Marooned on Giri Minor
Not fully understanding what is happening, but realizing there is no time to spare, you pick the commander up and carry her in your arms. Running all the way back to the crash site is not going to happen, but you can make out some nearby rocks at the foot of a long ridgeline. Maybe--just maybe--you can escape the creatures there, out of the desert gravel.
"See, didn't I tell you the water is divine?" Commander Andrade says. You hoist her onto a flat-topped rock over a meter off the ground, then jump up yourself.
The creatures look like a cross between a beetle and a crab, with a large set of pincers where you'd expect the mouth to be. The biggest is about the size of your thumb, and there are about a dozen that you can see with a firm grip on the commander's skin, including her face, neck, and arms. You try flicking them away, but their grip is too strong.
You rifle through the commander's rucksack for something that might be useful in scraping them off, and you find the handlight. At least with a light you will be able to see what you're doing. But when you turn it on, something strange happens: the creatures react as if in pain, and they retreat into the shadows.
They're repulsed by light! So you use the handlight like a tool, driving the beetle-crabs off the commander's body, where you squash them on the rock with your boot.
You do, in fact, appear to be safe on top of this rock; even without the handlight the beetle-crabs are clearly unable to climb up to your position. They have you surrounded though, leaving you nowhere to go.
The commander becomes quiet after you have rid her of the creatures, but she is clearly not well. For the remaining few hours of darkness she acts like someone sleeping through a nightmare, agitated by the disturbing imagery in her mind. You are exhausted yourself by the ordeal, but her restlessness prevents you from sleeping very much at all. You take her rucksack, and especially the plasgun, for safe keeping.
By dawn her situation becomes worse. You awake to find her sitting on the edge of the rock, her back to you.
"Where is the water?" she growls.
"Those little creatures were injecting you with--" you start to explain, but she is consumed with an unexplicable rage.
"I. WAS. HAPPY!" she shouts. "But now the pool is gone--ALL GONE!"
"It was never there!" you protest, but there is no reasoning with her. She lunges toward you and knocks you off the rock. You get up before she can strike again. Andrade seems murderous, as if the toxins in her body have moved into a deadly new phase. She picks up a loose chunk of rock, and seems ready to lunge at you once again.
"See, didn't I tell you the water is divine?" Commander Andrade says. You hoist her onto a flat-topped rock over a meter off the ground, then jump up yourself.
The creatures look like a cross between a beetle and a crab, with a large set of pincers where you'd expect the mouth to be. The biggest is about the size of your thumb, and there are about a dozen that you can see with a firm grip on the commander's skin, including her face, neck, and arms. You try flicking them away, but their grip is too strong.
You rifle through the commander's rucksack for something that might be useful in scraping them off, and you find the handlight. At least with a light you will be able to see what you're doing. But when you turn it on, something strange happens: the creatures react as if in pain, and they retreat into the shadows.
They're repulsed by light! So you use the handlight like a tool, driving the beetle-crabs off the commander's body, where you squash them on the rock with your boot.
You do, in fact, appear to be safe on top of this rock; even without the handlight the beetle-crabs are clearly unable to climb up to your position. They have you surrounded though, leaving you nowhere to go.
The commander becomes quiet after you have rid her of the creatures, but she is clearly not well. For the remaining few hours of darkness she acts like someone sleeping through a nightmare, agitated by the disturbing imagery in her mind. You are exhausted yourself by the ordeal, but her restlessness prevents you from sleeping very much at all. You take her rucksack, and especially the plasgun, for safe keeping.
By dawn her situation becomes worse. You awake to find her sitting on the edge of the rock, her back to you.
"Where is the water?" she growls.
"Those little creatures were injecting you with--" you start to explain, but she is consumed with an unexplicable rage.
"I. WAS. HAPPY!" she shouts. "But now the pool is gone--ALL GONE!"
"It was never there!" you protest, but there is no reasoning with her. She lunges toward you and knocks you off the rock. You get up before she can strike again. Andrade seems murderous, as if the toxins in her body have moved into a deadly new phase. She picks up a loose chunk of rock, and seems ready to lunge at you once again.