARES - DISTANT TERROR

Chapter 3

   They all turned to look at me. Morris let out a little cough, rubbing his throat. "Well, we'll follow your lead, Moleboy," Fredrick said, putting his fists onto his hips, "let's get moving!"

   I nodded, adjusted my goggles, then looked back to my Terrain Scanner. I walked in the direction of the closest Mini-M.U.L.E., which was depressingly across the expanse of green sludge.

   "Damnit," I cursed under my breath. "It's across the patch," I sighed, "Kurt, you got a long enough shot on it?" Kurt responded with getting out his zipline launcher and taking aim.

   There was a brief moment of silence, but when the barrel dropped a bit, I knew the answer. "No dice," Kurt growled, "I hope I can upgrade it when we get back."

   Morris walked ahead with his platform gun. "Why don't I place some of these down to get us closer?" Morris suggested. I looked over, relieved by the option. I nodded to Morris, who gave me a thumb up in response before turning around again and laying out some platforms over the slime.

   We made our way across the groggy goop under us with the platforms guiding us, much like a torch through the dark. "Closer," Kurt said, and Morris fired out another plastcrete disk.

   We inched further and further from the edge until Kurt stopped us with a flat hand into the air. "That column of dirt!" he shouted with joy and pulled the trigger. A zipline shot out of the barrel, and he ejected the rod part, which was a little capsule again. Upon hitting the ground, it readjusted and shot up the rod before anchoring itself into the ground using a barbed blade. Kurt shook it a bit, then looker back at us.

   "Zipline set, boys," he announced, getting out his magnetic cable connecting type of thing. I still never got the name of it, even if I've had it through my entire training course.

   We all followed his action like children, latched on one after another, and we slowly floated across the expanse of sludge. Upon landing on dry land, we walked forward a bit, and I checked my Terrain Scanner. Fredrick popped off a flare from the launcher, instantly illuminating the dark dirt cave around us.

   "It's a bit of a walk," I explained, "but it's just a bit. Shouldn't be too bad, considering we had our break." "Yup, you're damn right! Let's go," Kurt encouraged before walking ahead. The rest of us followed, Fredrick cursing as he accidentally dipped his heel into a smudge of slime.

   "Ugh!" he gawked at the slime as he shook his foot, "Son of a bitch!" Kurt heaved a hearty laugh from his barrel-like chest. "You may be fast, but y' ain't unstoppable! Slime's gotcha good!" Kurt laughed while watching Fredrick tried to shake the slime off. Fredrick growled shortly, then looked away from his boot. We continued towards the Mini-M.U.L.E. accompanied with a rhythmic schlk every other step of the way.

   Upon reaching the Mini-M.U.L.E., Morris bent down to it with a cord. "This should transfer some sort of data... I swear if it's something I don't want to see..." Morris sighed as he plugged the cord into the Mini-M.U.L.E. and his Terrain Scanner. After a few seconds, all of our Scanners vibrated, meaning we all got some sort of transfer.

   "Haha!" Morris laughed, "Nothing horrible. Glad it wasn't a virus... or a sick joke!" Kurt shook his head slightly, asking "Were expecting somethin' scandalous, huh? Well, us dwarves are gentlemen, we know better."

   Morris nodded a few times and answered "Yeah, that's true. Just expected something worse to happen, like a LiveLeak or something, but you know... well, here."

   Kurt laughed slightly, possibly more out of embarrassment. "You make a damn good point," he added, "maybe I'm the weirdo! Time does wonders... saw dwarves become sinners before though, especially with distance and time."

   As Kurt considered his life choices then, Fredrick shouted out into the void. "Hello?" Fredrick called jokingly, "Legs! Come 'ere, legs!"

   A soft hiss grew, and suddenly, Fredrick was shot towards the ceiling with a yelp. "Not legs! Not legs!" Fredrick screamed as we all looked up. We all instinctively opened fire. I whipped out the Subata and Kurt his Bulldog.

   The mass of flesh had a long tendril with three finger-like claws flanking the bottom. The base was in a crack in the ceiling, where three small tendrils shot out towards Fredrick. We managed to take it down before it could nip him, and the long tendril drooped down before dropping Fredrick and exploding into gore.

   "Bleck!" Morris exclaimed, sticking his tongue out, "Disgusting!" Fredrick checked himself for injuries. "You alright, Freddy?" I ask with a chuckle. "I may've shat myself, but besides that, I'm fine!" Fredrick responded jokingly, getting a hefty laugh out of Kurt. "That was one ugly son of a bitch!" Kurt boomed while looking up at the spot it was, now dripping with the green blood of the twisted, fleshy sac of gore.

   "Now... we look for the legs?" Morris asked as he looked around. "Yep," I answered, pulling out the Terrain Scanner from its pouch. "We need to find one first, uhhh... there!" I announced, turning in the general direction of the icon.

   Lo and behold, the pulsing glow of a marker grew, dissipated, then came back every second. "Ah! I see it!" Fredrick shouted and aimed his grapple gun. "Aww, damnit!" he growled, "Too far away."

   "We'll just get closer," Morris comforted Fredrick, "even if we're surrounded by goop on this mini landmass." Morris started to step put until an orange glowing mass shot towards him. It stopped beside him and rumbled, startling Morris and causing him to run from it.

   From what I could gather on the short few seconds, it looked like another glyphid, just a darker red color, no armor, and glowing an oramge color.Just as he ran, the creature violently exploded into a brilliant green and orange mist, sending its body parts flying in all directions, along with thin pieces of chitin.

   "Jeez!" Morris exclaimed, "What the fuck!?" He got up and looked at the limbs... but then he began to think. In fact, he began thinking so hard, I swear I could've heard the gears in his brain turning. "Maybe... we could use these... but how?" he murmered to himself before Fredrick snapped his fingers at him. "Hey! Chode beard! We got a job to do! Maybe when we find one dead but un-blown, we can consider the idea," Fredrick redirected Morris, who chuckled a bit in shame.

   "Sorry," he apologized, "really liked the idea, even if I can't do it yet... got no tools to do it," Morris turned back around, pulling the pin from a flare and tossing it towards the goop until it hit another creature. The creature in question was a massive green slug with four eye stalks wiggling around slowly, along with the two smaller tentacles below the eye stalks. It traveled over the sludge and even ate it! Guess that's where the coloration comes from, I thought.

   "Aye!" Kurt shouted, "Sludge-muncher on the move! Let's wait for the slimeball to travel across, it's clearing the way!" Morris looked at the rather fast slug then back at Fredrick. "Eh, sure. Seems fast enough," he responded with a shrug before retreating to Kurt. Before he could reach him, Fredrick shouted "Shit!" before opening fire into the sludge. I jerked around in reaction to get a glimpse of what's going down.

   A small swarm of bugs were slowly making their way through the sludge. "There's the rest! From that exploding one!" I shouted and ran over. Fredrick stepped aside while firing as I pulled the trigger of the CRSPR. A furious hiss roared from the flamethrower as it shot sticky fire over the bugs. They soon turned to ash from the heat. "Thank the gods that the wave was small," Fredrick sighed in relief before looking to the slug.

   "Oh! It's done!" he then announced while pointing to the cleanly chewed path through the slime. "Let's get going then, guys!" Kurt boomed a command, sending all of us running for the path.

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