Alyarus awoke in the dark. It took what felt like a long time to acclimatize her eyesight to the darkness. Her Rabbid eyes were not as adept in the darkness as the predator Titans, but she eventually found herself seeing things take simple shape in the pitch black. Her nightvision was perhaps not as good, but she had other assets that made up for it, namely her sense of smell and hearing. Based on the damp fungal smell clinging to the air, she figured right away that she must be underground. Or, she realized, in a cave.

Alyarus tried to move and saw that she was in a cage. Looking over, she noticed the rest of her captors mostly unconscious or maybe dead inside with her. She had found herself against what turned out to be wide thick bars with enough room for her to wriggle her tiny slim body between them easily enough. She had her entire arm and shoulder outside of the cage when she caught a glimpse of movement from deeper within the darkness. In fact, she saw now that the inky blackness was crawling with writhing movements.

The loud cracking of a gun echoed from some distant place. This was followed by several short bursts and then all at once a chaotic flood of automatic cracking rifle fire sounded. A few more ticks like corn popping and then the gunshots were silent. Whatever the figures inside the cave with her were, they began moving in a single direction, towards the gunfire. She was soon alone inside the cave.

The pilot slid out from between the bars and quickly checked her pockets. She had managed to keep a multi-tool secret from the prisoners while they had held her captive. She flipped on the light and illuminated her environment. It turned out that she was right about being inside of a cave, but she was not prepared for what she saw.

It was a cave, but it looked anything but natural. The walls had been worked by machinery, everything was perfect angles and flat, nothing appeared random. The walls were also fashioned with intricate carvings and patterns, perhaps even writing, but it did not look even remotely Titanian.

“What on Titan is this…?” She mumbled while staring in awe of the high-ceilinged craftsmanship, that at once seemed impossibly ancient and futuristic at the same time.

Alyarus checked her internal Net-Comm. There was no information that she could find about this craftsmanship, there were no known matches anywhere in the vast database of Titanian knowledge and information. And then through the HUD overlay of the Net-Comm, she saw an alcove in the middle of the far wall. She made her way over to it and was surprised to find a series of steps that were spaced farther apart than an average Titan would need. She followed these stairs upward, into the rock, having to hop between the stairs obviously made for someone or something much larger.

The Triumph’s pilot reached the top of these stairs and found an antechamber carved out inside of the cave. She shined her light within and nearly dropped it when her eyes beheld what it illuminated.

“Holy crap!” She exclaimed.

There was a huge figure at the top of the stairs, seated on a throne atop a raised dais. The figure was armored and appeared to be robotic, and it was directly facing her. Alyarus flinched and prepared for this titanic being to attack…only it didn’t. It remained unmoving, watching her like a silent sentinel. With great trepidation she walked over and risked touching the leg. It still did not move. It was at that point she realized that this robot must have been dormant.

It was unlike any Titanian design she had ever seen. She was sure of a few apparent things when it came to the heavily plated robot, it was not being produced from the Zenith Corporation. The Zenith Corp automated battle units were uniform and mass produced. The Delta model MV1 Security and MV1 Battle Units were both simple and plain in design. They were bipedal, able to perform simple tasks like carrying weapons and operating machinery, and they were lightly armored, enough to take a few direct rounds and not experience system failure as long as they were not direct hits to the processing core housed in the “head”. These designs from Zenith were not even overly Titanian looking, so simple were their design, unlike some of the SREs that were meant to resemble real life.

This robot before her was none of those things. It was far from simple in its design and looked to be more heavily armored than a tank. The head unit was elongated with aerodynamic “wings” flowing backwards and out to the sides. Also there were no readily visible joints like there were on the Delta series. The metal that composed the body of the being seemed to have no beginning or end, it was all made of a single piece of advanced metal, with obviously advanced construction techniques.

The brave Titan pilot looked around and noticed many things about the chair the robot was seated in, and the surrounding area. There were sensors everywhere, that she guessed were wirelessly connected to the robot. She remembered seeing others around the landscape similar to these on her forced march. She accidentally touched a panel, and a holographic image appeared before her. This image displayed scrolling data in a utterly foreign and probably alien language.

Alayrus studied this with the help of her Net-Comm. While the language did not match any known Titan languages, either ancient or modern, the system did manage to recognize certain patterns within the text and discovered that it was a mathematic based communication. Within minutes her Net-Comm had translated some of the communication that was flashing before her, and her eyes went wide when she realized what she was looking at.

“Stars in the galaxy! We have to get out of here!” She exclaimed before turning to flee.

* * * *

Several shambling creatures emerged from the dark yawning mouth of the cave, headed straight for them. Lupis made a face of aversion beneath the helmet and released his grip on his opponent. Haze saw what was coming for them and seemed to recognize the need to redirect his attention as well. The bounty hunter may have represented a threat to him, but these creatures were more immediate.

They were insect-like and vaguely Titanoid, and besides being about the same height as an average Titan, appeared thoroughly alien. They were an odd bluish color, with flat, shovellike heads, no viable eyes and a mouth directly in the center. The mouth was comprised of several sets of mandibles that closed and folded neatly, but when opened, stretched apart like an enraged tarantula.

Lupis stepped away from Haze and scooped up both pistols. He was firing twin bursts before he was even upright again, his suit’s targeting system working to keep up with his superior reflexes. Haze meanwhile found the Roland Outland Master 860 assault rifle and was firing from a kneeling position. The rushing creatures had hard carapaces that seemed to absorb much of the impact from the bullets striking them, and thick gelatinous purplish blood splattered and oozed from the bullet wounds as the leading creatures finally went down after being struck multiple times.

Lupis’ HUD displayed the dwindling statistics as his ammo ran dry. He was focus firing both machine pistols into the center of the insect-like creature’s faces, trying to aim for the mouth as he found it to be the weakest point on their hard shelled bodies. They were taking an average of two twin 5-round bursts from both pistols before falling, and he estimated they would soon be upon him. He managed to drop three more before one of his pistols ran out of ammunition, and he did not have enough time to reload. Instead, he pulled out the sword hilt from his belt and flipped the switch to turn the blade on, readying himself for contact with the disgusting alien creatures.

Haze, meanwhile, took a different approach, and began backing away while firing the rifle. Even with the much larger and deadlier rounds, he was not dropping the monsters at much greater pace than his rival Titan. He roared in anger over the rattling thunder of gunfire while bursts of fire erupted from the barrel of the rifle. When the assault rifle ran out of ammo, their combined efforts had done much to step the flood of aliens that had poured out from the mouth of the cave, which had now ceased, but there were dozens more alive, scrambling over the bodies that were curling into themselves, trying to get at the two Titans.

Lupis caught one last glimpse of the mighty Ursid, who surged forward to use the empty rifle like a club as about twenty of the monsters overwhelmed him. Lupis was facing his own wave of segmented legs and appendages and went on the offense with his power sword. The creatures reminded him of the spider monsters he had fought against back where he had landed, they were using razor sharp bladed legs and a pair of mantis-like arms to tear at him. The difference between these and the creature he had fought before was that creature had fought with an animal-like ferocity, these attacked with more intelligence, coordination and caution.

Lupis hacked and slashed in every direction, using the armor’s servo motors to enhance his own considerable speed and agility to stay just outside of range of dozens of simultaneous attacks. Dancing between several creatures at once, he managed to wound several with his vicious strikes and down a few more with clean stabs from his power sword. The frantic fighting continued for some time, Lupis could not tell for how long because in the heat of the moment, time slowed down and all he could focus on was the moment. But his attention was diverted by a female screaming from the cave opening. He quickly rushed to break free of the remaining crowd of attackers so he could reach the source of the sound.

* * * *

Alayrus was making her way back to the cage to try and free the rest of her crew. Whoever had decided to capture them seemed preoccupied by something, and it seemed like a good time to try to get the hell out of there.

She was startled to discover two alien creatures carefully examining the cages. They weren’t recognizable as life forms as far as she had been used to seeing them. They were not bipedal and had no physiology that was identifiable as a “head” or “arms” and “legs”. They were two floating writhing bundles of snake-like tendrils. The closest her mind could come to describing these creatures were like a starfish with 10 long arms but somehow more insect-like. They both turned towards her.

Alayrus screamed.

“Captain, look out!” Came Serge’s familiar voice from still inside the cage.

The two aliens began floating her direction. With no familiar Titanian features, she could not gauge their intelligence or intentions and it was this perhaps that made them truly terrifying to her sensibilities. She looked down at the multitool in her hands. With only a small knife and a cutting laser to defend herself, she froze in place. They drifted closer and she came to her senses suddenly, pushing the button to engage the cutting laser. A bright beam of plasma erupted from the end, lighting up the subterranean cavern with a warm glow. The beam hit one of the creatures and cut one of the wiggling tentacle arms cleanly off.

The creature that had been hit floated away into the darkness of the cavern, the other one came straight at her. Alayrus turned and ran. She saw a faint light coming from the wide mouth opening of the cave and headed that direction. She turned once to see how close her pursuer was and screamed when she saw the speed in which it was now moving. It had appeared awkward and unwieldy at first but was now traveling at a frightening speed. It was moving faster than her and would soon overtake her. Gross tentacles reached for her, just a few feet from her face…

A flash of glowing steel caused her to flinch. The writhing monstrosity fell to the ground and stopped moving. Before her now was an intimidating suit of armor with a mirrored helmet. She realized that she had recognized the armor from the prisoners, because one of them had been using it since the Triumph, but she did not recognize the new user, who obviously was not the same prisoner. A commanding robotic voice boomed from the armor.

“Cut open that cage.” The armored figure’s hand pointed at the multitool she was still clutching.

She looked over his shoulder and saw several more creatures that were headed towards them both. He turned to bravely face this wave of attackers and she decided it was best to do as he suggested. She made her way over to the cage and began cutting through the bars. With all the advanced technology she had found elsewhere in the cave, she was surprised to see that the cage was just a simple cage.

“Good ta see you again Captain.” She heard the voice of the Beaver Dally. “I’ll be right glad to get out of here.”

“Its going to take a minute to cut through these.” Alyarus returned. “Keep a watch out for any more of those things.”

“The one you wounded went up those stairs.” One of the prisoners returned.

Alyarus was somewhat timid cutting through the bars and hesitated briefly before the act was completed. What would happen once she released the prisoners once again? Would these violent offenders take her and her crew hostage? She didn’t have the ruthlessness to leave them imprisoned on an alien planet, even if they would not have reciprocated the same generosity towards her.

Once the bars were cut so that a Titan could fit through them, Kenner and Serge were the first two to exit. Halden and Dally came next, and the crew gathered to ready themselves in case of a fight. But when the prisoners exited the cage, their spirit of cooperative rebellion seemed suddenly stamped out. Now freed a second time, they fled, unorganized out of the cave as fast as they could.

The crew of the Triumph smiled at each other as they watched the last of the violent Titans flee. They fled from the cave out into the alien world, all the while screaming strange gibberish. Serge began laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Alyarus asked the tall Canid.

Serge held up a rectangular device. It was the solar powered battery charger that he had replicated using the makeshift electrical experiments. Alyarus knew what that meant instantly. It meant that they would soon be able to power the replicator permanently, and soon be able to replicate new power cells and everything else that they would need to repair the Triumph.