The crawler smashes through the blast doors, its hull shrieking as metal tears against frame. The impact sends a shockwave through the cabin, throwing the team against the reinforced bulkheads. They burst out of the subterranean complex and into the frigid, violet twilight of the surface.
Rent
Hold on, I am pushing the thrusters to full override!
Max
The connection to the crawler's nav-computer is still burning in my cybernetic interface. If I lose focus now, we are going to drift right into the Dirge containment field.
Anna
Look! The orbital platform is holding position above the canyon ridge, but the swarm is already swarming the launch pad.
Winona
We cannot reach the pad directly, Max. We have to ditch the crawler at the maintenance tunnel entrance and sprint for the boarding ramp.
The crawler skids to a halt, smoking and scorched, just as the canyon floor begins to tremble under the weight of an emerging Dirge battalion.
+ Scene Quest Added
Reach the boarding ramp at the maintenance tunnel
“Use the drone to find the safest route”
SUCCESS (Legendary Perception, rolled -1)
My drone, ghost-white against the violet haze, darts into the jagged crevice. Its multispectral sensors paint the path in flickering neon green overlays, bypassing the heavy tremors that threaten to swallow us.
Max
The tunnel is unstable, but the drone found a route beneath the ridge. Move, now.
Rent
You heard him! We stick to the drone's telemetry or we are dead meat.
The team surges forward, abandoning the smoking crawler. Overhead, the sky ripples as a colossal Dirge dropship descends, its bio-organic hull casting a shadow that swallows the sunlight. The vibration is deafening.
Winona
If those things reach the boarding ramp before us, we are never leaving this graveyard.
Anna
Max, look at the sensor readings! The structural integrity is failing!
Rocks begin to slide from the cliff face, plummeting toward the tunnel entrance like artillery shells.
“Create a distraction using the weasel”
SUCCESS (Legendary Cybernetics, rolled +2)
Max
System override initiated. Let's see if the Dirge can resist a multi-frequency feedback loop.
I slap my wrist-interface, transmitting a high-gain kinetic pulse through my cybertronic weasel. The small machine launches from my shoulder, skittering toward a cluster of precariously balanced boulders near the tunnel rim. As it reaches the precipice, it detonates an electromagnetic burst that shatters the stone, sending a cascade of rock directly into the path of the approaching Dirge shock troops.
Rent
Smart move, Max! That debris is buying us the seconds we need!
The path is clear for now, but the dropship is locking its weapon systems onto our heat signatures!
Winona
Forget the heat, just run!
The ground heaves as the Dirge dropship unleashes a torrent of crimson plasma, vaporizing the empty crawler in a flash of blinding heat. We dive toward the maintenance tunnel, the air screaming as the ceiling begins to groan under the stress of the orbital bombardment.
Quest Complete
Reach the boarding ramp at the maintenance tunnel
Fault Removed: System Glitch
+ Scene Quest Added
Enter the maintenance tunnel