---[ POV: Flynn ]---

Flynn jumped right below the shrieker's mouth just fast enough to avoid its toothy kiss.

The neural time dilation effect helped, but years of training had also honed his speed and agility, allowing him to dodge in time. His survival instincts did the rest.

He rolled around trying to get his balance back then started running away from the creature. Unfortunately, the gargantuan lizard was not as slow as the young man had hoped it would be. It was not particularly fast either but could keep up with him fairly easily. Flynn could sense the ground tremble beneath the bulky mass chasing after him.

His enhanced senses picked up on a rush of air behind him and he ducked to the side without slowing down. The maw of the shrieker snapped at the air where he was standing a second ago.

Seizing the opportunity while the head of the creature was in reach, Flynn jumped forward in a spinning motion and wildly swung the power-hammer tucked on his shoulder. The mass of the weapon amplified his rotation speed and the head of the hammer came slamming against the side of the giant lizard skull with a booming sound that surprised the young man as much as the creature.

With a thundering clamor and an explosion of sparks, a slightly retracted part of the power-hammer head collapsed toward the contact area with brutal force, unleashing a devastating wave of built-up concussive energy, before cocking back in its original position.

The head of the shrieker was sent flying in the opposite direction while scales, blood, and fleshy bits were scattered all around.

The monster dragged its head on the ground pitifully while screaming, mixing the sound of its misery with the reverberating echo of the power-hammer sound.

It seemed wounded but not so much that it would die or even be that handicapped from it.

The advantage of being the size of a whale. Not even a power-hammer hit to the head can take you down.

After the shrieker shook off its initial surprise and confusion, it hissed in anger and charged again.

The recoil of the power-hammer attack had left Flynn’s entire right arm numb. It seemed to be an efficient defense, but one that would prove taxing to use in his current condition.

It was not the time to dwell on that; Flynn got ready for a second attack, having missed his window to flee and already realized he could not outrun the creature.

The shrieker lunged directly at him once again, as if it was not used to being countered and did not know any better than this simple tactic but, this time, Flynn was waiting for it with the hammer. For this attack, rather than a side-sweep that would put all the burden on his own body, the young man decided to raise his weapon as high as he could and let the gravity help him do the rest. Holding the hammer with both hands, he brought it down with all his might on the incoming teeth-filled mouth.

Once again, the moving part of the hammer head cocked down and back up, releasing its stored energy. The crack of thunder shook the walls of the gorge, causing some dust and small stones to fall down from above. This made Flynn remember the explanation from a BCTT weapon instructor when his recruits cohort had been presented the arsenal of the ISF.

"Here, trainees, is a power-hammer. It's a weapon with a voice like thunder; the wrath of lightning in the palm of your hand to smite down the enemies of the Empire."

Now that Flynn saw it in action, the description seemed quite fitting. He also understood why the Regulator commandos trained in its usage had nicknamed it the "Pulveriser".

The young man could hear the sound of a bone cracking and the shrieker's head bounced on the floor before the creature got back in a crouching position with a frustrated scream. Crimson blood flowed from the pulped craters of torn skin where the hammer had hit.

The creature acted confused and erratically but it did not surprise Flynn much. No matter its size and the sturdiness of its bones and scales, it was probably suffering a concussion after sustaining such consecutive blows to the head.

The lizard’s gills were gaping and undulating at an irregular pace once again and Flynn quickly realized that the creature was probably affected by the sound of the weapon as much as it was from its brutal impacts.

To test his theory, he located a nearby rock boulder and smashed it with the hammer.

Stone shards flew everywhere and the thunderous sound boomed again. The shrieker cringed with a desperate scream. The acoustic properties of the ravine were on Flynn’s side.

Once the silence came back, the monster tried to lunge at the young man multiple times but on each occasion Flynn slammed the hammer on a close-by rock or directly on the ground, creating an explosive sound and getting the alien lizard to back down immediately.

After the shrieker got repelled half a dozen times, the creature let out a long and piercing scream as it usually did to paralyze its prey, but seeing it had not much of an effect on its adversary, it started to slowly retreat with a mix of anger and confusion.

After the shrieker had put enough distance between itself and Flynn, it turned around and fled away. It started to scale the wall of the gorge using its massive claws and got out of the young man’s sight completely.

Flynn let out a long sigh of relief, dropped the heavy power-hammer at his feet, and let himself fall down on his ass.

Is it finally over? Can I rest for 5 minutes now?

He sure hoped so. Using the hammer repeatedly had hurt his shoulders and elbows. He would need some time to recuperate and would probably not be able to fight like that again before he let his lymphites repair his damaged joints and muscles. It would probably take a full day with the proper nutrition.

The interior of Flynn’s spacesuit helmet was getting suffocating because of his short and rapid breath and the sweat that pearled in his eyes. This was caused more by stress, fear, and the aftermath of using neural time dilation than real physical exhaustion.

Now that Flynn was sitting outside, he launched a quick scan of the air composition through the detector embedded in the spacesuit and confirmed that it was indeed almost the same thing as on Earth. There was a slight difference in the distribution of some elements or compounds but nothing harmful.

In fact, it was probably cleaner than the heavily polluted air on Earth and closer to what humanity had breathed on its native world a few thousand years ago. In addition, there were no pathogens in the air that his lymphites and juiced-up immune system couldn't easily deal with.

Finally convinced, he removed the helmet and took deep breaths.

He was probably the first human to ever breathe this fresh air. This seemingly beautiful thought filled him with profound anguish. Will I also be the only human to do so? The last one even?

Well, the night would be upon him soon enough and he was now ready to kill for a couple of hours of sleep. If no one had shown up by tomorrow morning, he would have his definitive answer.

Flynn got back up after a couple of minutes and returned to what remained of the corvette. Despite its poor condition, this was still the best base of operation he could ask for. It was far better than camping outside on the ground.

Looking upon the devastation, he willed himself to clean it up a bit before hitting the bunk but first of all, he recovered the least damaged of the Stygian Predator armor and undertook the task of repairing it. He now knew he could breathe the ambient air but his reason for wanting the armor had shifted from integrated life support to pure protection. He had been attacked once without proper defense, he did not plan to repeat this mistake again; had the shrieker been able to bite him once, he would probably be dead.

After scanning what he could of the surviving armors to better understand their design and coupling it with JAX's database, Flynn got enough information about the armor and its design that he felt comfortable tinkering with it.

Fortunately, he had three other armors at his disposal for spare parts and a basic corvette fabricator to complement it all. Normally, manufacturing pieces for advanced tactical armor such as the Stygian Predator would require a lot of rare and precious materials that were unavailable on a simple exploration and scouting ship but Flynn was able to feed the fabricator with the scrap or disposable parts of the other dead Regulator’s armors to get what he needed.

The main limitation of a simple fabricator such as this one was that it could not produce the software integrated into most complex equipment. The suit Flynn was working on had a busted-up computing node but he got lucky and was able to salvage an intact one from another armor. It was loaded with the required AI and drivers to get the mended armor fully operational. Three hours in and Flynn got himself a restored suit ready to wear. As a final touch, he decided to remove the half-skull print on the helmet.

The only problem was the energy core that powered the armors. None of them were broken, per se, but they were all mostly depleted because they had spent a stupendous amount of energy to generate shields in the hope to protect the soldiers during the crash. They were also damaged enough that they were not able to transmit nearly as much power as they should have at any given time. The one with the best remaining capacity was only able to operate at 10% of its normal efficiency. Flynn took it and placed it in the armor but if he wanted to be able to use all of the many functionalities of the suit, he would have to get an intact power core. Unfortunately, despite the help of JAX and Flynn’s engineering skills, repairing such a complex and compact battery was out of the young man’s league. He had no other choice than to turn to the fabricator.

Given the extreme complexity of such a power core, it would take about 24h for the fabricator to finish its job. It was impossible to completely avoid the risk of getting a flawed result since a corvette fabricator was not designed for such a task but Flynn had three damaged core, - four if he counted the one currently in the armor - so it meant he had that much chance at it before he ran out of materials to feed the fabricator.

Flynn started the fabricator, then quickly changed from the corvette spacesuit to the restored Stygian Predator armor. Even with access to only 10% of its normal power, the armor would be many times safer than anything else. That would do for now. Flynn could still activate the essential system of the armor and simply had to lay low and be cautious for 24h. With some chance, a rescue team would be there long before that.

Once the machine was set on its task and he had finished changing, Flynn recovered the power-hammer he had used to fend off the shrieker to evaluate its weight with the tactical armor on. Well, its weight remained the same, obviously, but the young man’s strength was now greatly enhanced by the Stygian Predator. He concluded that the hammer now felt not much heavier than a regular maul. He still had to use both hands to wield it efficiently but he would no longer hurt himself while using it.

That still left him unsatisfied, however, so he decided that he would collect the scattered symbiotic muscles of the dead Regulators in order to enhance his strength even further. He wanted to be able to use the hammer effortlessly as it was his only military-grade weapon at disposal other than the laser pistols and searing-blade knives, both of which could barely be considered weapons by the ISF standards. This plan would have to wait for tomorrow, however, since the collection process would probably take a long time.

Flynn spent half an hour gathering the remaining dead troopers outside and, after removing the metal tag stitched to their chest and the remaining symbiotic muscles layered on their body, he set them on fire with some accelerating agent and a blowtorch. He wanted to prevent the smell of the dead body from attracting other predators.

Afterward, he roamed the vicinity of the landing site, gathering everything useful that had been ejected when the shrieker attacked and bringing it back to the corvette.

He did some organization on the inside as well, putting back in its place everything that had been thrown around when they crashed or when the monster attacked. Once he was done, it was almost dark outside.

Flynn walked around the landing site to establish a security perimeter with some basic detectors. Those were originally scouting and scientific equipment but with the engineering knowledge loaded on his chipset and in his neural stack, he was able to re-purpose them rather easily. Once it was done, he returned to the corvette, consumed a ration pill and some water to help his lymphites heal his damaged joints, then got to bed.

He decided to keep the armor on in case he got attacked, which prevented him from getting cold but was somewhat uncomfortable. There was a very faint wind whistling when it came in from the holes in the hull. Flynn turned around on his bed thinking he would have to patch that damage in the coming days.

Despite his best efforts, he could not find sleep that night.

He wanted to blame the lack of sleep on the armor but was forced to admit that what really kept him awake was a simple but woeful thought that had taken root deep inside: no one was coming for him.

He had activated his transmitter for the first time almost 7 hours ago and there was still no sign of a rescue team. A shuttle dispatched from orbit would take less than half that time to reach him.

Was he really stranded alone in the far reaches of the cosmos, a single soul adrift amongst the infinite stars?