Twenty hours.

Twenty goddamn hours crammed into a cave, breathing recycled air through his suit and defending their position. The Leviathan corpse had taken its sweet time dissolving, and every hour it spent turning into acid-soaked sludge was another hour creatures kept trying to claw their way inside for a snack.

[+947,430 XP] [+272,250 credits]

Luca leaned against the cave wall, his rifle across his lap, and tried not to think about how his suit air tasted. Twenty hours of breathing the same recycled atmosphere was making everything feel stale and close.

Emily sat across from him, legs pulled up to her chest, her helmet tilted back against the stone. Next to her, Zoe was doing stretches that looked painful just to watch, trying to keep her muscles from cramping in the confines of her scout suit. Danny sat motionless in his heavy armor, the only sign of life the occasional shift of his shoulders.

No food. No water. The environment was too toxic to risk deploying the shelter, which meant they'd been sealed in their suits for twenty hours straight. No way to eat, drink, or properly rest when any breach meant death by toxic atmosphere. Luca's mouth felt like sandpaper, and his stomach had given up complaining hours ago.

"How's your arm?" Luca asked Ryan, who was slouched against the opposite wall, his injured arm cradled against his chest.

"Hurts like hell," Ryan muttered through his helmet comm. "But I'll live."

"That's the spirit." Luca shifted, his back complaining. "You know, when I signed up for this whole 'explore the galaxy' thing, I thought there'd be more... exploring. Less sitting in caves."

"Could be worse," Chris said from his position near the entrance. "We could be dead."

"Glass half full kind of guy, huh?"

"I try."

A shriek echoed from outside, something skittered across the melting Leviathan. Joey was on his feet in an instant, shield up, moving to Chris's position. They'd been taking shifts like this for twenty hours straight. Every time things got quiet, something new showed up to test the doors. And every fight meant checking suit seals, making sure nothing had punctured through to skin.

"Contact," Chris said, his rifle coming up. "Two... no, three. Smaller ones."

Luca pushed to his feet, ignoring the protest from every muscle in his body. "Let's make this quick."

The creatures that came clawing through the dissolving flesh were about the size of large dogs, all scales and teeth and way too many eyes. They were hungry and stupid, which made them dangerous in the kind of way that meant you couldn't predict them.

Luca activated [Target Lock Assist] and fired. The plasma bolt went through its head.

The second one lunged, and Emily's blasters caught it mid-air, spinning it into the cave wall with a wet crunch. The third tried to flee, but Zoe put a bolt through its spine before it made it two meters.

"Three more for the pile," Emily said, holstering her weapons.

[+81,208 XP] [+23,335 credits]

Dr. Pol approached the bodies, visible through her visor. "Fascinating. These are juvenile. They shouldn't be this close to the valley floor. The acid content is too high for their respiratory systems."

"Yeah, well, they're making exceptions," Luca said. "How much longer on that corpse?"

"Another hour, perhaps two. The enzymatic breakdown is nearly complete."

"I'm grabbing that!" Ryan called as he ducked under a collapsed border and opened a loot box.

[Item acquired: NanoSilic Oxide (Schematic)]

Ryan turned the schematic over in his hands, the display turning on. "Another one. Helium, evaporites, silicates..." He glanced at the Varnathi scientist, the cutie pie, he'd saved the first day, the one who'd been staying close to him ever since. "Hey, what do you know about NanoSilic Oxides?"

She tilted her head, her expression visible through her mask's visor. "They are used in the creation of Titanium-Ceramic Composites. Standard manufacturing process in any nano-insulation laboratory."

The cave went quiet except for the steady drip of dissolving Leviathan outside.

"Wait, what?" Emily asked.

"Nano-insulation lab?" Danny echoed. "You're saying these schematics are for actual manufacturing?"

"Of course," she replied, looking confused by their confusion. "The schematics detail the molecular structure and required base materials. Any properly equipped facility could produce them."

Ryan and Danny exchanged a look, and Luca could practically see the gears turning. They'd been collecting these schematics since they arrived, but hadn't known where or how to actually use them.

"Listen," Danny said, moving closer with that focused intensity he got when something scientific caught his attention. "We need you to walk us through these. All of them. What they produce, what kind of facilities we'd need."

"Ryan, Danny," Luca called. "Get her settled. Go through everything we've collected. The rest of you, back to positions. We're moving out as soon as that thing finishes melting."

It was actually closer to three hours before they could come out, but by then, Luca was so desperate to move he would've risked it anyway. The storm had subsided to a dull roar, acid rain still falling, but not the torrential downpour that would strip flesh from bone in seconds.

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The landscape had changed. Where there had been tangled vegetation and rock formations, there was now... nothing. Just bare stone, scoured clean by twenty hours of acid rain, and the death of the leviathan.

"Holy shit," Ryan breathed.

Exposed in the stripped rock were veins of something crystalline, black-green and shimmering faintly even in the dim light.

"What the hell is that?" Emily asked.

Ryan was already moving, his multitool scanner out despite his injured arm. He swept it over the exposed vein, and Luca watched his eyes go wide through his visor.

"I'm not sure, but it looks valuable."

"Ryan?"

"It's... Varionite, according to the multitool," He looked up, and Luca could hear the disbelief in his voice. "This shouldn't exist. The periodic table stops at 118. It's... element 129? Everything after that is theoretical, unstable, decays in microseconds."

"But?" Luca prompted through the comm, because there was always a but.

"But this is stable. Or... conditionally stable. According to the scanner, it's superconductive under stress. And it requires constant corrosive bombardment to maintain its structure. Without it, it stabilizes into..." He checked the readout again. "Into an ultra-hard inert metal. This is... this is impossible."

"We're on an alien planet in a different dimension, fighting monsters and running from acid rain," Zoe said. "Impossible left the building a while ago."

"Can we extract a sample?" Luca asked.

Ryan studied the vein, then looked at the Varnathi. "Dr. Pol, do your people have tools we can use?"

"Of course." The researcher gestured to one of his team. "Bring the extraction kit."

What followed was fifteen minutes of Ryan, Chris, and Danny struggling with the Varnathi to extract a sample. The crystal was harder than it looked, and even Danny's powered armor struggled to get enough leverage.

"Come on, you bastard," Danny grunted, his warhammer serving as an improvised chisel while Chris held the extraction tool steady. "Just... one... more..."

The crystal gave with a sharp crack, and Danny stumbled backward, nearly dropping the sample. It was small, barely the size of a fist, but it was gorgeous. The black-green surface seemed to shift as Luca watched, colors bleeding through it like oil on water.

"Got it," Danny said, breathing hard. "That was a workout."

"Bag it," Luca ordered. "Carefully. We'll run tests when we get home."

The storm had left the entire ravine slick with acid pools, loose rock and creatures that had apparently decided today was the day they were going to sample human.

Luca took point, [Ghost Protocol] active as he scouted ahead. Every shadow could be a threat, every pool of acid a trap, and his Perception was screaming at him that they were being watched.

"Contact!" Chris's voice crackled over comms, and Luca spun, bringing his sniper rifle up. Three Sporefangs, probably attracted by the noise they were making.

He activated [Weak Point Focus], targeting the lead creature's skull joint.

The second one lunged at Emily, and she rolled under it with those damn grav-stabilizers making her look like she was defying physics, coming up with both blasters firing. The third made the mistake of charging Danny, who crushed its skull with one swing of his warhammer.

"Keep moving!" Luca called. They couldn't afford to get bogged down. The valley floor was still half a kilometer away, and every second they stopped was another chance for something bigger to show up.

Borer tried to ambush them from above, and Luca's tomahawk was in the air before his conscious brain caught up, [Trajectory Focus] painting the arc in his vision through his HUD. The blade caught it mid-leap, burying itself in the creature's skull and sending it tumbling past Emily's shoulder.

"Nice throw!" Emily called.

"Thanks!" He was already drawing his blaster. "Could use a little less target practice, though!"

"Where's the fun in that?"

The Varnathi were holding their own, their guards forming a protective circle around the researchers while Dr. Pol shouted instructions in their musical language through her breathing mask. They moved like a unit, covering each other's blind spots, and Luca was reminded that these people had been at this for a long time.

Another wave of creatures, these ones smaller but faster, came boiling out of a fissure in the rock. Zoe took three of them down in as many seconds, her sniper rifle barely needing to adjust between targets. Ryan's scattergun turned two more into paste, and Chris's assault rifle stitched a line through the rest.

Emily, beside him, took a quick breath, her jaw set as she forced herself forward. "I'm ready," she muttered, her voice steeled with resolve.

She's running on fumes, Luca thought. We all are.

A vine coiled around Emily's leg before anyone could react, its thorn-like barbs punching straight through her medium armor with a sickening crunch. She let out a strangled gasp, her face going pale as toxic spores seeped through the breach. She stumbled.

"Emily!" Luca's heart lurched as he swung his tomahawk down, severing the vine in one fierce motion. Emily staggered, breaths shallow as she clutched at her suit, her face growing paler by the second.

Two Varnathi guards rushed to her side, grunting with effort as they hoisted her up between them, half-carrying her toward the outpost.

"I'm... fine," she managed, though her voice was faint and she was swaying.

No, you're not, Luca thought, but his focus sharpened. He turned to cover their retreat, every nerve firing. Can't afford to falter now. Not with the bunker so close. Not with Emily down.

The attack grew relentless, as if the storm had unleashed every last hostile creature. More beasts skittered toward them from the shadowed landscape, sleek bodies gleaming with dark scales, claws flashing as they lunged.

Joey fired beside him, each plasma bolt hitting true. Chris unleashed a barrage from hisrifle, scorching a line of creatures reaching toward them. Smoke from burning vegetation choked the air, thickening the haze as the creatures howled, undeterred by the destruction.

Like a goddamn horror movie, Luca thought, firing his rifle again and again as he covered Emily's retreat toward the outpost doors.

Luca risked a glance forward and felt relief hit him like a physical thing. There, maybe two hundred meters ahead, was the outpost.

It was more bunker than building, all reinforced armor plating and angular design meant to deflect rather than absorb. The landing field was enclosed, protected by the same heavy plating, and the main door was the kind of thing you'd see on a bank vault. Everything about it screamed military installation.

"Move!" Luca ordered, and they broke into a run.

Acid rain hissed off their armor and sealed suits. Creatures shrieked behind them. The ground was slippery, treacherous, and Luca nearly went down twice before they reached the door.

Dr. Pol was already at the access panel. The door ground open with the sound of metal on metal, revealing an airlock chamber beyond.

"Inside! Now!"

They piled through, Varnathi and humans mixing together in a desperate rush. Luca was last through, spinning to put two bolts into something that was trying to follow them in. Chris grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him backward as the door began to close.

It sealed with a solid thump, as the lock turned, locking them inside.

The airlock cycled, pressure equalizing, atmosphere scrubbers working overtime to clear out the toxic air they'd brought in with them. Luca's suit sensors flashed green as the internal atmosphere stabilized.

[+460,180 XP] [+132,235 credits]

[Skill level up! Silent Takedowns Familiarity Level 5 --> Level 6] [Skill level up! System Override Familiarity Level 5 --> Level 6] [Skill level up! Data Breach Familiarity Level 5 --> Level 6] [Skill level up! Adaptive Exploits Familiarity Level 5 --> Level 6] [Skill level up! Execution Protocol Familiarity Level 5 --> Level 6]

Chris let out a long, ragged breath, then looked back at the sealed door with a grimace.

"We left a fortune in loot boxes out there."

"I was able to grab this," Danny said, as he showed off a new weapon.

[Item acquired: Plasma Thrower]

"Forget the loot," Luca snapped. He was kneeling beside Emily, applying a pressure seal to the puncture in her suit. "Joey, I need a full diagnostic on her. Now."

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